I’m grieving, and not in a way I found immediately obvious. Please allow me to explain.
A few years ago, my stable relationship ended. The person who had filled my needs for love, connection, companionship, and touch was gone. I was so used to having the person there and those needs filled, that when they left, it was jarring. Gone was my predictable world and this uncertainty brought up suffering. I was grieving what I once had.
Perhaps you’ve been there before? Even if you were the one who ended the relationship, you likely were still grieving the comfortable certainty you once had for those very human needs for love, connection, and companionship.
It was the second week of the Human Element Practitioner workshop, and I was in the shower trying to solve a mystery. Twice the day before my girlfriend (at the time) had been vulnerable with me and both times I’d made light of it. She got angry at me, I apologized, and then she got angry at me for not getting angry at her. I was frustrated and confused.
She was convinced that I had pent up anger at her and it was now coming out in other ways. She was convinced that I was “poking” at her in these moments of vulnerability because of built up anger or resentment. I didn’t think this was the case, but something didn’t feel right. I went over the clues in front of me:
At a hackfest in 2006
From 2006 to 2009 Jason Seifer was a close friend, and as of last Saturday he is no longer with us. I’m really sad about this. We made an amazing team those few years, co-founding a blog & business (Rails Envy), educating people on Ruby on Rails, and creating a bunch of funny videos. In early 2009 we had a falling out and because we didn’t account for what would happen if we hit a crossroads in our business. We had to shut down the blog and company we both had worked so hard to create. It sucked.
I regret the way things went down, which is part of the reason I was driven to create some videos on how to deal with equity more fairly. It might have saved our friendship. The following years I reached out to try to repair things, but he never was interested. I wish I would have tried harder. It sucks not having any more chances to repair the friendship, or at least an opportunity to say thank you.
Two months ago I thought I knew what Open Source meant, but it turns out that I didn’t know the half of it. Since then my new show Open SourceCraft has published eight episodes and is now available to watch online or by subscribing to the audio or video feed. In these interviews, I’ve learned how open source has enabled people to get jobs, built communities, and created new business models. Here are some of the trends that have emerged.
I will be building a new company in the next few years, and I know what my biggest competitive advantage will be. It won’t be about compensation, an innovative idea, or even about putting people first, as you might have heard in my talk on the subject. It will be The Human Element, a powerful, simple, and practical approach to help create the authentic, ideal, organization as created by Will Schutz.
The best way to experience and learn this approach is by taking an immersive five day workshop called “The Human Element”. Before I left Code School I brought this workshop to my leadership team, and many of them described it as a life-changing experience. Recently I took a course to become a Licensed Human Element Practitioner so I can teach the workshop myself.
The actual room at Pluralsight in Salt Lake City.
It was a Tuesday in late October 2015 and I was dreading the conversation I was about to have. I was sitting across from Aaron Skonnard (CEO) and Greg Woodward (CFO) of Pluralsight, two people who I had come to admire and respect. Unfortunately, I had to tell them that I wanted to leave the company, Code School, that they had acquired 12 months prior. I felt like I was going to be sick.
Hello, my name is Gregg and I'm passionate about startups, explaining things on the Internet, being a father (8 and 10), and fostering self-awareness. Learn More
