We mourn the passing of our dear friend and colleague, Sherri Goldstein.  Sherri’s dedication and talent were instrumental in driving Moonrocks over the past 4+ years. More importantly, Sherri was a rare, beautiful soul who brought joy, laughter, and comfort to the lives of countless others. Thank you for everything you gave us, Sherri. You will always live in our hearts.

It’s dusk at my offshore digs south of Talisay, Philippines—where I stay when working out of our Cebu office. I’m locking up the tool shed for the night, gazing up at the gorgeous, shimmering remnants of the sunset, when suddenly I hear a mob approaching. A big mob—and they sound pretty agitated. It’s hard to hear what they’re shouting about, since everyone’s yelling at once, but I’m able to discern once sentence, and it’s a tad concerning:

“Gikaon sa bitin sa kano ang akong kanding!” (The white guy’s snake ate my goat!)

Huh? There are no white people in my hood—I’m it, outside of the occasional missionary. And yes, I happen to own a massive python named Ethel. But Ethel escaping and eating a goat? Impossible!

Why is this impossible? Well, because I took every precaution I could think of to make sure it wouldn’t happen. I hired professional welders with zoo experience to create an escape-proof, securely-locked outdoor vivarium for Ethel. We planned for every contingency. Even little critters only a few centimeters wide had no chance of getting in or out. And Ethel, a beautiful serpent wider than my thigh, certainly had no shot – or so I think. I run to the back of the house and check the impenetrable escape-proof fortress.

Ethel ain’t home.

Ok, no time to panic. I will accept my fate, say a few prayers, and venture out to pacify the horde of 60 or so cacophonous goat-avengers. Will it be death by stoning or will they use shovels? I’m thinking shovels. As long as it’s quick I don’t have a preference. I approach the mass and pleasantly say “good evening everyone” in the local dialect. OK, maybe not the best door-opener. Abruptly, three small, rugged-looking dudes drag a huge sack toward me. I look inside. It’s Ethel, comfortably curled up, very fat.

Now, you’ve got to know your turf as a business traveler. As a foreigner in the provincial Philippines, for example, humility and a good heart are vital survival tools—a warm, genuine smile is one’s best bodyguard. I kept repeating “pasaylo-a jud ko” (I’m deeply sorry) and asked the owner of the deceased, who happened to be a farmer from down the road, for his forgiveness. I also offered him double the goat’s market value.

Immediately, his face lit up with delight—I mean, that’s a huge profit in local goat-owning circles. Just as importantly, it also became clear to these people that I was sincere in taking accountability. Next thing I know, the farmer is inviting me to his home for coconut wine with his family. Everyone was happy in the end. Well, maybe not the goat.

Important business lessons come from the oddest of circumstances. Yes, the enclosure was “escape-proof.” Yet Ethel, while lacking a cerebral cortex, knew something I didn’t: the house foundation was cracked three feet below the surface of the enclosure (snakes essentially “taste” their surroundings). She persistently burrowed an underground escape route that would impress the Viet Cong. In the end, Ethel taught me some very valuable lessons. The largest of which is that I needed to think like a python, get inside her mind, in order to anticipate how she was going to behave. Following the goat-eating incident, you can bet I upped my focus even more on understanding the minds of the beings I was interacting with—human and otherwise.

At Moonrocks, we’re almost fanatical in taking every painstaking measure to never assume anything. We take thoroughness to a whole new level. This is what ensures our findings to be irrefutable and a large reason why our customized cost-saving solutions have had unprecedented success. Taking nothing for granted requires more than linear thinking; it requires creative ideation to imagine scenarios one would never anticipate.

Final note: Ethel was enthusiastically adopted by breeders. And my snake-owning career is finally over—I’m getting too old for this. :o)

I’ve gone down many, many roads over the years, some of which were considered (at least at the time) unconventional, even a bit nuts. But each stop along my journey, in hindsight, gave me something invaluable—incrementally contributing to my business philosophy—coming from places I’d least expect.

Primary Example: going to wallpaper-hanging school. Yes, I’m a certified graduate of the U.S. School of Professional Paperhanging, ‘class of ’84. No, I’m not kidding. And actually, it wasn’t all that random. I wanted to pursue the performing arts and I needed a way to feed myself. Why not wallpapering? Decent pay, short hours. I could even be my own boss.

 My college buddies, who were starting at major architectural firms, attending medical school, or becoming engineers, would ask: “so what are you up to, Jord?”

“Um, I’m in wallpaper-hanging school.”

“What?!?”

 Judgment was palpable, at least in my circle. But again, in hindsight, like all of my travels, wallpapering gave me a boatload of crucial insights. The core principles I learned continue to guide my approach to life and business each and every day. For Example:

Assumptions can be perilous. I assumed paperhanging would be a breeze compared to statistics, calculus and James Joyce. It wasn’t. It was hard. Really hard. I wasn’t the “natural” I assumed I’d be. I’d accidentally leave soiled fingermarks on ultra-pricey Shiki silk ($1500 per strip). I once hung a mural upside-down. (I pretended I thought it looked better that way.) And those friggin’ air bubbles … I thought they’d disappear with minor effort, but they would never come out of vinyl wall coverings!

Respect process. One day, I made the connection that every time I took a shortcut I’d pay for it later— big time. “Heck, if one sheet of wallpaper is a tiny bit crooked, no one will notice, right?”

Wrong.

When the job was finished, that “slightly crooked” sheet caused each subsequent sheet to be even more crooked, resulting in an absolute catastrophe. The Flemish clamming vessels appeared to be sinking. The lovely backdrop of snow-capped mountains tilted right, creating a look that screamed “earthquake.” “You do more damage than good!” a ‘delighted’ customer once told me. Real confidence-builder!

Tenacity generates breakthroughs. Alas! Seemingly overnight, it all somehow jelled. After years of trial and error, it was as if the wallpapering craft suddenly infused into my DNA, and I became one badass paperhanger. Again, it seemed to happen overnight—but of course, it didn’t. I simply kept at it and was willing to get my nose bloodied along the journey.

Avoiding ill-conceived assumptions, respecting process, and staying the course are the universal tenets behind anything worth accomplishing—and they are among the core guiding principles driving our meticulous approach at Moonrocks.

Next blog: What I learned the day my python escaped and ate my neighbor’s goat.