It is my birthday, so here are a few random things about my life:

(You can also find this post on my Facebook profile.)

1. Too many people that I Love and care about have been (or are currently) homeless.

2. One of my good friends was shot twice last year (he did not die).

3. My senior year in High School I had planned on getting a four year degree in Theology, but ended up studying Cultural anthropology instead.

4. I grew up in Alaska on four acres of ocean front property in a beach house that I helped my Father and Grandfather build. We had an outhouse and no indoor plumbing. We took showers at the community Laundromat; and drove into town twice a week to refill twelve 6-gallon containers of potable water. We also had a ladder that came down into the middle of our living room, which allowed you to climb through a hatch that led to the second floor.

5. Once I got in trouble for using the family car to drop my baby sitter off.

6. I have been handcuffed by the police 3 times but only ever arrested once.

7. My Dad (who has a degree inAerospace Astronautics and Aeronautics) grew up in a native village in rural Alaska. To this day you still can’t drive there (you have to take a boat or plane).

8. My Mom met my Dad in Alaska when she moved there to climb Denial (Mt. McKinley), the tallest mountain in North America.

9. Anthony Dimitire, Theron McCollough, Loren Castillo & Ji Lee are like my brothers; I love them to death. And, no matter how hard I try I can never get rid of them.

10. During summer break between 5th and 6th grade my sister and I traveled to Russia with my mother (who founded an international non-profit music festival). My mom was very busy that summer, so Haley and I used to sneak into an abandoned Russian amusement park and play on the broken-down rides with a bunch of other children (completely unsupervised).

11. I absolutely LOVE Snowboarding, the best trick that I used to be able to consistently land was a frontside 540 tail-grab.

12. I was snowbound without electricity for over a week in Girdwood, Alaska. The Governor declared it a state emergency. I ended up spending my 18th birthday sleeping on the floor of a high school gymnasium that had been retrofitted into an emergency shelter – it was one of the best weeks of my life!

13. I once cut an epidermal cyst out of my body — the procedure required a mirror, several cotton balls and a lot of hydrogen-peroxide (among other things). The next day I went to the doctor and requested some antibiotics. The doctor granted my request and told me that I actually hadn’t done that bad of a job removing the cyst.

14. Once during college the campus police put a boot on my Jeep because I had racked up too many parking violations. The cost to have the boot removed was $300. It was a Friday night and I did not have $300, so I started walking. On my walk I came across a youth group holding their weekly Friday night worship session. I observed them for a few minutes and then decided to keep walking, one of the guys in the group ran after me and asked where I was going. I told him that it was a long story, but he insisted that I explain. So I told him about the boot on my Jeep and me not having enough money to get it removed. He brought me back to the youth group and they took up a collection on the spot for $325. I told the youth leader that I did not deserve the money, to which he replied “You can never deserve Grace, that’s the point — you just have to be grateful. However, remember only Jesus can pay that big parking ticket in the sky!”

15. When I was 22 I bought a 5 bedroom house in an industrial zoned area. I rented the rooms to help pay the mortgage. The first person I rented to was a convicted felon, (both of his arms we’re also covered with tattoos) he taught me a lot about life — as did the two heroin addicts who later moved in.

16. 6 months after buying my first house, I co-invested in a second house with my buddy Loren. Except this house in was in a private gated community. A few months after the sale closed, our neighbors demanded that a tree on our side of the property line be removed. We had to get a permit from the “community” to cut the tree down, and then pay a tree removal expert $1200.

17. Loren and I could never stay out of trouble with the gated community’s private security force. (Once we got “pulled over” in a rented sailboat for sailing into the community port under sail power alone.) However, the officers were usually surprised to find-out that we were members of the community.

18. I eventually sold both houses and used the money to focus on an internet startup (much less risky).

19. In 2004 I lost almost 40 pounds in 72 days. Everyday I either ran a minimum of 5 miles or swam for one hour. I also lifted weights 3 days a week.

20. Until 6th grade I had the WORST hydrophobia (fear of water). Then one day I suddenly got over it, two days later I was jumping off the high dive.

21. The summer of 2000 I was 18 years old and making $1600 a week on a commercial fishing boat in Bristol Bay, Alaska.

22. Once while commercial fishing our boat responded to a distress call of another boat that was sinking in the middle of the night; myself and several other fisherman jumped on board the sinking boat and started to clear it’s deck. We were standing in water not quite up to our knees. We did everything we could until the Coast Guard showed up with a pump and pumped the water out of the sinking boat.

23. One of my life goals is to follow in my mom’s footsteps and start a nonprofit organization one day.

24. Growing up in Alaska, my buddies and I used to do a fair amount of back-country snowboarding. Once after a full day of hiking and snowboarding my car would not start. We were in  a mountain pass and it was starting to get dark and cold. We tried to fix the car for about an hour, but had to give up. My buddies started walking. I stayed behind and decided to say a small prayer. I then tried to start the car one more time — it started right up!

