1 Year, 5 Months, 11 Days (Not That I'm Counting)
How do we prepare for all the glorious, terrifying, panic-inducing freedom of Hubby's retirement? Here's what we're doing about having no idea what to do next.
“Tell me about a time you faced a moral dilemma and you did the right thing — even though it was hard.” That was the first question I used to ask every nervous face on the other side of the Zoom screen, back when I was interviewing potential installers for my Hubby’s company.
The answers ranged from, “Umm… I can’t think of anything,” to an excited, “Oh my gosh, this just happened last week,” and then they poured their hearts out and did a little bragging about their integrity. Which was exactly the point. See, we based all of our interview questions on the company’s mission statement and core values, the first of which was integrity.
The Company’s Mission Statement:
“We question everything and defy the norms to make cell service work for people in every commercial building — keeping them connected, safe, having fun and getting shit done.”
We attempted to achieve that mission through our dearly held core values — our guiding principals of Integrity, Innovation, Efficiency, Pride, fostering Fun, and maintaining a Learning Mindset. Together, every member of the company brainstormed examples of what each value would look like in action. For instance:
INNOVATION MEANS …
There is always a solution. Always. We will either find it or make it.
It isn’t ‘impossible’ just because no one else has ever done it.
We are idea-whores and thieves — always searching for good ideas to pilfer and tweak. [e.g., #2 was stolen from The Princess Bride]
We brainstorm solutions collectively and encourage input from every team member.
We consistently strive to find a better way, for installations, for operation of the business, for ourselves.
Our mission and values statements became posters, book covers, mousepads, t-shirts, post-its, covering any and every surface of the office and the humans occupying it. We lived and breathed it. For us, mission and values weren’t just lip service; they were a daily measuring stick for every aspect of business.
When one of our installation teams in California came up against an unsolvable problem — how to get a cable through a narrow vertical chase much too complex for conventional wire-pulling techniques — they knew they couldn’t give up because of #1. They referred to #2, brainstormed together (#4), then went to a nearby Walmart, bought a fishing rod and jerry-rigged it to literally “fish” the wire through. Mission accomplished. Always.
Why am I telling you all of this?
Am I bragging about how cool Hubby’s company was? Yes. Always. But also, because now that the company has sold and we are facing Hubby’s impending retirement in a couple years (1 year, 5 months, 11 days; not that I’m counting), we’re feeling a bit … unmoored. Untethered. Unprepared. What do we focus on between now and then to prepare for all the glorious, terrifying, panic-inducing freedom? What will we do with ourselves? What if we get — God forbid — BORED?!? If only we had a Mission Statement and list of values to guide us…
And then it hit us: Well, fuckadoodlydoo, we COULD have a Rubey Family Mission Statement and List of Values to guide us, couldn’t we? I mean, we’ve got a guy for that. The guy is Andy Cindrich1, the very person who coached us through creating Hubby’s company’s mission statement all those years ago. It was four years ago. Feels like a lifetime.
[Side note: I just imagined my Texas peeps reading the bit about “we have a guy for that” and they assumed I would say “the guy” is our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I’m a bitter disappointment to most of my Texas peeps.]
Rubey, Inc.
Here’s the idea we presented to Andy: We want you to treat us like a company, like Rubey, Inc., and help us discover our personal mission statement and values. Then we will use our MS&V to guide us towards purposeful, meaningful new projects, new creative endeavors, new businesses, more friends; to give us clearer focus and direction moving forward. With a mission statement and core values, we will have something to measure all our decisions against to see whether or not they really resonate so that we don’t get distracted by every shiny idea that crosses our paths.
Since Hubby’s company sold in December, we have explored no less than 16 different future biz opportunities, from protein vodkas (already done), to social clubs centered on survivalist training (Boulder County no likey), to children’s bookstores with built-in reading therapy dogs. For Hubby, the distractions are mostly business based. For me, they are much more whatever-happens-to-cross-my-brain-screen at any given moment. Seriously, I have the attention span of a fruit fly on meth. So far, I have stopped writing this article to:
Read a National Geographic article on the newest superfood (bamboo shoots),
Order a single can of bamboo shoots from Amazon. I am not part of the problem — I’m the whole fucking problem.
Answer multiple emails requesting purchase reviews on Etsy
Train the dog stop biting her leash
Bathe the cat
Take a mini-course on how to optimize my Substack content to increase email readership
Post my old sofa for sale on Facebook Marketplace
Send my daughter links to cute sofas for her new home — after she rejected my old one.
Put batteries in the headlamp I wear to work on the puzzle that has been spread across our coffee table for six months. (The overhead light offends Hubby’s delicate sensibilities when he’s trying to watch TV, so I wear a headlamp).
That’s approximately 15 minutes of distraction per paragraph written. So far. And you wonder why I publish so infrequently.
Whenever a glittery, twinkling thing comes along that looks more fun or helps me avoid struggling through a complicated part of the creative process, I immediately go for the funner/easier/sparklier option. In fact, I’m writing this article now because I’m avoiding painting the leather jacket I promised myself I’d finish this week but haven’t started.
[*Side note 2: In my defense, I did stop myself from buying a kiln recently because I don’t know how to use a kiln and installing an incendiary device that heats up to 2300 degrees Fahrenheit in the basement of my house seemed like a goddamn whopper of a cautionary tale in the making. I thought I should at least learn how to use the pottery wheel I bought in 2019 before getting a kiln to fire nonexistent pottery. I’m pretty proud of that restraint.]
Adulthood with a little help from my friends
What I’m saying is that I clearly need adult supervision and I have a growing suspicion that I may have to be that adult. But I needed some help. Thinking of myself and my Hubby as business leaders who must do the hard work of discovering “Rubey, Inc.’s” mission and values feels like a more accessible approach. Because with Coach Andy’s help, we’ve done it before. Besides, we all know that business leaders are not real adults, they’re just adult-shaped. I can be that.
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BONUS: Wanna answer some of my old interview questions?
Tell me about a time you had a moral decision to make, and you chose to do the right thing, even though it was hard. Doesn’t have to be work-related.
What makes you excited to get up and go to work each day?
What has been your biggest accomplishment in life? What has been your biggest regret in life? What did you learn from both of these?
What three things will you be remembered for at your funeral?
Andy is a Leadership/Effectiveness Consultant with Franklin Covey, an Executive Coach, Educator, Author, Keynote Speaker and much more — you can read all about him on his LinkedIn profile or Instagram or just Google him. Basically, he’s way out of our league but we had a lucky hookup from a mutual friend.