“Like a massage studio,” Angie subtly suggested.
It then became clear why Greg and Angie were here. This suddenly all seemed to overwhelm me. I recognized that I needed to invest my money, but wouldn’t it be easier to just put it into a mutual fund and ignore it?
Then I had a horrible thought. There were stories about how friends and family took advantage of young people who came into money. I sure the heck hoped that wasn’t the case here. Two seconds later, I knew that even if I did lose all my money to this, I’d be okay with it, since it was family. All I had to do was look at the farm to see how that was working out. If I could help my mom and Greg achieve their dreams, I would. I turned to Caryn and smiled.
“So, you have a plan, right?” I asked.
“I do, but it requires you to initially spend some money. Plus, I want to hire two people to help me pull all this off.”
Caryn then laid out her plan. She hadn’t been sitting around while I was on set, making my movie. Caryn also tied her proposal in with the charities. She wanted to collaborate with the Mennonites for the farm work, with which my grandmother agreed 100%. Caryn was a little mysterious about the two hires because she wanted to interview them first and see if they were interested or not. I was sure one of them was Kendal.
Finally, we came the big issue: how much was this going to cost me? The initial outlay wasn’t insignificant, but she backed it up with income projections. Everyone seemed to agree she had a solid plan. I asked her to give me some time to think about it. The problem was that everyone in the room had a vested interest in this happening. I also worried that I would be tying up an awful lot of my signing bonus to get this off the ground.
I kicked everyone out of the office except Caryn and asked my dad to join us. Then I had Caryn go through it all again for him. He’d managed the park district and was now in charge of the local country club. Dad asked some insightful questions, including a few Caryn admitted that she hadn’t thought of. What it highlighted for me was this was her first shot at overseeing a business startup. I knew she wouldn’t get it all right, but she was eager to learn and seemed confident.
When she finished, I asked her to help me out with a little surprise for Jim’s signing day. I was quick to ask her to delegate it to one of her minions-to-be before she had a chance to huff about it. Then I asked her to let my dad and me talk for a bit.
“What do you think?” I asked after she left.
“You’re halfway in already, with the purchase of the farm and telling your mom you’d partner with her. I wish Caryn were more experienced, but she’s sharp. If it were me, I’d do it.”
“Can you help her?” I asked.
“Of course I will. I’ll make sure she doesn’t mess up too bad.”
That’s what I loved about my dad. He would look out for me and still have a sense of humor.
“You saw the cash-flow numbers. There’s a lot of money going out with the new farm, and all the setup that will be needed to get Mom’s business started. I’ve also been spending money while I was in LA, recruiting trips, and the like. I’m worried it won’t pay off in the end,” I admitted.
“Your mom and I suggest that you curb your personal spending. I’ve seen your bank statements, and what you spent on your recruiting trips and learning to skydive weren’t insignificant.”
“But we made all the money back from the skydiving lessons,” I explained.
Shooting the ad for the wingboard for Range Sports had more than paid for those lessons. Especially with the hazard pay that was added on after I almost killed myself when the board decided to spin out of control and I was tossed off it.
“And I guess I wanted to reward the guys on the recruiting trips,” I continued.
“David, look at me,” my dad ordered and waited until we made eye contact. “You can’t be buying friendship. I’m sure your friends appreciated you putting them up in a high-class hotel when you made your trip to Georgia. But I would bet they would’ve had just as much fun at a Holiday Inn Express that they paid for. You need to be careful in setting their expectations of your friendship.”
He was right, of course. My goal wasn’t to make the guys reliant on me for what I could buy them. Wolf, Tracy, and Lily were perfect examples. Wolf earned extra money by doing tasks that I either didn’t want to do or didn’t have the time for. Tracy and Lily had volunteered to help me with recruiting and social media with no compensation. I finally had forced Lily to accept a small amount, and recently, Frank, my publicist, had hired her. When I tried to pay Tracy, she’d told me her dad made enough off me and not to bother.
Of my other friends, Brook and Halle had money of their own. I was aware that Brook had spent more on our playdates than I had. Halle’s mom had taken me in when I was in LA, so I didn’t regret buying her things like a custom surfboard. Zoe was very thrifty and never asked for anything.
