Today I’m packing up the last of my stuff in Durham, NC and heading back to South Carolina for a couple days. On Sunday, I’ll start my trek across the country to California by car. The trip will probably take 6 days overall, and I’m aiming to arrive in Frisco by next Tuesday/Wednesday. I’m really pumped about being on the road and seeing this beautiful country. Check back here in a couple days for updates on the trip.
Thursday night a co-worker called at 9:30PM and asked if I wanted to drive three hours to Charlotte to see Armin Van Buuren, who was named Number 1 DJ in the world in the 2007 DJ Mag Top 100. This is not the first time I’ve been asked to do something spontaneous. I’ve come to believe that some of the best moments in life occur randomly, and that to best enjoy life, one has to learn to “run with it.”
The specific type opportunities I am talking about in this post are opportunities that require clearing of all (or most) scheduled and routine events in the immediate time period along with a significant short-term monetary and/or energy investment. Over the last couple years, opportunities of this type I’ve pursued included a one-night trip to NYC for the Livestrong.com party, a couple trips to the beach, and a Sigur Ros concert.
I’ve developed a simple decision making process anytime a unique opportunity presents itself. If the return on investment from pursuing the opportunity outweighs the cost of time and money invested along with any extra fallout (responsibilities and commitments to others), then jump.
The first question is whether the event is unique enough to warrant the investment of time, money, and energy. Armin Van Buuren is the number one DJ in the world, and he regularly sells out to crowds of thousands in Europe. He does not frequently come through North Carolina. Additionally, I’ve never seen one of the world’s best DJs live, so this would be a new experience for me.
After deciding that the opportunity warrants investment, the next step is to decide how participating will affect current responsibilities and commitments. These include monetary and time responsibilities (among others) at work, to friends and family, and to oneself. Even if pursuing the opportunity will significantly affect these responsibilities, there are ways to dampen the effect. For instance, when I decided to go to New York for the Livestrong.com launch party, I worked over the weekend and arrived at the office extra early on Monday to make sure my boss knew that the trip would not have too great an effect on my work.
If a given opportunity passes these tests , great — the decision is pretty cut and dry.
But if it doesn’t pass the tests, the process gets a bit sticky. At times, depending on the opportunity, it’s sometimes worth it to just say “fuck it… I’ll work it out” and figure out the details later. This shouldn’t happen too often, because it will piss people off and sometimes things will NOT work out as planned. But, if you have an opportunity available that is too rare to pass up, don’t sweat the details. Take the risk and work it out.
By “too rare to pass up,” I’m not talking about Armin Van Buuren. Rather, I’m talking about opportunities like the chance to hang out with Warren Buffett. Or, the chance to take a private jet, all expenses paid, to some remote resort for a couple days of relaxation — events that are so rare and are so far out of your typical day-to-day life experience that the “fuck it… I’ll work it out” response might be warranted.
I accepted the invitation to see Armin Van Buuren. I slept only 3 hours, woke up 30 minutes late, and rushed to pick up my boss before work that morning — but it was worth it. I worked hard on Friday and made sure I reached all of my deadlines. I even stayed after work a bit to complete some extra tasks. Then I came home and passed out with a very large smile on my face.
Armin Van Buuren - Charlotte NC 8-7-2008 from Brian Chappell on Vimeo.
What a way to celebrate just being alive. Pay attention to how Armin builds tension with the repeating pattern and increasing pitch and melody line, then drops out, and follows with a full range of sound (including heavy bass) right at the end with the intense light.The energy in the room was incredible!
Today I visited a true brick and mortar start-up during my lunch break — an odd experience when I’m used to seeing only code and design ideas scratched into a journal. Sumit Vohra, who I met at one of Ryan Allis’s parties several month
s ago, offered last week to show me the progress he and his partners have made on LoneRider Brewing Company. I happily accepted his offer, and met him today to check it out.
I had no idea that starting a brewery required so much time and capital. Being around web entrepreneurs so often has shown me only one path, where the up front costs to get running are low. Sumit has been working on the brewery for over 6 months, and he and his team are still around a month or so away from opening up.
This is a picture from outside the brewery. The building is very non-descript; just a standard warehouse type building a quarter mile off a main road. There are plans to transform the outside a bit more, but for now, the focus is on getting the equipment up and running, which you can see in the picture below.
Sumit and his team put together all of the equipment themselves, with the help of some other brewers and electricians to make sure everything was properly designed. The place is already very impressive, and there’s still a couple weeks worth of aesthetic work to finish before opening.
I’m already a huge fan of local breweries Red Oak and Big Boss. However, I’m not sure if either of these breweries can match the Lone Rider experience. Lone Rider should be open by the time I come back from California. If you hear that I’m back in town, you now know where to find me.
Taking time off from school can be very worthwhile. Since making the decision to take time off from Duke almost 8 months ago, I’ve become more focused on and more passionate about my work, learned an immense amount through independent study about topics ranging from web programming and design to investing, and developed an appreciation for my everyday circumstances and environment.
