Trep Enjoying The Day Job

Today was a great day at my day job, which I consider my side job. My startup work is always my real job. I have an interesting day job. I work in the Central Monitor room of a hospital. We monitor the patient's heart rhythms; you would be surprised at all the different human heart beats. 

It was a slow day so we had time to talk amongst ourselves a bit, as usually we do not. It was a great opportunity to bond with each other and build a stronger team. We were making up funny things and laughing at just about anything. Silly crazy stuff. Then Megan asked me "how's your new startup?" I told her I don't know. I really love it and want to be a part of Kazamster as I can get behind the founders smart idea! (Playlist converter) 

Yet, I'm not college trained. I'm not typical, I'm most likely not what these two brilliant men expect or hoped for. I'm off the map in many ways and I often consider myself an outlier. I've had some mishaps or not sure what to call them 'not good interactions with them in respect to my work' so I sweep my soul across the floor dreaming that learning disabilities don't exist, that I graduated college, and my oddness wasn't so easily seen.

Megan promptly noted that I write great post and my style is awesome! And what I do is amazing! (now that's a good friend) Then she of course, as funny as she is,she brought up the day the staff looked up all of us on Urban Dictionary (when I was not at work) She said: Jana we could not believe that you were the only one that actually fit the description, and we all thought it was AMAZING. 

Oh oh, let me look this up I said. 
Urban Dictionary: Jana 

Yep, pretty much sums up who I am. : - ) Not really a spy though. All this is true of me. Especially the part that people think "I'm crazy, dangerous, powerful and straight up weird. Even the people at work were surprised and trapped in awe of it. Cause their urban dictionary descriptions of their names didn't fit them at all. When they read mine they all knew it was true! Now that's weird!

I laughed with them. It' so funny. I am who I am. I will never be some polished professional, but I may achieve high places. 

Founder Heading Into Legal Marijuana Industry

Today I applied for a Marijuana Support Employee License in my state of Colorado. I'm still building my startup Passdown, yet I do need a day job to support my habit of chasing crazy ideas.

People waiting to get finger printed and photo taken

I had been working in the healthcare field for the last six years. I do love taking care of people, but the downside of the job is cleaning up poop, urine, vomit, blood, and other very gross bodily fluids. I think I've had my fill of that. 

My sister in law had gotten a large supply of the medical marijuana oil to give to her dying husband in his last weeks of life. It proved twofold as it helped him have an appetite and eased his pain. This lead me to think about this new industry in my state. To me it's like a bunch of startups, all selling virtually the same thing, pot. 

It could be hard to get a job, as the Marijuana Enforcement Division office was very busy this morning. It's open five days a week. That's a lot of people looking for jobs. Of course the MED offers many different types of license, some people were there to get a group license to start a grow facility or a retail outlet. Lots of us were there just to get a support badge which makes us legal to work in the industry. You can't work without one. They gave me this lanyard.

I found it to be one of the strangest feelings in my life. Even though the medical pot shops have been blocks from my house for years, and it has been totally legal for recreational pot for just over a year now, it still seems to be unreal. How can marijuana be legal? WOW, so surreal and beautifully amazing!

Personally I don't smoke pot, but I'm considering doing a regimen of the edibles to treat my bouts with "High functioning Depression" It's not like I ever felt depressed or couldn't function in life. It's just that I go into dark places. Why I'll never know. So if this medical marijuana helps children with seizures and people dying from cancer, maybe it will set me free from the monster I have to live with? From the tormentor of my soul. 

Knowing me, I'll see something when working in the industry. I'll have another startup idea to build. That's just fine with us treps! : - ) When I pass the background check, in seven to ten days I will get my badge to attach to the lanyard. And by the way, green is my favorite color.

*Thanks for all the love and support you have given me. It means more than you know. My heart is filled with your good. 

Founder Goes On Addiction Quitting Spree

I have been on a path of quitting addictions. You know, those annoying but sometimes fun addictions like overeating? I'm not doing it for the coming New Year. I rarely do a New Years resolution. I'm doing it for my health, and frankly some of those Woohoo fun addictions are making me miserable.

