Chapter 2 takes us to a suburb of Austin that grew into its own as the town of Round Rock. This is closer to the type of “re-use” I was interested in when I started reading the book — a building that was previously a Walmart and was / is now being used as something else.
The really interesting part of this chapter is the interplay with Walmart as the continued owners of the land. They bought the land initially, built their store, operated it for awhile, and it was successful. Dell located its HQ in the area, things started to rocket in the local economy, and they decided to build a super-centre across the road, leaving the old location empty. While there were lots of suitors looking to buy and use the land, Walmart was happy to let it sit empty unless the deal included a lot of restrictions on what could be put there for the future — basically eliminating any business that would compete with Walmart.
Then came a proposal to use it as an indoor race track for super go-karts / low-power racing cars. Ten cars at a time, racing around the indoor tracks, with racing league nights, conference rooms (mainly for Dell to rent out for corporate events), and early adoption of wifi in the lobbies. With no competition against Walmart, the deal was done, with a local developer buying it and the race track leasing it for awhile.
Initially, the deal looked awesome, mainly because the race track people were looking for a large empty warehouse structure to race around in. They didn’t care about the location; although it was great, they mainly cared about the structure. However, that same “deal” had a built-in ticking bomb…eventually, when some of the lease restrictions eased, it was more profitable for the landlord to lease to companies who wanted the location bad enough to pay a premium for being there. And so it eventually out-stripped the race track’s revenue stream, and they rented to a gym, tanning salon, barbershop, smoothie store, and a health food place.
Whether it was Walmart’s “holding out” for the right initial deal, or the subsequent developer “holding out” for the right leasee, or even later selling it to the right buyer for more than 3x the original purchase price, all of the owners used it as a “land bank” — they bought it up and held on to it, thus controlling future developments while others built up around it.
What I also found interesting was that the racetrack found ways to even use the parking lot — for motorcycle courses and mini-races, antique car shows, carnivals, etc. … almost none of it particularly “revenue generating” so much as just straight marketing and cross-promotion.
I found this chapter had a lot of great variables that raise some interesting questions. Do most of the “land banks” generate future profits? Does it require the first Walmart to still be nearby to draw extra infrastructure? Was it just because the whole area continued to boom? Lots of big box stores like K-Marts and Zellers in Canada did not “accrue” interest acting as land banks, as the areas were essentially dying. They sometimes find alternate users, but usually at a far cheaper rate than the land bank would suggest. Equally, it raises the question of timeframe for re-use…if you looked at this one in the early days, it looks like a giant success story. Five to ten years later, the racetrack is gone, the developer got its profits, and the location seems to have been broken up some, although the gym is still there.
Again, though, like the predecessor, it is just “different retail” in a retail space. While the raceway was interesting, maybe even iconic, the ultimate reality is simple retail use. Out with one vendor, in with another.
A few weeks ago, there was an article in one of the U.S. newspapers about old big box bookstores i.e. Barnes and Noble’s stores being converted into other uses. In a forum that I follow, someone suggested someone should write about a book about this, and someone else pointed out that it had been done — Julia Christensen wrote “Big Box Reuse” back in 2008.
The idea fascinates me for a number of reasons. Initially, the article interested me because I follow the rise and fall of various aspects of the book business — from brick and mortar stores to digital e-books to wax and waning aspects of public libraries. And with so many of the bookstores with large overhead and full retail pricing losing out in the U.S. in particular to the ubiquitous options of Amazon, there are lots of bookstores closing. Not as gentle a world as the “You’ve Got Mail” scenario of romantic small bookstore owner against the big box store retailer nearby, more like economic crushing by a faceless entity that can literally financially obliterate you by drone.
Secondly, I have a passing interest from a business operations side. I am fascinated not only by what some people think will be a functional, well-earning business (i.e. fancy sock stores); what will function in a specific environment (i.e. non-franchise coffee shops opening in the SAME location that three other coffee shops have failed previously — do the new people figure that they can survive on a 1% savings on supplies?); or businesses that seem to do most things right but just fail to connect (i.e. thousands of restaurants every year).
Finally, I’m attracted to stories of economic revival, particularly for downtown areas, but also in areas where a strip mall loses its main anchor and what happens to the store after that event. I’ve seen a couple of malls where it has lost a big anchor, and I thought, “Oops, that one is going to die”, only for it to attract another anchor store and keep going. And then lose that one, prompting a similar expectation from me, and yet they find either a third store or go in a different direction yet continue. I’m also fascinated by the small stores that remain in the same malls and how they can possibly remain open with such little foot traffic.
