We recently had the chance to connect with Kent Hartland and have shared our conversation below.
Kent, so good to connect and we’re excited to share your story and insights with our audience. There’s a ton to learn from your story, but let’s start with a warm up before we get into the heart of the interview. What is a normal day like for you right now?
I’m 73 now. I retired at 55, got married and built a house in 10 acres of forest by a lake. Every day I pinch myself.
I rise at dawn, enjoy a couple coffees while scanning the news, email and such on my back porch. My wife and I may have a light breakfast before starting our day. Typically, it may involve the occasional doctor visit, run to the lumber yard or other stops before returning home to tackle the To Do’s of the day.
Whether car repairs, house work, or mowing six of those ten acres, there is always something to be done. In between To Do’s, I work on making my fancy smoking pipes.
Evening, is usually a nice supper with whatever family members might be in house, followed by coffee and a pipe as we watch the sun go down and the night come out. Moon and Stars? We’ve got em, with very little light pollution. Crickets, frogs in the pond, hoot owls in the woods and guest appearances by various coyotes, all add a chorus to the beautiful evening display.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
After school, I decided I was interested in many things and decided to get experience in mechanical design, fabrication and assembly, electrical and electronics. Along the way I took many side trips into creative and artistic ventures, 3D design and printing, woodworking, writing and custom car and motorcycle painting, I even flew a plane, though I never got my license.
Making smoking pipes started as a whim while I was making custom knives, all just a hobby. I was not content with how pipes worked so I, of course, made my own design of pipe that is cooler to hold, extracts much of the tar and nicotine without paper filters and looks better than many pipes since I use a bounty of the world’s exotic hardwoods, not just briar wood.
I will launch my new website KentHartlandPipes this fall so people can judge for themselves if I am onto something.
Amazing, so let’s take a moment to go back in time. What was your earliest memory of feeling powerful?
Like a lot of boys, by age nine I was hooked on sandlot baseball. I could hit pretty well for a little guy, run like a breeze and even pitch. I began to notice that when I pitched, some of the guys would stand a bit further way from the home plate and lean in to swing. It usually made then pull their hits toward third base. where I or the third baseman would be ready to pitch it to first. My dad noticed this and took me aside one afternoon.
“You are left-handed. You throw hard. Many of these boys have never batted against a lefty. It scares them because it looks like you are going to hit them, so they stand back and lean into the batter’s box. Use that. Make your first or second pitch inside, so you brush them back. Then when they stand back like that, pitch away from them.”
It worked very well until the other kids got used to my fearsome left-handed pitching. Once they got comfortable, I would freak then out again by pitching right-handed! I was just a passable rightie, but they didn’t know quite what to expect from me, especially when I alternated left and right.
Life lesson: you may not be the biggest, strongest, fastest or best looking, but figure out how other people see you, what your talents are, and how you can set yourself apart.
Was there ever a time you almost gave up?
Many years ago there was a nasty overlay of the Dot.Com bust, where I was a rising star marketing guy and my stay-at-home spouse that was increasingly involved in daytime drinking, misadventures and spending habits.
We had just built a new house, bought a new car, had our third kid. and was suddenly out of a job for several months. My wife was lost in space, I nearly lost the house and car, someone threw a boulder through the car’s back window and I severely broke my leg in an ice skating accident.
The ER doctor detailed how he was going to operate and fix my leg with rods and pins. Then he found I didn’t have medical insurance, which had been through my prior employer. He literally wrapped the leg up and sent me home with a Vicodin script. That leg is now an inch shorter than the other one, since the broken bones were never set.
I went into a bad depression and barely hung on until the day I got a call from a recruiter that put me back into a great job, good pay and a deep appreciation for life’s lessons and how they often are disguised as problems. I learned so much that year. My wife showed me the wicked and cunning tricks that alcoholism can play. My kids showed me that even one crippled up parent is better than none and I still have a close, warm relationship with them, decades later.
God showed me that you should never give up when things go bad. You are not being punished. You are being gifted with an appreciation for life and provided with a strengthening experience that will serve you for the rest of your life.
In most cases, no matter how bad things may seem, you should be grateful for the problems you do have, it could always be worse.
Alright, so if you are open to it, let’s explore some philosophical questions that touch on your values and worldview. Where are smart people getting it totally wrong today?
Today, like almost every time in our country’s history, people seem to think we are in a unique place with new challenges brought on by progress, or lack of progress, outside influence or inside corruption. Times have always been ripe for paranoid and suspicious people to pin blame for unrequested change on The Other.
We, and only, We the People, are both responsible for whatever is going on as well as for the corrections needed.
Democrats, for instance, blame Trump and keep wishing for a powerful charismatic young leader to emerge from the murky darkness and catalyze a movement to unseat Republican power so we can reestablish control, sanity and vision to America.
That won’t happen soon for a number of reasons. First, there must be a fertile bed of discontent that is publicly visible. That will embolden more people to come out in the streets and add to the chorus for change. While that movement is growing and grows even more every time Trump pulls another bombasticism, it must really snowball if t is to be effective in the next election/power grab. Likewise the audacious “re-redistricting” (gerrymandering) and ICE raids.
When there is powerful public dissatisfaction, a new leader will see a credible opportunity, and support for, a run against The Billionaire Boys Club.
It is up to us.
People have to Show Up, Sound Off and make it clear that We, the People are still in charge here.
Okay, so before we go, let’s tackle one more area. What light inside you have you been dimming?
My youth.
When we are young, most of us only have a vague concept of old age. Indeed, decades ago, I wondered how I would know when I was really old. I pondered it before concluding, for some reason, that I would be officially Old when I reached 72. I’m now past that.
When people see an old man that jokes around, flirts shamelessly with the girls, dances to the latest music while he works, drives a convertible with the top down and generally acts like he’s still in his forties, they think it is weird. I may just be being Me, but still.
So, I have to constrain myself sometimes, act more staid and respectable so other people can be a bit more comfortable around me. It’s not that I really care what people think as much as it is just being polite. Mom and Dad raised me to open doors for ladies, dress clean and appropriately and not draw too much attention to myself.
Acting like you would expect a man my age to act, is just a way of being polite. Meanwhile, late at night, alone in my workshop, I have The Bridge on the stereo and am dancing away, having a good time.
Caring what others ‘think’ is truly a kindness if it means constraining something that is actually just a core part of your personality.
Contact Info:
- Other: Google me to find my website or news of my untimely demise.
Image Credits
All photos by author
