Getting It Done

I'm still not blogging as regularly as I'd like to be. In fact this post has marinated as a draft a few times, before I have now finally managed to hammer it out. It's like this: I have all this great prose, bottled up in my brain. Unlucky for you, loyal reader, I don't have the hours in the day to put it down on this here web-log. I've been busy as hell, working ungodly hours, to the neglect of my sleep cycle and my diet. It's all in the interest of what my boy "Bloggeries" calls passive income. I think that makes it worth it. I'm enjoying myself too, which is important and makes the whole experience much more bearable.

Anywho, I've finally thrown on some Vince Guaraldi Trio and plunked myself down with a glass (read: bottle) of cheap Merlot (all liquor is cheap here, by the way) and taken some time to reflect on the last few months. On one hand, I feel like I've climbed a mountain; on the other, I think I just arrived at base camp of a much bigger mountain.

Allow me to elaborate, please. We started to plot our business, Kakushin Group, almost two months ago. As I mentioned, it was conceived over pints of draught on the back of bar room napkins. The very conception of the project could be subject of another post, so I’ll table it for now. Suffice it to say, the upside looked very promising, while the downside looked negligible. In short, I had very little to lose. I think that a good risk to reward ratio is something that should underscore every decision I make, be it a stock trade or a night at the bar. “I don’t believe in luck, I believe in odds.” Said Seth Davis at the beginning of Boiler Room.

So we set out, hell bent on starting a business, all the while not really having an idea how to start a business, -let alone in Slovakia. Yet, for reasons of which I’m unaware, I maintained an optimistic demeanor and an irrational belief that we could accomplish anything. I think this has also been paramount to making it as far as we have. I don’t know how to make a website, produce a business information event, or deal with the slow as molasses Slovak bureaucracy. Somehow, 8 short weeks later, we have all of the above and are on our way to new challenges, specifically selling, something I do know how to do.

The point I’m trying to distill here is this, we could have gawked, worried and procrastinated at the formidable task ahead of us. Instead, we thought about what we needed to do and found ways to do it. There have been innumerable twists along the path we've bushwhacked so far, we’ve had to come up with some unorthodox solutions but up to this point, we’ve managed to get shit done.

And so, it is the base camp analogy that rings true. It has been excruciatingly difficult, lugging our shit this far, throwing up our metaphorical tents and canvassing for the best available Sherpas. But it has already been extremely rewarding. And tomorrow, we push for the summit, where the majestic view will no doubt be worth the ascent.



On a completely unrelated note:

I’m going home in a week for the holidays. Words cannot describe my excitement. I have nightmares that I’m going to catch swine flu and be barred from boarding the aircraft.

Next I will post an 8 month recap of my life in Slovakia and try to throw some darts at the wall to pin down where I think it might be going – at which point I encourage you to stay tuned reading along, to see how I’ll inevitably be hilariously wrong. I've always sucked at darts.