Building a concept community takes preparation. In my case that preparation began with the Universe re-directing my earliest attempts to provide for a new family. An insightful brother-in-law saw a poor career choice I had made and offered to bring me back to my home town where I would apprentice in the home-building field.
In less than two years I was given my first advancement when asked to take on the role of superintendent on a small project of 23 single-family dwellings. What a learning curve from “field-flunky” to project coordinator! During my tenure as a rising force in the home-building industry I exercised my gift of insight, and as we likely know, all gifts present a two-edged sword. I could see things clearly and also had the temerity to address anomalies as I saw them. A contentious 17 years followed with many bends and turns in preparation for some unknown destiny.
During these years my mentors and benefactors modeled to my exacting scrutiny how to build fine organizations; those deemed both deserving and worthy were given the opportunity to join in sharing the growth. I was invited to form my own company and began building as a junior member builder. In total I built 99 homes, but what was most important to realize in retrospect, each dwelling had to have a “custom touch” as I quickly lost interest in rubber-stamping house designs.
My first exposure to innovation came with a local realtor promoting a new concept in housing from Texas called “Dicker Stack-Sack International”. Briefly, small burlap bags were pre-filled with sand and cement, dipped in water then “stacked” to make perimeter and interior walls, later to be either finished with troweled cement or simply spray-painted to a customer preference. We only built one unit. It was not for the Canadian market or climate.
What was the lesson learned? Questions plagued me to explain this process not really realizing the Universe was carefully molding my future: An addiction to perfection? Or simply to be different?
My career in building lasted 17 years and during those years the limitations I carried into my adulthood became the tapestry on which the Universe was to build. I had from infancy been inquisitive much to the chagrin of my parents, teachers and peers. Never satisfied until the deepest “insights” were gleaned from careful review of the facts as I could see them – I then habitually refocused my intentions to expand on “how better to do this” and almost always, in time, found a way. In the 3 decades that followed my initiation into home building, Spirit brought me to question things in ways that always opened the door to thinking out of the box to future possibilities. Those possibilities have evolved into concepts and products now proven to be not only viable but revolutionary, efficient and much less costly than those being replaced.