The first thing I quit was a long term medication I've been on. It was for a serious neck injury that happened in my thritys. Spine and neck injuries are so painful, and the struggle to recovery from or live with them can make a person depressed. After dealing with the injury for a few years I came upon a Doctor that really did give me the magic pill. He said it was safe to use for years and years, practically forever! To me it was the wonder drug.

 Amitriptyline helped the suffering I was in, almost disappear. Yep, I loved it. Yet as the years went by so did the misconceptions of this drug. I attempted to wean myself off it many times, but I found that I could not sleep. I'd be up for days without much sleep, because Ami as one Doctor once told me was Benadryl. Hmm, that's an antihistamine, how can that be what I use for spine pain? (Long term use of this drug can have serious side effects, like a type of early dementia)

So I worked with my Doctor and stepped down off of it, as you can't go cold turkey because you can have seizures. This time I did it. Yeah, I'm having some trouble sleeping and a bit of neck pain flare ups, oh well. Over time I'm sure chamomile and other natural sedatives will ease my sleeplessness and some strength training will help my neck muscles!

The next addiction I quit was chewing tobacco. Yep, this crazy old lady woman founder dipped! Kind of a weird. Totally gross. I started the damn crap for a serious reason, but it was a stupid choice. One of my brothers was murdered and I wanted a cigarette.

Love This Can From The Quit.org

I had smoked years before and for some reason, all the desire came back to me upon my brothers death. My husband dipped and I grabbed his can and stuck it in my mouth. Done! Addiction started. I have quit this many times in the past. I do hope this time is my final quit, and that I do not get oral cancer from my poor decision. 

That's two and I have more. : - ) For now, I'm scared. I do not want to return to those addictions, as they do me no good. They only destroy me. Addictions are crazy, they make no sense. At least the bad ones don't. Why put something in your body that hurts you in the long run? Yet many of us do it over and over. 

I have a few more to conquer, I'll post them in the future. For now all you startup addicts like me, keep building great startups, that's one positive addiction, no reason to quit it! 

So Many Topics, So Much Growth For This Founder

I was looking back at some of my early blog post and I was happily surprised to see how much I have grown with my grammar and my blogging. 

Yes, I was pretty bad at it a little over a year ago. It's improved greatly, still I have a long way to go. I do not think people who are proficient in grammar realize the struggle it is for those of us who struggle with it. Yep, I learned it in school, in third grade I believe. Yet whatever I learned so long ago was never practiced or used, so I became the person the grammar police love to persecute. I know I need to re-study it and take a class or hire a professional person to help me, yet it's not on the top of my list as I build startups, and those are ever consuming in so many ways. I brush off grammar learning as something not so important, as I can communicate, even if it's shakie at best, it's still my words struggling to get out of me, to you. 

My lack of skills are improving. Someday I may even be considered a great writer. Who knows. Maybe I'll even be considered a great startup builder. All I know is, I don't care how many handicaps, shortcomings or lack of knowledge I may have, I'm going to do what I see in my mind to do. I'm going to build. Even if others judge me as lacking in skills. Even my very fine lawyer said "It might be hard for you to get into Y Combinator considering your job experience" Yep, my resume is just as horrible looking as my grammar. But it's my life path, and I wouldn't be in this place if I hadn't lived that life. I would not be able to build gifts for humanity, if I had not lived with humanity in the trenches of life. 

Keep building no matter your shortcomings ~ You are exactly the person to do it.

Ebola Is Not My Startup:A Founders Circumstance

Being my "day job" is working at the local hospital, while my "real job" is building startups, yeah, I punch the clock always wondering when my last day of ever doing that again will come. I know it will, I just don't know when.

With Ebola being ever so scary,us hospital workers are a bit terrified. We work with sick people all the time, that's our job. We have hearts filled with compassion to take care of the those who need help. Yeah, we have precaution standards, and let me tell you, we comply! Do we want to get a fatal illness in the care of someone else? Certainly not! Do we want to take care of those with life threatening illnesses, certainly yes! That's what we do. We love people and we want to help them. 

