Capital Gaines: Smart Things I Learned Doing Stupid Stuff

by Chip Gaines

  I have a long history of believing the best about people. I never fear a stranger without good, verifiable evidence, and usually not even after that. If faith in others bites me in the butt, so be it—and Lord knows, it has a few times. I’ll give you a couple of examples.

  In college my roommate, Riley, and I used to leave our front door unlocked all the time. We didn’t live in a great area of town, but it just wasn’t our style to give it that much thought. I guess we believed we had more important things to worry ourselves with.

  We left for Thanksgiving break, and I think each of us thought the other had locked up. We came back from that week out of town to find our apartment wiped clean. Everything was gone—down to the Fruity Pebbles cereal in the pantry. We probably would’ve been a lot more upset about it had we lost anything of sentimental value. But honestly, it was just a bunch of junk college kids seemed to acquire. We got some insurance money, and we bought all this cool stuff we wanted—a big TV, a tower full of CDs, a great surround-sound system. Our place became a twenty-year-old’s paradise.

  Then we left for Christmas break. My roommate thought I locked the door; I thought he did. And—you guessed it—they cleaned us out again. All of that new stuff, less than a month old, was gone.

  It’s kind of laughable now. You’d think we would have learned our lesson. But apparently not, because some years after that my truck was stolen out of our driveway because I left the keys in the ignition. Maybe that sounds like a one-time thing, but that’s not exactly accurate. It’s just something I’ve always done—not necessarily on purpose, but I guess you could classify it as a bad habit of mine. I will admit that I haven’t really tried to change it, because I’ve always kind of assumed the odds were slim that someone would steal my car, but the odds were pretty good that one of my buddies would need to borrow it.

  Joke’s on me. Turned out my buddies never needed to borrow my vehicle, but somebody did want to steal it.

  And here’s another one that hurts a little more. Back when Jo had her original Magnolia Market, which we nicknamed the Little Shop on Bosque, I hired a couple of neighborhood kids who couldn’t have been older than fifteen. The area where the retail store was located wasn’t exactly the best part of town, so when they came by asking to help, there was no way I was saying no. I was actually proud that they wanted to earn money, so I immediately put them to work. They primarily unpacked boxes, helped clean and pick up around the property, and did a few other odd jobs. This went on for weeks.

  One day after closing I went out back to mow the lawn, which ended up taking a good bit of time. I left the boys inside the shop with a punch list of closing duties like sweeping the floors and cleaning the bathroom. When I came back in to tell them they could call it a day, I was surprised to see they were already gone. Initially, I just kind of thought, Wow, good work, boys—way to get after it. It took me a while to realize that something was off, but I didn’t fully understand what had happened until Jo came back the next morning and discovered the cash drawer was completely empty. After that night, we never saw those boys again.

  Now, here’s where believing the best about people comes in. I can judge myself for my unwillingness to lock things up, but who am I to judge the people who actually stole from me? I’m going to leave that part to be worked out between them and their Maker. I like to believe that the truck thieves had somewhere they really needed to be and my apartment robber(s) were really hard up for a CD collection and some fresh undies.

  What still gets me, though, is the kids from the Little Shop on Bosque. Those boys worked so hard all that time, and then out of the blue they made this one bad decision. That leads me to think they had an urgent need for that money. I would have gladly given it to them if only they’d had the courage to ask for it.

  The point is, rather than changing how I operate, I choose to think better of people than they might even think of themselves. Even if I got all up in arms about these things, who am I to jump to conclusions? I don’t know their story, so I’m not going to make snap judgments about them.

  All that to say, I will probably continue doing these same things that I have always done. Some might say I’m irresponsible, being a poor steward of my things, or tempting fate. The reality is, it’s just what I’ve always done. And I refuse to let my life be driven by fear of what others might do or what might happen to me.

  Now, I’m not recommending that you do as I do. I actually married a door-locking, alarm-setting, large-dog-purchasing woman, and these days I feel like I live in Fort Knox. But in my heart nothing has changed. I want to keep my family safe, and I want to use my resources wisely, but fear is not part of the equation, not even a little bit.

  The people I love are the only things I hold precious. And my fretting over our safety or future or even our health won’t add a day to our lives—but it might well diminish the days that we’ve got.

  I’m going to get on a bit of a soapbox now, and I hope you’ll bear with me. If I ever run for public office one day, there’s a good chance my stump speech will be about making it illegal to live in fear. The reason I’m so passionate about this topic is that fear will literally ruin every single facet of your life; it cripples everything. You know how hurt people hurt people? Well, scared people scare people. And thus, the cycle of fear continues on.

  Coming at you in 2020.

  Fact: life isn’t safe. You could do A, B, and C all perfectly right, and then bam! All of a sudden D will show up, and D wasn’t even on the guest list.

  A lot of people spend their days walking in fear of failure, pain, or even death. But things like disease or war still find their way past triple-locked doors. No alarm system can keep these things away. And I just don’t see the point in putting energy into doing what isn’t possible in the first place.

