mike the mountain

So it was a year ago today that I first started up this little blog.

Let’s see. At the time I was bartending at a sweet ski resort in the Alberta Rockies called Sunshine Village. Living at my folk’s condo in Canmore. I miss those mountains. My girlfriend had just left me, so I was looking for some kind of psychological outlet. Figured I’d give writing a try.

Girlfriend came back, but I was enjoying the whole blog thing, so I decided to keep it going. Enter “Mike’s Drinks and Links”. I was having a blast inventing daily drink specials, this gave me a cool way to share them with the world!

Ski season ended, drove to Montreal. Girlfriend left me again. Go to Ottawa. Back to Montreal, tried to get girlfriend back, not happening, go to Toronto.

Enter W. C. Fields Restaurant and Bar. Or, I guess, I enetered W. C. Fields. “We don’t need a bartender, we need a manager. And you’re it.”

Nice to meet you Lewis. This could be the start of a beautiful friendship.

Lewis. David. Howard. Paris. Logos. Menus. Parties. Wine. Food. Film Festival. Celebrities. Politics. Designers. Hire. Fire. Manage.

Some people make my brain hurt. Quit Fields. Gonna head back out West, get a real job.

Uh-oh.

Girlfriend arrives in Toronto, wants to get back together. We’re back. She gets a job in Montreal. She leaves. We try the long distance thing, doesn’t work. We’re done.

New biz idea. Consult to major hotel and resort chains. High-end restaurants. Travel the world, make lots of money. Exciting enough possibility to keep me in town. For now. New partner, new issues. Enter Centro. Enter Armando.

Enter The Waterfall Group.

Big ideas, lots of talk. Bartend at Centro for December. WAY too much attitude, I like to work where I can have some fun.

Register biz. Design logo, biz cards, first marketing pieces. Need money in the short term to fund plan.

Wine and Wellness. Exclusive weekend retreats for business executives in Toronto. Guest speakers, fine dining, wine appreciation, all kinds of fun stuff.

January. Bartend at The Strand. Yikes. Enough of that.

I’m ready to go. December’s too busy. Then January’s too busy. Then February’s too busy. Nothing happening. I’m getting frustrated. Screw it. Time to get a real job, stop playing around. Should I stay in Toronto? Probably not, let’s see where the jobs are.

“Hey Mike, wanna make a movie?”

“Sure Lewis, sounds like fun.”

Geek time. Actually produce and film my own movie… how cool is that! We decide to go for a documentary for our first time around. Get Ian on board. Sony decides that now that I’m getting into the movie biz they’re going to come out with a kick-arse new HD prosumer cam. Arrange financing, pick out hardware (including tricked out new dual-proc G5!!). Cooooool stuff!

Word’s out, Mike’s back on the market. Invites and interviews start flowing in. Once again, projects active in Toronto, don’t really want to leave. But I’m still committed to getting back on a career path. Been slacking too long. I’m just not myself if I’m not being challenged. Splitting between two big-league financial institutions at the moment. Let them fight over me. It’s nice to feel wanted. It’s even nicer to know I haven’t burned all my bridges yet.

How would I describe these last 12 months? Adventure, heartbreak, humility, epiphany, potential, new beginnings. I’ve had three job interviews this week, all looking very promising. This morning we picked up our camera and shot our first bit of footage a few hours ago. Within a month I hope to have a job, my own apartment, my own movie under production, at least two side businesses active, I’ve even got ideas for a couple books I’d like to write! Life’s looking up in a big way, I can’t wait to see what happens. It ain’t gonna be easy, but nothing worth having is.

“Just remember what ol’ Jack Burton does when the earth quakes, the poison arrows fall from the sky, and the pillars of Heaven shake. Yeah, Jack Burton just looks that big old storm right square in the eye and says, “Give me your best shot pal. I can take it.”"

Good idea: Relaxing for a few hours of gratuitous vehicular destruction with Burnout 3.

Bad idea: Eating an entire bag of dehydrated apricots (do you say “AH-pricots” or “AY-pricots”) and 2 liters of Sprite ReMix while playing Burnout 3.

I am so scared to sneeze right now.

Wow, boy’s been busy!

Interview with big financial institution this morning. Went well. Second interview on Tuesday.

Tested fancy new camera yesterday. Shot a bunch of test footage at Allan Gardens. Played back on a $20,000 top o da line plasma. VERY impressed.

Secured initial financing for equipment, by next week we should have everything in hand and be doing some serious work. VERY exciting!

Got about a week and a half until Centro closes and The Waterfall Group goes into full on sales mode. VERY…. well, we’ll see what happens with all that.

If everything goes as hoped, I should be rather busy for the next few months. Years.

Sleep when you’re dead.

I can’t wait.

First rule of leadership:

Lead by example.

If you want me to do something that I don’t want to do, you better be dang sure I know that you would do the same. A leader who tells those in his charge to act, and then hides behind the lines, is no leader at all. If I don’t believe you are capable of doing what I do, then how do you expect me to believe that you know what the best course of action is? Maybe you don’t understand the situation or request. Maybe I know a better way! Maybe you think you’re better than me… too good to do yourself what you ask of me?

