Don't Flip

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Okay, everyone, I'm probably going to piss someone

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off with this. This is your heads up. Ethics are a long

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game. When I first started coaching, approximately 1

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million years ago, I wanted to use the word "pleasure," I

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wanted to talk about pleasure, I wanted to talk about the ways

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that we bring pleasure to each other, not sex, but pleasure.

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Pleasure, the pleasure of grass between your toes, the pleasure

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of warm sun on your face on a cold day, the pleasure of food

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when you're hungry. I had a chemistry teacher in high school

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who used to talk about the pleasure of getting to pee when

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you need to pee. Like, basic, basic pleasure. And I wanted to

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talk about the ways in which connecting to our own pleasure

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makes us good leaders. I had a website. It's called The Power

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of Pleasure and Leadership. Well, the first problem I ran

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into was that I couldn't actually use the word pleasure

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for pretty much anything; every time I tried to create like a

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Facebook group with the word pleasure in it, it got flagged

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for being I don't know, racy? Because I wanted to talk about

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grass and bare feet? It took a long time, it took about twelve,

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ten years maybe? Ten years from the inception of my business, I

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started noticing that a lot of people were talking about

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pleasure that a lot of people were talking about a lot of

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things that I had tried to talk about and found that nobody

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wanted to help me talk about them. In fact, when I first

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started my business, I consulted some marketing experts, because

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marketing wasn't a thing I knew anything about. And they all

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told me that I had to get the word pleasure out of there,

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because it was too scary. It was too hard for people to handle

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that. They wouldn't hire me, they wouldn't be able to talk to

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their friends about me it was going to make it impossible for

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my business to grow. Maybe I should have known better, but I

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was struggling. So I took their advice and redirected and

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refocused and re-everythinged. But pleasure has never gotten

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out of the root of what I do. And so now when I see businesses

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cropping up that are about pleasure, and leadership or

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pleasure in business, I think, uh huh. Yeah, I guess I was just

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a little ahead of the game. I still talk about pleasure. I

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mean, that's really what intensives and expansives, the

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whole framework, that's what that's about, is about being

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able to create a workplace where you feel good about being at

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work, where you aren't miserable being at work, where you're

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excited to be at work, I mean, come on, right? And that seems

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like it should be obvious. And in this year, 2022, third year

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of the pandemic, it, it seems a lot more obvious than it was

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back then. But sometimes it's a long game. Sometimes you have an

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idea, and it's too early for it. Sometimes you have an idea, and

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you have to wait for enough other people to have the idea at

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the same time. Sometimes you have an idea, and you have to

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wait for a less marginalized person to have that idea out

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loud first. Yeah, when first to market is not an advantage.

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Because of who you are, or how you show up. That's, that's

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tricky. But I'm off topic, because what I want to talk

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about today is the way that we have to think about ethics as a

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long process, we can't just think about what's ethical in

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this moment although that's important, we also have to think

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about the long impact, the long term impact, the long reach

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impact. So imagine the impact of the ripples that go out from the

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stone, not just the first two ripples, but all of the ripples

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that go out from the stone into the pond, and then from the pond

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to the shore. And from the surface of the water down, and

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the impact of that stone landing in the water. And traveling

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through the water and ending up on the soft muddy bottom of the

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pond. You know with the kind of mud that squishes between your

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toes. But to have that kind of relationship with the rock in

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the pond and the ripples in the mud. You have to spend time with

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the pond, you have to know the pond you have to walk across the

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pond when it's frozen or dangle your toes in it when it's warm

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and still in the middle of summer when nothing seems to be

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moving, but it's a little relief from the heat. You have to know

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what that mud feels like between your toes. Or know that you

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don't want to know what that mud feels like between your toes.

