Childish Liberty

Yesterday, I picked up a package from the post office in town. It contained a supplement Lydia and I use, a fitting to get Lydia’s freeze dryer running, Trevor’s birthday gift, and what I assumed to be another fitting. When I got home, I promptly stashed Trevor’s birthday gift (a pail of Lego blocks) out of reach. Trevor opened the little box, which I assumed to be another fitting. Turns out, a battery charger and three batteries showed up that I had ordered and forgotten about. Trevor discovered part of his birthday gift early.

Trevor immediately recognized the batteries as his camera batteries. He’s been playing with a non functioning camera that Lydia used in bygone years. I figured that perhaps the camera was not working simply because the existing battery was dead.

I plugged in a battery and hit the power button. The camera came alive! The lens opens and closes properly. Even the pop out flash works!

Instead of make belief play at taking pictures or videos, Trevor now has a real camera and he knows how to operate the lens zoom and take real pictures. He’s learned how to play back pictures and even how to do delete pictures.

He spent at least an hour or two taking pictures. Everything from outside landscape pictures to interior pictures of a mustard bottle on the floor. What impressed me was his unbounded liberty in experimentation. With no pressure to get good quality pictures, he bounces from scene to scene snapping lots of pictures.

I’m thinking about all the times I’ve thought of experimenting with something new, but feel boxed in by expectations. These expectations may be my own or expectations from others. This ends up holding me back from getting going and enjoying the process when I am terrible at it. Instead of embracing the terrible early results and pushing through to eventual success, I sometimes never even give it a try.

Trevor has the liberty to play and experiment without fear or worry. I’ll try to learn to be like my little boy.

Here’s a couple of pictures from his second day of taking pictures:

Trevor’s piggybank

A picture of a puffin in one of Trevor’s picture books.

Picture of part of the book cover of “On the Banks of Plum Creek”

Here’s to a week of learning something new or experimenting again,

— Simon

The Carpenter

Flying home from Ontario last week, I started listening to “The Carpenter” by Jon Gordon. The book presents a simple and powerful framework built around three key pillars that the Carpenter in the book lives by:

1. Love

• Love what you do.

• Show love to the people you serve.

• Let love drive your actions, relationships, and leadership.

The idea is that when you infuse your work and relationships with love, it creates passion, energy, and deep connection. It turns tasks into meaningful contributions.

2. Serve

• Focus on serving others, not just on your own success.

• Help people grow and feel valued.

• Serve your team, customers, family—anyone you interact with.

The message here is that greatness comes from giving, not taking. When you serve well, success often follows as a byproduct.

3. Care

• Care about the work, the people, and the outcome.

• Pay attention to detail.

• Go the extra mile.

Caring shows up in excellence, in the effort you put in, and in the integrity of how you show up daily.

Together, Love, Serve, and Care form the foundation of the Carpenter’s approach to building a successful life, business, and relationships.

We try to put these three things to work with our customers and our customers love us for it. People can feel when they are being loved, served, and cared for. Our employees feel it too. So does my family.

It’s a quick read or listen and a wonderful reminder that success in life is not tied to some complicated formula that is difficult to get right. It really is simple. However, simple is not always easy.

Business is Tough

Our spring show season is over. Two shows we set up ourselves, and two shows were sponsored by two of our dealers. Spring shows and spring sales mark the beginning of our very busy season. While a show is in action, I find myself checking our dashboard several times a day, just to check if new sales have been made. Every sale feels like another win, which it is (in a small way). Every sale also means we need to produce and successfully deliver another building. That is our business.

Lately I’ve been reflecting on the emotional ride our small business has taken me on. There have been and continue to be tons of challenges to tackle. I knew this would be the case when we purchased the business almost two years ago, but this is now my lived experience. And it is visceral.

Week follows week where I experience the whole spectrum of emotion. Great sales feel great. A valued employee goes to work elsewhere - feels way less than great. Our mule breaks down 5 hours away, and pulling an all nighter to supply parts and make the delivery possible - doesn’t feel great. Being gone from my little family because of business training - doesn’t feel great. Eating a 12 oz. New York Striploin steak for supper today because I am away from home tasted very good.

There are days when business is more than it was supposed to be. Other days there are real perks that come with the pain. Like having a heartfelt conversation with one of our guys. In about a month from now I get to go to the Entreleadership Summit. If you would have told me I would get to go 10 years ago, I probably would not have believed you. It is about to become a reality!

Last week I properly discovered the Shark Tank on YouTube. While the Sharks act like sharks at times, the reality of business is laid bare. The marketplace is not an easy place to thrive.

One more thing. The bigger the business, the bigger the potential for greater success and more problems. As the business grows, everything is amplified. Both the good and the bad.

