When a local design organization invited me to host their annual awards, I reached into my toolbox for my trusty carpenter’s advice and rules for living that I discovered through hard work on jobsites.
I was explaining to my son when he was 9 (he’s now 15 and a beast), what I was doing that night and I realized there was no way to explain it to him, so I tried to make him laugh instead. I said I get up in front of people and make fun of them. Hey you, what’s with the funny hat? You’re too tall. And you’re too small. That joke needs more runaway than I have right now, so thank God I’m not gonna do that one.
He still has no idea what I’m doing but we got a good 80 or 90 laughs out of it.
Turns out I don’t either. But the local design organization wanted me to hand out awards and they told me to talk for 5 minutes, so that’s what I’m planned to do. Here’s some of my hard-won carpenter’s advice that I shared with them while they waited for their awards.
Toolbox for Life
Earlier today I was asked how I got started in the job I have today, YouTuber with a website and Instagram account called MyFixitUpLife, and it got me thinking about what I was going to say tonight. After all, I’m nothing if not prepared. They don’t call me Captain Last Minute for nothing.
The thing that got me started on the road of ‘How I Got To Now’ (great PBS show by the way) was this book I wrote a long time ago when Abraham Lincoln and I were classmates. It’s called The Carpenter’s Notebook and, to my knowledge, it’s the only jobsite novel.
See, I’m a carpenter. I’m on the other end of the rope that starts with design professionals and creatives. We’ll talk about rope again in a minute if I remember. As a young carpenter teaching myself the trade, I was in over my head. It was only after years working did I ever hear of a Critical Path and I started to realize that building things was mimicking building my life.
Now I’m not going to give the 6 rules for success speech Arnold gives or the 7 rules to a happy life Billy Bryson gives or that great Make Your Bed speech the Navy SEAL gives on the Facebooks. Mostly because I’ve done little of note I can look back on and say, here’s how I did it. Unless owning a small fleet of 20-year-old, 100,000 mile-plus rusting trucks is cause for inspiration. I get by. Deck after kitchen after repair after dump run after snow plowed, we get by.
Me? I have more of a toolbox. You’re all smart, successful people and the last thing on planet Earth you need is my advice for life because I have 5 minutes to fill and a YouTube channel. So instead, I’ll just show you a few items in the toolbox. Maybe you use them. Maybe they inspire a new thought. Maybe you can loan one to your neighbor.
Critical Path.
The theme here for the character Gideon in The Carpenter’s Notebook is that he, like me, had his life happen to him. The lesson he tries to teach his son is to turn that around and make YOU happen to your life. Plan ahead. Live intentionally. Pick something and go after it. This comes up again in 2.5 minutes if I’ve timed this right.
One half set up, one half clean up, the rest is work.
I could go on 20 tangents here, but for tonight it’s this: We’re inundated with commercials showing impossibly pleasant lives where nobody is upset, the counter is always clean and nobody has f*#ing cancer. On the one hand, we want it (I do anyway), and on the other hand it’s bullsh!$ and we know it.
Don’t aspire to easy. Don’t aspire for Off. Aspire for the difficult and daring. Work is what gets things done. Sure, some if it is genius and determination, but a stud wall or design gets built one stick, one line at a time because someone puts it there. It’s not managed into existence. It’s willed into existence.
Never undervalue that in yourself or others. Clearly it’s what got you here.
King Stud.
A remodeling carpenter like me doesn’t need to know how to speedframe a custom home. But I do need to know what all the parts of a wall do to build a deck, frame a custom shed, open up a kitchen. I need to know about a continuous load path and how it all goes together. And I need to know why.
You all understand how a house works, but maybe that thinking doesn’t extend to solving LIFE’s problems. There, it can be hard to stare into the Abyss of Why. Of why your parents didn’t love you or why a marriage is spiraling out of control or why a child is unhappy or why you’re gonna have another drink on Monday night and feel like sh!+ on Tuesday. The idea is the same, but no one is scared of a stud wall.
In life, however, WHY is terrifying. Stare back at the Abyss, rip through the drywall of chaos and opaque meaning. Rip out the insulation hiding the framework and reveal the bones of the answer. THERE IS AN ANSWER. Stare back at “why” until you see how it works.
Sometimes done is better than perfect.
Chapter 11 in My Book.
A few moments ago, I talked in genteel terms about picking a goal and going after it. This is the second half of that idea is brought to life by a phrase oft uttered on the job site. Sometimes, after wrestling with a rafter or stud or something that’s just trying its best to ruin your day many of us utter 4 simple words. I think these apply to life decisions in many cases too: F^@k it. Nail it. No instruction manual comes with our children. Or for life. Or relationships. Or business. And sometimes— and wisdom is knowing the difference—sometimes done is better than perfect.
Sometimes we have to decide to take the job or leave the marriage. It’s not that we don’t do that throughout our lives, it’s that we often do it blindly or in a state of exhaustion or because we’ve run out of ideas or because we’re cornered.
Sometimes in life, we have to lead and leading with purpose and vigor is better than walking backwards into a decision.
Rope.
This brings me to rope. A rope, like a life, a family, a community is a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. See, if you unravel a rope, you get some smaller strands that are just thinner ropes. Unravel those strands and you get smaller ropes that are turning into strings. Unravel the strings and you soon find you have nothing.
Our lives, to me, are like rope. Interwoven, complicated, strands that are strongest, most useful and fundamentally beautiful when woven together.
That’s what’s in the toolbox today and you can borrow my lawnmower if you promise to bring it back by Thursday. Congratulations. Let’s kick this thing off. You can have your awards now.
Leading with purpose and vigor is better than walking backwards into a decision.
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