I am writing a case study stories for subscribers to the email (so sign up!!) but suffice to say it was a HUGE adventure. Here are some of things I learnt from some of the most amusing situations (I wrote this as 10 things, but the post was too big, so part too is up tommorrow):
1. At 28 nothing is impossible.
In my early career I had worried about my age being a barrier. As soon as got over that I felt nothing was beyond me. An old friend call me up and persuaded me to visit the island of St Vincent in the Caribbean. When we got there he said ‘let’s get a hotel’. Amused I went with it. We had a look at a few places and finally found Mariners. It was a half finished building site and everybody said we would never get it finished… I was 28… nothing was impossible…
2. Be wary of a vested interest asking your opinion
I was doing something in one of the rooms of the hotel one day when my business partner walked in. “I was thinking about what we are going to do with the swimming pool” he said. “I thought we were going to leave that until next season?” I replied. “Yeah…er .. that’s right. But just so we know, why don’t we mark out the shape of the pool to see what it will look like?” He said.
Believing this to be a huge waste of time, but to placate him, I agreed and we marked out the pool. “OK” he said, putting both thumbs in the air. “OK” I said doing the same thing and wondering if my business partner had been smoking the local ‘herb’. With that I went back to what I was doing in another part of the hotel.
About an hour later I was wandering back to the front of the hotel and heard a huge mechanical noise. I ran to find a JCB digging a hole in the freshly laid grass of the hotel lawn, my partner looking on. Inappropriately dressed for such construction work (he was in a pair of Speedos – nothing else), he was directing the digger.
“Whoah.. whaoh!” I shouted at the digger guy, frantically waving my hands. The digger stopped I walked over to my business partner and the conversation went something like this:
“*&^^%$$£^&*X do you think you are doing?”
“Building a pool”
“I can see that, we agreed to do this next year”
“Yeah but when we were just pacing out the pool, you gave me the thumbs up”
“I was being sarcastic”
“I thought you were being serious”
“I thought you were on drugs”
“We have a hole now”
“I see that”
“We might as well finish it.. eh?”
I put my thumbs up in the most sarcastic manner I could and stayed to watch the carnage. It did result in the lovely pool above (although it is raised because my genius partner forgot about the water table!).
I learnt that in future my focus should be on the moment and when someone asks my opinion about something they clearly want me to say yes to, I should pay just a little more attention to the situation.
3. One man’s waste is another mans gold
One day while mixing some concrete for some part of the hotel, one of the workers came to me and said ‘the mixer is broken and we can’t get another on until tomorrow. We need some buckets to mix the concrete’. Being a Yorkshire man I did not want to spend any money so said “Listen, we have been painting this hotel for months, where are all the two gallon plastic drums, use them”.
A little shuffling went on. The guys looked at each other and then at me and then at each other. “What is going on?” I said.
“Er.. well Chief, we thought they were rubbish and you wanted them throwing away”.
“I know and you know that is not what I said. Where are they?”
The story then came out that my enterprising builders had taken all of the empty two gallon containers and set up a stall in the markets. We all got into the Land Rover and headed into town. There, smiling away and doing a roaring trade was one of the workers selling everything from empty two gallon paint containers to stacks of broken tiles, off cuts of wood and other ‘rubbish’ from the hotel.
Instead of being angry (although I feigned it for managerial sake) I took enough of the containers from the stand for our job and left them too it. I couldn’t really be too annoyed, we were throwing away most of the stuff. It never occurred to me that others would have use for it and I was hugely impressed with the entrepreneurial spirit…..
4. Belief is an amazing thing
One day, a year after the hotel was finished, we had a hurricane warning that was pretty serious. I was getting updates from the coastguard every 30 minutes to see what was going on. The coastguard said that the Hurricane was going to hit at 1.30pm, it was now 11am. Because we were on the seafront, I informed the staff that if nothing had change by Midday they were to board up the hotel and take the guests to another hotel higher up where we would all sit it out.
At 11.30, I wandered over to the jetty to have a think. Sat at the end was a Rastafarian, in all his glory staring at me with a puzzled look. ‘Hi Man’ I said, exchanging the traditional greeting of a fist bump. “Hi” he said back “What you all fussin ’bout at Mariners?” he asked, nodding at the hotel. “There is a hurricane coming, you should get cover”. I said.
“No man. There will be no hurricane. Ja say no Hurricane today, it will pass by…no problem.” Said the Rasta. At that point he took his shirt off and dived into the water and went swimming towards a small fishing boat. I dismissed it and at 11.50 went to get my final report from the coastguard.
The hurricane was not going to hit, it had headed North, we would get some light winds on the tail end. That afternoon the Rasta was walking down the jetty again. “Hey man” I said “You were right”. He turned to me and said “Sometime you white folk just got to chill and
believe”….
Sage advice…
5. The simplest things can make a huge difference
Some of the locals, especially the younger ones, spend time hopping from one Grenadine island to the next looking for work. One such guy was called ‘Precious’. He was a talented wood carver, told enchanting stories and played a mean Bob Marley whenever he could get his hands on guitar.
He didn’t have a home but ‘lived under the stars’ as he put it. I had gone back to England for a while and on my return I bought some gifts for the staff and a few local friends. I was in a shop when I saw a tent, and thought of Precious. It was nothing expensive just a small tent, so I bought it.
When I got back to the island I put the word around that I would like to see Precious and he duly appeared a couple of days later. I gave him his present and he looked at me with honest appreciation and said “Thank you very much Chief (the staff affectionately named me this, and it caught on), this is fantastic” he said holding and prodding the wrapped up tent “What is it?”. “It is a tent, Precious” I said, “let me show you”.
I unwrapped the tent and showed him how to put it up. He was blown away and hugged me. “My own house” he said “and not one of those ones you have to go to, this comes with you everywhere”.
The small things do make a huge difference.
Building the hotel taught me a lot about business, the islanders taught me a lot about myself. I would recommend that you do something off the wall, that no one thinks you can do and see what happens. I did and I am richer for it in so many ways and if you ever get chance to go to the Caribbean, go to St Vincent, the people are truly magical.
Hope you enjoyed the posts, let me know your thoughts in the comments. Part two is on its way tommorrow.
Regards
David
@OneLifeNoFear
Davids Blog
