This is Part 16 of a weekly series on my growth and development at a software startup in Austin Texas. Click here to view the full series or start at Level 1.

Going the extra mile without realizing it.

Level Sixteen Stats

Weapons gained:

  • Connections + 6: Made some great connections outside of work this week. Went to several events unplanned, was invited to meals with people and met their friends. I’m really feeling like I’m getting connected in community finally here in Austin — which feels great.
  • Ability + 2: My follow-up ability has really been challenged but come back fruitful at work. I basically continue to follow-up with people until I get a response from them. Not sure if that’s a good or bad thing, but after about 9 follow-up emails with a couple of people, I finally got some deals going for my company — more on that later.
  • Knowledge – 2: Every day in my office I learn new things. I’m surrounded by some of the smartest people I know. However, this week wasn’t anything extraordinary, and as I’ve said before, if it’s not increasing, it’s decreasing.
  • Discipline + 4: Started out very strong really getting back into a rhythm, but kind of fell apart Friday – this morning. Going to turn it back over tomorrow going into the week, but overall, I’ve been getting better and better about being disciplined at what I need to get done.
  • Organization + 2: Purposefully scheduled a lot less meetings this week so I could really focus on getting back on track with my tasks in front of me. It worked but also made e feel a bit stagnant not having more meetings going on. I think it’s totally okay not to have the meetings, but I want to make sure that my day is organized properly if I am not in meetings throughout the day.
  • Strength + 2: Tying right in with my discipline, I started out really strong this week on this one but fell apart a bit when I hit Friday through the weekend. I lost a lot of motivation. This weekend has been a great kickstart again though and have no doubt that Monday (tomorrow) I’m going to get right back into it.

Kills: Because of my continuous follow-ups, I was able to get a customer who had previously left to come back to us AND I was able to get a practice that was probably going to leave after a merge to not only stay with us, but also introduce the other practice they’re working with to us and now we’ve almost doubled the revenue from this customer.

After being a little demotivated, this was a great feeling going into the weekend.

Deaths: The demotivation that I’ve mentioned several times has been killer this week. But I’m on good track after the weekend, and this death is only a temporary setback.

Outside the Game

I’ve been very intentional with friends that don’t live near me recently. On the phone and such. It’s been harder keeping up with the people who I’m around while doing so, but I’ve enjoyed the ability to keep up when I’m not around — something I’ve never been good about before.

I’m really getting back into Ultimate, and I’m loving that. It’s hot, but it feels good to be active.

Final Takeaways

It’s been an interesting week. I feel like I wasn’t putting that much into this week, but what I’ve realized is that I’ve consistently been going the extra mile in a lot of my work. Because of this, I feel this slump even when I’m still doing extra work.

I’ve been working quite a few extra hours each week and haven’t thought anything about it, which is fine. But now I’m getting some really good deals because of it. Even though I’ve felt like I’ve been in a slump, things are still happening. Which is cool.