So the book attracted my attention, and lo and behold!, it was available for free through the public library. How could I say no?
Introduction
The intro is mostly about introducing some of the concepts for the rest of the book. First and foremost is the identification of what constitutes “reuse”. While there are multiple elements discussed, for me, I like the idea of “reclamation” and the process of change i.e. it was used for one purpose initially, then there is a definite dormancy period, and then there is a new function. The example I gave above where a mall keeps attracting other big box stores to try their luck isn’t really the same type of reuse she envisions.
I also like the idea that box stores tend to be utilitarian in design — you can usually tell what the store was previously just by the design. Similar to restaurant chains too, you often see an empty one and can immediately think, “Oh, that used to be a McDonald’s”. But it also means they are also quite bland once the logos and stuff are removed — after all, it WAS a “box” store.
I confess I’m a bit disappointed too with the scope of the book in two areas. In designing the case studies, she focused on K-Mart and Walmart stores only. While that allows for identification of some common factors, it also limits the study/book to only looking at stores with very specific styles of footprints — literally a large one-story box with a large parking lot.
I’m only a chapter in, but the book also seems to be lacking much in the way of other context. It isn’t just stores that are being converted…entire neighbourhoods are going from factories to residential, for example. And how do historic buildings fit into the equation when someone converts an old house in the downtown core into a doctor’s office? The issues are quite different, but are they similar in category? Hard to see the parallels without the broader context. I’d especially like to see comparators with historic buildings being adapted into residential or commercial space, and with conversions of schools and churches.
When approaching the book, I hadn’t given much thought to the definitional challenge of “what is a big box store?”. It seemed relatively obvious. Except the definition depends not on some national or international definition of square footage, layout or sales, but on local ordinances. I was also expecting it to be mostly abandoned buildings when stores closed…I didn’t expect it to be about stores closing because it was so successful that it “expanded” nearby with a whole new store, leaving the old building an empty shell (because it was cheaper to build a whole new separate store than shut down the old one temporarily during renovations).
Chapter 1 – Bardstown, Kentucky
I feel cheated by the first case study. The basic premise is that it is a historic old town, and Walmart located on one side of it. Then they abandoned that building to open in a new larger building on the other side of town. And not for nothing, did so again farther out with a huge superstore. But it isn’t really about two abandoned buildings finding other uses.
In the first instance, the courthouse relocated to the site, which sounds kind of odd and she references the weirdness of “corporate justice” trickling down. But it’s based on rhetoric more than reality. She does a great job of describing how the local town is so protective of its Kentucky heritage, and deep almost philosophical discussions about how to handle moving the courthouse. But in the end, all they are doing is moving to the space — they razed the building and built a new courthouse. That is not reuse in any fashion that has anything to do with the Walmart that was there before, all it really is about is the location of land close to the city and outside the downtown core. And while it suggests that it is all historic across from the old Kentucky home plantation, Google Streetview shows the reality — it’s next to a cheap stripmall with hair salons, tanning beds, a small credit union, etc, across from a McDonald’s and next to a bunch of small residential areas. It’s a far cry from a protected heritage site of Colonial history.
What I did find interesting is how the local city council learned from their earlier dealings with Walmart. When they built the first one, there were no real restrictions placed on what could be done with the old building. Similarly for the second one. But for the third one, they put limits on the construction that would allow for easier adaptation in the future if it ends up empty — more doors so that it could be subdivided into multiple stores, and a requirement for Walmart to tear it down if it sits empty and unused for a certain number of years. I’ll be curious to see what future chapters have as “civic lessons learned”.
I’ve been reading Jeffrey Kottler’s “Change” and am now onto Chapter 3, “When Lives are Transformed.” It seems a bit odd to be three chapters in and just starting to talk about the “big” changes as opposed to change in general, but this chapter starts to hone in on the “quantum” or “transcendant” type of change where it rises to the level of true transformation – perhaps where you radically change not only how you see yourself, but also how you see the world.
It is perhaps cheating, but I like Kottler’s description itself:
…an emphasis on relatively significant and permanent modifications that have been internalized, resulting not only in altered beliefs and priorities, but also in new, more effective behaviour, as well as continued growth that may even take place at a cellular level in the brain.
