Dear World,
On the eve of bankruptcy and upon sincere reflection as I exit the wallet business, I can’t help but be filled with mixed thoughts of joy, angst, humility, enlightenment, cynicism and a wide variety of auxiliary stark emotions that all have been brewing in me for quite some time. I’ve had a lot weighing on my brain. Now that said, today I’d like to write about my emotion of sadness (but tomorrow I will no longer discuss it as it is time to now move forward). You see, db clay taught me about a lot more than just wallets. db clay also taught me about people and their inherent nature - their bright side and their dark side and the latter stirs an odd sadness in me that to this day I’m still struggling to accept. I had always hoped for better out of people! I am not sad that db clay is gone; I am sad that people around me have gone dark and that the world truly does revolve around the currency my wallets were designed to hold. It, money that is, truly rules all and that to me, is sad.
To paint it personally, the sad and ironic realization I’ve come to is that the majority of people only want you around when you are on the up and up… when you pose potential benefit to them. But when you’re on the way down, you are toxic and no one wants be near you. No one cares to take interest because you know longer represent success for them. Everyone’s worth is sadly measured in dollars and cents. To site a specific example: I use to get friendly calls all the time but when db clay was shutting down, the only people (save a few) that called me for months and months and months were creditors. Very few friendly calls came in.
When I started db clay I was just a kid and I didn’t know any better. Initially it wasn’t about duct tape or business and it certainly wasn’t about money. Now all of this pitiful self ranting aside, I would like to admit that for me, it did become about money and perhaps I am guilty too. I wanted db clay to be huge! And when it was taken from me I was mortified. I was broken. Yes, the money part of it mattered, but all I wanted, more than anything, was for someone to call me and offer a helping hand. Very few did and I’d like to call those people in particular, elevens. People who called me with genuine intentions. People that didn’t care that I was broke. People that offered to give rather than to take. True friends.
I have a lot of people in my life who are ten out of ten. But I can count on one hand those that are eleven out of ten and to them I say, thank you for caring about me and not just about how full my wallet is/was. You are true friends and to those of you who fall in this elite class, again, thank you for supporting me even when it meant being around someone whose ship was sinking.
Ok, time to move on.
Garett
Now, I know that might sound strange coming from a fella who sells wallets for a living; after all, wallets are little devices that contain your credit cards and carry your cocaine covered cash. But last night over dinner with me lovely gal B, I got to thinking (and I got to wondering) what society might be like if we exchanged tangible and valuable services with one another rather than always just exchanging virtual/hard currency? Everything is always about money! To frame the context of this discussion a bit, consider how we’ve shifted our focus from each other and onto money during the decades 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, and aughts - the globe has changed all around in doing so.
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In our interaction with others on both the personal and business front:
Perhaps We Barter Instead of Borrow?
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By way of example: during said dinner conversation with B, I pulled from my wallet a $30 Gift Certificate that I had received as a thank you gift from a fashion design college student that I met with for an interview last week - I casually talked to her about all of the Business Development steps I’d recommend she take as she exits college and enters the world of entrepreneurship. I simply told her the story of db clay and what I have learned along the way. I simply shared what I know and what I don’t know and she appreciated it. And though I surely didn’t expect it ($30 in return for my thoughts that is) - it was nice because it went a long way in buying dinner and wine for B and me! This then sparked a bartering-minded conversation and we discussed a few analogous scenarios. B is a photographer and she is shooting her friend’s wedding in September. In return, her friend and her friend’s husband are coming over with their pickup truck and they are going to help B move out of her apartment - exchanging photo taking for help with moving - a novel idea?
Other examples: A web developer friend of mine recently built a blog for an artist named Mona, and in return for building her a website, she gave him a piece of her art to hang proudly in his apartment. Or how about my other friend who asked me to help him and his family move (rather than hiring a moving company) and in exchange, he wrote me a rain check for helping me move the next time I do. I scratched his back, he will scratch mine someday, though that is not the point as we both would do it just to do it regardless of reciprocation. Or how about the landscaper who tends to their accountant’s lawn once a month in exchange for help in managing their small business’s books? How about the SEO whiz who drives traffic to their local coffee shop in exchange for a cup or two a week? Or how about the city dwelling architect who helps draft up some building plans for a cabin being built by his friend in the woods - maybe the architect is awarded some time shares in exchange for his drafting expertise? The list of bartering-minded examples such as this is/could be long.
In conclusion: I am an amateur small business consultant and I helped a student out recently. In return, I was treated to dinner for two. But rather than stop there, and to take it a step further, what if the college student designed a promotional flyer for the restaurateur rather than paying $30 cash for the gift certificate she just got me? Bartering is/could be a circle all the way around if we simply started up dialogue and opened ourselves up the possibility of making money our second priority, rather than our first.
