Reaffirmation

During particular stretches of unfortunate events, such as low yields, it's important to consider all the reasons why we choose this line of work. Certainly there are plenty of other career paths and business opportunities that exist outside of the cannabis industry, all of which would require a substantial amount of time and effort just to get a foot in the door. It goes without saying that I've been through these "trials and tribulations," as they call it, after my first two years in the business, having suffered many losses and setbacks along the way. Some could even argue that my business is a "failure." I haven't seen the kind of monetary profit one would expect in an industry that mirrors the resurgence of alcohol in the 30's and the dot com boom of the 90's. At times, it seems like there is little to no advantage in doing what I do now, other than to avoid having to join the corporate rat race.

So why do this? Because profit doesn't have to always be monetary. Today I woke up a half an hour past noon. I stayed in bed for another two hours before I got up, took a shower, got dressed, and made a half hour drive to a Vietnamese restaurant for a bowl of pho and cup of iced coffee. I didn't call in sick. In fact, I didn't call anyone. I didn't have to be anywhere other than where I wanted to be. And it's Tuesday.

But with minimal tasks comes the thought of minimal progress. It's been said that you don't get anywhere by sitting on your ass doing nothing all day. Certainly there are things to do, such as general maintenance and planning for future projects. I still have a list of tasks that haven't been completed, although I've always been good at completing any set tasks within a specific amount of time regardless of when I start them. So where do we draw the line between generous time management and lethargy? How do we differentiate between "patient planning" and laziness?

The difference lies in how we define "work." Does work have to involve physical labor? Is it the amount of work we put in defined by the time spent on a particular set of tasks, or even the amount of tasks being completed within a certain amount of time? Do we define progress as the physical result of the work being completed? A restaurant manager might feel that they did a good job if all of the customers left the restaurant content with the food and service, whereas the owner might feel otherwise if there weren't enough customers to keep up revenues. A web developer for Amazon might be content with their performance after resolving a few lines of code to improve functionality of the website, whereas their CTO might feel that the entire code itself is fundamentally flawed.

Businesses such as these measure the quality of work by their peers, their competition, and their ability to sustain themselves, but therein lies one of the biggest difficulties of a sole proprietor. Without a general consensus of peers and competition, I have to constantly review my own work according to my own standards, which leaves little room for patting myself on the back even after hitting 4.5 under 4000 watts. I'm successful in my ability to grow decent product, but a failure as a business owner to keep profits high, and if I was to measure my own ability as an entrepreneur, I would be an absolute failure; entrepreneurs tend to measure themselves by net worth, and my business isn't an asset.

Looking forward, it almost seems like this business is inherently doomed. Legislation for cannabis isn't going to affect me directly, but if dispensaries have to adhere to government standards and customers refuse to buy from places that don't, I will have to adhere to the legislation as well, otherwise my market will be limited to non-compliant businesses. Powdery mildew and spider mites are going to be common problems even among experienced and well-funded growers, and there will definitely be compliant solutions to them, but I can only hope that these solutions will still be cheap. At this stage of my career as a private cannabis grower, I simply cannot afford to adhere to the rules without improving my yields.

There are other solutions. The cannabis industry is still growing, and a lot of money is going to be invested in cannabis in the near future. Every harvest is a resume that I'm sending to other growers and business owners. As long as the product is good and I am judicious with my choice in associates, I feel that I won't have to fold up my business in the near future. If I maintain production at a sustainable rate and progressively increase it, I may have a chance at something bigger. Staying the course I've set and meeting my own personal benchmarks is the best course of action at this point.