What this all means to me and why I get up every day.

I was driving home yesterday thinking about my business and how much I work. Driving just over the speed limit, I longed to walk through my back door to see my dog Jagger, because, I had only been home 2 nights in the last 3 weeks of working. My schedule has become increasing difficult over the past few monthes. One of the reasons that I have been working so much lately, I thought that Thanksgiving was sooner than it actually was, so I was working around the clock to get our projects caught up. By the time I left Friday afternoon, I was completely wore down and in need of a short break. The ride home was 1 hour and 40 minutes, so I had plenty of time to think without the radio on. I tried over and over again to justify to myself why this journey in life was worth it. I thought over and over again about the incredible amounts of money I have or will spend to be a pioneer in this industry. It is very tough to stomach, especially when you are overly tired. I reflected on the past few years and thought about how much of an impact we have made on the industry. I repeated to myself (the way I did in Onekama), "don't quit, stick with it, don't quit". (Don't take this the wrong way, I was very tired, and those of you who know me personally will tell the others, that I need sleep and food to function at 100%, I was lacking both.) At that exact moment, I recieved an email on my BlackBerry. It was an email from someone at Green Builder Magazine letting me know that we won one of their 2009 Project of the Year Awards. Isn't that funny how things happen like that, an email that can reset your path.

Since I was only 30 minutes into my ride home, I had time to make phones calls and to think more about my journey in life. Why do I get up every day? I started to think about that. Normally, I would talk out loud to Jagger my dog, who, until recently went everywhere with me. What is in a person to get them up everyday, even when you have worked 3 weeks straight for 14 or more hours per day. Is it to load your walls up with awards? Is it to die with the most trophies? Or, is to work and perfect the art of sustainable building all I care about? Something gets me out of bed everyday beside the great Amish smoked bacon that our friends leave for us at Man Camp.

When you live on the road and have a motel bed to call your own, it makes it easy to get out of bed, because, most motel beds are not that comfortable. You only lay down long enough to sleep, then get back to work. Thankfully, we have the use of a camp now and have been sleeping well and feeling comfortable there. But, we still feel like we need to get up and get to work. Most of us figure, that as long as we are out of town working, we might as well work and not lay around camp. But, there is something greater than awards, bad beds, and continental breakfasts that get me out of bed everyday.

As I look around my office, I see many things. I see awards on my shelves and walls and I see several newspaper articles talking about my quest and the performance of the Team. Is this what gets me out of bed everyday? Do I long to have more awards than anyone else? Believe it or not, no! I do not do what I do for a piece of paper or glass that says I am the best. That is dangerous thinking if someone lives thru their awards and not their continuously improving passion and efforts. I am very pleased everytime I win an award, especially the big national awards. I think it's a great honor to be recognized as the best in North America, no matter what you do. You could be the best football player in North America, the best cook in North America, or even the best high school student in North America, and that is all incredible! But, if you look beyond the award and see the person or company that receives awards like these, you will notice a trend. You will notice, the person or company who wins these awards have a passion and intensity that is unmatched by others in their respective industry. A passion and intensity that drives them to be better, that makes them think outside the box, and that will let nothing stand in their way of doing their best. This is a very difficult thing to turn off when you get to finally go home. You can't just walk through the door and say, it's rest time. The passion and intensity follows you everywhere you go and gets you up at 4:30 am on a morning that you were hoping to sleep in. I love this, although, I would like to sleep in some day.

Here is the great thing about these awards. The greatest thing about these awards, is the press it gains us! Not for new business, although it certainly does help, but for the free publicity we get to spread the word of sustainable building. Awards are intended to raise the bar, to get people out the shadows and to bring light to progressive thinking. If I build a better, more energy efficient, Earth friendly house everytime I build a new project, and I win awards for that, then somewhere else in the world, someone will step up to challenge me. That is why I do what I do!!! I knew early on, that the only way to change an industry was to succeed and attract competition which shows up naturally as someone has success in an industry. I have seen a number of companies pop up in Michigan that are working their way to being my competitor. I can name off ten builders that have shown up as a result of the publicity we got from our Onekama Home. Does this concern me? No, because that was my plan from the beginning. Bring these people out of the wood work and create a new market! I want there to be better qualified sustainaable builders out there. The awards we win show those other companies that building this way is worth it.

I am proud to be a driving force in this state, but I can't stop there. I need to win these national awards so that builders all over the country begin to build more sustainably. I wanted to be a face for this industry change now for five years, and it is starting to happen. Am I worried that I am building competitors up that may take my work someday? No, that is the plan. We have to make sustainable building mainstream! I would rather work on the projects I work on, these projects are tough for others to stomach, because of how you have to think to get through the entire project. I turn down a lot of work, my hope is that one of those other 'green' builders will step up and do the right thing. There will always be cutting edge projects for us to build, I am not the least bit concerned that I am creating competition, that is Economics 101 and part of my overall plan.

I get out of bed everyday to be a leader, to be a learner, to be the pied piper of sustainable building, and to be a pioneer. I know that, good or bad, the news I get that day will somehow work towards my overall goal. I try to focus on the big picture, that is to: 'build sustainable houses for the research and to teach those willing to learn the information we gathered from the research, that, sustainable building is worth it and lessens the load on the planet".

A sustainable lifestyle is key to a healthy life. I feel very good that I can help people acheive a sustainable lifestyle. The awards we win are crucial for the forward movement of this entire industry change. Thank you all who support what I do and those that give me the encouragement I need to not 'quit', and to keep pushing forward.