Hungry Life Happy Life

April 1, 2015

Personal

I couldn’t love and respect three guys more than I do Ed Beaulieu, Brian Helfrich and Chris Hanson. Last week we pulled off the impossible, once again, by building a Pondless® Waterfalls for some very happy kids at the Casa Hogar Orphanage in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Again herculean logistical efforts were required, along with long days and nights to get the project done. The results speak for themselves. There may be a team somewhere on the planet that could pull off such a feat as was required with this project, personally though I can honestly say I haven’t met them yet.

Tomorrow, our new reality show, Aquascape Pond Squad debuts digitally to the world. It’s a work in progress and truly a labor of love for all of us. Filming our original reality series took more out of me than just about anything I have ever done. It also gave me something I never thought I could get, and that’s a deeper love and respect for my co-workers. I’ve worked with Ed for 22 years and Brian for 21. Together we’ve created a business from a dream, and an industry from what was formerly just a lifestyle. As for Chris “The New Guy” whom I’ve only known for two years, he’s done something equally powerful. Chris has restored my faith that the next generation can be hard working, intelligent and even respectful to boot! That’s saying something in this day and age.

What we had to go through to film our old reality show and what we are doing to create our new one reminds me of the words of a totally out there artist and author Hugh MacLeod in his book, Evil Plans.

Welcome to the Hunger
IT WILL COST YOU YOUR LIFE.
The Hunger to do something creative.
The Hunger to do something amazing.
The Hunger to change the world.
The Hunger to make a difference.
The Hunger to enjoy one’s work.
The Hunger to be able to look back and say, Yeah, cool, I did that.
The Hunger to make the most of this utterly brief blip of time Creation has given us.
The Hunger to dream the good dreams.
The Hunger to have amazing people in our lives.
The Hunger to have the synapses continually firing on overdrive.
The Hunger to experience beauty.
The Hunger to tell the truth.
The Hunger to be part of something bigger than yourself.
The Hunger to have good stories to tell.
The Hunger to stay the course, despite the odds.
The Hunger to feel passion.
The Hunger to know and express Love.
The Hunger to know and express Joy.
The Hunger to channel the Divine.
The Hunger to actually feel alive.
The Hunger will give you everything. And it will take from you, everything. It will cost you y our life, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.
But knowing this, of course, is what ultimately sets you free.
By Hugh MacLeod

We might be proverbially killing ourselves creating our own show, but it’s our show and nobody else’s! It’s why I changed the name from our old show. And in the end “Our Hunger” will only be fed by stepping back as we always do and evaluating what we just did and how we are going to make it better the next time. In other words, you gotta always stay hungry!

We love and respect each other too much to do it any other way.