Pet Projects of Successful People
Volume 12, Number 7
Issue 555
This time of year I get a lot of comments about how I can keep such high energy during stressful times. It’s because I do what I love and because I am constantly questioning myself in an attempt to do each task better than I did the same one (or a similar one) the time before. I also find personal relief and satisfaction in hearing annual updates about the charitable success stories that my clients have become involved in--their “pet projects.” During tax appointments, I hear about the successes and failures of people’s charitable interests and desires.
Recently, I attended a round-table discussion held by the actors in a play that had just been performed. The director stated that “if you stop questioning yourself, you will do mediocre work.” This quote resonated home with me because I have always felt that it is the obligation of each person to “keep pushing themselves” to be better and better. I’ve felt that once you stop pushing to get up the hill that it is only downhill thereafter. I adopt my own “pet projects” and, often, my clients. Even if I do not make an adoption, so to speak, I revel in their stories and accomplishments.
One of the things that makes me good at what I do is that I see the successes and failures of people on their personal and entrepreneurial journeys and, especially, how successful they are at finding a way to fulfill their obligations as citizens to “give back.” Sometimes I am like a passenger in the car and exhibit the behavior of the typical squirmy front seat passenger who wants to drive but isn’t. Other times I am like the paramedic who arrives at the accident scene to find two corvettes that have been drag racing on a 35MPH road. I observe, listen, react and--often--participate. When the matter-at-hand is over, I take my experiences to the next project. This can be a project related to making money or a project related to helping a person find their “pet project” to give back to the community.
I think that each person has the obligation to get better and better at giving back to the community to humanitarian and arts related charities as they get older. Just ask my friend and client Christopher Shore in Petersburg who wants to duplicate--in the most economically-deprived and fiscally-disadvantaged area of central Virginia--what my other friend Harry Kollatz has done with the Firehouse Theater Project in Richmond. Chris is working full-time on an idea to convert two old buildings in Petersburg into a community theater. He started from zero and is devoting his full-time 60 hour per week energy to this project.
After you are done with Chris, I will introduce you to my friend and client David Gardner who left his six-figure job in the corporate world to work for peanuts for Art 180, perhaps, in my opinion, one of Richmond’s finest charities. Their mission is to bring art to disadvantaged children. David’s passion and love for Art 180 is, simply, intoxicating. He inspires me.
Chris and David are two examples that come to mind when I think of success. Not necessarily being rich in money, but being filthy wealthy in relationships. They are happy and they state that they are doing more with less.
I’ve felt that successful people deserve the right to crow and brag about “pet projects.” Heck, if I know you well, you will even hear about mine, sooner or later. Whether they are politicians, businesspeople or just plan worker-bees, people that have worked hard in life to obtain success deserve everybody else’s attention about their “pet project.” Each of us has our own couple of things that fall into this category.
I feel that if somebody has achieved success in their careers and professional lives and now wants to give some of it back into something that means more to them than it means to me, I owe it to them to give them my attention and my help. This is called respect. If someone wants my attention about something that doesn’t interest me personally or “isn’t for me” but is still charitable or arts related, they will get my help, professionally and financially, because that is the way that I can respect them and honor them and their accomplishments.
Giving someone’s “pet project” my help and attention is the respect that I can show them for the fact that they have become successful enough to have a “pet project” in the first place. If we all had “pet projects” that give back to humanitarian and arts related charities, the world would be a better place.
The progress that you have made on your “pet project” as time rolls by will allow you to measure not only if you are better off than you were before but will allow you to show others that you are, too. It also earns you a new level of respect.
David B. Robinson, CPA
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