form of equity in the companies we were starting and
in our company as we built it.
So, actually, and I loved that, I loved that symmetry, cause I honestly I've
never done anything in life where if I worked hard it hadn't worked out somehow.
And, and I wanted to, I was totally happy to trade off big, high current income for
a, for a share in whatever I could produce.
Totally happy.
That was a easy decision for me.
That's just me, it may not be the same for everybody.
But that was, I, I would take that deal day and I still would.
So that's really where I think where I would answer your
question is not just is there some money to earn but how do you make it?
And is it tied to your own efforts?
That makes it all the more rewarding and, and I think,
frankly, makes the upside much, much bigger.
Yes >> What happened to the first book that
you wrote and what, what changed the second time around when you tried?
>> Wonderful question, what happened to that first book, yes, well,
you know, the funny thing about all those rejections having those
32 rejections I was really it felt like a big setback at the time.
And oh, by the way, just last summer I, I,
I got a request from that very same publisher who sent me the dear Sir slash
Madame from a totally different person of course, but the same publisher asking me
to edit a new edition of a fantasy collection they wanna put out.
And it felt so great.
[LAUGH] You know, I'm just so overwhelmed, I've got three books coming out and
a movie in production.
[LAUGH] I just, I'm sorry,
I just don't have time to edit your frigging little book.
[LAUGH] It was.
It felt fabulous.
Fabulous.
It was great.
So yeah that was an email I I just wait a decade
[LAUGH] So, but but the thing is that,
that experience I now realize was a good one because, for two reasons.
One was that novel sucked.
[LAUGH] It deserved to get all of those rejections.
How do I put it more plainly?
I had a lot to learn about storytelling.
I was, you know, [COUGH] I was as about as far away from J.R.R.
L Tolkien as we are from the planet Neptune.
[LAUGH] >> And, and I needed to be pushed back to,
to, to say okay, you know what do I need to learn about this crap.
There's a lot to learn.
And, by the way, it's one of the things I love the best about writing,
is that there's always more to learn.
It's one of those, one of those lines of work where there's an ever receding
horizon of what you can learn, what you can, how you can grow.
What, you know, what can we be done better.
I think it's very much, like the best, the best jobs are like that.
But, at the same time, the other thing that I learned was even more important.
Which was that, seven years, really,
ten years later because it was business school and
by the way I did GD M.B.A so this, this is four year gap there so
ten or 11 years later I was still in the face of all of those rejections,
nothing accomplished, no evidence that I could ever be in something
somebody might enjoy to read, I still was yearning to try it.
And that was the important thing.
And it took me a while to warm up to that.
To realize, I'm here and I've got no reason to go that way but
I'm still getting up early in the morning to try it.
I'm writing in the back of taxi cabs.
I'm doing character sketches on some of these people in meetings imagining,
they thought I was taking copious notes, but that's not what's going on,
but I was really trying to imagine what they turned into on Saturday nights, so.
[LAUGH] So it was really, really fun.
[LAUGH] But in all, you know, keeping it all together.
They had no clue of this.
But my, my, my point is that I was still going there in my head.
It finally dawned on me, cause I'm not, I wasn't as, as, as savvy as you guys.
You guys would've figured this out pretty quickly.
It took, it took me that 10 or eleven years but I realized you know,
that is a really important message and whatever time I've got,
I really don't want it to be split like that.
And, and so I, I, I realize okay.
I wanna give this, this really terrific job,
in a, in a traditional, financial, mix it up business realm,
that I'm, I'm enjoying, and, and learning a ton but,
it's only using a little slice of my brain and none of my heart.
I want to give it awhile, so I really can wrap my arms around what I can learn.
I want to complete the promises I have made to people I care about.
And I wanna earn whatever dough I can make, and so, you know,
optimize that, and then I, but I, I really, I really wanna go there and
find out what, what is it about this writing being that is so compelling,
and see if I actually could do it with that intervening time behind it.
So that's really the answer to your question.
Thank you for asking.
Yes?
>> So, I'm from Colorado also, and feel a strong sense of desire to go home there so
when you changed to the writing piece, you also chose seems to go back to Colorado.
Carries what sense of place and, you know, obviously care about future and
how that affected your decision.
>> Yeah.
I think place is hugely important.
Not just as a writer but as, as human beings we, we,
we can so easily, get, get reduced into
an inner space that's, that's exciting,
compelling, and, and, and, and powerful gravity.
But it, it can be only as big as that device in your hand, or
only as deep as that, that electronic screen.
And, and it's really, it's just so important, and
honestly, I can't say it nearly as well Brookes did today in his talk.
But it's, it's that connection with nature that really draws you out of all that,
and gives, and gives you a chance.
A chance to reconnect with what really is important in your heart,
what really makes you go the distance, what really makes you feel fully alive.
And it's those, those places, whatever they are.
The natural world is something just so welcoming and,
and accepting being in nature.
And, and it's for that reason, by the way, that when I write books, and I
think it's especially important if you write about imaginary worlds as I do,
I, I view place not just as a backdrop
against which the story takes place, not just the postcard picture behind.
I think place has to step forward and
actually have all the fullness of a character.