Pretty heady stuff. But for me it is simpler – a significantly different way of thinking and behaving that is sustainable over time. It doesn’t have to be “permanent” in the sense that there won’t be backsliding, nor does it have to be fully internalized to the point of instinct. You may still have to consciously override your internal voices to say, “No, that’s not what I’m going to do today.” Alcoholics in a 12-step process are not saying they’ll never drink again; they’re saying they won’t drink today, day by day, and the days hopefully add up to never again. But it still requires the daily commitment to a change in behaviour.
While part of the chapter talks about people who have created new religious movements or new ways of global thinking as a result of formative events – unplanned, sudden, brief, vivid and intense, positive and long-lasting i.e. intense but positive traumas – the real benefit for me is a small section talking about maintaining momentum to change temporary change into long-term change.
For Kottler, there are often several conditions that must be met for the change to be sustainable:
The benefits/functions of the old way of doing things must have been disrupted and no longer “working” for the individual;
The choice to act like the old you has to be greatly reduced ineffectiveness or has a higher cost now i.e. again you need to find another way;
The underlying causes/triggers for the old behaviour are addressed through other means; and,
There was some meaning attached to the changes that permit the person to find some greater purpose to his or her life.
It’s a good list, but I think it can be simpler. You have to disrupt / cut the ties to the past way of doing things…the triggers have to be mitigated, the benefits have to be recognized as costs. And there needs to be a narrative for the person – a story to tell themselves – that clearly recognizes the old choices are not practical anymore and that they are making the change for a better version of their self for the future. A “change” story.
Kottler emphasizes this at the end of the chapter. While negative motivators (avoiding pain and other costs) and positive motivators (awareness, insight) help move you forward, it also helps to find ways to cement your change in identity as you redefine yourself in terms of the new behaviour. There is a lot of power to saying “I am x” and having the empowered choice to decide what X is. That could be “drunk” in the past and “recovering alcoholic” now. It could be less painful ones – shy, nervous, awkward. But those labels are one dimensional and reinforcing of your old behaviour. If you tell yourself that you’re awkward, you will avoid social situations, for instance. If you only tell yourself you’re overweight, you won’t see yourself as capable of doing a lot of things. And unless you see yourself in the “new” light too, you can’t sustain the momentum once you do make some changes.
For me, using my “goals” as a catalyst for change, part of my story is telling myself that “I am someone who can make changes in my life.” I can write, I can spend time with my son, I can learn a new hobby, etc. An act of empowerment built into the simple act of setting goals that starts with the belief that I can achieve those goals.
It works for me, not sure it will resonate with everyone. Does it resonate with you? What is your “I am …” statement?
So I mentioned previously that I was reading “Change” by Jeffrey Kottler (Jeffrey Kottler’s “Change” – Chapter 1), and the book is pretty dang good. Every chapter has these elements where I just go “wow”. While Chapter 1 dealt with defining change, and the general process to cement change, Chapter 2 talked about some of the challenges and obstacles that prevent change, compromising our efforts.
For Kottler, he believes that there is often one or more catalysts for change — natural life transitions (age, events), something is broken and needs fixing (but more importantly, that people recognize that it is broken and needs fixing — kind of like personal buy-in to the process), simple boredom trying to get out of a rut, achieving some specific reward, or more often when studying change, a personal crisis. Others he mentions later in the chapter include narratives (like a book or a story that inspires you), brush with mortality, facing a self-deceiving lie, changes in lifestyle, or simply solitude and the time to reflect. But even with those catalysts, Kottler argues that you may not move into the process of change:
Not being excited about change;
Willingness without knowledge of how;
Willingness but negativity (too much work);
Action highs (it feels good to change);
Backsliding;
Maintenance / embedding; and,
Completion (it’s part of you now).
So why don’t people change? Kottler argues that there are hidden benefits to the existing situation that stop you from changing. The “aggressive” personality who destroys relationships with their anger management issues but also likes being able to draw upon the strength and to hide behind it. Or they are just feeling too overwhelmed with the basics to try for anything better. But those benefits come at a cost, and in Kottler’s view, you only get those catalysts when you’re aware that the “hidden benefits” that resist change are less than the obvious costs of staying as you are now.