25. Sara Czyzewicz is the most important person in the entire universe, my life would be meaningless without her.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the concept of inverted reciprocity. I have no idea if it is a real term or something I made up. Nonetheless, I’ve been using it to describe a style of negotiation that I’ve witnessed time and time again growing up in Alaska. The concept is pretty simple and can be illustrated by the following story:

Once my best friend’s dad wanted to buy a used car. Now this can often be somewhat challenging in rural Alaska. But it just so happened that my dad was trying to sell our family’s Jeep Wagoneer. If I remember correctly, the Jeep was valued by Blue Book at around $1,500. My friend’s dad offered to pay $2,000, to which my dad countered with $1,000. From there they both negotiated in the opposite direction from what you might expect until they reached a fair price.

The reason for this inverted reciprocation is pretty straight forward. When you sell a car in a small Alaskan town, one of two things happens: (1) either everyone sees the new owner driving it around everyday or (2) it breaks down, in which case everyone notices that it is no longer being driven around. Either way the whole town is reminded of the transaction on an on going basis.

It is also worth noting that if your car breaks down in the middle of the winter in Alaska, it can become a very serious situation very quickly. No one wants to be the guy who screwed over the guy who ended up freezing to death. This type of social insurance fosters an extremely high incentive for both the buyer and the seller to not fuck each other over. In short, neither the buyer nor seller knows when the other will be the only person able to get them out of a bind.

It has taken me the better part of the last 8 years (since I left Alaska) to realize that not everyone negotiates this way. Most people seem to understand the importance of taking care of each other. However, it seems much easier to practice taking care of each other when the “environment” constantly reinforces that you should (i.e. you live in a place where people regularly freeze to death). Hopefully what I’m getting at is fairly obvious… every environment necessitates that we take care of each other. It’s just that some environments make it more apparent than others. But that alone should never excuse our actions toward a fellow human being.

“It is really fun to sit and think outside the box, you just don’t want to confuse it with the shit that’s in the box.”

- Walt Kallenberg

Last time my dad was in Seattle we had dinner with my sister, her boyfriend and my uncle Jim. As Kallenbergs usually do, the evening was spent pontificating (i.e. BSing) about life, the universe and the conscious experience.

A few days ago I posted an entry called “Tribal Economics,” in it I talked about respect as an essential ingredient to any group (such as a startup) whose members depend on each other. I put forth that respect isn’t something a person can earn but rather something everyone (and everything) deserves. This got me thinking about leadership. In some ways, leadership is the exact opposite. Leadership ought to be something that is earned rather than ascribed. Localcents’ management team is comprised of 4 individuals, including myself. There simply isn’t enough structure to enforce leadership in our group. Instead, because we respect each other, I often find each of us taking on different leadership roles where we have earned a certain amount of authority with the others.

If you know me, you have probably heard me make reference to “tribal economics.” I often use this concept as a way to justify working 18 hours a day in a startup. Tribal economics is the concept that everyone contributes to her or his full capacity, and with that understanding, everyone is taken care of to the extent that the group either succeeds or fails. Please don’t mistake this concept for communism or socialism, or any other ism. The brutal fact is that all people are not created equal. Everyone does not posses the same abilities, or even comparable abilities for that matter, and all people do not have the same needs. In order for a group to operate under the premise of tribal economics - as I believe many startups do, or rather are forced to - individuals must maintain a respect not only for each other’s abilities, but for each other as well. This is the acknowledgment that whether we like it or not, we are all in it together. The larger a group gets the harder it becomes to recognize this. (If you try to institutionalizes respect it becomes discipline and looses its power.) My father, who grew up as one of the only white kids in a rural Alaskan village, always used to tell me, if you lose respect for anything, you lose respect for all things. In short, respect is not something to be earned; it is something to be given without reservation. Respect is the basis of tribal economics and of surviving a startup with your integrity intact.

Lately, I have been talking to a lot of angel investors about Localcents. The importance of being able to quickly determine each investor’s intent, interest level and motivation is becoming clear to me. I’ll admit, when it comes to raising capital, I am a rookie . However, I have noticed that there are two basic types of prospective investors. There are those who feel compelled to subject you to a pedantic self-indulgent ego-driven inquisition and then there are those who are legitimately interested in learning about your company. Both have money to invest, but, in my opinion, only one of them is a true investor. On the surface it is hard to tell the two apart, but dig a little deeper and the differences become blatantly apparent. The type of questions asked by each differ greatly; no doubt because they are motivated by a different core. One will enjoy picking your company apart to no particular end, while the other, even when supplying you with harsh criticism, will still manage to inspire you. In my limited experience, the more successful investors seem to be good at leaving their egos at the door. Funny how that works!