Jeff's Blahg

I love how we evolve over time… or at least how I do. I can illustrate this with a simple story:

When I was attending BYU and got hired on as an intern at Novell I thought it was the coolest thing in the world. I wanted everyone to know that I worked at Novell… I would carry my Novell backpack around with pride like some sort of gold medal. After all, Novell is a very large and respectable company… and they wanted me!

As time has gone on my attitude about working for anyone, not just Novell, has changed drastically. I found myself quietly tucking my badge into my pocket when I walked into stores or went out for lunch. I began to feel that I was essentially branding myself a quitter… that I had given up my personal pursuit of success for a steady paycheck… one of the corporate cronies.

I don’t tell this story to be arrogant or say that everyone that is an employee is a quitter. Everyone is different… has different dreams, aspirations, and personal expectations. What is good for me is not any indication of what makes others happy. However, this shows how my own personal mentality has changed over time… or how it has evolved.

I think that as a person, it is important for me to always be pushing myself into bigger and better things. I could never be satisfied working for a company making say $200k a year… but I could be satisfied working for myself making $50k… learning and growing at an exponentially faster rate. Becoming a better, wiser businessman along the way.

As HiValley and SafeTrax continue to grow I find myself becoming more and more excited about running the business. My love has been in the code, and working out the nitty-gritty details of how everything works technically. Building something from scratch that other people value and love is a great feeling. Dealing with business details was only getting in the way of me making great products! Now, I do still enjoy coding… but am beginning to feel that I have ‘graduated’ from that. The time has come to hand the coding responsibilities over to others so that I can focus on the bigger picture. It is very rewarding that I even have the opportunity to do this… that the businesses are successful enough to allow for it… it is exciting, and more importantly self-validating.

I guess in my mind, in this aspect, evolving really means progressing.