OTR, Take 31: A Mix Tape for Headphones and Long Walks

A short OTR for you today, after a week off last week. Sometimes life gets busy in unexpected ways, ways that initially feel like a shock to the system but upon reflection flower into welcome new beginnings. These moments take a period of recalibration, of thinking through a reordering of the component pieces of our lives.

Change is often a gift, and change brought about through a type of failure is often the most fertile, for upon reflection, what feels like failure is in fact the surfacing of misalignment, a lack of clear vision. When something doesn't work, there are important lessons if you're willing to feel the sting of it and work through it.

So often entrepreneurs project this my-success-is-and-always-was-inevitable vibe. I really loathe that, because I spend most of my time around entrepreneurs and even the most successful ones I know (hell, especially the most successful ones I know) routinely face things going wrong. It means they're trying for something that's hard or unusual. Something they're not sure how to do.

The open secret is that the amazing things you accomplish are the direct result of the number of big things you go for, foolishly thinking you're going to nail it. There's a direct correlation between success and your openness to failing.

Rather than a record this morning, I thought I'd offer a mix tape (I'll be damned if I call it a playlist) that I put together for myself this week for my walks with Clare.

One of the things I do, still, is think through Side A and Side B, and I think that comes through fairly clearly on this one. The first half of the mix tape is a bit in your face, a bit angry. As soon as "Pacific Theme" by Broken Social Scene kicks in, there's a deliberate effort to calm the emotions and ease into what's coming. Which isn't to say that Side B is any less chill, it just slows things down a bit. A wonderful wind down for the second half of the walk.

Here's the link for those of you getting this by email. And below is the embed for those reading through the website.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend and are as excited about the future as I am.