I was having coffee with a developer friend of mine this morning and we got onto the topic of asking a lot of questions. We joked that that's what we do all day.

Development projects happen because of teams of very smart people all working together toward a common goal. It's a beautiful thing. And as a developer, there are certain expertises and competencies that you should have.

But for the most part, we usually sit in rooms as the least qualified person. We are not structural engineers. We are not geotechnical engineers. We are not architects (though I sometimes pose as a fake one). We are not planners. And we are not façade specialists, among many other things.

But we are the ones taking on most of the financial risk and trying to bring everything together. And what that means is that you end up asking a lot of questions. You collect information, you try and consider what could go wrong, you lean on past experiences, and then you make a decision -- often without perfect information or 100% certainty.

This is how projects move forward. You have to rely on others and you have to make decisions. Because not making a decision is even worse. It burns time, which is why too many cooks in the kitchen can be the kiss of death for development projects.

I'm sure the same thing can be said for many other things in life.

https://dmeb.castos.com/episodes/interview-with-david-wex

My friend David Wex of Urban Capital Property Group -- who I featured in my "BARED" blog series back in 2016 -- was recently interviewed by architect Vincent Van den Brink (of Breakhouse) for the firm's podcast called, Design Makes Everything Better. It's a great listen and I particularly like the bit around branded vs. opportunistic real estate development. In the case of Urban Capital, David would describe his firm as being a branded developer. They build a specific product and it doesn't really change when they build across Toronto and in other markets. Expect exposed concrete ceilings and exposed ducts, among other things. If you can't see the embedded podcast above, you can have a listen over here.

I’m not a huge believer in new year’s resolutions, as I much prefer the idea of continuous goal setting and improvement. But I like Mark Zuckerberg’s tradition of pursuing one “personal challenge” every year. One year it was to learn Mandarin. And this year it was to build a personal artificial intelligence tool. If you’re interested in AI, you can learn about the experience and his takeaways in this post.

I am definitely interested in AI, but right now I’m actually thinking about his approach to personal challenges. This is a time of year when many of us are looking back at what we accomplished over the last 12 months and thinking about what we would like to accomplish in the next 12 months, as well as beyond. I know that I was doing some of that this past weekend. 

I managed to check off many/most of the items on my 2016 list, but full disclosure: some of them are getting punted to 2017. I also modified certain items. I originally wanted BARED (Becoming A Real Estate Developer) to be a book, but instead it transformed into a new blog series. My most recent BARED post can be found, here.

However, as I look back at all of the lists I’ve been making, I realize that virtually all of the goals are work related. They’re about completing this, growing that, and so on. That’s obviously important, but what about personal growth? Sure, one could argue that learning Mandarin is actually a prudent business move, but Zuckerberg claims to have been motivated more by personal reasons. And that’s great.

So I’m revisiting my lists and thinking about ways in which I can challenge myself to grow not just as a professional, but also as a person. Right away, photography comes to mind as an obvious personal challenge, but I’d like to give it a bit more thought. If Mark Zuckerberg can find the time, then there’s no reason that you and I can’t as well.

Do you have your own set of lists that you keep?