Ups and Downs
After suffering through a pretty turbulent 2023, I made it clear to my team that my singular goal was to enter 2024 with a sense stability, and to sustain that consistently through May. It wasn’t a terribly big goal, it didn’t seem like I was asking that much; I certainly believed it was possible. (love flexing the semicolon).
But clearly some God was offended by this quest, and set about to turn my life upside down - again, just like January 2023 - and turn my best laid plans into tiny pieces of confetti blowing in the wind. Just like that, plans disintegrated one by one into nothingness.
And, a lot of the things that needed tending to weren’t even related, so the odds of them all going off the rails in tandem was unlikely, but however unlikely, it happened. Like, it didn’t have to rain several times a week since September - that really takes all the fun out of it, and makes everyone’s work harder, and for some trades, difficult to do well. It was unexpected that I couldn't motivate, cajole, threaten, bully, sweet-talk, bribe a trusted large subcontractor to improve their performance, and had to mid-stream change horses - not fun, stress-free or cheap. I certainly didn’t see the need to restructure and rejigger the office staff, as two vital positions needed weeded, pruned and replanted.
I didn’t expect to sell 6 houses at the same time, either. That may seem like a good thing, which is, but adds a whole new layer of complexity into our day as we onboard and acclimate our new client-partners.
In the end, it’s just as I’ve said before. You gotta have endurance. And you always gotta have some gas in the tank because you just can’t go around driving on empty when you never know when you might need to accelerate through a pressing problem.
So the brain is a funny thing and you can either let it auto-pilot its own path, or you can attempt to tell it where to go, and how to get there. So I’m going to use the next 10 days of vacation to tell it where to go, at least in part by writing, deliberately, where I want it to go.
So I’m leaving for Costa Rica, a place I’m eager to check out. Then to St Pete’s. Will be gone for 11 days or so, so plenty of time to tame the brain. I know in the past, with a concerted effort, it takes a few days for the iphone itch to decline, and the habit of waking early and directing business and operations traffic can and should be put aside if I’m going to do this right, and even screen time on the computer even if it is writing, would be nice to keep to a fair duration.
I do believe why I’ve been ‘following my thoughts’ on the writing front, and I believe it has something to do with a book I just finished named Rings of Saturn, where the writer ambles on foot around northern England and writes about his thoughts, and his thoughts were weaving in and out of ancient England, recent past England, silkworms, castles, battles, tides, cliffs, aristocracy and a lot of completely other related but not really ideas and thoughts. And the structure of the book was similar, with minimal paragraph breaks, few thoughts inside quotations even when they belonged there, and a few other structural oddities that carried you away with him.
I’m doing the same thing now. Journaling. Just need to follow my thoughts into the reservoir of knowledge I have to explore the caves and canals of my meandering and restless brain.
A lot of times I will read a book about the place I’m traveling too, which always struck my son as odd - ‘you are going there, why are you reading about it?’ he say. I haven’t found anything on Costa Rica just yet and trying to decide on which of 2 books to bring - they are quite different, so the selection is important to the tenor and tone of the trip. At the same time, the library work at the Pinchot Estate continues, and there are a lot of travel and ecology books that seem to be centered down around Costa Rica. There doesn’t seem to be a canon of Costa Rica thought and literature to lean into, say like the richness of the African genre.
Well, it worked. Flood the zone with my brain power and accumulated experience and don't stop thinking until the answer appears. It's a distracting process, and probably not that healthy, but time after time when I focus, and I mean really focus, the path forward reveals itself.
This has always been true. The big difference now is that when I arrive at the answer, or decision, I know it's the right one to follow, whereas for the longest time I just had a general hunch. In terms of the my first-ever legal trial, one wrought and forged from principles and boundaries, the die is now cast.
