SEEDS OF WISDOM

Short takes * from

What I have learned in all these years is that the only way for us to grow as a business is as people working together, such as networking, and making connections. When I started my business, my mindset was that I had to be the cheapest guy to get work. Right? It doesn’t mean I was a bad businessman or anything like that. I just didn’t know any better. But there’s still a lot of people out there that don’t know any better. So that’s why I don’t like to say anything bad or negative about somebody, such as ‘They’re not charging enough’ or ‘They’re being cheap,’ and things like that. Because sometimes we don’t know any better. Because I was there. I was that guy.

Crux Lon

CruxLon Hardscape University www.cruxlon.com

I was working on a meadow in my own yard, which was very difficult. It was on a hillside and the mugwort and seeds were washing down the hill. I came across a product in the UK and they were calling it ‘wildflower turf.’ I searched some more and it looked like a readily-available product. So of course I searched here in the U.S. When I couldn’t find it, I reached out to the company and said, ‘Do you have any U.S. suppliers?’ And they said, ‘No, not yet.’ So that’s really where the idea was born. I realized this is a space that nobody has really innovated in yet. This UK company had spent 20 years growing wildflower turf and really had a very rigorous sort of science- backed approach that I really liked. And so I reached out to them and we began a conversation and here we are a few years later.

—Claire Chambers Meadow Lab www.meadowlab.com

The discipline and focus you put into something creates a compounding effect where everything starts to show. The more you can delay gratification, the more you can delay earnings, delay pulling from the business, stay focused on what you’re doing, and continue to build and build and build, it’ll just continue to compound. I think you can find opportunity anywhere and everywhere. It’s just about putting yourself in the right position. And by doing that, we need to be in the right mindset. If we’re focused on bettering ourselves, we’re in the gym, we’re eating healthy, we’re in the positive mind state, then we’re not going to miss opportunities. If you’re not eating healthy, not taking care of yourself, or just complaining like ‘I hate my job,’ you’re going to miss every opportunity there is. Now, life is for the taking. You can have whatever you want, but you’ve got to put yourself in the right position.

—Derek Clelan

Your Haven Design

www.yourhavendesign.com

*Edited for clarity