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Within vocation, I know work to be, Work = Love. Discovering work in the landscape is pure washing-of-the-servants-feet. A privilege. Finally, 5 years ago, having chickens for the first time. Guess what chickens taught me about gardening? Not something to be told, instead, experienced, gaining full depth of this particular lesson, perhaps the most important lesson, beyond Work = Love. Do you already know what chickens taught me about gardening?
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Stewardship.
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This epiphany in breadth/depth/width/height beyond measure. Once arrived, stewardship in the landscape metaphor, gave way to the doors opening to all parts of my life. I am here for stewardship. We all are. Fun to put it out there, remembering well, many decades of others putting their 'idea' out there, knowing they were crazy. Ok, I'm crazy for this, guilty as charged, proud of it.
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Here's the thing, have found my tribe at this layer. More, get to see stewardship and work = love, in action, in others. Humbling, and educational.
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In the realm of gardening, Garden Design, my mission, for decades, create, promote, educate. Create a beautiful garden, promote the right plant in the right spot, and educate about plants-maintenance-design.
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"Never, ever, think about something else when you should be thinking about the power of incentives." Charlie Munger.
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Bigger picture, in the landscape, macro/micro, how to get a neighborhood to realize improving their landscapes improves property values for all, decreases HVAC expense for all? Money, as incentive.
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Certainly, money, is an incentive. What are the myriad incentives to garden, landscape, garden design, for the majority of people? How to get, in the garden realm, from work equals dreadful to Work = Love ?
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"I think I've been the top 5% of my age cohort all my life in understanding the power of incentives, and all my life I've underestimated it. And never a year passes but I get some surprise that pushes my limit a little farther." Charlie Munger.
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"A lot of success....in business comes from knowing what you really want to avoid." Charlie Munger.
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Humorously, at the front end of gardening, moth to a flame, every garden cliche to avoid, that-be-me. How was I to know, gardening/landscaping/garden-design is counterintuitive? There was no resource listing what to avoid in landscaping, gardening, Garden Design. Now, that-be-me. More than a 180 about what it takes to have a beautiful garden, the collateral narrative of a life, 180 too. Did not see that coming.
Pic, above, here.
Pic, above, here.
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Centuries of wisdom, above. Garden Design course in a single picture. At the front end of Garden Design, I did not see, aka understand, all this garden wields, nor did I like this type of Garden Design. Remember, well, that girl.
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Now? I can teach a 3 day class on this Garden Design, above. And have. Teaching at the Atlanta Botanical garden. Check, for 2 decades. Teaching at the local college, check, and award winning there, too. Remember, where I began, not liking the garden, above. Get the memo, it's a life memo too, Work = Love, and stewardship, and etc.......
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Better than a life memo, a G*d wink.
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Garden & Be Well, XO T
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More Charlie Munger, below.
"Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up.
In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn’t read all the time — none, zero.
Choose clients as you would friends.
The best armour of 0ld age is a well-spent life preceding it.
When you borrow a man’s car, always return it with a tank of gas.
If only I had the influence with my wife and children that I have in some other quarters!
Take a simple idea and take it seriously.
In business we often find that the winning system goes almost ridiculously far in maximizing and or minimizing one or a few variables — like the discount warehouses of Costco.
Don’t do cocaine. Don’t race trains. And avoid AIDS situations.
We look for a horse with one chance in two of winning and which pays you three to one.
You’re looking for a mispriced gamble. That’s what investing is. And you have to know enough to know whether the gamble is mispriced. That’s value investing.
It takes character to sit there with all that cash and do nothing. I didn’t get to where I am by going after mediocre opportunities.
A great business at a fair price is superior to a fair business at a great price.
All intelligent investing is value investing — acquiring more than you are paying for.
You must value the business in order to value you the stock.
No wise pilot, no matter how great his talent and experience, fails to use his checklist.
There are worse situations than drowning in cash and sitting, sitting, sitting. I remember when I wasn’t awash in cash — and I don’t want to go back.
…it never ceases to amaze me to see how much territory can be grasped if one merely masters and consistently uses all the obvious and easily learned principles.
Once you get into debt, it’s hell to get out. Don’t let credit card debt carry over. You can’t get ahead paying eighteen percent.
If you always tell people why, they’ll understand it better, they’ll consider it more important, and they’ll be more likely to comply.
Spend less than you make; always be saving something. Put it into a tax-deferred account. Over time, it will begin to amount to something. This is such a no-brainer.
You don’t have to be brilliant, only a little bit wiser than the other guys, on average, for a long, long time.
Three rules for a career: 1) Don’t sell anything you wouldn’t buy yourself; 2) Don’t work for anyone you don’t respect and admire; and 3) Work only with people you enjoy.
I won’t bet $100 against house odds between now and the grave.
I try to get rid of people who always confidently answer questions about which they don’t have any real knowledge.
…being an effective teacher is a high calling.
I believe in the discipline of mastering the best that other people have ever figured out. I don’t believe in just sitting down and trying to dream it all up yourself. Nobody’s that smart…
Without numerical fluency, in the part of life most of us inhibit, you are like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest.
In my life there are not that many questions I can’t properly deal with using my $40 adding machine and dog-eared compound interest table."
I was talking to a friend on the phone earlier today, and the subject of garden work came up. He and I both spend a lot of time in our gardens ... work to some, but we don't think of it that way.
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