The Light of the Long View

I’ve always believed that pessimism is useless.

At times, I think it can even be destructive, which is why I personally beat the drum for positive thinking every chance I get. Sure, there are always going to be those who accuse optimists like me of seeing the world through rose-colored glasses, but I counter that by saying that I also believe that optimism is worthless if positive thoughts aren’t backed up by equally positive actions.

That this is the foundation of my philosophy should be obvious to anyone who’s been reading my columns for any length of time. It’s a message I believe with all my heart and soul and is one I think merits constant and enthusiastic repetition.

I also believe it’s a message that is more important now than ever, because we are facing some tough times. During the past six months of attending trade shows and various industry and Genesis 3 events, I’ve spoken with scores of watershapers of all stripes and have heard all the stories: As we all know, we’re experiencing a crunch at a level the industry hasn’t seen since the late 1980s and into the very early ’90s – the last time, we all remember, that the housing market took a dive.

With some noteworthy exceptions, what I’m hearing is a negativity that is a cause for concern. What I’d like to do here and now is initiate a strong push in the other direction.

MEASURING MOOD

I’ve learned through experience that when people “think positive,” it drives them to actions that are absolutely essential to success in business – and life in general. By contrast, when people allow the opposite form of thinking to infect their minds and drive actions based on fear rather than hope, it’s almost inevitable that undesirable results will follow, especially when trends beyond our control are there to shape opinions and push us more profoundly toward despair.

It’s been easy for years to feel the glow of blue skies: Since about 1992, our industry has been so flush with work and raw energy that we couldn’t keep up with demand, and it seemed there was no end to the potential we all had to expand our businesses and revel in the creativity that seemed to infuse every corner of the business.

A great many of you entered the watershaping industry during this period of almost explosive growth, and I know it’s been a sad shock for you to be confronted by so substantial a set of challenges. But even those who’ve experienced tough times before will suffer this time if they can’t keep a longer-term viewpoint in mind.

That can be difficult in this era of 24-hour-a-day financial news that bombards us with tales of the mortgage crisis, plummeting home values and a rising tide of foreclosures. The flood of equity that consumers once used to finance home improvements has all but vanished for many of our one-time prospects, especially among the middle class.

There’s also plenty of conjecturing and finger pointing about why all of this is happening, with so-called experts as well as politicians blaming irresponsible lending practices or, contrariwise, citing the faults of a consumer culture that prompts borrowers to overreach.

There’s merit in both positions: On the one hand, if lenders hadn’t extended credit to unqualified borrowers, no matter how badly people without steady incomes or good credit histories wanted to borrow, they would have been turned away. On the other, there’s really no question that in our financial behavior in the United States is often defined by our ambitions and appetites rather that by prudent planning.

Common sense tells us that when shortsighted decisions drive both sides of that financing equation, economic stability will suffer. For a long time it didn’t seem to matter much, because when property values were on their white-hot ascent, everybody was coming out ahead, long-term thinking or no. Now that trends have turned, we shouldn’t be surprised by the opposite result.

(Another thought keeps running through my mind: The big news services, self-styled experts and politicians have sets of interests often best served when they sensationalize the daylights out of drama or conflict of any sort. My suspicion will always be that rather than reporting or commenting on tough times, these folks in some ways are guilty of spreading fear unnecessarily to make their roles or insights seem somehow more valuable. But that’s a whole column on its own.)

TO THE GRINDSTONE

From all of this, I find reinforcement for my additional belief that mood is the key to the way things go in our society.

Indeed, I’d say that the tides of macroeconomics are governed as much by mood as any other factor. The most dramatic example of this can be seen in the stock market, where a single economic report or event can drive prices way up (or way down) in a few short hours. And then everything seems to adjust more or less to the original shape of things in a matter of days or weeks. I’m no stock analyst, but I’m always amazed by how subject a system as sophisticated as ours can be to trivial mood swings.

The media play a role here as well: It’s fair to say that little is helped by doom-and-gloom prognostications that tend to make moods plunge. In the blink of an eye, it seems, the entire landscape of the future changes one way or the other to satisfy the needs of a voracious news cycle.

As an industry that depends on the availability of capital in both the residential and commercial markets, it’s obvious that shifting fortunes and the attendant shifting hopes can become self-fulfilling prophecies for us as well.

As I’ve traversed the country talking to friends and acquaintances, I find that I’m far more concerned about our attitudes toward these times than I am about the times themselves. Yes, we’re in a tough space now, and it’s likely to continue – but anyone who’s been around for more than 15 or so years knows that the economy is cyclical and that, as a nation, we spend far more time in upswings than we ever do in downturns.

I’m not generally a proponent of government intervention in the marketplace, but it’s fair to say that our country has an impressive record of deploying various safety nets to help steer us away from the rocks. In a perfect world, such bailouts wouldn’t be necessary, but the reality is, we do live in a society with a capacity for collective self-correction in both the private and public sectors. I haven’t seen much yet to convince me we’re in good hands, but history works in our favor even on that front.

Indeed, if history is any sort of roadmap to the future, we know with a high degree of certainty that this current mess is going to turn around – we watershapers just don’t know when. For now, there’s plenty of suffering, with the production/volume side of the construction market taking a big hit that has the rippling effect of hurting the manufacturing sector because of its dependence on volume sales to drive marketing, research and development, production and distribution.

