The Nature of Home - II

Return to Nature of Home - I

If you want to find out what human beings really care about, follow the money.

Here are some eye opening statistics that will give you a sense of how profoundly important "home" is to those of us who live in the United States.

According to Realty Times, residential real estate in America peaked out in value in 2005 at about $23.5 trillion dollars. Single family homes are by far the biggest part of the pie, estimated at more than $11 trillion.

To put that in perspective, the market value of all New York Stock Exchange listed stocks at that time was about $11 trillion. The total value of all stocks traded made it to almost $16 trillion. $6.9 trillion in assets were held by commercial banks and the country's annual economic output was about $10 trillion.

Since then, in the recent collapse of real estate values, some estimate close to $5 trillion in value has been lost - equivalent to almost half the value of all public company's listed by the NYSE.

The U.S. Dept. of Energy estimated in 2007 that residential buildings consumed 22% of all energy used in America.

For most of us, buying a home is the single biggest investment of our lives. Roughly forty-four per cent of ALL wealth in the United States exists in the form of residential real estate.

Here is another interesting fact. The top source of consumer complaints by industry is - guess what - home improvement.

Home improvement is also the biggest highly fragmented market in the American economy. Can you think of a single name brand provider? You know suppliers and manufacturers like Home Depot, Sears and Pella - but can you think of a single branded remodeling contractor or custom home builder?

Unlike the factory style construction process used by large production home builders, most remodeling and high end custom homes are done by small local builders.

So why is that? Why hasn't some huge national builder created a franchise in this massive industry. After all, residential construction is a bigger market than domestic oil and mining combined!

Where is the home improvement McDonalds or Best Buy?

The reasons are complex and varied - just like the projects involved - but two of the biggest ones are that consumers don't know how to deal with money effectively. And professionals don't know how to deal with clients that don't know what they want - but think they do.

I have been working with clients for over thirty years in these industries and I have come to accept the fact that when it comes to an emotional project like a home, clients lose their minds!

Stable marriages topple like palm trees in the hurricane of home improvement. Pleasant, cooperative homemakers turn into Machiavellian harpies, combating husbands who vow to fight to the death on the ramparts of their own financial Alamos.

Practical, down-to-earth CPA’s suddenly realize they are the reincarnation of Frank Lloyd Wright.

Customers lie about their budgets, trying to bargain with the designer as though they were buying their house from a Tijuana sombrero salesman.

Perfectly reasonable people, who would never dream of telling their doctor how to treat a disease or their lawyer how to draft their will, think nothing of telling a professional architect how to design their home.

When people begin the process of designing a new home, they forget the basic laws of economics.

I long ago discovered that when customers who were over budget came to my office to “trim the fat,” they were actually going to add a Jacuzzi, upgrade the ceramic tile, change the plastic laminate counter tops to granite...and then expect the price to drop.

The simple fact is that the only people who can effectively manage their money when it comes to such projects are those who simply don't have the money to spend.

Every client I have wants more home than they want to pay for - and has a hard time accepting that the arbitrary budget they made up had nothing to do with the actual cost of construction.

In our architecture firm, we call this the "budget VS desire" issue. As far as I can tell it is universal - a fact of human nature. It's like we are some kind of automatic robots driven by our impulses when it comes to home related projects. (Exactly like that, as a matter of fact.)

So when almost everyone involved has a problem dealing with money in an industry that big, that emotional and that high priority - you have a mess.

That's why there are no large franchises in the remodeling services business. It is very hard to make money when all your clients expect you to read their minds - then to design and build a home for a number they made up out of thin air.

No one in architecture or construction has ever truly beaten that problem.

Those are two reasons why at Truehome, we think wellness pros and designers need to team up.

If our homes are in our heads - then we need to take human nature into account when we develop our design criteria.

Launching Sufficiency

On the heels of my last post about the Pachamama Alliance, I want to share another powerful initiative that is launching a global conversation for "sufficiency."

It is called the Global Sufficiency Network and I am honored to serve on the Advisory Committee for the organization along with some incredible people. They include Lynn Twist - who I talked about in my last post.

The group's Managing Director is a good friend - Marilyn Levin - whose vision for creating a powerful conversation for sufficiency is very inspiring.

If you think about it - a belief in scarcity lives under practically every persistent issue we face as human beings. We say their is not enough money, enough resources, enough jobs, enough opportunity, enough time, enough effective and responsible government, enough personal responsibility, enough love, enough freedom and enough quality programming on television.

Most of us turn this promotion of scarcity on ourselves. We are not good enough, smart enough, compassionate enough or sufficiently skilled to have the lives we want.

But this is just a position we share, an agreement in our world view - and it has almost no basis in fact. We face many challenges - and they are real - but if the history of our species and for that matter life on this planet - proves not only that nothing is impossible - but that life always finds a way.

So with those facts in mind - we are launching a movement for sufficiency - one that has actually been building for years - and we invite you to participate.

