19) Energy

Behind-the-scenes building Vambrace AI, a company on a mission to figure out its mission. Please pardon the stream-of-consciousness style. Subscribe to follow along or visit the site here:

(typos are to make sure you’re paying attention)

Introductory Remarks

Dear Vambracers —

In last week’s post, Day by Day, we explored near-term guiding principles associated with outlook and psycho-spiritual orientation, etc. I was feeling somewhat disoriented and aimless—and in search of my first engagement—and so it was helpful to reflect on what I could learn from that slight aimlessness. I’m pleased to report that I just won my first engagement, and so things are ramping up in the business development department—which feels great. I’ll maybe talk more about actual sales funnel in a future post—but for today: energy.

Energy

Today I want to comment on a newer guiding thread in my journey to understand how I can best structure my daily business life (and maybe life in general). And that’s energy.

Brief (and I mean brief!) background

I started thinking about this topic after having attended an amazing Pre-Seed Bootcamp put on by the wonderful team at Precursor Ventures, which I think is one of the best like pure early-stage firms in the country (and, thus, the world). It was just so energizing to hear their thoughts on raising capital and building a company in the earliest stages—and I was surrounded by some incredible prospective builders and founders in NYC, and it was just a highly motivating and engaging event.

What is energy?

Consistent with my pedantic tendencies, here is the dictionary definition of “energy”:

A few interesting things here:

1. “Vitality”: “strength” is pretty obvious, but I think “vitality” is really the critical component here for enduring business success. Mike Tomlin talks about how it’s not enough to be surviving—you need to also be thriving. I think this is also similar to the concept of “zest for life.” It’s not enough to just be strong enough to build something and to move forward in life. But really there needs to be a certain fluidity and rhythm and rhyme and joy to the consistent execution of the mundane—because I think that joy and positivity sort of radiates outward into the world and impacts the people you encounter, the work you do, and the opportunities you attract.

2. “Sustained”: building a company is a long-term pursuit—and living a life is a long-term pursuit. There will be temporary ups-and-downs, certainly, but I think I’ve come to appreciate the compounding power associated with consistency and just showing up. So I’ve become less focused on like in-the-moment performance, and more focused on aggregate participation. Within the context of building a company, this means I just need to keep showing up. I need to keep making calls. I need to keep sending emails. I need to keep building and learning and growing and trusting—and I think the rest will eventually take care of itself. (The “rest” I guess meaning like financial security and happy clients and acclaim and renown and etc.)

The flow of energy

• People. Within the context of business life, I think it’s important to think about opportunities and activities as those that give energy and those extract energy. This relates to pretty much everything: events to attend, people to network with, clients to take on, employees to hire, etc. There are people who vibe with the energy I give and give energy back to me—and then there are those that extract energy and don’t respond well to the energy I give.

• Location. I think I’m also gaining an appreciation for the importance of place in the overall energy potential of my life. It is important to be in an environment that values risk and reinforces limitless self-construction and where you feel energized and motivated to really give it your all. I think as I start this journey, I’m sort of going back to the drawing board on all aspects of my life—and location is a critical ingredient that I’m considering in the soup of this next chapter.

• Content. This is probably my most significant struggle-area right now, and that’s the content I consume. I unfortunately have been a consumer of venture/tech Twitter for many years now—and unfortunately I absolutely love it. More recently, I think it’s been as unhealthy and distracting as ever—particularly as you’re inundated with hardo-996 junk and then “supernova” success stories (gross margins notwithstanding, lol)—and so it’s never been more destructive to my daily pursuit of progress. So this is an area I want to improve on.

Cultivating an energetic existence

So, within the context of my daily life, I think I want to really root around cultivating an energetic and constructive existence. And then also I think I need to focus on people, places, content, and experiences that produce AC (alternating current) electricity (s/o Tesla). What I mean by that is (without actually knowing anything about the physics of the flow of electrons) I think there’s a circular/recursive-adjacent type of quality with alternating current where you send it out and get it back (or something like that). And so I want to find these opportunities and put myself in situations where I give the energy out, and I get it back—ideally with some force multiplier—and then I can therefore give more energy, and get more back, and so on and so forth.

And I think I want to be really intentional, from the very start, about not pursuing opportunities or experiences that I know in my gut will be energy-extractive—even if they’re lucrative or compelling for whatever reason. I want to focus on the flywheel effects of positive and energetic and constructive expressions of self and expressions of the company—and see where that takes me. Maybe obvious—but I think sometimes the most difficult and important things are the most obvious. In other words, the horse is never really dead (you like that, PETA?!).

Looking Forward

It was a wonderful week last week—and I’m so grateful again to have been able to participate in Precursor’s bootcamp. It was so energizing and motivating, that I felt compelled to write this post. And now that I also have my first engagement—which I’m also so thankful for—it’s time to start really delivering value, establishing some proof-points, and then continuing to build and grow from there. Oysters here we come! (Loosely that was supposed to be a reference to “the world is your oyster.”)

Have a wonderful week! Focus on finding the AC in your life! Or don’t!

Sincerely,

Luke