"Peace of mind produces right values, right values produce right thoughts. Right thoughts produce right actions and right actions produce work which will be a material reflection for others to see of the serenity at the center of it all.”
― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
The shortest answer to "what is element7" is that it refers to the spiritual perfection we seek to inject into our work. Last month I indulged a bit in explaining my love of Christ and Christian theology, and from here out we endeavor to give more/shorter/more enigmatic examples of the intersection of inspiration and manual labor. Hopefully it will be more fun to read and more inspiring.
Next week will feature a short story on simple, inspired geometric patterns that seem to work themselves out as (saw cut) patterns on floors curiously well.
Weekly musings re design, creating value, and living well.
Simple. Cool. Clean. Grey. Flooring.
1-unit loading grey - hardWear finish
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
wonderfully meaningless/the real reason why
Previously, I shared how my "wasted youth" of skateboarding taught me 3 great things. In this moment, I am thankful you are reading the quick 4 chapters that have lead me to the real plot of my story. I have not written this out of vanity: my intent is for you to find enough of yourself here to be pulled up by something immeasurably bigger than you or I.
After really realizing how deeply and delightfully pointlessness playing with a skateboard was, the 18 year old Cory was confronted with a Southern California economy that had almost no interest in my midwestern work ethic. After some 100 or so man hours earnestly spent seeking entry level employment, I was forced to either take a very corny straight-commission-sales job, seek a life of crime, or suffer malnourishment. So I learned to sell. This begat a love of hustling for money which soon proved as hollow as skateboarding (though I still appreciate the art of both).
From money, I went to seeking knowledge. Feeling like I missed the boat to college, I voraciously read independently to sate my curiosity and insecurity. Later, I enrolled in college and outworked anyone I met. This all seemed like progress: prosperity is generally regarded higher than skateboarding, and it's hard to argue chasing money over seeking knowledge.
Seeking knowledge alone makes one pretty douchey, though. Once you realize you are the "Cliff Clavin" of the room enough times, you start seeking other forms of growth. Then, you realize that the grow without contribution is pretty hollow, too.
The point of this little biography is that I found that with each deeper pursuit, I found wisdom from the previous, but fell more quickly into doubt that it would soon fall flat. Business is a better lifetime sport than skating, but it truly isn't much more meaningful. Knowledge is of greater value than money, but if it becomes your god you become increasingly austere, prideful, and un-fun to be around. Relationships suffer. Growing as much as you can to contribute as much as you can to humanity is clearly better than just making yourself into the ultimate game show contestant. It's easy to see in hindsight the progression and laughable to think it all started with skateboarding. However, the problem with this is you end up becoming your own God, and you are lead to choices where your values are in conflict with what you know at your core is really right. I came to one conclusion from two different fronts. Here I will describe the so-called left brain front, and maybe share the other later. It's hard to write about the flavor of carrots, though.
The Math department at UNLV was rich in students of a type of discreet mathematics called game theory. As I began to understand the work of John von Neumann, Oskar Morgenstern, and the work of Kurt Goedel that made that possible, I began to understand the nature of this world more deeply than I could easily describe today. I also began to realize the mathematical necessity of an element of the this big, crazy system of decision makers (humanity) that is both entirely of this system and outside of this system.
This gets pretty deep, but the fact is there really seems to be a vast intelligence behind the good of this world. There is something twisting and perverting those good things into bad things, and there is something inside us that knows it. Deep down, when we are really honest, we know and confess that is just not enough within us to right it all. If we seek Truth long enough, we come to an uncomfortable truth. Mathematically it is alluded to in Goedel's incompleteness theorem (summarized as the fact that any system, at least as sophisticated as arithmetic, must have exactly one axiomatic element that is at once of the system and outside of the system, on which the entire system is based). Anthropologically it is found in the curious existence of an internal rulebook that varies surprisingly little among very disparate people groups. Sociologically and economically it works itself out in this balance all leaders face between the potential greatness of the individual and their curious inclination towards depravity.
From money, I went to seeking knowledge. Feeling like I missed the boat to college, I voraciously read independently to sate my curiosity and insecurity. Later, I enrolled in college and outworked anyone I met. This all seemed like progress: prosperity is generally regarded higher than skateboarding, and it's hard to argue chasing money over seeking knowledge.