Place is actually a form of character in my books.
And, it's not just because I'm a nature lover, enviro-type.
It's really because I think place has to be that real to engage,
fully engage a bright, intelligent reader.
And that's the kind of world we can all enter into,
especially if it's an imaginary world.
You can bend the rules in an imaginary world but it has to be totally real
in all those linguistic and cultural and historical and philosophical ways.
But, but now back to Colorado.
I will say I had another big advantages,
which was, a very eager pair of kids,
Brooks and his sister, who we really did not want to grow up in New York City.
We had just started having kids.
And, well, you know Little Brooks was, was still,
you know, about the size of a breadbox.
It was gonna be clear that very soon he was gonna be out exploring the world and
we, we knew we didn't want that to happen on the streets of New York City.
We wanted it to happen in a place where nature really could be his,
his friend and a place where, that we'd invite him to explore.
And the rest is history if you know Brooks.
So, so honestly I give a lot of credit to Brooks and sister Denali for
giving us a powerful incentive to not just, when, when I left my job,
to not just stay there but to go to a place that both inspire my writing,
I hoped, but also the wonderful place for our kids to grow up.
Turned out its done pretty, pretty well on that front,
so that's the answer to your question so get yourself back to Colorado.
That's the that's the real bottom line.
How about, how about one or two more question and
then I think we should wrap it up so you all can have your, have your suppers.
How about you?
>> So I was curious about the role of narrative in understanding your own life?
Because I was so struck basically,
that you made this decision to leave New York and go write and never look back.
I don't think I've ever made a decision that I've never looked back on.
Do you think, like, there was a role in just telling yourself, like,
this is my story and I'm going for it like, I'm never looking back.
Or like has it genuinely always so.
>> No, no, I, I did not have that,
I did not have that super view of my life as a, as a narrative.
I really didn't.
What I did know though, and what that was really a statement about what was it,
I think I had been suffering enough in those years, not for incomplete enough.
And therefore having some personal anguish about that, struggles around that.
And self aware enough that I was, I knew that was happening.
That that's why when it, when, when it, when I went for it, when I had to take
that step and then I really haven't had, looking back, even in the,
even in the questionable times, those first two years before that, the next,
the next book that got published, the first one that did get published,
you know, there were big questions about whether this was all going to work.
But you know what I knew, look if it didn't work, I'd,
I'd end up doing something different.
I might, I, I,
I did sometimes think about well if it doesn't work what's my Plan B or C?
And I could form, I, I thought about forming another fund of my own but
based in Boulder, Colorado.
I thought they would focus on environmental companies and,
and outdoor recreation companies.
I thought about doing, a, a, stint at a, in an NGO,
a conservation group, you know, and, and running that.
I, I, I definitely, I even interviewed for, one of those jobs.
And I, you know, I thought about other things, too, but I, I, so, I had some
plans B and C going, but I really, really, really needed to give this a try.
It happens to work out really well.
So I did, while I didn't look back I did look sideways though.
And I, and I, I don't think, I actually think it's important not to,
not to have that forward looking narrative too, too clear in your
mind because life does give you tremendous opportunity for surprises and growth.
But do you remember when I posed those two questions, one that looks inside and
one that looks outside, I said go to the inside one first?
That's important because if you go inside first, it gives you,
it gives you that guidance, it gives you some direction of what's actually really
important to you and then you meet, you mesh it with the world outside yourself.
Too often it's done the other way around, especially at,
at career change times in life.
People take their direction from what are the jobs that are listed or
what are jobs that are people hiring for, or what am I trained to do, or
what are my parents' expectations, or what are?
You know, they're coming from the outside.
Or what is the up elevator career now?
You know, all of those kind of questions, that's coming from the outside.
And it's okay to think about those but only after you've gone inside.
I'm going to, I'm going to give you one quick example and it's,
it's actually one of my very favorite poems.
It's a poem by Robert Frost where it's one of his life's unknown poems,
actually, but it's a poem called Two Tramps in Mud Time.
Not the best title [LAUGH] but, but it,
it's works because the poem is about a guy who's chopping wood.
And he's chopping it, not perfectly, but he's having a good time doing it.
And then, two tramps were actually loggers, out of work now,
that they, they come by and they say, hey, you know,
we could do that for you and yes, we'll do it much more efficiently, quicker.
We'll stack you up some wood and he said, no, that's not the point.
The point is I actually like chopping wood so I wanted chocolate.
I knew I'm not doing it the best but I like it.
And then he finds, he ends up with a wonderful last dance.
You should check it out.
I'm just going to paraphrase him now but It basically,
it says, my goal in life is to make my work and
my play want as my two eyes are one in sight.
And, I've, I always loved that image cause really that's what you're going for, is to
have that unity of your, of your work and your play, your inside and you're outside.
So, well, I'm gonna wrap up there but I, I do wanna say,
once again, it, it really is a thrill to be here.
See your lives as a story.
You get to write a story.
And make it a really great one.
Make it a great one.
I know you will. Thanks so much.
[SOUND]
[APPLAUSE]
Thanks for coming out,
guys, our next speaker in this series is Steve