Moving from Engagementstan to the Republic of Gettingshitdone

Not sure if this is a vacation, a sabbatical, or a permanent exile

If you’ve been reading me for a while, you know I own a couple of restaurants and that I was recently betrayed by a close friend, let’s call him Chuck.

Chuck was the operating partner at the businesses we owned together, and with his departure, I’m moving back into the role of being a CEO, having over 100 employees, and putting out fires all day long, rather than the relaxed life I had built this past year of reading and writing online, spending time with my kids, and opening mail from the tax authorities.

Seriously — I have 13 corporations that I own all or part of, and I’m an investor in 50 more. Dealing with accountants, lawyers, and random phone calls asking for tax forms that I already submitted takes up a significant portion of my time.

Sorry, I mean I have an assistant, and it takes up a significant amount of her time. But the mail still comes to my house, and I have to open the damn envelopes, scan the contents, and send them to whichever professional gets to deal with it. I’ve gotten good with a letter opener, let me tell you.

Here’s the good news. After an initial period of being angry at Chuck and at the disruption to my life, I’m realizing that this is an opportunity to be creative again. I opened my first restaurant, the speakeasy Coffee Oysters Champagne (COC) because it was a passion. I’ve always paid attention to it, and even in a down economy, it’s packed all the time.

The second restaurant, Marked, was Chuck’s idea and it’s beautiful, something to be proud of. It’s also empty too much of the time. I think that’s because he enjoyed building it, but he had no passion for it beyond what money it could make, and it made no money.

As I’m taking over day-to-day operations, I’m realizing I can reshape Marked into what I would have built myself, which is a type of nightclub and party restaurant that I love, but there isn’t a great incarnation of in Toronto. Just like there was no great speakeasy in Toronto before COC.

So now instead of being annoyed that I have to be a CEO again, I’m excited because I get to do something professionally that is almost as much fun for me as writing, which is throwing a party.

The bad news is that being an active CEO leaves me with a lot less time to write. I can’t juggle all the engagement here on Medium with writing two to three pieces a week, managing my own newsletter, and running two restaurants. Something has to give, and it’s going to be on the engagement side of writing.

I’ll still respond to thoughtful comments on my own writing, and continue to read and comment on pieces from my favourite writers that catch my eye, but it will be sporadic compared to the past. Please don’t take this as a sign of disinterest from me. If I subscribe to your emails, it means I love your writing, and consider you part of the close community that has made me fall in love with the Medium experience.

I might also have to make a transition to poorly edited stream-of-consciousness thought pieces like this one, instead of the more thoughtful material I’ve been proud to write the past year. Ok, I admit a lot of that was trash too, but there was some good stuff, I’m almost sure of it.

I’ve been told that I could find time to do everything if I just stopped playing so many video games, but it feels like my zen time playing Polytopia is preserving my sanity, not sapping my productivity. One of my superpowers is rationalization.

My new path in life isn’t the one I thought I was on, but that’s ok, life happens. Chuck’s betrayal has cleared a path for a whole new adventure and I’m more energized than I’ve been in a long while. Also scared, feeling a little under-equipped, and needing a lot of support from friends and colleagues.

Now if I could only get rid of all those tax letters.