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Grateful for the Journey…Excited for the Possibilities

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Last night at Top Knot, I sat beside a warm fire and watched the sun disappear behind the Montana mountains. The sky turned brilliant shades of orange, pink, and red. The temperature dropped, the stars came out, and eventually the Milky Way stretched across the darkness overhead. This morning, I woke up to another spectacular view of the mountains, the pine trees, and a little snow scattered across the landscape. And I found myself thinking about gratitude. Not just gratitude for the beauty surrounding me, but gratitude for the journey that brought me here. You see, Top Knot wasn’t something I bought off a real estate listing with a cabin already sitting on it. It was a dream I’d carried for most of my life. I wanted a piece of mountain property in Montana. I wanted to harvest the trees from that property and build a log cabin with my own two hands. And that’s exactly what I did. Every log. Every wall. Every challenge along the way. One hundred percent built by me. There wer...

Built Like Stonehenge. Tested by Montana.

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Built Like Stonehenge. Tested by Montana. An October weekend, 20 inches of snow, and a reminder that resilience isn’t about standing still. Well, I’ve officially heard it all. Friday, I was enjoying one of those beautiful Montana fall days. Eighty degrees, blue skies, sunshine, and a golf course calling my name. As I was visiting with a gentleman at the pro shop, he looked me up and down and offered an observation that I can honestly say I’ve never heard before. “The people who crafted Stonehenge must have made you. You sure are a big fella.” Stonehenge. Not a linebacker. Not a lumberjack. Not Paul Bunyan. Stonehenge. Apparently, I don’t look like I was born. I look like I was assembled by a group of prehistoric engineers using ropes, wooden rollers, and an alarming disregard for OSHA regulations. I’m still trying to figure out whether that was a compliment or if the gentleman was suggesting that I should be designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Either way, I laughed. An...