For me, the aggression example is pretty apt. I know I have a really bad temper, and it destroys everything around it. I used to kind of like giving it free rein, as it made me strong. Stone-cold if I needed to be. But when I went through my five years of “tadpole” status to figure out who I wanted to be, one of the things I chose to half-jettison was my temper. Technically, you can’t jettison it, which is why I said “half-jettison”. It’s still there, it’s still part of me, but I never let it out of its box. Not around people I care about, and generally never at all. Because I know what my triggers look like. I know that I can’t be having drama with loved ones, not like when I was growing up. If people are into drama, they are no longer part of my life. I just don’t allow it into my zone. And if a situation starts heading that way, I exit. I walk away. I know what buttons are part of me, and I know what triggers them. But mostly I know what happens if I let them get pushed too much to the point where my response is no longer a choice. My temper is a fight or flight mechanism, and when I can’t take flight, I will fight. And for me, that’s a scorched earth approach. I want the fight over quick, and the enemy destroyed with no chance of recovery. I will pick, instantly, the most hateful thing I can say, stick the knife in and twist it. Powerful words. Downright deadly, truth be told. But not who I want to be. I don’t want to say those things. Not now, not ever. I don’t want to say them, I don’t want to be responsible for them being said, I don’t want the devastation that they may cause. That’s not an exaggeration.
One time I was involved with someone, it was a confusing situation, and I needed to end it. I was hurt, I was confused, and I was angry. And she was wondering why I wasn’t more upset as we ended things. Looking back, I know that to handle the confusion, I had slipped past my point of no return and was in stone cold mode. And in that moment, I knew what I would / could say, but shouldn’t, and I said it anyway. Simply to hurt her. “Because you don’t mean that much to me.”
Not said in anger, not shouted, not in your face. That’s not how I roll when I’m in cold mode. I just deliver it like a matter-of-fact, totally believable, truth bomb designed to obliterate the person’s soul. It didn’t in this case, thankfully, perhaps because she didn’t really believe me, nor want to, but with the right person, it could have been devastating.
You are likely not convinced, and I don’t like to give too many personal examples that involve other people, not my place to tell their story. So let me give you a different example. Let’s assume I was outside myself, and I was targeting me. The easy target for me is my weight, but that would be too simplistic. A level up from that might be targeting my ego, but again, not really a heavy blow. Professionalism, abilities, whatever — none of those are going to be devastating. No, to be truly devastating, you have to target a vulnerability, an existing weakness that they are already worried about. For me, like most parents, I worry that I’m not a good enough father. That I don’t do enough with him, that I am not engaged enough. So if I was angry with me, that would be my target. A carefully delivered jab to suggest that Jacob would be better off with a better father. An insidious worm that feeds on existing doubt. Not delivered as an attack, but as if it was a nagging worry of mine about me. Attacks are defended, worries and cautions are hard to deflect. And so it would slip by the defenses and land heavily on my psyche. That’s what my temper gives me. A ruthless power that does not discriminate once launched.
I love the strength that came with that power, but all power corrupts, and you can’t wield that power without corruption. I love knowing I have it if needed, I hate knowing I have it at all. So I make sure I never wield it. Ever. I run every time now. It’s who I was before I was a tadpole, and it is who I used to be. Not who I choose to be now. But it was a bitch to defeat and control.
Because as I jettisoned the controls, I had to focus on new techniques to resolve things. I had to also accept that I could choose to leave and lose something — an argument, a fight — even though I knew I could stay and win. And I even choose to leave EARLY, long before the triggers happen, just to be safe. So I lose even more. In other cases, I simply had to cut certain people out of my life, because I couldn’t allow myself to continue to lose in those situations to them — they would just keep coming and sucking the life out of me, destroying what I’m trying to create. The only way to win that game is not to play.
But there were a wealth of things that were stopping me from changing, and it took me almost four years of psyche-bashing and rebuilding to get myself back together, to see a different path forward.
For Kottler, he argues heavily that much of the unwillingness to change is supported by rationalization — I’ll do it later, I can’t stick with it, maybe I don’t need to change it all — and it can be mitigated with greater awareness. He points out though that this won’t work for everyone, particularly those with personality types or even disorders that make them self-sabotaging or non-reflective emotionally. Hard to use self-awareness to help yourself if you’re not self-aware or the message you get isn’t accurate. Obviously, too, severe trauma will mess up your abilities to process, just as it affects all aspects of your life. Coping skills, and improvements to those skills, can help make you “more prepared” to accept the process of change, and Kottler has a long sub-section (pages 34-36) listing ways to help with coping. Things like:
Clearly identifying your values and goals;
Taking care of unfinished business first, so it doesn’t intrude;
Practicing and rehearsing, perhaps in smaller steps or trial runs;
Monitoring internal conditions that might trigger relapse (hunger, stress, etc.)
