Just Cured - Experience Fine Foods

I have been near several crises over the last several weeks. A young niece was sent home from sports practice with a note that a doctor needed to look at a severely swollen joint. A man I don’t know at all was told he will die soon; my connection: his wife is the life-long friend of a dear friend. Another friend is in a business dispute threatening her livelihood.

My niece is fine. The eternities between when the orthopedist and the radiologist sent her and her parents to a pediatric oncologist, when the oncologist spoke the word “cancer,” and when my niece and her parents received the test results confirming that the growth is benign were anything but fine. On the day of the first doctor visits, I happened to be visiting their town for a business dinner. I was able to spend a couple of hours with my sister and at least a few minutes with her husband and each of her three children. We didn’t do very much or even talk very much about the unthinkable. Mostly, I tagged along for the late afternoon and early evening activities of a household of teens and an adolescent — readying for, toting to and fetching from sports practices and games — all the while listening to my sister’s plans for an upcoming high school fundraiser. There was no place on earth I would rather have been that evening. As it was, I would have preferred to have begged off the society party and the late dinner at the fancy chain steakhouse with a client in favor of a grade school soccer match and burgers at some dive with my sister and her family.

My dear friend is not fine; neither is her life-long friend. How does one deal with the unequivocal doctor-pronounced death sentence of a loved one? A fortuitously scheduled meeting and a several hour car ride were not in the cards this time; my dear friend and I are separated by hundreds of miles. Are phone calls and emails and my constant thoughts a sufficient substitute for a concerned look, a proffered hand and an unconditionally open ear?

My other friend requires the analytic and negotiating skills that I possess. Her situation is not life-or-death. It is the more frequent (in my professional experience) prospect of financial or professional ruin. Unfortunately, I am the wrong person, in the wrong place, at the wrong time to help her. She, too, is several states separated from me geographically. Shortly after she took her current position, she asked me to represent her company in a minor legal matter. As a result, my ability to help her in a dispute with her employer is severely restricted. I scream to myself that I have assisted literally hundreds of clients resolve similar problems over the years. In my friend’s case, I can only help her find counsel in her locale and act as a silent sounding board to her as this dispute unfolds. I will be able to spend some time with this friend soon — but is that enough?

Tragedy and near tragedy strike millions of people each day. I understand that. Tragedy almost never visits those I love. And when it does, I expect to be able to fight it — or at least be there to help in the fight.

I wish I were announcing that you can purchase Just Cured’s smoked salmon. Please be patient; that announcement is coming soon. Instead, the reality of opening for business struck me this week. And it hit me with a force that I had never imagined.

I knew that day would come; I have been expecting it since the day I made my decision to start Just Cured. In my very first post, I hinted about some reservations I was having. You see, my legal practice was always a collaborative effort. At a minimum it was a lawyer working with a client to achieve the clients goals. At the maximum, it was a team of lawyers working with teams of clients, investment bankers, accountants, advisors and sundry others to achieve similar goals.

There are huge differences between my former legal practice and Just Cured. Today, the responsibility for success or failure is mine. As Harry Truman said, “the buck stops here.” In days past, I never deluded myself that a client’s success was mine, and I always understood the difference between the client’s success and my successfully executing my supporting role. As strange as it may first seem, it was possible for the lawyer to achieve a successful result that ultimately was contrary to the client’s interests. Today, there is no such distinction — there is only success or failure, and my actions will determine which it will be.

I have always known my responsibility for the business at an intellectual level, and I struggled emotionally with going into this business as I was deciding to turn my life upside down. But after months of working to get Just Cured off the ground, the realities of what I am doing came crashing upon me simultaneously.

And I felt alone. Not a quiet room with a book or music playing alone — stranded on a deserted island with no options kind of alone. My episode didn’t last long, but it was brutal while it did. An early morning phone call from a dear friend made me understand I was not so alone. Two late morning calls from my wife who had picked up my tone earlier followed by lunch with her pushed my loneliness far away.

Why did this happen just now? I wish I knew exactly why. If I did, I could probably prevent its occurring again. I am going to attribute it to the events of this week. I was taking delivery of some production equipment that day. I need to make final decisions on branding and logos this week. I also need to order this week the most expensive piece of equipment Just Cured will need. I really want to be in limited production within the next ten days or so, and there are hundreds of little things that I have to accomplish for that to become a reality. My weekend reading on the state of the economy didn’t help much either. Just Cured is starting up with consumer confidence at record lows, the lowest in 35 years by some measures.

Today, I have all my demons safely locked away. Today, I will complete the work-around I spent the night thinking about to deal with the equipment that wouldn’t install in the location I had planned. Today, I will commit to the branding concept I like the best. Today, I will smile about the email that arrived as I wrote this paragraph from a friend and former colleague (another girl with terrific instincts) just asking how I am.

Today, I will revel in my responsibility for Just Cured — and in not being alone.

In anticipation of Just Cured’s product release and a completely redesigned website, we have added a simple front page to the site. You may click on the link on the left side of the page for this blog (which you have obviously mastered to have arrived here) or click on the right side link to subscribe to our mailing list. I encourage you to subscribe — mailing list members will receive some special discounts and other goodies when we first release Just Cured’s smoked salmon.