Coming soon, on Wednesday, July 29, the Global Sufficiency Network will host launching events all over the country. People from all over the world will gather to celebrate the message, the promise, and the possibility of a world working on behalf of all beings - a world grounded in sufficiency instead of scarcity, accumulation and never enough.

Here in Texas, we will be hosting an event in Austin. I invite everyone to join us in creating a powerful new conversation that has the power to change the world. To find out how you can support this work and become involved - RSVP here.

There will also be a live streaming video event at all locations featuring Lynne Twist. So join us in launching this powerful new conversation. The events are free, but bring your checkbook. Sufficiency begins within each of us - and becoming a founder of the Global Sufficiency Network is a powerful way to declare your own sufficiency.

In the meantime, take a look at this video explanation by Lynn Twist of what sufficiency as a conversation is - and learn how you can shift your own view of life in a powerful way by creating a conversation for abundance.

Here is another video by Miriam Hawley - CEO of Enlignment Inc. - sharing her own take on the "Power of Enough."

As a final resource - I offer my own series of posts about changing the conversation of scarcity associated with the global economy - Transformational Economics.

Pachamama Alliance

I want to share a powerful story - and a unique project - with my readers. It is the story of the Achuar people - an indigenous group living in the Amazon basin in southeastern Ecuador.

They are a nation of roughly 3,500 people who live in about 2 million acres of pristine rain forest accessible only by small airplanes that can land on dirt runways.

A few years ago, the Achuar began to realize that their remote area was not immune from the economic appetite and materialistic view of the modern world.

They put out a call for partners who might help them manage the threatening change they and the diverse eco-system in which they live were soon to face.

A small group of people from the developed world heard that call through mysterious circumstances - and traveled to meet the elders of the Achuar. From that meeting arose a group called the Pachamama Alliance.

Among them was a woman I had previously admired in the 1980's when I was a very active in an initiative called the Hunger Project.

Her name was Lynn Twist and she is an unstoppable force who has been a leader in creating the possibility of ending hunger, creating opportunity in the developing world and empowering sufficiency for over thirty years.

I was lucky enough to be a leader in the youth wing of the Hunger Project - Youth Ending Hunger - twenty years ago. I was honored to co-found, with a teenager from New Mexico named Eric Rutar, a transcontiniental bike ride called the Tour de YEH back in 1988 that began on the White House Lawn and ended when 60+ kids from all over the world rode into the opening ceremonites of the Goodwill Games.

Though the two of us began the project - its fulfillment was an incredible grassroots movement that grew far beyond my small early efforts. The experience utterly changed my life. Through the Hunger Project and the Tour de YEH, I learned the power of creating a powerful conversation.

Lynn Twist is also an author of a best selling book related to the sufficiency conversation called The Soul of Money. She co-founded the Pachamama Alliance. That group later spun off another initiative called the Awakening the Dream Initiative. Check out both these fine projects.

Lynn and her collaborators have done much good work since then. The Pachamama Alliance is seeing promising results from its first steps in the creation of a Green Plan for Ecuador, including endorsement of the plan from the country's newly elected President, Rafael Correa.

I strongly recommend my readers view the video linked here and support this powerful work.

The Nature of Home - I

Copyright 2009 - Christopher K. Travis

Those who follow this blog know I run an architecture firm and an Internet technology startup at Truehome.net – both of which use a systematic approach to creating an “experience of feeling at home” for our clients and users.

This series of posts asks the question “what is the nature of home?”

I will explore “home” from many different views, asking that same question from a personal, cultural, financial, philosophical, psychological and multi-disciplinary scientific perspective.

My goal with each post is be concise rather than apply my typical – let’s be frank – verbose and rambling style of writing.

So this series will be an attempt to write in a more focused way about a very complex subject - one I have long studied. Wish me luck! I am not exactly known as a “man of few words” - but here goes.

The “Common Sense” View of Home

At one level – everyone knows what “home” is. It’s where you live and how you feel while you live there. Most of us see it as the building we inhabit but also know we “feel at home.” We know we come from a “home town” and go “home” to visit our past.

So we know home somehow involves emotional experiences associated with belonging, safety and personal claims to space or origin.

“Feeling at home” is something almost everyone wants to experience. In that way, home is a physical metaphor for the womb.

But the truth is that many people do not feel "at home" in their habitations at all.

You don’t feel safe and comfortable where you live if your parents are abusing you; your marriage is on the rocks; your children are driving you crazy; you have medical, psychological or financial problems - or if the neighborhood in which you live is dangerous, unhealthy or unfitting.

So the “home” that is a building - and the “experience of feeling at home” - are two different things. One is a physical structure – bricks and sticks – and the other is a complicated suite of emotions that impact how you see that building and those who live with you.

But most of us relate to our homes as the former - a building we inhabit. We enter, sit on the couch and watch TV, or play with the kids, or try to get some rest at the end of a hard day at work - and simply don't think about it.

