Blank Slate

As a CEO, I have some weaknesses and some strengths. I'm not great at execution and doing operational work. When Chorus One was a smaller company, there was often nobody else to do that kind of work. As a result, I was, in my assessment, a bad CEO at a company size <7 people and mediocre up to 15. Of course, I was also inexperienced at that time, which didn't help.

I am good at other things. I'm good at interviewing and hiring. I'm okay when it comes to high level strategy and direction. I also imagine that I'm good at building a company culture and okay at figuring out organizational structure. I'm very good at trusting people quickly, giving them autonomy and handing over work to them.

As a result, I have found my own job getting easier as Chorus One grew. I was able to hand over a lot of the work that I was doing. And others would do a far better job.

In mid May, I was in Bucharest for a few days and my appendix burst. I had an emergency surgery and ended up spending around 10 days in the hospital. Coming out, I was weak and had some post-surgery issues. I decided to take off from work fully until the end of June.

Taking an extended time off has been an amazing experience. I've been able to relax a lot. I spent lots of time watching Game of Thrones. And I've been able to disconnect.

One fantastic thing to see is that Chorus One runs just fine without me. There are a few things that I need to deal with, but they're limited. This makes me feel very free. It also raises the question of what I should do.

In July, I'm going to start to work again. But I want to do so in a reduced way. A part of me wants to jump in again and fill my calendar with calls and keeping up with the information firehose of Slack. Or it's less that I want to do that. But more that I feel a sense of obligation to do that.

I imagine that the best thing that I can do is to take things very slowly. To do the minimum necessary. To make sure that I'm not slowing things down or blocking others. But aside from that, I want to keep my calendar free as much as possible and see what emerges from this blank slate.