You might ask “Why would you leave a perfect place like San Diego for the fog and traffic of Silicon Valley?” That is a great question, and it boils down to one thing – Family. I have a wife and two kids, and I intend to keep them. Last year I flew 53 round trip flights, and stayed 110 nights in a hotel room.
Why was I traveling so much?
Two years ago I was asked to team up with a good friend and start a data center practice by my regional vice president. We put together a strong go to market strategy, that tied in strongly with key product initiatives from Cisco and other vendors. To make a long story short, it was immensely successful. It was so successful that we transformed the region from being seen as a Voice and Service Provider partner to being the top Data Center partner in the operation, capturing the #1 places in both Enterprise and Select.
This level of success came with a price. Originally I had negotiated that every third week I would spend three days in Silicon Valley. With each win came additional mind and market share. We were able to use that success to attract some amazing individuals, which created even more buzz and business. In the blink of an eye my travel schedule had been transformed from a manageable three days every third week to Tuesday through Thursday pretty much every week. There was even one stretch where for six weeks I was only home for two days (one day was flying down to San Diego for a lunch and to grab a change of clothes).
Work Life Balance
The funniest thing, is that I am probably one of the most militant work life balance fanatics that I know. I make it clear to everyone that I am a father and a husband first, and an employee second. When I maintain that balanced life I am more valuable to the company (and my family) then if that equation is reversed.
One story I like to tell is of a former boss who ran software sales for DEC in Europe. He lived in Boston at the time and spent over three hundred nights a year abroad. The saddest thing I have ever seen was him trying to create a relationship with his daughter while she was going away to college. Eighteen years that you can never get back were flushed down the toilet in exchange for corp card dinners and fancy hotels. I witnessed this after spending eighteen hours a day working at my last startup, and pretty much missing the first year of my son’s life. I had vowed to never fall in this trap again, however the success of our data center practice had set the stage for history to repeat itself.
The tipping point
The more time you spend away from your family, the harder it is on your wife and kids. This was becoming readily apparently to me late last year. I sat down and talked with Ashley and discussed some alternatives. I could step down from a leadership position in our regional DC practice, and return to focusing on Systems Engineering for our Health Care and Indian Gaming practice. I could leave my current job and take a Director role at a company local to me. Or we could move the family up to Silicon Valley where 80% of my travel was.
I brought these options up to our leadership. I didn’t pose it as a threat, just a harsh reality. Something had to give, and I wasn’t going to fall into the trap that so many other people do of choosing their job over their family. Luckily I work with some very good people, who understood exactly where I was coming from. Our leadership all the way up to the C level recognized my issue and we settled on option number three, relocating me and my family to Silicon Valley.
Life in Silicon Valley
Choosing from all the varied towns in the bay was a tough one, but we ended up settling down not far from where I first came to the bay during the dot com boom – San Ramon. It has good schools, it is about 45 minutes from the high tech clients in the south bay as well as the same distance from the financial clients in San Francisco. Yes, traffic sucks. But luckily I still work from home, so most of my travel is off commute times heading to client meetings or speaking at events.
The best thing about being up here is that Silicon Valley really starts going at 10:00 am. This means that I can sit down and have a proper breakfast with my kids almost every day. After a year of hotels and Starbucks breakfasts, being able to make some omelets and get an ear full about the latest cartoon superhero drama is just awesome. I am now able to be the dad and husband that I should be. I am present in my family’s life, as well as fully energized to kick ass at work. What more can you ask for?