This is part 1 of a series of posts on the topic of taking time off from school.
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Despite the fact that taking time off can be worthwhile, few students ever make the jump. Leaving school can be a very scary process because the university is structured to provide support, enabling students to focus on schoolwork. Food is available in the cafeteria at all hours, textbooks are neatly organized by class and ready to purchase at the university library, and all students are automatically assigned an adviser. This is not the case in the real world. The process of transitioning from the complete lifestyle system that most universities provide to the open-ended “real world” is complex.
When I first began thinking about taking time off, I asked a number of close friends and mentors for advice. Very few of them were able to make suggestions. Only one of them had actually taken time off from school during undergrad, and he made the point that each experience is so unique, it’s hard to make specific suggestions. The key questions I posed to each mentor: How does one make the decision to leave, and what do I need to make sure I know before I take time off?
I’ve thought about these questions a lot. Below I’ve listed a combination of suggestions from my mentors and my own recommendations from my experiences over the last eight months.
1. Know exactly why you need to take off
Why do you need to take time off from school? Though there are more, most people leave school for reasons related to either health, finances, or attention, or a combination of the three. One of my best friends from college, Josh, left school to run the Chordoma Foundation and find a cure for a rare type of cancer he was diagnosed with during his freshman year. Another friend of mine left school to run a technology company called iContact. In both of these cases, the individuals did not leave school to “find out who they were.” They already knew exactly who they were and what they wanted, and left school with a very specific purpose.
2. Know how time-off fits in with your long-term goals
Even if you know exactly why you are leaving school, anyone making the decision to leave should consider how time-off will affect one’s long-term goals. Leaving school should contribute, rather than detract, from those goals. Josh’s long term goal is to find a cure for his cancer. Until this goal is overcome, there are no other educational, career, or financial concerns.
Each experience will be unique, but each person should consider how a leave-of-absence will affect his/her education, career, family and close friends, and finances.
3. Build a support system
Taking time off can be very lonely. Dorm life in college guarantees that students have the chance to interact with other people often. Leaving this system, unless a person can manage to stay close by during their time-off, without first building a support system can lead to a very lonely existence. Most students will not be able to relate to your experiences while taking time off, so your best bet is to find a mix of students and older mentors to regularly meet with.
Also, consider living with a few roommates, even if they are older and are working full-time, instead of finding a one-room apartment somewhere. If you do get roommates, just make sure that they are individuals at least somewhat similar to yourself — it will be hard to focus on your work when you come home everyday to a roommate that is always sitting on the couch playing video games or watching TV.
4. Develop a plan for the next six months
Even if you know exactly why you will be taking a leave-of-absence, and you know that the leave fits in with your long-term goals, you should still develop a detailed plan for the next six months. There’s a good chance that things will change drastically once you actually take the plunge, and that you’ll have to chuck the plan out the window along the way. But, no matter what happens, there’s an extreme amount of value in laying out a plan because it makes you aware of where you need to focus your time and resources.
What are your living costs or expense per month? Do you have enough cash flow from a job or savings from your bank account to cover these expenses for several months? Will you still be covered under your current insurance plan if you take time off? Where will you be living, and how much cash will you need to cover moving expenses? Do you know how to cook? What will you be doing each day with your time?
Also, when will you know that its the proper time for you to return to school? Set a date on your calendar three months from the day you leave school on which you will review your progress and make the decision whether to return to school in the upcoming semester. Remember, most schools sign up 2-4 months before classes begin, and many have registration deadlines for each semester.
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You know why you’re taking time off, how the time fits into long-term goals, you’ve built a support system, and you have a plan for the next six months. Now comes the hardest part. Muster up your courage, walk over to your dean’s office to tell him about your decision. Fill out any necessary paperwork, then let your parents and friends know about your decision.
Welcome to the real world.
Next up in this series: Part 2, “Surviving the First Two Weeks in the Real World.”
In mid-August I will be moving to the San Francisco Bay Area of California, where I will continue working by day for Ignite Social Media Agency and by night on a new start-up with Jack Sullivan, Pratt ‘08.
Because of the move, I made the decision to resign from my positions as co-chair of Entrepreneurship Week at Duke and board member of Leadership Triangle: College Edition. I was lucky to have the opportunity to help these two organizations start and grow over the past year, and I look forward to seeing continued growth in the future. I encourage those of you that are still in the Triangle to keep your eye on both of these organizations, as they will both be instrumental in creating the types of individuals that are needed to make the Triangle a better place. If you’d like to get involved with either organization, please email me.
I wake up every morning excited about the chance to breathe in the world around me, create new things, challenge myself and others, and learn and grow. I’m thrilled to have the chance to drive across the country and explore the Valley, and will be making photo and text updates to this blog several times a week (subscribe to my blog feed by clicking here).
The “smiling faces and beautiful places” of the south have been very good to me. I will be back in time.
The adventure begins August 15th.