Figuring out ways to mentally bounce back when (not if!) a relapse happens along the journey; and,
Asking for help when you need it.
My favourite idea from the chapter though talks about false hopes and resolutions that fail (p 37). Basically that you are going to fail. It will happen. You will slip, you will backslide, you will relapse. And you’ll need to restart. With the corollary that not only is it difficult to “start” change, but also equally hard to maintain momentum. Think of all the people who start fitness goals on January 1st and the goal is dead before the month is out. One truth bomb that jumped out at me was:
People tend to overestimate their abilities and underestimate the amount of time and energy it takes to complete a task, especially one that is complex, intractable, and long-standing…It turns out that a number of myths are perpetuated by the self-help industry, that all it takes to change your life is good intentions, positive thinking, self-affirmations, grandiose expectations, and force of will. But as it turns out, it is precisely these illusions and myths that lead people to overestimate what is realistic and possible, dooming them to disappointment and discouragement.
“Just do it” is a nice slogan for Nike, but if you could “just do it”, you would have already done it. In my view, smaller, more attainable goals to start and a strong focus on restarting after a relapse are keys to remaining resilient in the face of the momentum challenge. I’ll close with another truth bomb.
There is no sense going after goals or making changes if, once you reach them, they don’t make much of a difference in the way you feel about yourself, your life, and where you are headed.
I love the quote but I think there is a missing nuance. I have some “goals” on my list, but they won’t do that change…they are more maintenance items to prevent backsliding on previous changes that I want to keep embedded in my life now. Not a big nuance, but one that is important for me to keep mindful of in my goal-setting.
Last June, I went to my wife’s graduation ceremony for her Master’s degree, and the guest recipient of an honorary degree for that session was Jeffrey Kottler. I confess that I’m not sure if I had ever heard of him before that, although I vaguely remember seeing reference to his books in some “best of self-help” lists. As a speaker, he was amazing. He told a couple of stories about himself growing up, and about a woman who underwent a profound change in front of him, and in all of the examples he gave, he basically had an underlying double-edged message…first, that change can happen anywhere and second, he has studied it for a good part of his life and has no idea what really causes change.
His speech and approach to change were intriguing enough that I came back home and googled him, looking up some of his books on Amazon. And then promptly ordered “Change – What really leads to lasting personal transformation”. I got the book around mid-June and I jumped in, but I’ve been slowly reading a chapter here and a chapter there. It has tons of great info about some common elements to various approaches to understanding change and how to make change happen, or more accurately, how change happened in specific instances for others.
Even the preface is solid. He repeats what he said in the speech, namely that after centuries of study, none of the “experts” really know what’s going on with people as they change. However, generally speaking, making changes is easy; sustaining the change afterwards, i.e. maintaining the momentum is where the hard part begins.
As he gets started in Chapter 1, I found myself nodding to myself in a lot of places. First, and foremost, I love the idea that change is not about a cure for a problem but rather the process of overlaying new patterns over top of older ones…like building a city on other foundations. Sure, the metaphor breaks down if you talk about weak foundations, but it is more about covering up the other foundations, putting down new roads or paths overtop, and eventually, the new paths are the dominant ones.
The first chapter is filled with definitional issues, and I found one of them quite profound:
When does an alteration in attitudes, beliefs, behaviour, thinking, or feeling “count” as change, and how long does it have to last in order to qualify? What if there are reported changes in a person’s thinking or attitudes but no observable shift in behaviour?
For me, the answer seems simple…in reverse order, a change in thinking is enough to qualify for a “change” of sorts, a pre-requisite if you will for any future change to come, and it “counts” if it is sustainable on it’s own i.e. it embeds itself in your thinking without blowing it off or reverting back to the previous way you thought or approached things.
In the same vein, I find the scope of the initial chapter a little too large. It notes for example that there are “levels of change”, including attitude shift, experimenting with alternatives, rational skill development, external support, meaning-making, and even cognitive restructuring. For me, it is much simpler…a mental change, an attempt to try other approaches, finding an approach (mental or process) that works for you, and reinforcement of that initial mental change to “cement” the change. This is much closer to the general approach he outlines (desire for change, a situation that forces change, awareness, testing, and avoiding relapses), but I am not sure I agree about the “situation” that forces change. He makes a large emphasis on this in later chapters, but it doesn’t answer all the foundational issues in my view, so I’ll discuss more of that later.
What does change mean to you? Does temporary change count? Or only permanent, sustainable change?