That erosion is, I think, dramatically balanced by the state of affairs in the custom market, which (based on every single conversation I’ve had) is still moving along quite well. As I’ve observed in previous columns, people doing creative, custom work for upper-tier clients are flush with work in good times and bad. Of course we’re concerned about the economy, but it’s tough to have your mood torpedoed when you’re as busy as ever.

BEYOND THE MOMENT

I’m proud of the fact that the positive philosophy and approach to business promoted and defined in the pages of WaterShapes and by the Genesis 3 programs have proved to be so manifestly sturdy as things have gotten rough all around.

In my recent travels, in fact, I’ve been gratified and heartened myself to see that people are fully engaged with the dialogues that take place in the magazine and continue to sign up (even in record numbers) for our programs. I’m also encouraged because everything I see is evidence of a well of optimism that is essential to our industry’s collective success, now and in the future.

Yes, it’s true that the strength of the so-called “high-end market” has led some players who previously operated at the production end of the business to target more sophisticated clients before being ready to do so. This raises the marginal possibility that their substandard work might jeopardize the stability of the upscale marketplace. As a positive thinker, however, I believe that the upper-end clientele’s insistence on creativity and quality will pull some of the volume players up by the bootstraps – something I see as being a good thing for all of us down the line.

As important, this upward, quality/creativity-oriented pressure we’re feeling reinforces a positive value system for everyone. So rather than viewing current conditions as destructive, I prefer as the eternal optimist to see this as a grand opportunity to sharpen our skills and improve our industry’s ability to thrive in all types of market conditions.

My point is that, now more than ever, we have everything to gain by keeping our sights trained on quality, creativity and optimism. We know our products improve the quality of life our clients enjoy. We know we bring beauty, luxury, entertainment, family togetherness and health into their lives. There is simply no economic tide that can wash away consumers’ demand for the benefits watershaping has always delivered.

The risk we run by giving in to despair and letting a downturn define future prospects is that we become authors of our own defeat. To show you exactly what I mean, I’m going to share a story that’s way out of character for this column – and I do so only because it defines just how absurd pessimism can be and how awful it is to give in to a hopeless view of the future.

In brief, I recently attended a funeral of a man who worked with me when I was involved in the contracting side of the business quite a while ago. He was one of our project managers and, after working for several other companies over the following years, decided to strike out on his own. I thought he made that transition prematurely, but he was determined to go for it and hang out his own shingle.

During the market’s best times, he began fairly well and built some worthy projects. But when times became tough, his company faltered. I don’t know the specifics, but I was told he was depressed by the debts he was carrying and saw little chance of digging himself out. Sadly, he chose to deal with the situation by taking his own life.

STAYING STRONG

At the service, I couldn’t help thinking how wrong it was for him to see suicide as the answer to life’s problems. It occurred to me that if I was ever to find myself in such dire straits that my business’ goose was cooked, I’d probably move to an island somewhere and work on a fishing boat or as a waiter and continue living as best I could. Life is simply too precious to think of the future in any other way.

Perhaps I’m being unfair to him and simply can’t feel the pain he suffered, but in any event his decision underscores the lethal power of negative thinking. Whatever the circumstances surrounding his death, there’s always a second act in life, always a chance to make a new start, and all I can say is that I wish this person had been able to see past today’s hopelessness and find the light that waits at the end of every tunnel.

Please believe me, I’m not suggesting that this extreme example of negativity is indicative of what our industry’s experiencing these days: This isn’t Wall Street in 1929. As I see things, it’s just the springboard for my desire to encourage others to remember that good times will be back and that we can’t let the dark patches drive our thought processes about the future. There’s always hope so long as we choose to embrace it in our thoughts and amplify it in our actions.

Nor am I so naïve to think that simply willing things to be better will make them so. I do, however, believe that the more we think positively and act on those encouraging impulses, the sooner our fortunes will turn. Indeed, I believe firmly in the power of positive visualization: When you can see good things happening, you are better able as a result to act in a way that makes them happen.

The positive actions we pursue can take many forms, whether it’s righting things financially in a way that you don’t expose yourself to personal debt; restructuring your company to accommodate a stretch of lessened revenues; shifting the focus of your business to maximize opportunities; or even stepping away from watershaping and taking a job that offers greener pastures. There’s power in plotting a course and taking steps that you believe can move you in a better direction. Even if things are slow for the foreseeable future, working to a plan will give you peace of mind and high hopes for better days.

It takes courage in unsettled times to think positively, but I believe that people who’ve make a go of it in this business are by nature independent, ambitious and creative souls to whom courage is no stranger. If things are tough, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain by being brave and staying as physically, mentally and spiritually strong as possible.

Yes, challenges abound. Yes, the news is troubling both within and beyond our industry. And yes, what we’re passing through now may mean there are difficult passages and changes ahead for all of us. But none of that alters the long-term, positive prospects for our chosen field of watershaping, and better times do lie ahead – maybe even the best times we’ve ever known.

Brian Van Bower runs Aquatic Consultants, a design firm based in Miami, Fla., and is a co-founder of the Genesis 3 Design Group; dedicated to top-of-the-line performance in aquatic design and construction, this organization conducts schools for like-minded pool designers and builders. He can be reached at [email protected].