  So like I said, life isn’t scary to me. I don’t sit around and allow the what-ifs and the worst-case scenarios to control me. There are so many things that can knock us down, so why waste one minute worrying about what we can’t control? I intentionally choose to think about things differently.

  I realized a long time ago that if you open the door to fear, even just a little, then it all comes flooding in. President Franklin D. Roosevelt famously said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” and on that, he and I can wholeheartedly agree.

  My point is this: For the rest of your days, you can live in fear of what could happen. You can walk instead of run, drive instead of fly, or leave the big city and move out to the suburbs. But you simply cannot protect yourself from the things beyond your control.

  I don’t want to make this too depressing or anything, but right now, at this very minute . . .

  •There are nuclear weapons being tested1 and chemical weapons being further developed,2 while a quarter of humanity lives without electricity.3

  •There are more than a hundred different varieties of cancer, with many different causes, but no dependable cure.4 And that’s just cancer. An estimated sixty-eight thousand different human diseases are classified by the World Health Organization.5

  •There are more than one hundred fifty million orphans in the world,6 and nearly eight million children die of preventable diseases every year (diarrhea, pneumonia, malaria) because they are too poor to afford treatment.7 To say that even more explicitly, twenty-nine thousand kids under five years old die because of poverty every day.8

  •If the conspiracy theorists have gotten any of this right, the air we breathe9 and the water we drink10 are slowly poisoning us each day thanks to some epic, global assault against the human race.

  You see where I’m going? If we let every potential threat out there dictate how we feel, there’s a decent chance we’ll all curl up into the fetal position and never leave the house. Sometimes too much information is immobilizing.

  I vote that instead of fretting about the problems in this world, we all become part of the solutions. This happens through our willingness to make small, brave decisions. No one i
s born a hero. It takes a lifetime of courageous choices to get there. So quit dodging hard things. When you make the choice to duck left to avoid something scary, you could miss a beautiful opportunity on the right.

  To this day, I’m still surprised and so proud that Jo had the huevos rancheros to up and move to New York City during college. She went there to pursue her dream of broadcast journalism. That didn’t pan out. But she left New York with the beginnings of an even bigger dream.

  Jo was a bit homesick in New York, but she felt a sense of peace when she would wander through the little home-decor boutiques she found throughout the city. Those cozy shops inspired her so much that she began to imagine a way to create something like them for herself. And when we got married, this was one of the first things I encouraged her to do.

  And Jo went for it! It didn’t matter that we had no money or that the timing wasn’t just right or that she had no idea what she was doing. That shop of her dreams was going to be a reality—and all because of that beautiful risk she’d taken in going to New York.

  Of course we don’t always know whether the decisions we make are going to be life altering or not. But I’d argue that every choice we make, big or small, points us down a particular life path. It’s like those “Choose Your Own Adventure” books that all the kids read when I was growing up. One choice leads to another, and the results can be amazing. But if we spend our time focusing on what might go wrong or how we could fail, then we’re likely to talk ourselves out of doing anything altogether—without even stopping to consider what the cost of saying no might be. Swaddling ourselves up in our security blankets completely restricts our ability to take courageously bold steps.

  I have this short friend, Becker. He’s six years old and wise beyond his height. Last night, at an impromptu gathering of friends, he requested that the attendees sit as he explained the rules for the evening. “At a dance party, even if you are just a little bit embarrassed, you still have to dance.” If this small fry isn’t a modern-day prophet, I’m not sure who is.

  If you don’t ask out the girl (or guy), you risk ending up alone, too scared to pursue a relationship. If the thought of traveling to a foreign country terrifies you and you bow to that, you miss out on experiencing the big, exciting world that’s out there just waiting on you to discover it. Say you never apply for (or accept) a job that feels beyond your capabilities, but instead choose to stay in an easy, safe position that never requires you to grow, change, or build something that matters. That’s not just sad for you; it’s sad for the rest of us, because we need what you have to give.

  The other thing about the presence of fear in the process of decision making is that it can severely cloud your judgment. Fear dressed up as wisdom provides poor counsel. It lures you into thinking that if you will just trust it, it will afford you some level of control.

  But guess what? You’re not in control. So I’m calling bull on that illusion. It’s time for a wake-up call. Maybe a little cold water in the face couldn’t hurt.

  Life isn’t safe, remember.

  But life can be wonderful if you choose adventure rather than fear.

  I get where these fearful tendencies are coming from, I really do. Humanity has, by and large, come to the conclusion that the world is getting worse and worse every day and that people are ultimately bad. No wonder everyone’s scared to death.

  Life feels altogether different when your perception shifts, though. It’s amazing how gorgeous the landscape of life looks when we choose to believe that all people have good in them and every situation has potential for a positive outcome. It may be buried or dormant, but I truly believe it’s there—most likely waiting for someone to look for it, to help unearth it, to expect it, maybe even to demand it.

  We’re all bumbling through life just trying to figure things out. Is any of us perfect? Not a chance. Are some of us up to no good? For sure. Do we get taken advantage of? Of course—probably me more than most. But I don’t want to ever stop believing in people or taking chances on life just because I’m afraid things might not pan out the way I’d hoped.

