It's been quite a year...

It's been over a year since I posted on this site. Once I got a job waiting tables in an Irish pub, blogging had to be postponed. Now that I'm getting back into real estate, I've got to put myself out on the internet so that I can be understood. Quite a large percentage of the world is interested in a few things that I'm studying right now - the answers to a few questions.

Like many of the people out there, I found myself on a trajectory. I made a series of decisions - to drop out of high school, because I found a brochure from a community college that said "open admissions". I took a job around the corner from where I was living with my girlfriend's parents, at 17, at a local real estate company. They hired me because I could type a letter in Microsoft Word and print it onto letterhead. That job lead me to put out a resume, and get hired with the Superman of Real Estate. Superman spent a lot of money sending me to real estate conferences, and they taught me how to sell real estate with a team.

Once I knew that, I landed a job running a small real estate firm. I grew it, and made a lot of money for the woman who owned it. We got emotionally close (never physically), and a whole lot of drama blew up in both of our faces. I'd been getting involved with the green business community in Chicago, and it seemed like a natural step to start a green real estate company. There wasn't one in Chicago, and I was living in a big house in the ghetto. I wanted to be a revitalizing force, help to grow a community, and to educate people. As I started to understand what I'd started, the concept evolved.

I wanted to be a sustainable real estate brokerage. That concept is outlined on the web site, but suffice it to say here that I wanted to help people to consciously create positive communities as part of their purchasing and selling decisions. That meant understanding the political, social, economic, and environmental elements of not only each person's unconsidered choices, but also the emotional, financial, and lifestyle elements of what most people focus on in their buying decisions. Sustainability occurs on both the macro and the micro levels, and can and should be viewed on both personal and collective levels.

I spent that year in some of the deepest and most intense thought of my life, and poured my heart and soul into understanding my objective: to transform the real estate industry. I'm not so naive as to think that I could undertake such an undertaking alone, and I had a tremendous amount of help, particularly from a brilliant young woman who shall remain unnamed. With research, first-hand experience, expert discussion and dialogue, and practical application, I learned a lot.

I burnt myself out. I took on too much, and I wanted to do too much too fast. At the same time, there is a tangible sense of urgency from the green perspective. In order to protect ourselves, we have to change our lifestyle and become more sustainable. I decided that I was not being effective in what I was doing, because I was spending far too much energy trying to make enough money to fund my lavish real estate lifestyle. The truth: I wasn't green, and I wasn't sustainable.

I've gotten rid of all of it. I sold my house, my car, and I pay $400 a month to share a one-bedroom apartment now. I ride a bike, and my commute consists of riding up the beach and down through Golden Gate Park. Life is sweet, and my stress levels have coasted to almost nothing. I've been working in the same Irish pub, and more recently with Green Key Real Estate. I'm a real estate agent again, and I'm helping to design their training program for the national franchise launch. (As a disclosure, nothing on this site is anything other than my opinion, and should not be construed to represent anything other than just that, and no one else's.)

Over the past few years, I've lived with quite a number of people and gotten to know many more. All of us share many things, but the thread that I want to tap into is our mutual desire for sustainability. Compact florescent bulbs, hybrids, carshares, and farmer's markets are all wonderful things - but what's next?

I want to make this blog many things. I want to share my personal observations on the world, the perspective that I've gained about real estate, green, life, love, food and shelter. I'll include poetry, pictures, and essays.

I hope you enjoy it.