The Writing life
It is interesting, though, thinking about why a tangled client issue is motivating me to write more than say selling $5m of new homes in 3 months to the coolest people around, or rebuilding my office team to a top notch level after a full year of re-jiggering, or raising a great kid, or the new land I’m looking at, or the hundred of other things I do weekly that actually pretty interesting. So, maybe if I continue to write, I’ll figure out why I continue to write about this, but at exact moment, I have no idea. Maybe the newness - the other stuff is sort of old hat. Maybe the mix of personal, business, legal strategy necessitated really sparks my brain. Maybe it’s just the education I’m getting - if I lived closer to a University I’m sure I’d be taking classes all the time. Maybe this is why people become lawyers, because it’s interesting.
Maybe it’s the competition between parties. Maybe it’s the desire to win - I’ve always been very competitive. Maybe it’s because it’s helping me define my boundaries and lines that don’t get crossed after spending 22 years of taking one for the team 15 times a day just to keep the show going, since the show must go on.
I mean, I could easily write many pages full of things I have gratitude for, people I enjoy working with, efforts I’m impressed by, intelligence I’m awed by. My days are filled with people doing great work - which, in one way, is exactly why being treated and spoken to like piece of dog shit on the sidewalk was and always will be a trigger - I know how hard everyone is working. You don’t get to be on my team without being a hard-working SOB who leaves it on the field most days.
I mean, I could also write about all the stupid shit that happens each day, usually a result of someone doing something brainless, or maybe it’s just a result of us moving quickly at all times, or maybe it’s a combination of both. That would be fun, and probably healthy for me to vocalize.
So basically, my writing material is endless. You could say it’s a flaw in my motivation that it’s this issue that gets the writing juices flowing when so much other stuff could and should. But I’m flawed, that’s not news to anyone. A bit of misfit. My thinking is non-linear. I see things others don’t and don’t see what other’s do. I have the rare ability to be operationally proficient and very creative - typically you sacrifice one for the other. These opposing operation and creative talents pull uncomfortably in different directions. Maybe when I’m older I’ll get out of the operations end of things and stay in the creative lane - though, let’s be honest, sounds a little boring, since all the fun is in the operations, where you win, lose, live, die by your decisions and ability to motivate.
It’s funny with writing, or acting, or anything involving stage-craft - it’s just a front. Like right now on the blog I’m flexing the super-confident, hyper-aggressive gladiator, but that’s not really who I am. That’s my writing facade for this space in time. I guess priming the pump to build the audacity and courage to go into this battle with victory in mind. If you think it, you are it.
One thing I’ve learned over the years - and believe me - I’ve learned more in my lifetime than any person should, most of it coming after the age 40 - one thing I’ve learned is how careful you have to be when you find a good tool - be it an assistant, employee, or in this case, lawyer. I remember my first personal assistant/advisor (tangent alert well, this advisor was good, and allowed me to accomplish and pursue many items on my to do list, and some of them weren’t that well thought out, and really weren’t that great of ideas.
So the lesson, just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.
Attorneys. Having a good attorney is important, but having a good attorney who lacks the credibility to advise against an action is dangerous as is one that will chase every stick that is thrown just to show off. Restraint derives from confidence. No action can be more of sign of strength than in-action. One of my most trusted advisors is the lawyer that I use for getting advice on the ups and downs, ins and outs of dealing with my ex-wife and the co-parenting we do. We do a good job together, but it’s not perfect, and on several occasions I contemplated going back to court to have this or that addressed. He never said no, and I think he would have done what I asked if in the end I asked, but in the interim, he lent me his time to listen to my issues and dilemmas, think about them, and walk me through the realities of what I was asking and seeking, and the most likely outcomes. He did it dispassionately, he did it intelligently, and he did it with my best interests in mind.
And in the end, we never pursued any of my family law issues and concerns, since the courtroom is just not a great venue for getting what you want, compared to the costs - personal and financial - of the exercise. Even more so with family law, where you risk blowing up even an imperfect arrangement into something much worse.
Expenses
The Story of Business is the story of expenses. A story of Cash Flow. And eventually, a story of Profits.
And you are going to have weeks like this when you are building 14 homes across 3 counties, and have a portfolio of 8 single family rental homes in 4 states. But still, Really?
