I’m on my way to Kansas City for the day to spend time with the Kauffman Foundation at the 1 Million Cups annual meeting, talking about Give First: The Power of Mentorship. My drive to the airport started off with an intimate conversation with a close friend who recently got a cancer diagnosis that compounds another serious health issue he’s been battling. Consequently, I’m in a pensive and reflective mode right now.I’ve got a long history with the Kauffman Foundation, dating back to the early 1990s, along with many enduring friendships, including Jana Matthews and Lesa Mitchell, from my early time there. It’s an organization I have enormous respect for that has had an extraordinary impact on entrepreneurship throughtout the United States, so it’s always a pleasure to spend time there.Ben McDougal facilated this event. When I was in Boulder in May, he came to town and we recorded a two and a half hour conversation at Coupe Studios for Episode 100 of his podcast You Don’t Need This Podcast. It was one of my first recorded podcasts around Give First: The Power of Mentorship and you can tell that I’m still working out how to talk about the book and some of the ideas in it. Ben is a great and patient interviewer, but neither of us expected it to go so long. We left an easter egg in the last half to see if anyone actually listens all the way through, so send it to me by email if you do…The team at Coupe Studio was fantastic and the studio was beautiful. I subsequently recorded the foreword for Sue Heilbronner’s upcoming book Never Ask for the Sale there. I highly recommend them if you need to record anything.Last night Amy and I had dinner with Ian Hathaway. We had a nice talk in the afternoon, including discussing how much fun he’s had working on his new Outsider Inc. podcast. He’s off to an amazing start with long-form interviews with Scott Dorsey (High Alpha – Indianapolis), Mike Praeger (AvidXchange – Charlotte), Wade Foster (Zapier – Missouri), Linda Rottenberg (Endeavor – NYC and Everywhere), Jason Seats (Techstars – Austin and Everywhere), me, and Dug Song (Duo – Ann Arbor). I love the idea that Ian is focused on fascinating people all over the world having massive impact on their local startup communities. Ian is quickly learning how to pull magical stories out of them. For a taste of the depth of this, listen to Ian’s latest interview with Sean O’Sullivan (another long time friend) titled Founder, Filmmaker, Humanitarian, & VC: Reinvention through Purpose w/ Sean O’Sullivan, Co-Founder of MapInfo & Managing GP, SOSV. In the “super interesting and amazing people you should know but might not”, Sean is at the top of the list.The final podcast to add to your queue is today’s release on the Give First Podcast titled The Near Death (and Rebirth) of Simple Energy with Justin Segall & Yoav Lurie. If you have read Give First: The Power of Mentorship, you’ll recognize them from the example of the first item in the Techstars Mentor Manifesto: “Be Socratic.” In this episode, we go deeper on what actually happened. I’m still knocking the dust off my podcast boots, so while it’s a little rough, it was fun to do.While I’m enjoying elements of being out and about, which I decided to do it around the launch of the book because there are some ideas I want to try to get out in the world in this moment, I sent my relentenlessly positive assistant Colleen Clair a note yesterday that began with “UNCLE!” At midnight on Halloween, I’m definitely turning into a pumpkin and going back into hibernation. I have no idea how long that hibernation will last, or if it will be permanent. While I reflect on the past three months of being out of hibernation, a lot of things I’ve been doing are in the “like” category, but none of them make the “love” category, which now is only four things (spending time with Amy and close friends, reading, writing (non-fiction, fiction, and code), and running/hiking). My goal is to continue to shift more of my time to the love category, fulfill my work commitments, while embracing the third third of life as I wander into my 60s. That won’t include lots of podcasts, travel, or public-facing activity, which is what is filling in all the available gap of time right now.While I’m having fun, knowing that it is time bounded has been important for me, especially around my energy and mental health. Amy and I have flipped the cliché and are saying this is experience is “a sprint, not a marathon.”The post Kansas City, Podcasts, and Hibernation appeared first on Feld Thoughts.