Seeking knowledge alone makes one pretty douchey, though. Once you realize you are the "Cliff Clavin" of the room enough times, you start seeking other forms of growth. Then, you realize that the grow without contribution is pretty hollow, too.
The point of this little biography is that I found that with each deeper pursuit, I found wisdom from the previous, but fell more quickly into doubt that it would soon fall flat. Business is a better lifetime sport than skating, but it truly isn't much more meaningful. Knowledge is of greater value than money, but if it becomes your god you become increasingly austere, prideful, and un-fun to be around. Relationships suffer. Growing as much as you can to contribute as much as you can to humanity is clearly better than just making yourself into the ultimate game show contestant. It's easy to see in hindsight the progression and laughable to think it all started with skateboarding. However, the problem with this is you end up becoming your own God, and you are lead to choices where your values are in conflict with what you know at your core is really right. I came to one conclusion from two different fronts. Here I will describe the so-called left brain front, and maybe share the other later. It's hard to write about the flavor of carrots, though.
The Math department at UNLV was rich in students of a type of discreet mathematics called game theory. As I began to understand the work of John von Neumann, Oskar Morgenstern, and the work of Kurt Goedel that made that possible, I began to understand the nature of this world more deeply than I could easily describe today. I also began to realize the mathematical necessity of an element of the this big, crazy system of decision makers (humanity) that is both entirely of this system and outside of this system.
This gets pretty deep, but the fact is there really seems to be a vast intelligence behind the good of this world. There is something twisting and perverting those good things into bad things, and there is something inside us that knows it. Deep down, when we are really honest, we know and confess that is just not enough within us to right it all. If we seek Truth long enough, we come to an uncomfortable truth. Mathematically it is alluded to in Goedel's incompleteness theorem (summarized as the fact that any system, at least as sophisticated as arithmetic, must have exactly one axiomatic element that is at once of the system and outside of the system, on which the entire system is based). Anthropologically it is found in the curious existence of an internal rulebook that varies surprisingly little among very disparate people groups. Sociologically and economically it works itself out in this balance all leaders face between the potential greatness of the individual and their curious inclination towards depravity.
Any idea what I am alluding to?
I fear that flag waving attracts enemy attacks, and the most precious allied princes and princesses may find themselves in the fray without training. So I invite the spiritually inclined (anywhere on the confused/weak to certain/strong spectrum) into discussion. I'm just a man, but in Christ I have found some irrefutable answers. I realize this is a long and heady post, and I applaud and thank you for your time and attention. I sincerely appreciate you.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
What skateboarding taught me about life, love, art, and business.
As an awkward 12 year old, I was too nearsighted to play baseball or hockey well, to prideful and vain to wear the glasses that my parents weren't too cheap to buy (this did not include the cool ones), and I had no neighborhood kids to play with. What I did have was a lot of energy and long concrete driveway. So I started skateboarding. A lot.
When I started to commit myself to learning tricks, I unknowingly enrolled in an amazing school. I deeply learned 3 great lessons. I will explain those here, and later I will share how this understanding lead back to a life of meaning and excitement after confronting the fact that it is all a game, and much of it might not matter.
First off, 80% of landing anything is your mental image of making it, and the state you put yourself in. Most skaters are surprisingly affected by the video parts they watch before they go skate, the shoes and clothes they are wearing, and all of them visualize tricks often and intensely. Big handrails, drops, and anything worth filming requires that you banish all images of failure from your mind and really use rituals to put yourself into state. Watch someone filming for a deadline, and you may witness some real craziness, as we all come to realize the gravity of the mental and the paradoxes of trying to maintain a mindset on your own steam.
The second great lesson of the skate spot is that you can only learn one thing at a time. I have learned, forgotten, and re-learned dozens, maybe hundreds of tricks, and I have never learned two simultaneously. Moreover, the best riders are always doggedly persistent in there learning of new things. Some are clever enough to do this subtly while others struggle so hard it becomes a bit of a spectacle. All athletes learn the value of persistence, but what is cool about skateboarding is there is usually no coach to push you and most skate almost solely to learn new tricks or apply them to new things. You have to learn how to keep yourself to a difficult task for no good reason other than to get it. I think artists, surfers, and musicians probably get this similarly, and the derivative sports get it too.