Just as everyone in the world is super worried about Ebola, so too am I. I found myself thinking about how this nurse in Dallas contracted the illness, as I know for a fact that all us hospital workers take precautions very serious. There is a ton of illnesses that will not kill us, yet make us very sick and we don't want those. Then there are the illnesses that will kill us slowly over the years, we don't want those either. Then there is Ebola, dead in three weeks flat! 

I can tell you this, that every single person who works in healthcare is more scared than you. We are the ones this crazy virus is staring at. It puts our jobs in an uncomfortable place. Just last night I was talking to a nurse and she said "she would quit her job if Ebola comes to our hospital" she is a awesome nurse, who gives the best of care, and she want's to save her own life more than help an Ebola patient. Sad, yet understandable. I too am worried. The first thing that crossed my mind was "NO, I have to build Passdown" I don't want that crazy virus to take me from this startup. I can't die, cause I have to build Passdown!

Of course my kids and husband were in my mind too, yet right now my passion is to build something great for humanity, and that dirty little bug, could stand in my way. I feel threatened by that virus, as if it's going to swoop in and spoil my dreams and maybe end my life.

Well, maybe that's a bit self centered, yet, it's just like the nurse who said she would quit her job. Yes, us health care workers want to take care of you, but maybe some of us will draw the line when it comes to our own lives. Yet even that would be no guarantee. 

So what do you do? Keep Living ~

Late Night Post From A Founder

Okay, yeah when it's late night I kind of like writing to you. As a blogger I'm still in this weird world where no wild person on the internet who reads my post comments. So I take liberty in saying whatever I want. Once one of you beautiful 10K plus people talk to me, well, I'm pretty sure I will get shy, and not be so open.

Yeah, all of my post from then on on out will be all censored by fears in my mind. I'll never be me again. So keep reading and don't talk to me, cause I'm in a freedom area and I know it. 

Here is the thing, when one of my startup ideas shakes the world, well, then I'm fucking screwed. Cause you'll be talking to me. I won't be here typing to myself, words of craziness. I'll have to be all professional then. Ugg. I sort of don't like professionalism. It seems to put a damper on creationism. And in the startup world the P and C have conflicts. That's the problem we have. 

I myself undoubtedly hate professionalism. The big P is not me. I'm wacky, I'm wild, I'm crazy, I'm searching, I'm seeking, I'm building, I'm me. And having to follow some rules of professionalism is not me. Of course I will follow the rules just enough to be accepted or funded. 

We only have one life, and I just cannot be constrained by anyone or any institutions rules. Cause rules put a big damper on imagination. When you stamp rules on imagination than you stop gifts for humanity. Rules, expectations, yeah we do need them in societies, yet none of us can decipher the lines. So we STAMP the rules on everyones head, and expect people like me to follow them. I cannot. I never will. I refuse. Cause I choose to explore where creativity can go. 

Keep building your startups and living outside the boundary of rules. This is where us entrepreneurs SHINE. 

Almost Finished Filling Out My Y Combinator Application!

After applying a year ago to Y Combinator as a solo founder, I'm humbled to find myself applying again. I have joked about a tradition I wanted to implement with YC. I had thought that I should apply every year until the age of ninety. Surly in all those years I would come up with a killer startup idea!

I had no idea that my mind would come up with another idea, and that life would bless me with an incredible cofounder. I really wasn't planning on applying because this new startup is ever so fresh. The thing is, I knew the application process was open. So why not apply? It doesn't matter where you are at with your build to YC.

This year, I have two points better towards getting in. Yep, I do have a pretty sweet idea, that is making people get all sparkly and magical when they hear about it. I also have an incredible technical cofounder. 

We have the application filled out, and we are just finishing up the video. That's the part I hate. I'm just not a video queen. At least not when it comes to me being in the video! it's not as awful as I thought it would be. Hopefully I won't get to many demerits for it.

