What a tumultuous year, laced with many, multiple transitions, some that are life changers. As I enter the next phase of life, as Chip Conley coined the term Modern Elder, I am regaining my excitement for Life, Excitement for What’s Next. Some of this years transitions were painful, Closing down most of our Property management Business of 20-Years and the inevitable partnership squabbles associated, My Mom’s Passing, She would have been 83 this year on 12/15/21, The last real conversation we had was on her 80th Birthday, as she declined with dementia. Moving from an Urban Downtown Apartment to an OffGrid Cabin in Northern Michigan, Creating a more Sustainable, Minimalist LifeStyle, a SimpleLife, and Creating New SideHustles for CashFlow. Yeah, That’s a lot. But I can say with absolute clarity, I am loving the square I have landed on.
I am writing this post from Sedona AZ, I am Happy with My Life! I can start there, Again, in a way, I can’t believe I am here, for 6-Weeks! I love this campground I am at. 3-Nights and 3-½ days to get here, staying alongside the road each night in the RV. It rained most of last night. The sounds were decadent, Having some coffee, and feeling Blessed, and Much Gratitude. The things I recorded during the Theosophical Society Winter Solstice Ceremony Ceremony, a Focus on Gratitude seem fitting, as I wind down this tumultuous transitionary year. And what I wrote 5-Years ago while in Sedona, also rings true as ever,……..
My List for 2022; Practice Reverence, Stay in Gratitude
- Health, To take good care of this vessel body I have been given, Nourish it with good food, much physical exercise, Keep Moving.
- Open My Heart, LetGo / Practice To Be,and Be, and Be, There is No Rush for anything, Consistent intentional steps will yield significant results
- I Have Everything I Need; Practice a Sustainable, Simple Life, Grow most of my own food, purge away any unused items that have little or no meaning in my life.
- 12/24/2017; Sedona AZ
- I am Happy with My Life! My first priority each day is to Feel Good, and to consciously find Better Feeling Thoughts. I have significant freedom in how I use my time. I have taken off on a four week Adventure West, where the skies are blue and the sun is out nearly everyday. I am looking forward to the next few days of relaxing, hiking and Letting Go / Let God. In a way I can’t believe that I am here, but I am. I can do anything I believe. My Thoughts Become Things. There are no boundaries or mistakes, only points on my life roadmap, and in those moments are the richest learning. I Seek Awareness and Consciousness in each moment.
As I wite and meditate this day, the rain softly falls, and I have a knowing, I have Everything I Need, and There is No Place I need to Be. Simple Life is a Happy Life, once I Let Go and Practice Surender
Whats Next
There is always a What’s Next, life is anything but static, which is many times the rub. Life Life’s and Things Change, Good and Bad, But what if we dropped the labels, No Good or Bad, No Better or Worse, No Right or Wrong, There just Is What It Is. And to be clear, I refer not to ethics, or wrongdoing, I refer the Wanting to Control, The Wanting Approval, and The Wanting Security. I say that to say, Do I miss my apartment in Downtown Royal Oak,? Yes. Do I miss the cash flow and excitement of building the Urbane Apartment Brand, Yes, my Ego does, but those things were no longer in the cards. Honesty lies in understanding our close and necessary relationship with not wanting to hear the truth. We tell ourselves Lies, and then Build Stories Around Our Illusion. Seeing What Is, Is Freedom
Therou said is best long long ago;
Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them.
So, On to What’s Next, I have a few irons on the fire,……….., but three specific projects that will unfold in 2022,……
- UrbaneFarm and BackAlley Eatzz
UrbaneFarm has emerged as a Purveyor of Hot Sauces, Fish Sauce, BBQ Sauce, Pasta Sauce, Spices, Seasoned Salts, Rubs Unique Art and CutFlowers. We have retail presence in my daughter’s store, TheDepot in Lakeview OH. As with all Start-Up Endeavors, things started slow, but with steady progress some cash flow is starting to trickle out of the pipeline. I loved our Hot Sauce Company, that I co founded StreetEatzz, with ChefTom, who held the magic recipes for 313 Foodie Sauce and Detroit Smoke Foodie Sauce. We also did Mico Co-Packing for other cottage food venders, and had a small commercial kitchen in downtown Hamtramck. I sold my interest when I went to AZ for a consulting assignment. So coming full circle back to curating Hot Sauce’s is a passion project
We purchased a Grill Trailer this winter, and are applying for our Food Cart Licenses with the State of OH and are Launching BackAlley Eatzz, We will be slinging Vienna Beef Chicago Dogs this summer in 2022. It seems like a fit to compliment the Sauce Business Endeavour.