Lastly, there is the realization at some point that many fun things are a bit of a gamble, and often we need to block out the reality of the loss to enjoy it. When skating a handrail for instance, sacking ones testicles on the railing is much more bad than landing the trick is good. But if we were perfectly rational and never took risks, it would be no fun. Life is similar. Loving someone truly is a great risk. Going into business is a great risk. Building wealth in a litigious and envious culture is a great risk, and I didn't know what real fear was until I had a beautiful son and daughter to protect and provide for. All of this holds the potential for a hard fall, yet I still feel like the luckiest guy on the planet to be out there in it.
So get your head straight, get stoked, focus, persist, and try something big. Thank you for reading. Next time I will share how I found a endless spring of reasons to use these lessons learned.
When I started to commit myself to learning tricks, I unknowingly enrolled in an amazing school. I deeply learned 3 great lessons. I will explain those here, and later I will share how this understanding lead back to a life of meaning and excitement after confronting the fact that it is all a game, and much of it might not matter.
First off, 80% of landing anything is your mental image of making it, and the state you put yourself in. Most skaters are surprisingly affected by the video parts they watch before they go skate, the shoes and clothes they are wearing, and all of them visualize tricks often and intensely. Big handrails, drops, and anything worth filming requires that you banish all images of failure from your mind and really use rituals to put yourself into state. Watch someone filming for a deadline, and you may witness some real craziness, as we all come to realize the gravity of the mental and the paradoxes of trying to maintain a mindset on your own steam.
The second great lesson of the skate spot is that you can only learn one thing at a time. I have learned, forgotten, and re-learned dozens, maybe hundreds of tricks, and I have never learned two simultaneously. Moreover, the best riders are always doggedly persistent in there learning of new things. Some are clever enough to do this subtly while others struggle so hard it becomes a bit of a spectacle. All athletes learn the value of persistence, but what is cool about skateboarding is there is usually no coach to push you and most skate almost solely to learn new tricks or apply them to new things. You have to learn how to keep yourself to a difficult task for no good reason other than to get it. I think artists, surfers, and musicians probably get this similarly, and the derivative sports get it too.
Lastly, there is the realization at some point that many fun things are a bit of a gamble, and often we need to block out the reality of the loss to enjoy it. When skating a handrail for instance, sacking ones testicles on the railing is much more bad than landing the trick is good. But if we were perfectly rational and never took risks, it would be no fun. Life is similar. Loving someone truly is a great risk. Going into business is a great risk. Building wealth in a litigious and envious culture is a great risk, and I didn't know what real fear was until I had a beautiful son and daughter to protect and provide for. All of this holds the potential for a hard fall, yet I still feel like the luckiest guy on the planet to be out there in it.
So get your head straight, get stoked, focus, persist, and try something big. Thank you for reading. Next time I will share how I found a endless spring of reasons to use these lessons learned.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Abundant everything.
In my junior year of high school my economics teacher introduced me to the "first law of economics": scarcity. Supposedly, there are unlimited desires and limited resources, so we all need to fight over the size of the slice of our pie. Three years later I learned that it was complete BS. In fact, I think scarcity may be one of the most pernicious lines of crap I've been fed. In fact, when I ponder some of the biggest, fastest growing, most dynamic, companies in the US, they all dominate industries that didn't really exist 20 years ago. It's a bit boggling when you step back, but
What does this have to do with concrete, craftwork, or small business? Well, I found out recently that this also applies a little to the personal wattage we have to do our daily things. I was honored recently to speak at the Concrete Decor Show, and I really wanted to bring some substance to the talk. I had attended so many classes where it seemed like the presenter was just filling time with rhetoric and didn't have many real points to make. I so did not want to be that guy. So instead, I made the densest 80-some slide presentation I could, and ran through it in a little over an hour (rather than the 2 expected). I was excited, not well paced, and I'm pretty sure I totally overwhelmed at least a third of the room. I really hope I'm just being hard on myself and that at least a handful of people got real value out of it, but what I re-learned is that all we ever have is this moment. Therefore, there is no limit to how many things we can do really well if we stay there.