Our forklift lull didn't start - $3000. Tree fell on the roof of a rental - $2000. Someone - not mentioning any names - crashed some piece of equipment into a new AC condenser - $6500. Spec home water well sediment filter - $10,900. Sales tax audit - $35k (because for some god-forsaken reason a little hardware shop out of Tennessee didn't charge us sales tax for internet sales and we buy an impressive amount of hardware I guess). I think there's a few more, but I've put them out of mind for the moment.
Serious money! Out of the blue. Best strategy for those types of expenses is pay them quick and get them behind you since the longer you contemplate them, the longer the pain sticks around. Pay 'em, move on the next problem. Only thing that makes it better is knowing it's actually only 50% of the invoice because of my baller tax rate level.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that the literal non-stop rain since September is degrading our driveways, private roads and everything else we do with land, which is all we do, period, so, that sort of sucks ass too.
Rotator Cuff Surgery
Back in August I had rotator cuff surgery, entering a period and journey of pain, rehab, recovery and fear unknown prior to in my 54 years. To fix a range of motion issue and slight tear that was restricting a bit of range of motion, most telling when trying to throw a baseball, and that type of dynamic shoulder movement.
The shoulder - you don't really think about it that much - but it's an amazing piece of machinery. Move in all directions - not sure anything else on the body has that type of dexterity of movement. And then you have these little thin muscles that weave in and around the clavicle that can get damaged over time through use or injury - and while the group of 4 muscles that make up the rotator cuff may be small, any attempt to repair them if they tear in a minor or major way - is fraught with a recovery process that ranks in the top 10 of most arduous.
I think my only other surgery before my rotator cuff surgery last August was when I had my nose reconstructed when I was about 12 after foul-tipping a fastball off my bat straight to my nose during the New Era Midget Championship game of 1980+/-, which we won. Knocked me out cold. Went to the hospital just for a bit before bee-lining over to Pizza Hut for the after game pizza party. Seeing me and my nose with gauze stuffed up in it, and my duel black eyes might have diminished an appetite or two.
As I was typing that up, I started thinking about how that was all done without texts or phones with minute to minute updates like ‘we’re here’, or “i’m on my way’. I don’t know how life was conducted back then.
My point is I had another surgery, one that because the ‘injury’ was sort of innocuous and caused discomfort only when doing specific things, and the surgery itself was only a few hours long, and it was same day type of thing, I really didn’t think much of it. But I should have, because it lead to maybe the craziest 6 months of my life in terms of injury, surgery and healing.
Little did I know I was about to enter one of the most intense post-surgical rehab, recovery and physical therapy exercises out there. I’m 6 months into it, post-surgery, and I’m still not back to full shoulder strength, and if someone was to tell my life was going to be turned upside down in order to regain 10% range of motion and be able to throw a baseball again, I’m not sure I would have went down this path.
And the pain - wow - as my arm hung lifeless beside my body like a stroke victim, wow, I can say I’ve never felt pain like that before - day in, day out, and then the PT where nothing came free and each and every since ½” of range of motion had to be earned through not just pain, but a completely unfamiliar level and feeling - just a different style of pain. Not cool, not fun, pretty scary, and definitely should have watched youtubes about it before the surgery, not while I’m on the couch 24 hours after.
And I learned some unexpected lessons - which always happens since I'm a sponge for inputs and information regardless of the situation I'm in - I learned the hard way that a highly credentialed NYC best in class doctor on retainer isn't necessarily the end all be all since I really feel I went into this surgery asking the right questions but not getting the right answers. What I needed was a good old fashioned down to earth country family practitioner to give me some real down to earth perspective, not a referral to the best orthopedic surgeon in NYC who works on Olympic athletes. One route is surely impressive, the other one much more valuable. Sure my NYC doc is a lot freer with the prescription pad for my occasional Xanax and more frequent Viagara, and has access to world class doctors and facilities at a snap of his finger, but really, that's so NYC - flash over substance. Access over effectiveness.
Same is true with attorneys. Give me a slow talking common-sense lawyer who mows his own lawn over a paper-pusher 'strategist' any day of the week. I knew this, but everyone can be blinded by the flash at times.
And 6 weeks in a sling like this dude, without the smile.
