Failures lead to happiness and success

It all started in 1972. As a Sophomore in high school I wanted to take an elective art class. They were all full, and architectural drafting was the only elective open that involved drawing. Three years of that class and fast forward to 1974 Drafting trade school. 3 years of working for architects, then I strayed. 

My wife's family bought the largest building in Rexburg Idaho in 1976 and we turned it into what we called the Small Mall. I opened a T-shirt shop, learned to screen print, the shop never really made money, wife opened an ice cream & sandwich shop, I still did some design work on the side, then we tried a Restaurant, that failed miserably. In 1980 I got hired to run what Billboard Magazine ranked as the 3rd best Disco in the world in Boise. Yeah I know...not really believable...but in December 1979 Billboard magazine ranked the top 10 discos in the world and the club we took over in 1980 had been ranked as a tie for 3rd place with it's triplet sibling discos in New York and Houston. Made the owners a fortune for 9 months, then they got greedy and hired my assistant manager to take my place. Not really a failure, but lesson learned...don't trust your employees too much. He lasted a month.

 More design work and my wife opened a barter company franchise. She was very successful until her Father decided to help and that didn't go so well, another failure. I worked for the largest construction company in the world at the time, MK, for a year as well. Found out then I didn't do well working for others. I put too much effort, heart and soul into my work and it was not appreciated. In 1986 we moved to Phoenix, I worked for an AC company designing residential A/C installations for a few months, then was hired by a company to be their in-house designer. That was the real start of my architectural design career. That job lasted until October of 1987. The company had bought land for a subdivision that I designed the model homes for. Sales were off the charts. they were selling the homes faster than they could keep up to. Then, the location for the new 101 freeway was announced and it ran right behind the property killing sales.

In October of 1987 I opened my first real design company. Arizona Home Planners. Our offices were on Scottsdale and Shea. In 1989 we moved our home to Scottsdale. We (my wife and I) moved the office a few times and changed the name to Architecture Southwest in 1992. Then in 1995 we made the decision that struggling every month to make that lease payment for office space was killing us so I moved into a bedroom recently vacated when our son moved out on his own.

I spent too many years undervaluing my talent and value and did not charge near enough for what I created. I helped many builders make millions of dollars, while I struggled to pay my bills every month because I was charging way too little. Afraid to charge more for fear of losing the clients. Then in about 1996 I began to realize that I was pretty good at what I did. I had seen too many builders make too much money while I struggled. I raised my fees considerably. You know what happened? I got more busy than I had ever been. I figured out the client base I was trying to land would not hire me because I was too cheap. I guess they thought if I only charged that much I must not be very good.

In 1995 when I moved into my home I changed the company name again to Darling Designs. It has remained that ever since. Now, I have had good years and some bad ones. In 2007 we landed two large custom home design projects (spec homes) in Bend Oregon. We thought there would be many more, so we bought a little cabin on 3 acres in a Ponderosa pine forest just outside Bend. Then the crash of 2008 hit. Only one of the two homes we designed were built. Business dried up there and in Scottsdale and we had to let the bank take the cabin property. A failure, but a lesson.

The years from 2008 to 2014 were brutal for us. Almost no design work. You see, I never advertised because I stayed busy enough I didn't need it. Most of my work was done for builders or builder's clients that they sent me. In 2008 all of the builders we had been working with either went out of business or retired. No clients, no work. I had a good assortment of tools so I started doing remodeling for friends and I advertised on Craigslist to do remodeling work. It was hard work, it didn't pay well, but we scraped by. In 2014 the design work began coming back. I found LinkedIn about eight years ago and began working it to try to build my business for free. Since then close to 80% of the work I have done has come directly as a result of being on and working LinkedIn.

I have designed homes all over this great country for clients who found me on LinkedIn. From as far away as North Carolina to California and Nevada, as well as many projects here in the Valley of the Sun. My clients have come to expect great things from me. Our 2002 Street of Dreams project earned about 70% of the 1st place votes for Best House, Best Kitchen, Best Master Suite and Best Pool. That home is where our "catch phrase" of "i could live here" was born. people, after walking the other 4 homes in the tour that year would walk into ours and say..."Now, I could live here."

So what have I learned? Failures are lessons, diversified backgrounds create great life stories, and having the perfect partner in life, my wife, makes anything possible. I am blessed beyond measure. Yes, I look back and regret I didn't learn my value many years sooner, but maybe that's what it took for me to become who I am today, and I quite like me now.

I hope that by reading this, some of you who might be struggling, might be at a crossroads, will take heart that if you just never give up, you pursue your passion and you work your heart out on that passion you will eventually arrive in a great place... as I have.