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You have to you have to know that there's that one fish that

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swims through the middle but never quite close enough for you

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to tell what it is. And then there are like at least two

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frogs that grow and live along the edge of the pond but you've

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never seen them, you've just heard them on a summer night

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walking home slapping mosquitoes. You've got to know

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the ecosystem of the pond. And so when I see

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people in my neighborhood, I live in the Bay Area, and every

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week it seems like somebody else is gut-rehabbing a house. And by

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gut-rehab, what I mean is that they take everything, all the

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woodwork, all the walls, sometimes even the floors out of

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the house, they rip everything out of the house. And then they

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put in new, usually less well constructed. I've never seen one

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constructed better, less well constructed walls, mouldings,

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everything. They rearrange the arrangement of rooms, they

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change the heights and shapes and designs of the ceilings,

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everything is different. And then they put it on the market

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for a few hundred thousand dollar more than it was when

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they bought it. Because that's the whole point. They're trying

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to make a profit. They're flipping the house. This is not

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a rehab, so we can live in it situation. This is a rehab so

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someone else can live in it situation. And it's a nightmare.

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I worked briefly in a fine woodworking shop. And I can tell

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you, the construction they're doing in there is no good.

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They're cutting corners, they're cutting costs. They're doing

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everything they can to improve their profit margin and get in

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and out of there as fast as they can. Because the way these

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projects work is they get these short term what are called hard

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money loans, where they can get the money on a very high

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interest rate to buy the house cash and rehab it. But they have

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to sell the house before that loan comes due. Because once it

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starts coming due the payments are astronomical and it will

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sink them almost immediately. So they're under a lot of pressure

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to meet their deadlines. And there's so much wrong with it.

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First of all, the houses they're doing this to were mostly built,

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in my neighborhood, they were mostly built in the 1910s.

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They're arts and crafts houses. This means that they have solid

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plaster walls, beautiful mouldings, high ceilings, and

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not just any kind of high ceiling but often coved

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ceilings. And they have all kinds of interesting ventilation

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and cooling built into them. And let me tell you why this matters

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because a well built solid old building is way easier to heat

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and cool than a modern building. Not because the insulation is

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better, often that's the thing that really ought to be

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improved, is the insulation. But because the shapes and designs

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and airflow are all built without additional heating and

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cooling in mind, or with very little. So you have things like

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transom windows, clerestory windows, coved ceilings are

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actually less echoey, than flat ones. The most echoey room in my

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house is my office. This building was built and rehabbed

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in the 1910s and 1920s. And my office is the only room that has

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a flat ceiling. It's also the worst echo. There are all kinds

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of reasons, all kinds of thought, all kinds of craft that

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went into these buildings and when we rip it ou--, of course,

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if it's destroyed, it's destroyed. If it's rotted, it's

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rotted-- but when we rip it out, when it's perfectly good. We're

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disrespecting, we're disregarding, all of that

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careful craft and thought and handwork that went into it. We

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do not know better, and especially most of these

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flippers do not know better. It's not like somebody's coming

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in having deeply considered what the best alternatives to those

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old systems are. They're just tearing out the old systems and

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replacing them with brute force. And brute force is pretty much

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never the right way to do something. Pretty much never,

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unless someone's dying, which no one's dying. These houses don't

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need to be gut-rehabbed at all. They don't need to be

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gut-rehabbed, they probably need some paint, they probably need

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some plaster fixing. Maybe they need a new piece of woodwork

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here or there. After a while things here tend to get dry rot.

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But you're never going to get that quality of work back in a

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house. Unless you're a multimillionaire and you have

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all the time in the world. You could have that quality of work

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if you simply didn't destroy it. And the dumpsters that they fill

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with materials... there are other options. There are other

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ways to do things that don't involve so much distruction.

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There are small upgrades yes that are useful and important

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like insulated windows, but the insulated windows can look like

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the old windows or you can insulate the old windows in some

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cases, it depends what you're dealing with. It doesn't, it

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doesn't need to be like that. But the problem is that these

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folks are not thinking about long term ethics. They're not

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playing the long ethics game. They're playing the short profit

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game, and that's a different game. It is, in fact, a game and

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not a way of life. I would say that ethics, I said ethics are a

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long game, but what I really meant was ethics, are a way of

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life. Ethics are a thing that we do all the time through

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everything. And we should not be, we should not be gutting old

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construction for no reason. And your profit motive is not any

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reason also, you're pricing people out and for why? Leave

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that house on the market for someone else. Pick a business

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that doesn't make people homeless. Ethics are a long

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game, and flipping houses, is not it.