Mike Arnesen

Optimize the Planet!

Mike Arnesen

Take My Advice…

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I think 3 out of 4 of my entrepreneurial friends and connections are part of at least a few “mastermind” groups or professional networks. Most of those people feel pretty strongly about it, too. I’ve lost count of how many people have told me over hot beverages that “being part of {Group X} really helped me overcome {Problem Y}”. The other benefit I keep hearing about is accountability. Both of those benefits are pretty dang appealing.

On top of that, I’m sure there are countless other benefits I’m not enumerating here.

Nonetheless, I’ve always been hesitant to join (or even visit) any of these groups. While I’m part of a few online analogs (mostly on Facebook), I seldom check out the posts there; it fact, I’ll admit that seeing the notifications for new discussions activates a stress response, just a little bit. I’m really not sure why — I should look into that.

For the past few months, I’ve felt guilty about [Read more…] about Take My Advice…

I Never Wanted to be an Entrepreneur

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Yesterday morning, I came across a video that opened with the line, “As far back as I can remember, I wanted to be an entrepreneur.”  I was, of course, hooked immediately because I never wanted to be an entrepreneur.

I had to see what this guy had to say. I always start watching videos like these feeling like there just might be something really interesting or insightful hidden a few minutes in. Well, as it turns out, it wasn’t anything that exciting to me; though I’m sure it could be for other types of people.

It was the same story arc as so many “serial entrepreneurs”.

Feel free to do “the voice” as you read; I can’t help but hear it.

Dramatic Reenactment

Started hustlin’ when I was six. Drove all the lemonade stand losers out of town by building efficiences of scale and killing them on price. Got my MBA like a boss, networked like a mad man, landed a job firm XYZ. Power-moved my way into the executive suites. Grew the company and got it sold to the highest bidder. Cashed my baller check and started it all over. WHAT CAN I SAY? That’s just my serial entreprenuer life, yo.

— Motivational Dude-Bro*

* And obviously, his life’s mission is now to help you crush it just as hard; just purchase his course.

Nope. Never Wanted This.

The two or three minutes that I spent watching that video got me thinking about how I never wanted to start my own company or call myself an “entrepreneur”. I’m not sure whether or not this comes as a surprise to anyone, but I have no intrinsic drive to crush it in business or to hustle. In fact, putting in more than 40 hours in the office in a week exhausts me and makes me hate life.  [Read more…] about I Never Wanted to be an Entrepreneur

If You Make Remote Impossible, Don’t Pretend You Support It

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Preface: I’m a Simple customer and I greatly admire the company. Before I founded UpBuild, Simple was a company I dreamed of working for in-house. I still think they’re great, but I’ve been trying to blog more regularly and this recent news really got me worked up. I’m inspired.

“If we remove the geographic constraints we can be hiring the best tech talent wherever they are“, said a company spokeswoman while discussing the company’s move to herd once-remote employees into a brick-and-mortar office.  And, yes, “herd” is an appropriate description for “collecting a number of scattered employees in the city under one roof”.

via GIPHY

I hope I’m not the only one who noticed that establishing an office in a new city to house your employees directly contradicts the idea of “removing the best geographic constraints (to hire) the best tech talent wherever they are”.

It sounds like there were toying with the idea of hiring the best talent where they were, noticed that most of them were in one city, and then slammed an office down in said city. Now, that “talent” who once had the flexibility and freedom of remote work will now have to come into an office each day and be “the best tech talent that’s willing to work in an office in Seattle.” That’s called “creating unnecessary geographic constraints”. [Read more…] about If You Make Remote Impossible, Don’t Pretend You Support It

I’m not a JavaScript developer; I just play one on the Internet

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I spent almost my entire day yesterday steeped in JavaScript. UpBuild began doing work with the idea of form abandonment tracking about a year ago after I was inspired by a post by Simo Ahava. The idea is that you use JavaScript to listen to each input field of a form that’s interacted with, log that at each step along the way, and then if someone doesn’t hit the Submit button, send the complete history into Google Analytics. [Read more…] about I’m not a JavaScript developer; I just play one on the Internet

Silent Retreat

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Silent meditation retreats have appealed to me for years (I’ve only ever been on one, but it was great), but this week I went on a different type of silent retreat.

After working exclusively from home for the two years, I’ve definitely noticed that I get sick a lot less. I get to avoid other humans and their germs and I’m not subjected to being crammed into an office each day and just praying that Patient 0 isn’t hidden somewhere waiting to infect me. Even so, I’m by no means immune to sickness. I still have to go outside of the house on occasion. [Read more…] about Silent Retreat

Of sunsets and swells

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As of today, it’s been two years since something I loved started to fall apart. The dream began to unravel. At first, slowly. Then, faster and faster until, suddenly, I found myself hanging out at the waterfront park in Portland in the middle of a workday with nothing to do.

I’ve had this anniversary as a recurring event on my calendar for a while. I’m not sure why but I’m glad that it was there to remind me. It’s allowed me to reflect on the impermanence of things, how expectations shape our happiness, and how potentially great things either realize their potential or go down in flames (flames, either publically visible or hidden).

I knew for a while that I wanted to write a blog post on this day. I was less certain as to what the post would be about. [Read more…] about Of sunsets and swells