I think more treps should just take the leap and apply for accelerators, often. Even if you find yourself being a solo founder. You gain experience in the process and you gain a ton of experience getting rejected. Since I didn't make the cut last year, I'm not feeling like it's the end of world. Sure I'll feel a bit bad if my team does not make the cut, yet I have experience at this now. So it won't be nearly as sad as last year. Maybe for my cofounder, but I'll be there to comfort him, cause I already know that path.

You get stronger and wiser with each rejection. Practice it often, this will help your startup journey.

I like this fence, it's like two cofounders with different skills, woven together in strength, building a great company. : - )

 

My First Public Presentation as A Founder

As a founder we have to do things that we are not comfortable with. When you create what you think is the most amazing startup, well how do you get that info out to others? 

It's what many of us treps dread, figuring out traction. Which includes the big annoying word, 'Marketing'

Tonight I spoke to what was supposed to be an audience of 450 people, but really the room only held 200 people. Well it was almost full for the first half. Then intermission came and quite a few people left. I was sad that these people had left, but that eased my pain, cause I was terrified to speak in front of an audience, since this is something I have never done, since 8th grade.

I was sort of happy that people had left, as maybe in some way I would not bomb out in front of a packed house. Yet, I was sad, because I know what Passdown is, and I want people to learn about it, because it is amazingly cool. It makes people get all magical and sparkly. It makes people think. It causes people to ask questions. It provokes them to look into what a startup builder is doing. 

Never in any of my builds have I experienced people reacting to one of my crazy startup builds this way. 

After I presented, it was a beautiful expression of joy. The people came to me with that same magical, sparkly look on there faces. They said things to me that I am so honored to hear. "Thank you for being real" "You engaged people the entire time, I will sign up for the beta"  

The joy of an amazing startup spread into their veins like the greatest hit of addiction they ever got. As much as I worried about public speaking, these beautiful people came up to me and did what I did. "Say it the way it is, speak your truth, and be real" and they did that to me, in reply to doing it to them.

To me, I am so honored by them. I gave them a dose of who I am. I am real. I am transparent. And I am seeking to be the guardian of your data. The guardian of you. I want Passdown to be the trusted caretaker of you! Cause each and everyone of you, are the beauty of life. You are incredible humans who can now pass that down for eternity. With Passdown your descendants will know the day you took a picture of that praying mantis, the day you were sad and the day you were happy, like tonight. 

I thank Name.Com for hosting this night, and I also thank the other 7 presenters who gave me encouragement in my tormenting anxiety of public speaking. Especially Khalana Gocken of Ethos, whom supported and encouraged me the entire night. I deeply appreciated her words of comfort.

I rarely venture out into the startup community as being with my pc in a safe creating environment world, pleases me. To venture out and get traction is something us treps have to do. It's not something we want to do. It's fucking scary as hell to do. But if the most sacred person on earth(me) can do it, you can too! : -)

Happy startup building!

A Founders Empathy

I was born a sensitive person. This was a problem for me for many years. As a kid I got picked on often, since they knew I wore my emotions on my sleeve, they knew they could make me cry. 

So bullies run-a-muck on me for many years. Now I've grown up and I am stronger. I rarely cry. Except for when they play that violin music in movies and shows with some sad story. I always cry then. 

What I tend to do now is have deep empathy for others. I had sensed some impending doom was heading my way, and it did. But it wasn't my doom. It was someone elses whom I care deeply for.

Today I found myself filled with a sorrow even worse than the sorrow I felt for the recent death of my brother Mark. As much as being born so sensitive had caused me problems in life, it is a gift like that tormentor in me. I am not sure how this gift works. I am hoping that because today I was filled with an enormous sadness, that overtook my soul, that the person whom is the one who has been suffering the longest, in a prison of pain, that maybe somehow I carried the burden for that person. Maybe the weight of the crushing issue was lifted from this person's life, for just a bit. 

I have been in plenty of horrible situations in my life, where I had done wrong, made wrong choices, hurt others, hurt my own self. Sometimes those situations can encase you in a hell that you think you deserve the ultimate punishment. Yeah, death.  

