Honestly...
With just a few days standing between us and PJP's first anniversary, I find myself marveling at the past year. And here is the most honest statement you might ever read on this blog...I have no idea how we've navigated our first 12 months. NO. IDEA. Eleven more exceptionally honest statements:
- I wish I could go back and tell my 25-year-old self everything that I know now. (But my 25-year-old self likely wouldn't have listened because my 25 year-old-self knew everything.)
- Even better, I really wish I could go back and tell my 22-year-old self to buy up some commercial property...even if it were only a dump. If you are 22 and you are reading this, I only have one thing to say: TRIPLE NET RENT.
- Without question, Jeanne and I would claim on our opening day last year that we knew each other as well as we ever could. We were wrong. If you want to know someone really well, spend 90 hours a week together, agree on a 2 am playlist, and learn how much cream they like in their coffee. And then still appreciate them even more after all that.
- There are times, even recently, that find me in PJP Buttonwood and a bit overwhelmed that we are responsible for the space. As in, we own a grease trap sort of way. Overwhelming, indeed.
- On more than one occasion, I've wanted to hang a sign on the door announcing we've closed for the day because we are super tired and super over pie. We haven't done it...but we've thought it.
- In the past 12 months, more so than any other time in my life, I've Googled "how to..."
- Mac pointed out to us recently that we've never asked him to perform a pointless task...as in, we are completely without bureaucracy at PJP. I sort of wanted him to write it down in triplicate so that I could stamp it and staple it and then schedule a meeting with 12 or 18 people to discuss long-term strategies to not develop bureaucracy. I'm only kidding...his observation was one of the best moments of our year.
- One of the very hardest lessons this year has been learning to figure out what works for us, what doesn't work for us, and what is just background noise. I'll let you know when we have it figured out. Ahem.
- We have zero regrets regarding our lack of business plan. We know our endgame is World Pie Domination. If we knew how we were going to get there, we wouldn't really be us.
- We still think of ourselves as relatively small. Until I realized we used over 20,000 pie boxes in the last 12 months. And now I'll think of us as a major player in the pie-box buying game.
- We've both questioned ourselves in the past year, more than once. But never regretted our past year. And that is a notable difference.