Questions to be answered

For the last 15 years or so I have had the dream of opening a bed and breakfast somewhere in Central America. The logic is this: to own and operate a business in the hospitality field a large investment of time needs to be made. With me having other aspirations; such as having a family, adventuring in paradise, I need to find a way to combine these desires with my business. Therefore the conclusion I cam to is that to spend 80 hours a week on my business I need to have it located in paradise, and have the business be my home - whereby the family is on always close by. Lots of people have questioned, scoffed, admired, and encouraged this dream of mine, but I have tried to remain steadfast in my conviction. There have been slight shifts along the way: restaurant to bed and breakfast, costa rica to panama (by way of St Johns, Belize, Nicaragua, and others), upscale bungalows to surfer dorms, business to polyculture farm. And in truth we still don't know what it will look like until we get there and do it.

In response to talk of my dreams some family members offer their support by providing me with literature about my possible destination. This year my cousin Moses, our potential property manager, gave me a book entitled Escape to Paradise, that charts oone man's journey to live and retire in Panama - very similiar to my goal. Some of the chapters are a bit light, but one thing I appreciate it that at the end of each chapter the author challenges the reader to answer questions about himself and his spouse. So I will use this post to answer some of these questions.

1. What are the careers you've had? What is the common thread? 
1. this one is pretty easy because most of my jobs have been in restaurants. I love being of service, I love good food, and I am learning to enjoy the different aspects of cooking. This seems to indicate a transition to a b & b is possible. 
2. What were your assumptions when you started and how have they changed?
1. That I didn't have the chops to do the cooking myself and that I would need a friend to open the place with me. I think I can handle the cooking side with some more experience, what I really need is someone in country who can help with the transition. 
3. "Things change!" in life. What things changed in your life?
1. Married my high school sweetheart - who seems to be on board with the business.
2. Had a daughter, Freyja, with said sweetheart.
3. Got a degree - BS in Business Administration.
4. Moving to Seattle when we sell the house. This was always part of the plan, but now it seems that my wife is of the thinking that we will need to stay there longer than I had previously anticipated. More shall be revealed. 
4. What were/are your retirement plans?
1. Have the business up and running by the time I'm forty. Get the business decently successful, whereby it can "run itself" and I can be a working retiree, or I can sell and gain enough to live off. Or consult. 

So I haven't had many ground breaking realizations in this Q & A session, but I feel better with these assumptions written down - made a bit more concrete. There is value in revisiting these posts as I start writing my business plan (why haven't I written my rough draft yet?), or when I hammer out a contract for a parcel of land. I need to continue to explore inside and gain an understanding of what my vision really looks like. Another chapter, another post.

Gratltude Month?

Labeling November Gratitude month makes some sense because in it resides Thanksgiving the most grateful of all holidays. It is the beginning of the whole holiday season, where we need to remember the things that we are truly grateful for. The main reason we need to remember is because we get so caught up in the dynamics - what we want, what we have to give,  the preparing of the holiday meals, spending time with family, traveling, etc. When I am doing what I am supposed to do I don't need a gratitude month, for every day shall be full of appreciation and thanks. All I need to do is look at two things: the journey I have taken and where I currently stand. Even on the crappy days where I haven't gotten enough sleep, I have to bike to work in the rain, I screw up a couple orders, Minda tells me I forgot to do a couple things, I cut my finger, and Freyja is particularly fussy, I still need to remember that it's not that bad. Life is ok today. And if it really sucks today, tomorrow it can get a little better. My friend likes to say gratitude is an action - it's not according to Merriam-Webster, but I get the point, when you have gratitude what are you doing to show it. One synonym for gratitude is indebtedness, allow me to continue to owe so I may continue to seek ways to give back.

A need to document

I was blown away when I found out my brother had a blog. It has a cool name, vitia.org/wordpress/ , which is Latin for sins, faults, abuses. I never think of myself as a writer, Michael is the writer, Minda is the writer. I'm the doer. So when my friend Terry Breschi recommended that I start blogging I thought of it as a compliment, "this guy thinks I have something to say." This was a year and a half ago and since then it has just been sitting in the back of my head. I battle with the doubts of my abilities, the ranking of my priority list (yesterday I determined that NBA2k14 was way too high), and most of all the fear. What will I say? How will I sound? Who is going to read it? When will I have time to write anything?

Then I grab the dry eraser and I erase all of those questions, and I write my response - It doesn't matter, I'm a doer. I can be calculating, but I tend to rely on my instincts quite a bit. I like to shift the question from: "doesn't this suck?" to "how can we change this," or "why am I letting this affect me?" So I change, I decide to not permit the fear paralyze me and I begin to write.

People write for a lot of personal reasons, my blog hopes to be a personal treasure map where I chart the route. The route to what? Self awareness? Contentedness? It doesn't matter, I don't write for destination, I write to help plot my course.