We are also building a Community Garden in downtown Lakeview, a small resort town in midstate OH, where I grew up, to raise CutFlowers, and will sell them this coming summer. It has been a fun trek so far and I am looking forward to the 2022 Spring and Summer. It just feels right.
- A Retreat Development
I am not done developing real estate. I am taking a break, but working on a Retreat Development Concept, a Barndominium as the central theme structure, a Retreat with a Gong/Meditation Temple, With a Gathering Space, Common Kitchen and 3-5 Airbnb Rooms, tricked out with a small living space, bed and mini kitchen. The Airbnb Enterprise will fund the operation, along with Retreat Income. There will also be 3-4 private 400-600 S/F Cabins dispersed throughout the property for permanent residences. We will have On-site Gardens, A GreenHouse, Medicinal Herbs, Chickens and such for a Sustainable Lifestyle,…..
The Community Building, a Barndominium, could be a Pole Building finished out or a Quonset Hut. The Private Residences could be an Urbaneer ADU, or a Blox Container Home, or a Quonset Hut. I will develop this on my 3 acre parcel in Northern MI in 2023.
I feel like the timing is right, coupled with things i am reading, See below excerpt from Chip Conley, who is someone I have followed for year, since his hotel days, and now his newest endeavor, Modern Elder Academy;
A new idea has been bubbling up for me, catalyzed by a recent conversation with my mentee (and former boss), Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky. He says that in the past, three places dominated our lives and consciousness: home, work, and vacation spots. Today, more and more of us are looking for a singular place that can offer all three of these combined: a place to live, work, and discover.
Before the pandemic, very few companies provided the flexibility for their workers to work remotely. Now, 55% of businesses offer some form of remote working capacity, while 18% offer full-time remote roles. This trend isn’t going away as flexible work arrangements may now be vying with compensation as most important to a prospective employee.
While being a digital nomad may have sounded adventurous and exotic in the past, I think a growing number of remote workers are attracted to the simpler, slower lifestyle that comes with having your home, work, and vacation location combined. Let’s call it “digital slomadism.” an extension of the “slow movement” way of being.
One of our upcoming Mastery faculty members, Carl Honoré (a two-time TED speaker), wrote “In Praise of Slow” nearly twenty years ago and suggested,
“It is a cultural revolution against the notion that faster is always better. The Slow philosophy is not about doing everything at a snail’s pace. It’s about seeking to do everything at the right speed. Savoring the hours and minutes rather than just counting them. Doing everything as well as possible, instead of as fast as possible. It’s about quality over quantity in everything from work to food to parenting.”
- Second Act Entrepreneur Book Launch; Tuesday March 22, 2022
Would You be interested in being on my book launch team.
If so, here’s how it works… I will be doing a soft launch of the book, exclusively for my launch team members on Friday March 18th, 2022. I have set up 3 free download days for my launch team on Amazon Kindle. I will send you an email containing the direct link to the book page on Amazon on the first day of the soft launch. You’ll be able to receive the ebook via Kindle download, for free. If you don’t have the Kindle app installed, there’s an option to download that for free as well (you do not need to subscribe to the paid version). Your free download of the ebook will be emailed to you directly from Amazon. It’s important to download it during the 3-day soft launch period as it will no longer be free after that. The ebook download is critical because that’s what Amazon is going to rank and that’s how your review will be posted. The link I will send you is also where you will post a rating/review for the book (this is the most important part of the launch).
So, if you’re interested, here’s what I need from you:
1. Download the ebook (for free) between Friday 3/18/22 and Sunday 3/20/22.
2. Read it (it’s quite short and easy to read)!
3. Write a review and post it to the same Amazon link within a week. Even if you haven’t read the entire book by then, please review what you’ve read so far, or read at least a few chapters and post a review based on that. The more reviews I get in the first week, the higher my ranking and the more visibility I get on Amazon.
Eric is an Entrepreneur, a Real Estate Developer and an Apartment Operator. He is also a Writer/Published Author of SecondAct Entrepreneur, Eric has a deep love and passion for HotSauces, and CutFlowers. His UrbaneFarm, is a purveyor of HotSauces, Salsa’s BBQ Sauce, Rubs, Gourmet Salts, Spices, Chips and Jerky, available at TheDepot. CutFlowers are available in season. You can meet Eric most Firdays and Saturdays slinging Chicago Dogs at BackAlley Eatzz, a GrillTrailer located at TheDepot in Downtown Lakeview, OH. Stop in and say Hello!
