Baby Steps

When I first started my company, I would tell someone that I was just a handyman.  I just had a knack for doing stuff, making it look good, and just knowing how to fix things.  Mind you, this was well before YouTube was a thing, so I really did just get it (without watching a video)

I just knew how to mix brick mortar to color match when it dried.

I just knew how to layer a roof so that the valley was guaranteed not to leak and adequate overlapping to prevent water from licking up through layers.

I just knew how to frame so that drywall inside, and sheeting outside was quick and simple to install.

I just knew how to remove a window and measure so that the manufacturer's new window was a perfect fit.

I just knew how to cut crown molding.

I just knew how to paint a perfectly straight line when around the edge of a room.

I just knew how to texture and match the walls.

I just knew that Home Depot sold everything I could need to complete a small residential remodel project and that I was cheap enough to not have to worry about the expensive suppliers.

I just knew that I was the best and that I would never run into any problems or roadblocks because I was a good hard worker and everyone liked the Saunders family.

I just missed the reality that I only believed what it was I thought I knew.  One of my favorite books summarized my ignorance in a simple quote, "child logic: it allows you to believe what you need to believe despite all evidence to the contrary" (Here, There Be Dragons by James A. Owen) 

If only I had known then what I know now.

I was unwilling to ask for help or to turn to a true professional for direction or information because I was insanely prideful and blind to any area of misunderstanding.

How is it that we see what we cannot see?  How can we discover what we do not know?

I have learned that it is the questions we do not yet know to ask which are the most important ones to answer.  The pursuit of those questions is as valuable as the answers.

There are little Easter Eggs in everyone's life which we need to find but we often don't know that we need to look for until the moment we realize we have found them.

I challenge you to ponder in your life.  What are those questions you haven't yet thought to ask?  What areas of your life are you unaware of, and have never thought to seek to understand because you take yourself for granted?

​I just know that the most impressionable moments in my life are when I stumble upon a new realization about an activity or a thought which occurs frequently in my life, but to which I had previously been blind.  I like to call these little discoveries life transitions as they become a turning point from unaware and absent of thought to becoming aware of the world which surrounds me.