PS#082: Maintaining Health + High Performance

Reflecting upon my journey over the past 6 years, one topic that came to the forefront was the correlation between maintaining your health (both mental and physical) and performance.

This has become an increasingly important part of the job for most modern day athletes, maintaining their physical health (obvious) and their mental health (becoming more of a focus). Our jobs may be a bit inverted (i.e., more mental vs. physical), but I think we share a lot of the same lessons. In my mind, it’s an important part of pursuing any high performance career.

With that being said, finding ways to properly maintain my physical and mental health has been one of my biggest lessons on this journey, so I’d like to take some time today to talk about why that’s the case.

But, before I do, a quick announcement…

I’ll be changing the cadence of my newsletters from weekly to every two weeks (still on Saturday mornings). This is really a change to help me manage my time as I continue to grow in my own career. The plan remains the same – demystify and bring transparency to the inner workings of venture capital.

Alright, and with that, let’s dive into reasons why maintaining your mental and physical health is so important to a successful career in venture capital.

1. Long-term stamina.

Long-term stamina.

As I’ve mentioned before, this is a long, long game. It’s a game of endurance. While we might make investment decisions over the course of days or weeks, we are supporting these companies for years (even decades). The structure of VC funds are designed to last up to 10-12 years with built in extensions (since many many last much longer).

10+ years is a long time. It’s a long time to commit to one thing. For most aspiring investors, the only thing we’ve consistently done for 10+ years is school.

In order to even have a shot at success, we need to be able to endure. Maintaining your mental and physical health will play a critical role in being able to stay involved and committed to this job day in and day out.

2. Clear decision making.

Decision making is a core skill for venture investors.

Almost all of our time is designed to collect and synthesize information (although incomplete and imperfect) in order to make investment decisions.

Think about the deal funnel – we are evaluating new investment areas, identifying potential opportunities, performing diligence, and ultimately making investments. Each step in this process requires thoughtful and clear decision making.

If we aren’t in a good headspace, these already tough decisions will be even harder.

We need to maintain our mental and physical health so that we can keep a clear mind to make thoughtful decisions for our investment portfolios.

3. Managing the ups and downs.

As with life, venture portfolios come with a lot of ups and downs.

At one point or another, each of your investments will go through a difficult period. It might be due to a misstep, something out of their control, competitive or market dynamics, or even unbelievable success. One way or another, there will be issues that need to be addressed.

In these times, it’s important to remain calm and level-headed. As an investor, you need to be able to see through the immediate chaos to the other side. Founders and management teams will be in the thick of it, trying to put out the day-to-day fires.

It’s your job to support, while also providing that long-term perspective.

Again, if you’re unable to maintain a proper headspace for yourself, it becomes even harder to manage in these stressful situations.

My advice – find what works for you.

There are all sorts of ways to remain mentally and physically fit.

It’s less about what you’re doing and more about making sure it’s a consistent practice. It’s all about keeping your mind and body in peak condition to perform at the highest levels and handle the stress of the job.

If you can do this over the long-term, you’ll have increased your odds of finding success.

Alright, that’s everything for today. As a reminder, I’ll be moving the regular cadence from weekly to every two weeks (still on Saturday mornings).