When I was delivering my ideas, I thought that it would be a process over time, and I was gearing it to what their next step would be with the worksheets and programs I had written for estimating jobs and doing inventory within a decorative concrete company. I felt like there wasn't enough time to get it all in. I re-learned that this moment right now, we can either be fully engaged and performing, or out of phase; that whenever we are in future time or the past we burn much more energy than when we are in flow. Lastly, I discovered that there is an endless supply of creative energy to tap into, and that excellence in one area (fitness, understanding Scripture, business performance, loving truly, creating great art, what-have-you) often pours over into all other areas. Conversely, "not sweating the small stuff" is only a good transitional strategy out of neurosis. There is no small stuff. There is no big stuff. There is just stuff. And we can make a lot of it great or we can make it lame. It's all in this moment.
- social media
- smartphones
- tablets computing
- online retailing
- search engines
What does this have to do with concrete, craftwork, or small business? Well, I found out recently that this also applies a little to the personal wattage we have to do our daily things. I was honored recently to speak at the Concrete Decor Show, and I really wanted to bring some substance to the talk. I had attended so many classes where it seemed like the presenter was just filling time with rhetoric and didn't have many real points to make. I so did not want to be that guy. So instead, I made the densest 80-some slide presentation I could, and ran through it in a little over an hour (rather than the 2 expected). I was excited, not well paced, and I'm pretty sure I totally overwhelmed at least a third of the room. I really hope I'm just being hard on myself and that at least a handful of people got real value out of it, but what I re-learned is that all we ever have is this moment. Therefore, there is no limit to how many things we can do really well if we stay there.
When I was delivering my ideas, I thought that it would be a process over time, and I was gearing it to what their next step would be with the worksheets and programs I had written for estimating jobs and doing inventory within a decorative concrete company. I felt like there wasn't enough time to get it all in. I re-learned that this moment right now, we can either be fully engaged and performing, or out of phase; that whenever we are in future time or the past we burn much more energy than when we are in flow. Lastly, I discovered that there is an endless supply of creative energy to tap into, and that excellence in one area (fitness, understanding Scripture, business performance, loving truly, creating great art, what-have-you) often pours over into all other areas. Conversely, "not sweating the small stuff" is only a good transitional strategy out of neurosis. There is no small stuff. There is no big stuff. There is just stuff. And we can make a lot of it great or we can make it lame. It's all in this moment.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
The paradox of work for work's sake.
Aldous Huxley once wrote "They intoxicate themselves with work so they won't' see how they really are." That stung me when I first read it years ago, but tonight burying myself in work sounds pretty good.
Life can get overwhelming, and stay overwhelming long enough to need a rest; time to step back and recover so one can look at what's vexing them with fresh eyes. Some of the problems we create for ourselves are just too big to solve in one sitting. What better to bury yourself in that work? The side effects include respect, money, opportunity for others, a good-night's sleep...There are definitely worse things to intoxicate oneself with!
I guess the difference between the healthy imbibing of over-working and "workaholism" (not a fan of the term but it fits here) is knowing what you are about and why you are doing it. Blindly driving yourself into oblivion is what it is regardless of the vehicle you choose (nightlife, work, alcohol, thrill-seeking, obsessive parenting, cause-following, etc.). It is categorically bad. However, there is a proper time to over-do. I decided that my life was about growth, contribution, and fun (in that order) years ago, and after emotionally exhausting myself today, ceasing the dialogue in my mind and getting busy making cool stuff sounds fantastic.
It may have been Churchill who first said "There are two kinds of drinking problems: those that drink too much, and those who do not drink enough". While that is more of a dubious affirmation for imbibers than a real revelation of truth, it would be hard to argue against that statement if one replaced "drinking" with "over-working". Stay balanced, my friends.
Life can get overwhelming, and stay overwhelming long enough to need a rest; time to step back and recover so one can look at what's vexing them with fresh eyes. Some of the problems we create for ourselves are just too big to solve in one sitting. What better to bury yourself in that work? The side effects include respect, money, opportunity for others, a good-night's sleep...There are definitely worse things to intoxicate oneself with!
I guess the difference between the healthy imbibing of over-working and "workaholism" (not a fan of the term but it fits here) is knowing what you are about and why you are doing it. Blindly driving yourself into oblivion is what it is regardless of the vehicle you choose (nightlife, work, alcohol, thrill-seeking, obsessive parenting, cause-following, etc.). It is categorically bad. However, there is a proper time to over-do. I decided that my life was about growth, contribution, and fun (in that order) years ago, and after emotionally exhausting myself today, ceasing the dialogue in my mind and getting busy making cool stuff sounds fantastic.
