What a week. After a worldwide press and webcast tour over the last 3 days I posted the following update on my Facebook account (vlad@vladville.com btw):

Now even though it was just 10 AM at the time, it had already been a 40+ hour week for me. One of my buddies from Autotask asked the following question:

“No turkey? Football? Even monkeys have a day off once in a while!”

My response:

“I’ve worked my entire life to get the company to this point where it’s on fire and everyone want’s a piece. If I didn’t stop when I was broke and just trying to get it off the ground I certainly am not gonna take a breather now Pedal to the metal man.”

…

Every day you wake up you have a choice. Get up or roll over twice and go back to sleep. The full comfort of bed, the warmness.. it’s certainly a challenge giving that up. Then you hit the shower.. could stand under that stream of warm water all day long. But it’s time to get on with the day, what’s for breakfast? Fluffy scrambled eggs or fried sunny side up? Crunchy toast, fresh veggies. Pancakes with syrup? Yum. Crunchy bacon… salty.. So tasty!!! Time to get dressed and go to @#%^ing work. Or call in sick. Lay around and get that midday nap.. catch up with the DVR or watch your favorite movie..

…

Every day you have a choice to work on being happy, or do what is immediately more comfortable (which typically amounts to nothing).

People talk about living each day as if it were your last.. So how do you imagine your last day on this earth being? Sleeping in an extra hour, slacking your way through the day and being remembered as what? What is important in life?

I am not here to judge anyone, so I will go ahead and explain myself.

The Vlad

I am, what most people would consider a workaholic. Almost everyone would also agree that this is a bad thing. Except I don’t consider what I do for a living as work. This is just who I am. My company and what I’ve created to this point is something I’ve imagined a long time ago and put in ridiculous hours to get to the point where it’s at. And it’s far, far, far from perfect. I wake up every (well, almost every day since I do a lot of all nighters) day trying to make what we do a little more perfect, get myself a little better at what I do.

Not every day is heaven and not every all nighter is fun filled excitement of trying to find the missing semicolon or mismatched bracket – but it all in a way goes towards what I do – and that’s making it easier for millions of people to communicate and share information. Small, insignificant.. but I think I do a better job at providing that than anyone else out there and every day is an adventure of addressing what I (or we) suck at and making it better.

My wife often jokes with me about Mr Burns’s line from The Simpsons: “I just wish I spent more time at the office.” and to a lot of people that is just a crying shame – yet I spend more time with my kid and my wife than most other people I know. But that’s why I go to bed at 2-3 AM and wake up at 6-8 AM. I know what’s important to me and what’s important to so many people that count on me.

What motivates me? What drives me? I grew up in a car family, in Italy. My dad worked in the tire business and seeing a Ferrari at UPIM or in front of COIN was like walking up to a masterpiece. I currently live in Windermere, FL and the road I take to work every day has a nice 2 mile onramp. On which, every day, rain or shine, I floor all four hundred something horses underneath me, burn a little bit of Michelin thread and get that roller coaster feeling for just a few seconds. And despite being picked on by my friends, I consider it a privilege to wear a suit every day, to tie a tie and realize that all the hard work has gotten me and my family the best things in life. From a Rolex to a house that we don’t even use half of, to a lifestyle in which my only goal each day is to just get better at what I do. Every day.

Not for everyone..

Every employee that makes it through the 90 day probation period and shows they can handle everything I throw at them flawlessly gets the Morpheus moment, to pick the blue pill or the red pill:

Making it big doesn’t happen in 40 hours. It takes a lot of extra effort, coordination, management and perpetual pursuit of perfection – doing more and doing it better each and every day. You can take your average raises that correspond with how much you exceed the expectations of your role and go on your marry way before 9AM and after 5PM. But if you want the big bucks.. much like this business, you have to earn them.

Very, very, very, very few people ever take the big money road. That’s not a bad thing, they just have other things in life that are more important that their perfection at their craft. Some people want a big family. Some people want to contribute their time to charitable causes. Different people find joy in different things. The important thing to note is that you cannot have it all.

So today, on this Thanksgiving, I hope you’re happy and thankful for what you’ve got and you dedicate your each and every day to the mark you leave on this world.

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