The Recipe For Disaster — I Still Don't Know What I'm Doing

You might remember from my last post that I was going like crazy to open Highland Cycles and spending money like there was no tomorrow. I had planned to be open March 7, 2007, and I hit the date on the money. I had everything ready to go, showed up and opened the doors… Crickets!!!

Today I want to describe a little bit of how my home life looked so you can picture just how absurd this all was. After I finally told my wife that I was doing this we discussed what that meant for our tiny little family. Yes, you heard that right, I completely committed to the decision BEFORE we talked about how we would accomplish this. Of course, Ruth asked about where we would live and what we would do about our tiny little boy who was all of 7 months old when I started the business. I honestly hadn’t even considered any of that. No joke, it never crossed my mind. I just figured it would work out. We decided that I would commute back and forth for at least a little while to see if it would fly because Ruth had a great job (her dream job really) with the Forest Service and we couldn’t afford for her to quit and look for another job since my business made exactly ZERO dollars so far. Zero is really quite generous, it was hemorrhaging money to get started. Yep, my selfishness was working on taking away the dream job that my amazing wife had worked so hard to achieve. She had wanted to work for the Forest Service her entire life and I was threatening to take that away because of a new hobby.

Knowing that going back and forth every day from Gunnison would be expensive and more than time consuming, we decided that I would go to Montrose Monday morning, stay there Monday night, work Tuesday and come home Tuesday night then repeat that pattern. Ruth’s parents were more than generous and said that I could sleep at their house on the nights I was in Montrose and I also put a futon in the back room of the shop for when I needed to work late at the shop. What a great set up! We had a 7 month old kid and Dad was going to be gone half of the nights of the week for an indefinite amount of time! And when I was going to be home I would be beat down tired from working like a mad man and sleeping in a dirty motorcycle shop. Add in how distracted I would be from worrying about business and how stressed we would be financially and you have a recipe for disaster. Looking back on the entire situation I think that the time I spent away from home and the lack of accountability for my actions and finances was one of the biggest factors that lead to the darkest period of our lives.

It was all excitement and thrill for me while quietly my wife was suffering. Her unchecked depression and natural tendency to just go along were adding to an already lopsided marriage that was spinning out of control and we didn’t even see it coming.

It is interesting to look back on all of this with a very different lens. So many people talk about entrepreneurship in a light of risk, hard work, challenges and battle that you can overcome but I haven’t really read to much about the havoc it can reek on a marriage and the damage it can do even when it works out in the end. Everyone seems to get to the other side and then remember the good stuff or the hard stuff, but rarely do they talk about the hurt, sadness and pain that it can inflict on others. Well, I am here to talk about that! I do think that being an entrepreneur is my calling from God but I also think I might just be here to help some people save their marriages and families. Mine was on the thinnest thread for a long time and with Gods grace, we pulled it back and have built a massive cable to hold it together now.

Stay tuned because it is going to get messy soon and if you are like me, it’s kinda like watching a train wreck, you just can’t take your eyes away!

Thanks for joining me again for this scattered account of one moron’s life. My hope for this as we go is to give hope to those who are struggling in life, marriage or business because I am a glaring example of God’s love and mercy! Share this around if you like and give it a like on the socials if you are so inclined. Have a great day and be thankful!!

I am thankful for my silly fuzzy animals who keep me warm at night, Colorado’s amazing mountains and breakfast burritos!

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