It may have been Churchill who first said "There are two kinds of drinking problems: those that drink too much, and those who do not drink enough". While that is more of a dubious affirmation for imbibers than a real revelation of truth, it would be hard to argue against that statement if one replaced "drinking" with "over-working". Stay balanced, my friends.
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Over-build it.
An old carpenter in Llano, Texas once told me "You'll never know if you build it too strong." I couldn't agree more.
We all know that not everything has to wear out or go out of style in 5 years. I mean, is there anyone who hasn't see a cool old car? Better yet, ever seen a 200 year old building that looks great? Having seen that, why do we settle for cheap, temporary or trendy?
Yesterday, an architect in Georgetown, TX referred a friend to me who called because he had just bought a house that had some real funky carpeting that had to come out. He figured staining the concrete would be cheaper than anything else and was trying to find someone to do cheaply. I could totally relate. In fact as I write this, I am wearing a shirt I found at a thrift store for $1 and shoes I found online for $11. I consider coming up with efficient ways to deliver things to market on the border of spiritual work. However, I just couldn't roll with his idea of cleaning it up a bit and throwing some translucent paint product over the slab.
The difference is the end-game. If I engineer a way to stain, chemically harden, seal and diamond polish a floor for $4/sf (We used to have to charge twice this amount, as polishing can be slow and diamond tooling can be expensive), everyone wins. If someone sells or installs a "concrete stain" that is actually a semi-transparent paint that eventually will flake off at any price, everybody loses. The difference is that decades later the element7concrete floor is either still looking good or easy to snap back into shape while the painted floor will likely need to be re-done after a couple of years. Unless the owner waxes their floor regularly, lives in their socks, and is very lucky, a painted floor will chip and scratch in some spots and be very hard to make new again. Conversely, an element7concrete floor will not wear out nor go out of style.
Now I'm a little concerned that this sounds like a sales pitch. I am clearly partial, but it's more an effect of the principles that drive us in business rather than an attempt to use this as a platform to sell more floors. I assume that you are more interested in ideas than building a home or having your floors re-done. This mindset has driven my consumption just as it has driven our work. Our family car is a VW because the old ones still look cool to me. I have worn the same Levi's (505's bought raw) for 15 years. I like Apple computers because though the styles have changed, I could see myself happily cranking away on my MacBook 10 years from now.
So, for goodness sake, when you make something, make it as long lasting as you can. When you buy something, buy something as long lasting as you can. Thank you for reading.
Friday, November 18, 2011
Why it's worth doing.
There are two things that really drive us at element7concrete. What drives my work for my team is the ethos of rebuilding the artisan class of America. What drives our artisans' work for our customers (and what we will discuss here now) is making floors that will still be in use and looking good when we all have grandchildren.
This was punctuated for me recently when I read that last year alone, over 4.6 billion pounds of carpeting wound up in landfills. That is not sustainable. And by that I don't mean "That doesn't jibe with our idea of sustainable construction". I mean that is clearly not a pattern we can afford to sustain.
This past week, we tore out carpet and polished and stained a floor in our local fire department's training room. The waste of the tear out was substantial, but as I reflect on the job now, I thank goodness the cycle was broken.
Concrete flooring is still a bit of a niche product. This project was won because the fire chief had stained concrete floors in his last two homes and knew first hand how clean it is, how easy it is to take care of, and how the imperfections and nuances become the best parts over time. Because of him being savvy, our town will not have to replace that floor again: not when my kids are paying taxes, maybe not when my grandkids are paying taxes. I think that is pretty cool.
This was punctuated for me recently when I read that last year alone, over 4.6 billion pounds of carpeting wound up in landfills. That is not sustainable. And by that I don't mean "That doesn't jibe with our idea of sustainable construction". I mean that is clearly not a pattern we can afford to sustain.
This past week, we tore out carpet and polished and stained a floor in our local fire department's training room. The waste of the tear out was substantial, but as I reflect on the job now, I thank goodness the cycle was broken.
Concrete flooring is still a bit of a niche product. This project was won because the fire chief had stained concrete floors in his last two homes and knew first hand how clean it is, how easy it is to take care of, and how the imperfections and nuances become the best parts over time. Because of him being savvy, our town will not have to replace that floor again: not when my kids are paying taxes, maybe not when my grandkids are paying taxes. I think that is pretty cool.
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