ambition
As 2012 comes to a close, I’ve slooked back on the year just past and I’m amazed by everything that’s happened with the WaterShapes franchise. The newsletter has gotten better with each succeeding edition, and the watershapes.com web site has grown literally every day since
To me, designing and building ponds and streams is the best job in the world: It offers the professional rare opportunities to shape beautiful compositions that mimic nature and bring joy to those who spend time near the water's edge. It's hard work both physically and mentally, but ultimately, it's profoundly satisfying. I backed into this business while doing lawn and landscape maintenance work during high school. What I observed on that end of the market was a level of competition so intense that I soon recognized I'd need a specialty if I were to have any chance of pursuing a good career at it. In surveying the market, I noted that a number of landscaping firms were getting into naturalistic waterfeatures - and that the outcomes frequently looked terrible, even from my novice's perspective. To get in and out quickly, too many of these operators created systems that bore no resemblance to nature at all: From the rockwork to the way streams cut through spaces, what I saw just didn't square with what I'd seen in the real world. These shortcomings spelled opportunity, of course, but I also knew that to stand apart from the rest, I'd need to develop my own skills and deliver work that reached a much higher level than just about
To me, designing and building ponds and streams is the best job in the world: It offers the professional rare opportunities to shape beautiful compositions that mimic nature and bring joy to those who spend time near the water's edge. It's hard work both physically and mentally, but ultimately, it's profoundly satisfying. I backed into this business while doing lawn and landscape maintenance work during high school. What I observed on that end of the market was a level of competition so intense that I soon recognized I'd need a specialty if I were to have any chance of pursuing a good career at it. In surveying the market, I noted that a number of landscaping firms were getting into naturalistic waterfeatures - and that the outcomes frequently looked terrible, even from my novice's perspective. To get in and out quickly, too many of these operators created systems that bore no resemblance to nature at all: From the rockwork to the way streams cut through spaces, what I saw just didn't square with what I'd seen in the real world. These shortcomings spelled opportunity, of course, but I also knew that to stand apart from the rest, I'd need to develop my own skills and deliver work that reached a much higher level than just about
I recently enjoyed an experience a long, long way from my familiar surroundings in southern California that nonetheless had me feeling right at home. A few weeks back, I had the distinct pleasure of flying to
"To succeed in business or in life, I don't think you need fancy schooling or highly technical experience. What I think you need is common sense, a commitment to hard work and the courage to go your own way."-- Robert Mondavi That statement from Robert Mondavi's autobiography truly inspires me. Since I first read those words, I've become keenly aware of how this and other things he says about his career in the wine industry apply not only to
No doubt about it: More and more quality projects are being designed and built by the various segments of the watershaping trades these days. That pleases me for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it tends to reinforce my observation and belief that great work is done mostly by people who take genuine pride in what they do. Indeed, I see such a consistent correlation between pride and quality that I've come to see the former characteristic as a prerequisite for performance at the highest level. That may seem an obvious point, but when you scratch the surface of the subject as it relates to the watershaping industry, it takes on
When I was a kid, I was obsessed with hot rods. I suspect this resulted from my dad's subscriptions to magazines such as Road & Track and Street Rod: I was mesmerized by
Lately I've noticed a fascinating trend among the projects we've been approached to publish - a string of articles about watershapes that, for want of a better term, have been designed with
A Remarkable Journey