I always wonder why my post Wrapping Your Head Around The Self Judgement of Yourself, is on my top ten most popular post list. I think it's because so many of us judge ourselves so severely. I'm guilty of condemning myself so severely. I think my heart and soul are heavy today, because I know if I had walked in the shoes, and did what this person had done. I know I would have killed myself. I have almost no capacity to forgive myself. Forgiving ourselves is a hard thing to do for some of us. I truly commend this person for being able to face this and think of the positive and look for something good to come out of it.

My heart hurts and is filled with empathy for this dear person in my life. Of course I forgive this person, and I do not feel this person should be punished or condemned in any way. The punishment was living in a personal hell. I do know that it's almost entirely impossible for this person to not fall into a pit of self judgment. And I think that is why my soul is in pain. In the months ahead, that damn tormenter could come calling, knocking on this person's door. Demanding payment for what we all do, make mistakes. 

How Many Startups Have A Founder With PTSD?

My guess is not many.

PTSD is a condition that torments the soul. Or the  mind mostly. But it spreads into the soul of the person and makes life a F****** mess for that person, and the ones they love.

I would never want to admit I have it, cause of course, when the therapist said I had it, I said "That's for people in a war zone, you're so fucking wrong to label me with that!" Oh yeah, it's people who have to witness a murder, people who have to point the weapon and kill a teenager, it's for people who are tortured by others, oh that's me...... Tortured by others.

After my therapist told me point blank you have PTSD, I did not believe it truly for few more years. But I started looking at the shell of its idea. Really? Did some situation in life mess me up that bad? That makes me really angry. How could I have this problem? I'm normal for the most part, how the hell can someone's brutality to me, F*** me up so much? This makes no sense. I didn't go through the cruelty of a war zone. I did not have to hear the bullets buzz by my head, bombs go off nearby, and the threat of my life ending every second while on patrol. I did not get tortured that way.

I fully understand what it is. It's an evil root in one's soul, placed there by circumstance, or other human beings. Yep, that's it. Yet try to root it out of yourself and you're a failure. It's a poison that destroys the mind,and spreads into your system wreaking havoc of every relationship in your life. 

Yeah, It's A Very Horrible Burden To Carry Around.

Oh, gulp, well, we don't want her as our founder. She's a messed up person! Yeah, you do! Cause I'm the one who see's what you cannot see. I'm the one who feels what you cannot feel. I'm the one who's trouble is actually a gift. I'm the one, who's going to cross the boundary where others will shy away. I'm the one, who's going to conquer PTSD. I'm the one who's going to build the startups, cause, well, there is nothing else to do in life, but to build something great for others. 

I don't have the answer as to why some of us get PTSD, but I think it's because of the circumstance and that we are the people who FEEL. We are the people who care about others more than ourselves. 

How Can You Get Over Your PTSD? 

First, you have to recognize it. That was a big problem for me. I can't say exactly how to get over it. For me, my PTSD is a problem with triggers and repeating thoughts. I hate the repeating thoughts. They are useless to me. All they do is, repeat in my head, over and over, year after year. If the triggers to them are present, then the thoughts repeat constantly. If the trigger's, are seldom, it makes it easy on me, the thoughts stop or slow down and I can actually be free to be me. Oh, the freedom from, repeating thoughts of the torture, that's the day I desire. But this is not an easy problem to get over. For the military person, every thunderstorm is torture, every loud bang! How do we live our lives free of the triggers?  For me, I'm trying to get the triggers out of my life, but it's not really possible. How does a military person make a thunderstorm stop? Were sorta fucked with this problem. Yep. How do we get over PTSD? I'm not sure, but I'm going to keep trying to find the answer. If I don't, the repeating thoughts will destroy me. 

We May Have PTSD, But We Can Still Function In Society

I can still show up to my job with a smile. I can still create my ideas. I can still go to school, I can still be a mom. I can still build startups, I just can't get close to people. I cannot trust. And I can't free myself from the repeating thoughts. It's like having a bleeding cut inside the body. An endless flow of pain. It really sucks. We're still humans' and most of us with it can still function I society. So please don't ostracize us. We are very lovable. : - ) But don't expect a close relationship. You'll have to work for that.