0:00:15.660,0:00:19.060
So tonight I’m gonna tell you[br]about an invention of mine

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that saved my second marriage,

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and also has increased the quality[br]of my life by at least 10x.

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And for all of the partners[br]in the crowd,

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and all of the people in the crowd[br]who have partners,

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I encourage you to [br]embrace this invention.

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(Laughter)

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We all work very hard.

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These are some of our TechStars friends[br]from this year’s graduating class

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after three or four all-nighters.

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We also live hard.

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For those of you that are climbers, this is[br]one of the rocks in Eldorado Canyon.

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And we all enjoy this kind of thing[br]in the beautiful Boulder that we live in.

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We are much much too connected.

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I did a tweet about at 9 o’clock [br]from my house in Homer, Alaska,

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a couple of weeks ago,[br]saying I need a picture

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of somebody who’s got too many[br]electronic devices in their world.

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And I got twenty back[br]within about fifteen minutes.

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Life is really complicated.

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We spend all of this time dealing with all of this [br]crazy shit that none of us really understands,

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or maybe we think we understand it[br]but we don’t really understand it.

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And it’s moving faster [br]and faster all the time.

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We already heard this once tonight

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when we were learning about[br]how to do social media better.

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But relationships are hard.

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I married my high school girlfriend[br]when I was 21.

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(Laughter)

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Now, I was legally old enough to drink,

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but I should not have been legally [br]old enough to get married.

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On my honeymoon, three days in,[br]I realized that I had made a mistake.

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About a year afterwards I was [br]that dude in the middle. (Laughter)

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I should've been the dude on the left,[br]but I was the dude in the middle.

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Relationships are hard.

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I failed once. I got divorced[br]a couple years later.

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[Welcome to Fail, Population: You] [br](Laughter)

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In 2001,

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I almost failed again.

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For those of you that have been [br]involved in technology companies

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in and around the internet bubble,

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you know what the pace of things[br]were like in 1999, 2000, 2001.

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I was embroiled in [br]the midst of all of that,

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and on a trip to some friends [br]over the weekend

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in Rhode Island, I met Amy in Boston

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after I was in New York and [br]she flew to Boston to meet me,

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and I rent -- had a driver drive us both [br]down to the Rhode Island,

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which is all of an hour and a half, [br]so why I had a driver drive us, I've no idea.

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I spent entire time in the car[br]on the phone.

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We got to our friends' house at[br]about 4 o’clock in the afternoon.

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I proceeded to spend the next [br]couple of hours on the phone

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as she hung out with our two friends.

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We went out to dinner.

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At dinner, we were having [br]a nice dinner,

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and about 30 minutes into [br]dinner I get a phone call,

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and I come back to dinner[br]in time for dessert.

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And at the end of that we go [br]back to our friends' house.

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No, I did not get laid that night.

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That was not on the agenda. [br](Laughter)

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Amy turned to me as we got into bed,[br]and she said "I’m done."

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And I said to her, "Yeah, men, this was [br]a tough week and tired. Just a lot of work."

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And she said, "No no no. I’m done.

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You are not a very good roommate."

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And I realized that I was almost there.

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So, being a nerd and an engineer,

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I decided to apply some [br]engineering thinking to this.

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And I said to Amy, "Look, I’m not done[br]and you are not really done."

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She wasn't mad, but she wasn’t really done.

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This is, you know, 2001.

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I said, "Let’s just talk this weekend[br]and come up with something.

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Will you do me a favor? [br]Just give me some rules."

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That’s what I really need.[br]I just need a bunch of rules.

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I’m gonna talk to you [br]about one of them,

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which is something we do, which we call[br]"one week per quarter off the grid."

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Since 2001 almost 40 times,

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once a quarter, Amy and I go [br]off the grid and totally disconnect.

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We go to the airport on Saturday morning,[br]I hand her my telephone.

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She turns it off.

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She often tries to drop it in between[br]where you board the plane.

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She puts it in her pocket.

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We go, we sit down,[br]I get it back the following Saturday.

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No phone. No email. No schedule.

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The only person on the planet who knows[br]how to find me is my assistant Kelly.

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And she tries never [br]to find me that week.

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During this -- Hang on one second.

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(Laughter)

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"Hey, sweetie!" [br](Laughter)

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"No I’m talking to those people at [br]that TED thing I was doing." (Laughter)

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"I’ll be home in a bit. Not too long.[br]I love you. Yeah, OK."

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(Whistles) (Applause)

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That’s the telephone version[br]of golden retriever eyes.

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Once we all have faced time running[br]it'll be a little different.

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These are my dogs looking at Amy

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while I'm taking a picture of them.

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For all of you out there that are men,

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remember this picture. [br](Laughter)

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This is what your spouse [br]or partner wants.

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(Laughter) (Applause) (Cheers)

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I sleep a lot.

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I wear a thing on my head when I sleep[br]so I know how much I sleep.

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I got a 137. (Laughter)

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It's about 12 and a half hours of sleep

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one day on vacation.

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I read a lot.

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If you look at my Shelfari list, you'll see that [br]I don’t just read serious business books.

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I read all kinds of different things.

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And I encourage all of you when you [br]go on your week off the grid to do that.

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I exercise. [br](Laughter)

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One can have goals, right? [br](Laughter)

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I relax a lot.

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We spend a lot of the time[br]that week together.

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We don’t do adventure vacations.

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We just spend time together.

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And that leads to[br]a lot of adult entertainment.

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[CENSORED] [br](Laughter)

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Now, I fail at this[br]about once every eight times.

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And this is important.

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I like the notion of mastering failure.

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You have to embrace the fact that[br]we're human, and we will fail, and that’s OK.

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And because of this algorithm,

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Amy and I have agreed that it's OK[br]for me to fail once every eight times.

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There's no damage associated with that.

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And in fact, what it does is [br]it makes the next seven times,[br]

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until I'm ready to fail again,[br]that much better.

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So recognize that this algorithm has[br]some failure in it and that’s OK.

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But when it works, [br]it's priceless.

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And I find that over[br]the last ten years or so,

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the one week a quarter[br]that I take off and totally disconnect,

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allows me to do all the other things[br]that I do, with intensity that I do,

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the other 11 weeks a quarter.

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I've had numerous people [br]over the years tell me,

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"Oh, I can’t do that."

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"That’s so hard", whatever,[br]and it’s just bullshit.

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It’s totally doable.

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And it’ll change your life.[br]I encourage everybody in this room

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to try it and see how it feels.[br]

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Thanks and good night! [br](Applause)