day 1335: Altitude Awareness

"Haughtiness goes before destruction; humility precedes honor."

I know a company that is hitting the ball out of the park day after day.  The growth is impressive and all things point up and to the right. It becomes easy for this company, and others to come down with, if they are not careful, a case of altitude sickness.  When we reach heights that we are not used to, all kinds of weird things can happen and if we are not careful, the higher we go, the sicker we can become, all the way to death.  We've seen it many times in companies where they think they have manifest destiny only too soon to be crashed back to earth.  Does MySpace come to mind?  Or AOL?  Being "altitude aware" is what allows us to fly high but still not lose our bearings or get ahead of ourselves. Any time we feel that we are succeeding, let's be sure and stay aware of where we are as we climb.

As followers of Jesus, we must always keep our egos in check and remain aware of where we are at all times. The minute we begin to think that we are above others, then we have lost the way of the Father.  God humbled Himself beyond our comprehension when He sent us Jesus.  For us to not live and work in that same humility is to miss the opportunity to walk in the footsteps of God.

Reference:  Proverbs 18:12 (New Living Translation)

day 944: Grown Ups

"Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth."

There have been a number of articles written over the last years about the changing face of Venture Capital and the type of companies now funded by VCs.  We are now, depending upon who you ask, in the third generation of West Coast Venture Capitalists.  From the early days of guys like Bill Draper who made Sand Hill Road synonymous with venture capital, to today when we are seeing those who reaped rewards from early successes like AOL, Yahoo!, PayPal, Google and Facebook become the next generation of VC's.  

I tend to think that this current generation looks more like the first in that we've learned a lot over the years and are now back to following the basic principles of business before the majority of investments are made.  Sure, venture investing is like trying to predict what an eight year boy will be like when he is 24, but it's been encouraging to see that the focus has returned to underlying fundamentals.  The second generation had some growing up to do and it seems to have worked. As we consider approaching investors now, we better have our ducks in a row because this time around we are pitching to grown ups.


Paul tells us clearly that we all have to grow up and put our immaturity aside and stay close to the truth. In our spiritual journey it is easy to fall back into our immature ways and lose discipline, focus and discernment.  It's no different than how we try to grow in our business life so that we become more knowledgeable, prepared, broadening our perspective and finding our points of view.  We don't get there by being lazy or flitting around our work.  We rise to the occasion because we are ready and have put in the hours, work and energy to do our best when called upon.  That is what Jesus wants from us too.  We can't expect to do our best if we continue to allow ourselves to develop spiritually in an immature fashion.  Consider today what you are doing to act like a grown up in the eyes of God?

Reference: Ephesians 4:14 (New Living Translation)