At times I think about divorcing my feelings from the experience. But that is no recipe for caring. Each experience must be felt, experienced, and then given not too much or too little space. How much space and time is allotted should be directly proportional to the magnitude of what is happening. The challenge? Keeping level headed and staying the course even when times feel tough and my heart is heavy.

To Experiment or Not?

I am still reading the book Range, which is a book that has challenged some of my ideas and affirmed others. In the book, David Epstein weighs whether or not experimentation in life is a positive thing. From children learning to play a sport (or several sports) or other children learning to play an instrument (or experiment with a range of instruments), to adults trying to find their way life’s calling by either picking one path, or sampling for an extended period of time before settling….

Society tends to look more favourable on the people that pick early. Learn to play the violin and master it by playing it for 10,000 hours by the time you’re 18 and you garner the respect of others. Or, pick a career path as a sales guy who then becomes a sales manager who then becomes CSO (chief sales officer) at a multi-million dollar enterprise and you are looked on as having it figured out.

This linear pathway seems to be the most efficient pathway. And certainly the neatest. Early pickers tend to eat their lunches first.

But David Epstein makes a very compelling case for experimenting early and lots. Sure, you’ll find yourself behind your peers early on, but you are building a set of skills that can overlap widely which can then be utilized across multiple domains throughout life.

Before reading this book, I have observed this experimental behaviour in my own life; (I am a sampler by nature). I’ve often wondered whether it is a negative or positive trait. I’ve lost money because of it. Quite a bit of money. I’ve often wondered whether the skill set picked up along this meandering path will make up for the, well, meandering path?

Plenty of my peers have worked at one or two jobs in the last 10 years while I have done many things. While some job moves couldn’t be helped much, others were certainly by my own choosing. Like going from one perfectly fine job to another, which was precisely the case in my last job move in 2021. The last 4 years have been the longest I have ever held down a job.

I still don’t have things figured out. But I have found that my broad (but not always deep) skill set has come in handy many times in running a business. These days, being a generalist is a skillset unto itself.

What do you think?

Disruptive Week

Last week was a crazy week. It started out with an overnight, tandem driver delivery up to Pikangikum First Nation community in Ontario which includes spending several hours on winter roads. Here is a google maps link to Pikangikum in case you are curious about it’s location. Winter roads are, as the name implies, only passable when it is sufficiently cold and frozen. We left for Pikangikum Monday morning, and returned to our stomping grounds almost 24 hours later. I then slept till a little after noon, and then took the rest of the day easy, spending a couple hours on website development.

On Wednesday and Thursday, I did not hear my alarm go off in the morning, which means I clocked in at work at 11 a.m. and 9:20 a.m., respectively. Sounds lazy, I know.

On Friday, I got home from the Cottage Country’s Lake & Cabin Show at around 10 p.m. and took Saturday off only to man the show from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday. After the show closed on Sunday, we spent an hour tearing down and cleaning out, getting me home closer to 7:45 in the evening.

Here is what I noticed: a disruptive schedule disrupted my habits. I did not take my health supplements for half the week. I did not spend some time reading nearly every day (as I did for the previous 6 weeks), and I did not get to work at a consistent time.

The delivery to Pikangikum needed to be done, and the show needed to be manned. Both were a success for which I am grateful. And I am thankful that this week is back to normal. It’s Tuesday now, and I get to reflect on last week, and hopefully get some reading in after I’m done with this note. I took my supplements at the 10 a.m. break this morning and got to eat supper with my dear wifey and two kiddos.

Normalcy is wonderful. Especially after a disruptive week.

P.S. If you are curious what I’m reading right now: Range by David Epstein. So far it’s fascinating. It is making me reconsider education for Trevor and Heidi (my sweet children) in a fundamental way. I’ll probably share more thoughts once I am further along with it.

Have a great week!

— Simon

Feeling Trapped

Productivity Debt

While on the road last week, I listened to an episode from the Big Think YouTube channel.

One of the concepts that resonated with me was the idea that I have a productivity debt to work off. When I get up in the morning, I feel like I need to be at work at a certain time. Then I feel like I need to get a certain amount of work done—though this is more of a feeling than something actually quantifiable, given that I’m mostly a knowledge worker who works in an office. Last week, there were several days when I had less to do than usual, yet I still felt like I needed to be in the office and get work done.

While using less busy days to work ahead is beneficial (which I did to some extent), feeling like I have to work just to pay off my daily productivity debt is not a healthy mindset. As Oliver Burkeman puts it:

“…that is hugely self-sabotaging… because the standard for how much stuff would be enough just drifts upwards, so it gets harder and harder to meet—because the amount of things we could do is infinite.”

He suggests starting with the idea that you don’t need to accomplish anything in a day to feel adequate. Sure, you may need to work to earn a living, but there’s no reason to feel less than because you aren’t meeting a self-imposed productivity standard.

