How hard is your pillow?

Thank you for calling GIH where we instigate growth one call at a time where we utilize antiquated technology to deliver 3-minute leadership lessons every day of the week!  This is message #78 and I am Aaron Havens.

What’s the deal Aaron?  Yesterday you asked how soft my pillow is and today how hard?  Come on man? No, I'm not trying to gather personal information or push into a personal bubble here, again. I'm just asking, how hard is your pillow… and I'm not talking actually the firmness of your pillow, just like I wasn’t asking that yesterday, I'm asking… when you lay your head on the pillow at night, tonight, will it feel super hard….

Ok let’s clarify.  Yesterday the big question asked was do you work so hard your pillow feels super soft and you ZONK out.  You sleep deeply because you’ve thrown yourself into your work/life mission and you are exhausted.

Today though, let’s reverse it.  How hard can mean, you tossed and turned and maybe even gave up trying to sleep.  I’ve had many of those nights.  Nights where I was on the verge of something huge, big plans, lots of thoughts and I didn’t really sleep well at all.  Let me tell you friends, I’ve learned to lean into those evening.  I’ve learned to get up, open up my computer, pull out the note pad and put ink to my thoughts.  

Now come on, I’m not an evil Growth Instigator… I’m not wishing sleepless nights on you, NO sleep is key to operating optimally, we can all agree to that.  I am asking, when was the last time you were so passionate and on point with something that you couldn’t wait to get your thoughts down on paper, couldn’t wait to write some more code, couldn’t wait to finish the chapter, couldn’t wait to wire frame that thing, couldn’t wait to scratch the whole project and start building something from fresh?

I think of Mark Zuckerberg, everyone knows this story,  the founder of Facebook.  The movie and book written about the origins of Facebook depicts a group of wild eyed young, smart and hungry people that knew their thing, this thing was worth renting a house together and writing code 24 hours a day for weeks and month together.  The synergy was needed, lack of sleep was needed, they had to harness all the cosmos was throwing at them to make this thing work.

So, when was the last time your passion and excitement necessitated long sleepless night?  How hard is your pillow my friend?

Thanks for calling in today.  Tune in tomorrow for a fresh new topic.  At the sound of the beep: Are you working on something so exciting that you’re beginning to loose sleep over it?