It's 9AM
Someone said it’s like surfing.
That opportunities come in sets, and you have to ride one, then paddle back out to catch the next.
Not all sets are good.
Some are small.
Some are taken by other surfers.
Better surfers.
But…
If you learn how to read the patterns of the water and set yourself up just right in the right spot,
When the next right one comes along, you ride it like a pro.
It might make a good dating philosophy.
Riding the next right one.
Except I don’t date anymore.
I still hunt for good waves though.
Opportunity waves.
Like Pine Bluff.
Like Wooster.
Like Cooking channels.
All waves I watched slip by, while my mind reeled with the idea that this was a great opportunity.
In Pine Bluff, a decade ago I almost bought a lot of land.
It was an opportunity, but I was reluctant.
My gut screamed at me to do it, while my mind started listing all the reasons why it would never work.
Fastest shrinking town in America.
Number one in property crime.
Number one in violent crime.
Most dangerous city in America, top five, ten years running.
Businesses leaving.
City Council corruption.
Flooding and infrastructure failures.
Buildings falling across Main Street downtown and staying there for over two years.
My gut told me to do it, that it would be hard and long and tough, much like many of my dates, but that it would be worth it.
But I didn’t pull the trigger on that set.
And watched as a few things got turned around.
Namely, the housing market shifted and property value went up everywhere.
Now my gut is telling me to do something there again.
That the circumstances for a good set of waves are aligning.
I’m better prepared for it this go round
But my head and the advice of others is saying no
With a long list of reasons why.
The advice of others cost me a million dollars in Wooster.
It’s a tiny little town just north of Conway AR.
In 2004, I wanted to buy twenty acres and a trailer in Wooster.
It was very country, and like a lot of guys in their thirties going through big life changes, I wanted to get away from it all.
To regroup.
My plan, back then, was buy and live in the trailer.
Buy and rent four more trailers over the course of a couple of years.
Parcel off a couple of acres into homesteads and build a house to live in, then a house to sell.
Or a house to sell, then another until finally building the dream house.
My wife at the time told me no.
She didn’t want to live in Wooster, twenty miles from nowhere.
She didn’t want her kids raised in the country.
Her family pulled me aside and cajoled and argued and nagged.
Her friends at cook outs and gatherings told me no one was moving to Wooster, that it was a dumb and stupid idea.
So we bought a house in Little Rock instead.
No land.
And watched the value stagnate til 2008, thank you housing crisis, when we sold at a loss and moved to Florida.
At least I got a tax write off.
Except…
Conway grew in the direction of Wooster, and the guy who bought the land put in a trailer park for ten years, until he started building houses on it and developed a brand new subdivision in the spot.
Which he was able to finance with royalties from a natural gas pipeline they put in across Central AR and he still gets payments from today.
I did a little private cussing at that missed wave.
But…
That’s okay, because I missed the cooking show idea at that time too.
Making shows about cooking, posting them on Youtube, and growing the audience over time.
Earning ad revenue, and maybe developing a following.
Or really, just showcasing how much I like to cook and how much fun I have in the kitchen.
A simple idea that took just a camera and some lights, a laptop and a little time.
All elements anyone has.
And Youtube exploded over the past decade.
Which reminds me of a few more waves that are coming up.
Or still happening.
Which makes the advice about surfing all the more poignant today.
Because I did catch some good sets.
I started publishing books in 2015, catching the indie author movement as it grew.
I started adding audiobooks to Youtube a couple of years ago, and that wave is about to swell.
I started writing down all ideas, at least ten a day, to keep my mind in the practice of noticing opportunity.
Like the land we saw for sale by owner off a gravel road when we went to a cook out in Damascus AR with some baseball friends yesterday.
Ten acres of cleared pasture with a beautiful hill and clear views to the east and west.
Perfect for a couple of A frame cabins or tiny log cabins with big private decks and tiny private pools.
VRBO or AirBNB staycation spots for people looking for peace.
Or the book and plot ideas I spent all weekend working on.
Or the new channel I’m planning on Youtube that only needs me to launch it.
It makes me think the most important skill to develop is learning how to wait.
Learning patience and reading the water.
Being ready to hang ten when that next wave of whatever you want to do is starting.
I just hope I am.
Get After It.
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Did you read this far?
Then here’s a treat: what do you think of NEXT – a post apocalyptic thriller?
The sun barely crested the horizon, painting the sky in shades of crimson and gold, a stark contrast to the dark reality that lay below.
Broken buildings, twisted metal, and the decaying remnants of human civilization sprawled across the landscape.
Once vibrant streets now echoed with the haunting groans of the undead.
Jack Talbot stood at the edge of a ruined overpass, his eyes scanning the wasteland for any signs of movement.
Someone had been chasing him all night.
He just didn’t know who.
Or what.
It wasn’t the first time.
No one lived six months in the afterlife without learning a few tricks.
The afterlife.
That’s what he called it, and the monsters that roamed the afterlife, he called Z.
Z for Zombies.
Six months ago, they were fiction.
A half a year ago, no one suspected that whatever came out of Wuhan would turn humans into the risen dead.
At first, it felt like a joke.
A few billion dead later, and no one was laughing.
The leaders left tried to shut down the world, locking everyone in place.
But no one was prepared.
Sure, there were survivalist types who had built bunkers and stocked food and kept rifles to keep it all safe.
They were few.
They were far between.
And they were ruthless.
Food ran out for everyone else first.
People were used to running to the grocery store each week and letting the clerk load up groceries in the back of their SUV’s.
When the President came on television and told everyone to stay home, and stay quiet, of course they didn’t listen.
There was a run on stores, just as there was before any hurricane or natural disaster.
People horded.
People fought.
It was a nightmare, and people died.
Or tried to.
Because when those people got hit in the head or shot or had heart attacks, they came back.
Not back to life, but something different.
Something worse.
He caught sight of movement out of the corner of his eye again.
A shadow, moving with stealth through the abandoned cars and debris that littered the roadway.
The afterlife was messy.
Z weren’t stealthy.
They were relentless and tenacious, and lucky enough, easy to distract.
Which meant the person following him wasn’t infected.
“Human,” he thought and wished he had a bullet for the rifle he carried.
Just as fast, he pushed the thought away.
Six months ago, he wouldn’t have considered killing the man.
Even now, as he chided himself, he wished his first thought had been to run.
Hide.
Wait.
He shook his head.
He’d seen too much.
People that were now things eating people.
Watching people die.
Watching survivors kill each other to stay alive.
Watching as the world burned and crashed and suffered until finally, five months ago, the TV’s stopped broadcasting just before the power went out.
His children were out there, somewhere, in this nightmare.
He had to find them.
And this guy chasing him, stalking him, hunting him was trying to get in the way of that.
No wonder he wanted to kill him.
I’ll have this ready for you in a couple of days.
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