  I’m convinced that seeing the bad in the world and in people isn’t difficult or wise or insightful—it’s lazy. Finding the good in every scenario typically takes a lot more work. But the rewards of peace and joy and hope are so worth the effort.

  It’s possible that the perspective shift I’m describing may be more difficult for you than for me. Maybe you have one of those certified phobias. Let’s see, there’s amychophobia, the fear of being scratched (I get that). Then there’s phagophobia, the fear of swallowing (not sure what the day-to-day looks like for you people), and hypnophobia, the fear of sleep (can’t relate to that one), to name a few.

  Or maybe you have involuntary fear stemming from pain or a trauma in your past. You never know when some experience will trigger the flight-or-fight response in you and leave you shaken.

  If you are an extreme case like this, there’s no need to cold-turkey it. Maybe baby steps are what’s in order. You might even need to seek help from a counselor or physician. But whoever you are, whatever your situation, I believe you can still make the choice to move farther away from fear.

  How about we all start with choosing a little more courage today than we had yesterday?

  There’s a scene in this movie that I watched with the kids, We Bought a Zoo, where the dad gives his son an amazing piece of advice. This is the direct quote. I know because I made Ella get up and pause the movie so I could write it down. Then I played it back a second time: “Sometimes all you need is 20 seconds of insane courage. Just, literally 20 seconds of just embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it.”11

  That’s it. That’s the stuff. Each time you muster up what it takes and go for it, the next go-round becomes that much easier. Real and important changes begin with small, courageous acts.

  It’s never too late in your story to take a step away from fear. And the good news is that both optimism and courage are contagious. No hand washing necessary. Simply catch and spread.

  CHAPTER 7

  BABY STEPS

  I remember it like it was yesterday. Sometime near midnight Jo grabbed my arm and whispered, “I need to tell you something.” Back in those days, that sentence was typically followed by, “I’m pregnant,” two simple words that normally had the power to thrill me. But because Jo was already pregnant with number two, I knew this couldn’t be the case. Ella, our second child, would be born in a few months, and we were still getting used to the idea of what life would be like with two babies. I flipped the bedside lamp on and sat up so Joanna could tell me what was going on.

  “I think it’s time to close down the shop,” she said, her voice matter-of-fact. I looked over at her in complete disbelief, expecting tears. But she didn’t look sad, and there was no disappointment that I could read on her face. Still, I knew how hard this must have been for her to actually say out loud.

  Now, to give you some context, the original Magnolia store we had opened back in 2003 was just starting to hum along. Jo was in her element, and she had developed a unique style that attracted many locals. She had built up a solid customer base and had finally found a rhythm that was so fun to watch and support.

  My first instinct was to pat her on the knee and tell her to get some rest, that we’d talk about it in the morning. I honestly thought she’d just had a long day and wasn’t thinking clearly. Back then she spent most of her waking hours at the Little Shop with Drake, then a toddler, at her feet. Drake was still waking in the night and she wasn’t getting much sleep. I knew she was completely exhausted, and I didn’t want her to make a big decision like that while she was running on empty.

  But Joanna didn’t want to wait until morning. So my next instinct was to give her advice. I’ve always been the type of person who swoops in to save the day, so I felt it was my responsibility to throw out a couple of suggestions to keep this dream of hers going. Not that Jo ever needed my saving
, but I just couldn’t help myself. I mentioned finding a couple of part-time employees, one to help out during the morning shift and one for the afternoons so Jo could spend more time at home during the day.

  She looked at me with those determined eyes of hers and shook her head. “No, Chip. It’s time. I feel it in my gut.”

  This shop wasn’t a hobby for Jo. It was her life. Joanna’s work ethic is a blend of her father’s drive and her mother’s persistence. That combination made my wife a workhorse who was just plain fun to watch. She was so passionate about every little detail. As soon as the shop closed at five, Jo would take up the hunt for something new and unique to add to her inventory. She would run into antique stores and thrift shops ten minutes before they closed and grab broken-down pieces of furniture that she’d bring home and pour her heart into restoring once Drake was in bed. My wife was a one-woman retail machine, and nothing could stop her.

  Until now.

  Until this.

  Joanna is an all-or-nothing kind of woman. This characteristic made it hard for her to balance home and work and feel like she was doing either one with excellence. Just doing the bare minimum at the store wasn’t going to solve the problem. To be able to give the babies her full attention, she knew she’d have to give up the shop.

  By this point, I was wide awake, and I knew Jo wasn’t just going to let this one go. At that time, the shop provided at least half of our household income, a necessary supplement to my work flipping and building houses, so the idea of shutting it down sounded not only risky but, to some extent, downright foolish. But she was clearly serious, so we got out of bed, moved the conversation to the kitchen, and quickly started game planning for our future.

  It’s not typical for Jo to come to me with a potentially life-altering decision already made. She’s more likely to start a conversation so we can hammer out the possibilities together. But when she intuitively “hears” something and senses it’s from God, there’s no changing her mind or talking her out of it. I wouldn’t dare try. Even back then, when we’d only been married three years, I understood that when Jo heard God in a way that seemed weightier than usual, her discernment of His voice was usually right on.