I met with a friend and seasoned entrepreneur turned academia recently, Aaron Cohen.  For those of you who know him, he’s been around the block and has seen a lot in his days of being a successful executive at digital media companies.    He walked in the room and asked, how I was doing?

I am doing great, I replied.

He said I looked tired, which isn’t the first time someone has told me that.

We then dove into a discussion of being tired vs. bored.

It’s ok to be tired.
It’s not ok to be bored.

Lets discuss this here.

Tired.
Athletes train a lot.  Olympic athletes basically spend their life training.  But even at peek performance, athletes do get tired.  It’s ok to walk off the soccer pitch after a match and be tired.  It’s ok to drop the 400lbs of weights and lie down.  Why?  Because in most cases, you gave it your all.  You put everything you had into the sport.

Business is no different.  More often than not, founders get fat.  I put on weight.  I know plenty more who did as well.  Why?  Tireless persistence to achieve a goal left going to the gym, proper diet, and sleep all secondary and tertiary needs.

If you are giving it (whatever you are pursuing) your all, then tired is in your cards.  That’s good.  Make sure a vacation or time-off is planned to recoup, re-energize and reset.  Without this, you will run yourself down to the point of system failure.  If you get to that point, you’ve gone too far.

Bored.
There is a big difference between being tired and bored.  Boredom comes from not being mentally challenged and leads to complacency.  Boredom is not good because it causes negative attributes and tends to spread to people around you.  It’s like a negative-vibe-virus.

If you are bored, do something about it.  A vacation will not solve boredom.  You need to first analyze why you are bored and then talk to your superior to do something about it.  If there is no room within the organization to move, then get out.  Plain and simple.  You are not being fulfilled and I’m going to guess that your output is not up to standard because you are not mentally there.  You suffer.  The company suffers.

I have met plenty of people who are bored in their jobs.  Being bored is fine as naturally, your learning comes to an end in each role you take.  The smart people then move on to a role that’s fulfilling.  It’s a hard conversation to have with your employers but one that at the end of the day, is mutually beneficial.

I might be tired, but I’m certainly not bored.  I still wake up each day to new and fun challenges.  Some I dislike but they grow me professionally and personally.