Guess what?

You’re not.

And if I interpret such behaviour as such disrespect, then just how inclined do you think I will be to fulfill your request to the best of my abilities? What do you think the effect will be on my morale overall, my loyalty to whatever project we’re working on, and the general quality of my work?

Prime example (and topical inspiration), the management at my current place of employment. The same to whom I presented my notice of leaving to on Monday, due in no small part of my last hypothecial.

Every night, just as business starts to wind down, all the staff are tired and just want to finish up and go home, nothing left but a bunch of cleaning and general labour, this manager sits down at a table in the middle of the restaurant and drinks. Beers, cognacs, port… and he’s picky about it. Oh, and just to rub it in, he makes the staff serve him instead of getting it himself. So we’re all trying to work (for him), and he’s sitting on his ass drinking. And when he’s done, he leaves. Never lifts a finger on the floor. So every night, his staff finish their shifts feeling disrespected and resentful to their oblivious, useless boss.

A good manager/leader needs to spend his time in the trenches, supporting and managing those he is responsible for and to. You don’t sit back and let them flounder. You don’t pawn off work on them. If there is a crappy job that needs to be done, then you are the FIRST one to get in there and do it! You want to impress me as a restaurant manager? Learn how to unplug a toilet. Spend some time every week in the dishpit. NEVER walk around the floor with empty hands. Run food. Pour water and coffee. Clear dishes. everything that your staff hate to do. That way, no one can complain when given a task. If the boss can clean a toilet, then you can polish some silverware. First one in, last one gone. B e a leader.

This applies to all situations, I’m sure you can work through your own analogies. No leader will be respected who hasn’t at one time been a follower. You are NEVER too good to do something you ask of anyone else.

“A leader is best when people barely know he exists, not so good when people obey and acclaim him, worse when they despise him….But of a good leader who talks little when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say, ‘We did it ourselves.’”

- Lao Tzu

Friday was my friend J.P.’s birthday. After work I met up with the party in full swing at a club called Roxy Blu, got there around 12:30. It was the first time in almost 2 years that I was out at a night club as a single man.

Trying to get back in the game. More for my own ego’s sake; to see if I still got it. I’m broke, sleeping on a friend’s sofa, not knowing if I’ll be in the city in a month… not really “relationship material” at the moment. Even if I am emotionally ready, which I really doubt.

So I do all the usual player’s games… buying shots, dancing, laughing, generally having fun with friends, showing everybody what a nice, confident, entertaining, sexy boy I am. For some reason, married women kept buying me drinks. I hope this isn’t an emerging trend!

Oh well, even though nothing happened in the swapping-of-bodily-fluids sense, it still felt good to be out with friends. And it does make me feel better to know that I haven’t become a total social leper (at least as far as the bar scene goes).

Well that was Friday. Today (ie: Saturday) work pissed me off so much I just about walked out (I think I’m going to bail after Valentine’s anyway). I just can’t stand the environment. Now that I’m starting to act like a professional during the day, I am finding it more and more unbearable and degrading to spend my nights polishing glasses for this petulant ignoramus.

I wore a suit on Friday for the first time in months. It felt good.

I’ve got to get busy.

Not in the physical sense.

Uh, well, actually, I could use the exercise, I’m in probably the worst shape of my life.

So yeah, I need to get busy.

Not in the dirty way I mean… uh, well, actually… never mind.

I got $#!t ta do, ok?

The countdown begins today. I have 28 days to get as much done with The Waterfall Group as I can. I need to have everything ready for my partners to take the ball and run with it once they are free from their current obligations.

Things I need to finish:

1 – Website. I’m starting almost from scratch here, teaching myself as I go. I’ve picked up some basic HTML playing around with this site, but now I need to get real pro, real fast. At least I already have an idea of what I want it to look like.

2 – Financial. Gotta get set up to track our finances, expenditures so far, and a system for the future.

3 – Legal. Contracts. Disclaimers. I don’t claim to have the knowledge myself, but I think I know what I want them to cover. I need to find a lawyer to draft them for us, or preferably find one already written and in use that can be modified to suit our needs.

These are just my professional commitments to this one project. There is also the documentary that Lewis and I are trying to get off the ground, prepping my resume and prospecting my networks for job opportunities (so it’s not a total cold start in March), and of course tending bar every night in order to keep some money coming in.

I figure that this is the only way I’m going to salvage all the effort I’ve put into WG without sacrificing my own professional future. Right now, I have the time, my partners don’t. So I will give them my time. Once they have the time to commit, I must step back and get my own life established. While I’m getting sorted, the rest of the team has their chance to prove that my faith has not been ill-placed. If they can actually close some sales, act as viable business partners, then whoopdie-doo, we can continue to work together on this SIDE PROJECT. If the current pattern (of NOTHING) is maintained, then at least I’ll finally know for sure. But as I’ve said before, it won’t be because of my lack of commitment.