Burkeman also recommends using a “Done List” to keep track of what you accomplish—and I love this idea. Starting at a zero balance instead of a debt ledger is a much more positive approach. Completing tasks becomes a credit to your productivity account rather than a constant attempt to pay off self-imposed debt.

Positive Distractions?

Burkeman touched on the idea that not all distractions are negative. When trying to be productive, I try to focus. One way to achieve this, is by shutting out distractions. This is important if you want to get anything of significance done. But it is possible to go to far.

For instance, in February, I tried to cultivate the habit of reading books. I set aside 30 minutes per day to read, often on the living room couch in the evening. Heidi, my 1-year-old, or Trevor, my almost-4-year-old, would sometimes ask for my attention—“Look, Daddy!” or Heidi asking for attention in a less dignified manner by simply pouting away.

My response was often, “Please be quiet, I’m reading.” While focused learning is valuable, taking a moment to stop and give my full attention to my two sweet kiddos would have been a better approach. In my quest to meet my own rules, I sometimes fall into a rigid, self-imposed box that doesn’t give me any room to breathe. This short video was a healthy reminder, and my mind has returned to it several times over the past few days.

P.S.

In case you want to watch or listen to this 8-minute, 4-second video, here’s the link: Big Think – Oliver Burkeman.

Having fun

What I am thinking about:

Today I revisited an old website that I last visited probably several years ago. This site is Ken Rockwell’s. (If you’re interested in cameras and related gear, this site will be of interest to you.) What impresses me however, is the fact that he’s been working on his website since 1999:

“I started this website as a goof in 1999. Back then it took forever to download an emailed scan of a photo, and longer than forever if there were a few photos. This website was an easier way to share recent photos with my immediate freinds than trying to send a bunch of emails.”

— Ken Rockwell

This means he has been working at this website for 25+ years now. And it appears like he is having fun. This having fun part is what I’ve been thinking about. He goes on to say:

“I continue to do this site all by myself for fun — probably the last remaining 1990’s for-fun website that hasn’t sold out to other interests. Even though it has become popular, presumably because so many people find it helpful, it is still run just for fun. I am this site’s only author. I have no one to proofread, spell check or fact check for me, so there will always be errors and omissions.”

— Ken Rockwell

“…all by myself for fun…” and he makes a living doing it. When you read his reviews or descriptions under his photographs, they seem like unconcerned expressions of what others think about his work. He is having fun. Further down in his old about section, he continues:

“I’ve been adding to this site since 1999. This means that many of these pages, including this one, are over ten years old. I can’t possibly go back and update everything magically as the world turns. Read, enjoy, have fun, and take everything in the spirit in which it’s shared.”

— Ken Rockwell

This carefree way of documenting his work and sharing something that contributes to other people’s lives, all while having fun, this sort of work seems highly attractive to me. This is what I would like this site to be for me.

I’ve thought about creating a page on this website for book reviews. Quite a few years ago, I dabbled with book reviews on an old Wordpress site I started. While I enjoyed the process of reviewing books then, it doesn’t feel like quite the right fit now. Perhaps a better fit for me now is to simply share what thoughts those books provoke instead of actually reviewing the book in a formal fashion. After all, if I (or you) am having fun, chances are I will continue the project in a much more sustained fashion. For 25+ years? Who knows? Time will tell.

What I am reading right now:

Company of One

So far, this has been a thought provoking read. It has challenged the notion that our business needs to grow to be sustainable. Better, yes. But not necessarily bigger. Focusing on quality and customer service are hallmarks of an excellent Company of One. This is a book I return to frequently in my mind while at the office.

Amazon link.

A Day in the Life

Instead of writing a script for a video I was thinking about, we ended up filming “a day in the life” kind of video. We have not done a day in the life on our channel yet. It is tough to film a video like this with two little kiddos. Trevor gets under Heidi’s skin many times a day. This makes her cry which makes for pathetic audio. This means that we will need to do a voice over for some of those parts or add some music.

This afternoon, I was feeling disenfranchised with how the filming day was going. I was feeling like we could do better, tell a better story, get better angles, get better audio, etc. If we’d film a video in a studio or at night when the kiddos are sleeping, we could get way better results.

Also, while Lydia was reviewing a scene on camera that she had just shot, the audio would not play. Turns out, the mic was plugged into the headphone port instead of the audio port. This means, we got poor audio for more than half the video.

A couple of positives about today:

• I filmed myself getting out of bed for the first time. Some of these clips are not very impressive, but can now be improved upon in the future. I find myself critiquing every scene. Usually, there is something that can be improved upon.

• It’ll be fun to watch the “day in the life” video in the future, say, 5, 10, 15 years down the road.

YouTube Studio is telling me that I’ve found my groove. This is based on more that 2,000 hours of watch time. I feel like I am still constantly looking for that groove where the next 5 or 10 videos flow in succession, versus me always trying to decide what to create next.

It’s 11:03 p.m., and I must needs be off to bed. Good night!