WORD OF THE DAY: SLEEP

First-time startup leaders can learn a secret of serial entrepreneurs by reading today's Wall Street column on Sleep .

Yes, you read correctly, sleep! It is that elusive thing, that wonderful, refreshing thing that is so often missing from your daily regime.

First-timers believe they have to sacrifice sleep to get faster results because that is how startups have to behave. However, veterans think otherwise.

First-timers behave like they are running a sprint. Veterans know the race is a marathon and act accordingly: they sleep longer.

What are some serious consequences for startups that get too little sleep? Try these:

• Trouble retaining information
• Irritability
• Poor judgment
• Minor illnesses
• Increased mistakes
• Weight gain

You know those are not what you want in your startup. Racing causes mistakes. Lack of sleep causes more. Soon you are regretting doing this startup and you get more irritable with people. That hits your recruiting and makes people reluctant to come work for you. Your employees start reading about jobs on Craig's List. And on goes the downward spiral.

How much sleep does a startup leader need? Try 8 hours a night. Sleep researchers found people without clocks gravitate to 9 hours as normal.

BOTTOM LINE: Serial entrepreneurs know the power of 8 hours of sleep a night. They work better and win more. Try it and see what happens. Your improved performance will amaze you. I did it years ago and it worked for me. So have many others in this wild startup world. It can become a powerful element in your unfair competitive advantage.

Comments

[Matt A.*]

Sounds practical and correct to me.

[Thomas Han]

Amen to that John! Life is short, rest up =)