A Good Day
Fridays are most often good days. I believe that gets a bit blurred by both my partial-retirement status and the Coronavirus situation that has one day flowing into another with much less differentiation between weekdays and weekends. To be honest, this year it is hard for me to even realize this is summer versus any other time of the year since the weather out here in San Diego is nice all year around with only minimal temperature range. I quite consciously remind myself every morning (not to mention the night before) what day of the week it is and what is on the schedule for the day. Some days there is more “day-job” work on the company for which I serve as CEO. Other days there is more expert witness work to consume my efforts. There are even some days when my prior investment work, specifically my two venture capital companies to which I owe allegiance and act as a general partner, require attention. I would suggest that while there are certainly some days when at least the first two can and do occupy my entire day quite fully, the sum total of all of the three still probably do not exceed thirty hours in a week. That may not be entirely accurate in that the nature of both corporate leadership and experts witness work is that one spends a good deal of time thinking about issues aside from sitting down and doing something about the issues. That and calls to discuss issues can occur at any time and do occupy added hours in the day. Let’s be clear, a week is comprised of 168 hours and tradition suggests that “work” constitutes 40 of those hours or 23.8%. I’m guessing that most corporate executives or professionals put in more like 80 hours or 47.6% of the available time. With sleep and ablutions taking up 56 hours, the truly available waking hours are 112 and 40 is really more like 35.7% where the executive/professional puts in 71.4% of his/her time. By that standard, my estimate of 30 hours is 26.8% of my wakefulness.
I have the benefit, as do other professionals, of knowing exactly what the market for my time is worth. While I have seen expert witnesses that charge up to $1,200 per hour, I bill at a very reasonable average of $700 per hour. If I could charge that for as many hours as I chose to work, that would be wonderful, but that is not how it works. One has to engage to a certain extent that approximates remaining current on the issues of the day and “marketing” ones capabilities to get assignments. I would gauge this “slippage” as approximating 20%. All told, the math works pretty accurately in estimating what a person like me with both a 40+ year marketable resume of some note and a willingness and ability to engage in research, analytical thinking and critical writing and advocacy, can reasonably earn in their retirement if they so choose. The same math means that leisure time has a certain marginal cost to it on the presumption that working harder at something results in more hours of compensation. Leisure time is therefore worth precisely one’s hourly rate less 20%. That means that every hour of leisure costs me over $500/hour. I do three leisure activities with regularity: I ride my motorcycles, I write stories and I garden and do household projects.
The things that help qualify a day as a good day to me are those which involve a balance of work and leisure activities and the degree of success or accomplishment associated with any or all of those. The definition of “success” is always relative to one’s expectations, but not really all that hard to recognize if one is reasonably balanced and rational. Every job has certain objectives that are most central to the cause and the CEO is certainly always engaged in addressing those very central goals (or should be).
I will start by saying that today was not a day when I chose to take a motorcycle ride, as uplifting and positive a pleasure as I know on almost any day when the weather is cooperative. I write every day and spend about two hours doing so. While there are some days where it seems forced (I adhere to a rather strict discipline of writing a story of 1,000 – 1,400 words every day), most days it flows with a general ease of practice, having written some 660 stories in the past eighteen months. I like writing and any day when I get a good story out and published for the next day is a good writing day to me. As for gardening, this was a culmination day. We installed three new trees yesterday and I took the time to prune and primp them to make them look just right in their new settings. That involved clipping work on all three and a sense of ownership which comes when one trims a tree or bush to suit one’s specific garden setting. As Handy Brad surveyed the “damage” from the long ordeal of planting the biggest of the trees directly in the middle of the garden, he and I had to redesign the plan for the remaining ground space around and adjacent to the tree and decide if any other elements needed to change accordingly. The pruning took care of the later and Handy Brad’s truck-full of rocks took care of the rest with his long-time masonry skills put to work for the morning. What we had in the end was a finished garden only lacking in one live edge tabletop which arrives next week and will get finished and installed by Handy Brad along with a few other adornments. That made for a very satisfying day that culminated three weeks of hard labor of love.
On the work front, my active expert witness client, a Kansas City Law Firm, reached out to me to prepare me for the next series of hearings and the testimony I would be expected to give in the coming weeks. There are several logistical issues to resolve, but it is also good to feel wanted and engaged. In that particular case, it perfectly suits my experience and knowledge base and my cultural sensibilities (I believe myself to be on the side of the angels). Those always make for a feel-good which transcends but is actually additive to the compensatory aspects of an assignment. And then there is what I call my Day Job. When you are the CEO of a start-up company there are only two things that matter; strategic proof of concept progress and money, the later being both the lifeblood and a symbol of agreed progress in the former.
Today I began my day with an email from a national organization in the country in which our labs are located. For the better part of a year I have been seeking grant assistance based on their interest in supporting important new businesses that both show promise and would benefit the national interests by becoming successful. That email told of formal senior approval of our grant request and an amount of funding which is significant for all the reasons mentioned to our ongoing ability to succeed. I had been assuring our investors that this day would come and it had been dragged out, to say the least, by the global Coronavirus problems. This and another grant we will be given will get us through 2020 more or less, which should be enough to garner support from outside and existing investors to take our research an development to its ultimate commercial conclusion.
I also note that when you start the day with good news, I generally find that the tone continues throughout the day. That was certainly the case and if I had only thought to take even a short motorcycle ride, I would have scored 100% on the day. As it is, I will always settle for just a good day.