As a child I remember the feeling of being fulfilled much easier to achieve. In 1992 I told my mom I’d never visit our local arcade again if she bought me Street Fighter II for my Super Nintendo. It was out 60 days earlier in Japan so we imported the game, I couldn’t read any of the words but it didn’t matter because it was Street Fighter. I’d spend that summer logging hour after hour beating the game with every character, beating my friends and at points of frustration trying to break the controller with my mouth. Don’t tell my dentist. But, soon I grew tired of the game and I moved on.
I was ten then and now nearly twenty years later I find that reaching fulfillment is much harder, shorter and at some points frustrating. You write goals on paper, you achieve them, then what? I remember the night before we relaunched Open Home Pro. I stayed up all night with excitement, the article hits techcrunch, traffic rolls in and then what? You move on to the next goal without thinking about it. Why can’t I be ten again throwing a fireball at M Bison.
It’s not all bad though, because even though the feeling is shorter or harder to achieve when you hit it the feeling is ten times more powerful than when I was younger. Which leads me to where I find the most fulfillment.
My friend Ryan Spoon has been telling me about this great company called Space Monkey. He’s been super excited about it for what feels like months. For Ryan to say something I knew they must be great. In fact looks like Polaris made an investment. Well yesterday Space Monkey won top prize at Jason Calcanias’ Launch Festival. Upon the announcement where was I?, at the conference waiting for it. I dropped everything else I was doing for two hours because I believed they’d win and wanted to be down there. I even prebought celebratory Kombucha.
I’m a firm believer in the company we keep as being a reflection of you. Rooting for your friends to succeed is only natural, but it’s also the most fulfilling feeling in the world. Where do you get your fulfillment?