We don’t see “home” as a complex, interdependent, physical, emotional and psychological eco-system created more by how its inhabitants view reality that by it physical components. We think it is a building we are familiar with and "already know."

But home is really in our perception - our view of reality. We all carry deeply ingrained historical views of reality – born in our past – about the nature of home.

We predict our future experience by looking backwards – both consciously and unconsciously – at our past experience. Most of us are not present to this fact. We think we are rationally choosing our experience - but in reality - our "experience of home" is in our heads.

Home is like water to the fish...just a given. Life goes on. We view the reality we experience each day as a result of our circumstances - something outside us - rather than a result of our points of view.

That is the “being of being human,” and it's universal with all people in all cultures. So even looking objectively at the “common sense” level, you can see that home is a very complicated subject - and one that is widely misunderstood.

These facts make it very hard to transform our "homes" into an environment that truly supports and inspires us - because remodeling an "experience of life" is much more complicated than remodeling a building.

Go to The Nature of Home - II

Courage and Sacrifice in Iran

My heart goes out to all the brave people of Iran as they speak truth to power.

They are not just fighting for themselves. Like all people who place their bodies in harm's way for the cause of liberty - they fight for us all.

In this all religious people are united - Moslems, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus and all the other myriad faiths of the world. Our spiritual teachers tell us that ultimately man is answerable only to God - not to nations or political systems.

In this, all people who place their faith in humanist ideals and values also unite. Those who will not place their faith in religion still seek civil liberty and free self expression naturally.

The courage and commitment of the Iranian people also holds a lesson for those of us in the West. We can see the unfair stereotypes of America that are promoted by Islamic extremists - but we are often blind to the stereotypes we hold ourselves about other cultures and faiths.

People are people. They long for freedom, self-expression and the opportunity to create a better life.

In the last few days we have seen a culture often demonized by our own politicians for what they really are.

They are human beings. They love their children, their country and their heritage just like us. Like us too, they must face the truth in the old axiom - "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

We in America have had to face down power many times. The liberty we have now was not won in the American Revolution. It has been wrested from the hands of the powerful and unjust time after time throughout our history. It's legacy was expressed in grassroots movements - from the women's movement to the civil rights movement and onward.

It was born in the labor movement, the environmental movement and still today - people must hit the streets to gain civil liberty for those condemned because of their choices in love. Truth be told - there is still much to be done in our country and in all nations on our planet.

All people have the right to civil liberty...but all people must remain vigilant so that their freedoms are not taken from them. Whatever disagreements we may have about other matters - those people in the street in Tehran are our brothers and sisters in their fight for freedom.

Truehome and Mindfulness

James Burns is a blogger who makes a living as an interactive designer, scrum master and technical writer.

His interests are eclectic - but center around what he refers to as "mindfulness".

He follows research on things like the social determinants of health, and the latest in neuroscience, particularly as it relates to the scientific study of mindfulness.

He also has some kind things to say about Truehome. Thanks for the shout out James.

Mountaineer Heritage Park

I have to brag about a project our architecture firm is currently undertaking that involves several Texas landmark historic buildings.

It is newly called the Mountaineer Heritage Park - and involves a large compound in Mineral Wells, Texas that will become a local historical district in the near future and is being submitted to the national registry.

My career began over 30 years ago as a restoration builder. I was a lead designer for historic projects long before I began to design other projects simply because my mother - who is a historian - dragged me around with her to historic properties as a child. When I went into construction and design - I gravitated to old structures long before I began to design homes and other structures.

This current project is something really special. Mineral Wells has been through many ups and downs in its storied history so this new community center could be the spark that causes a wave of revitalization and pride for the entire community.

This particular site involves three buildings - a historic high school, the first "school house" built in the county in the 1800's and the first stand alone home economics building built in Texas.

It also includes - of all things - an amazing WPA outdoor stone amphitheater like those built in many state and national parks. This is the first time I have ever seen one on a school campus.

The old Mineral Wells High School building sports a unique indoor auditorium with a free standing curved balcony unlike anything I have ever seen - which will soon host plays, concerts and school activities.

Another unique thing about this particular non-profit project is that it is being sponsored by a really unique non-profit. It is called the 50 Year Club and to be a member you had to have graduated from Mineral Wells High School at least 50 years ago!

How about that! This is a group of "can do" senior citizens that are not satisfied lazing away the last decades of their lives - and are out to create a legacy. A very impressive group!

We used a variety of the adapted Truehome programming methods we employ when doing projects for organizations not only to inform the design - but to help them create a development campaign.

We also created an identity design plan to "brand" the project that fits who they are as an organization and a community. It is designed to empower and inspire them and the Mineral Wells community.

The whole thing has been a great experience. Congratulations to the 50 Year Club and Mineral Wells, Texas for having the courage to take on a new community center and unique historic venue. They are raising money right now and we encourage anyone with ties to that community to support their effort with enthusiasm!