Ponder Post: Capital Gaines

Capital Gaines ©2017 was written by Chip Gaines, co-star with his wife Joanna of the hit HGTV remodeling show Fixer Upper. Chip is the impulsive, wild, exuberant half of the husband wife duo, so it is no surprise that the author of Capital Gaines subtitled his book Smart Things I Learned by Doing Stupid Stuff. His wife also wrote a book The Magnolia Story about how they met, their lives together, and the growth of their family and business. I read her book during my recent trip to Chicago, reviewing it and describing the Fixer Upper TV show in my post for 10/30/17.

Rather than being repetitious, Chip’s Capital Gaines was a read-worthy complement to Joanna’s The Magnolia Story. Capital Gaines, despite its double entendre title, is less about the highly successful business and more about an attitude toward life, about pursuing an objective without allowing fear to get in the way or guide you in your decisions. It embodies “the entrepreneurial spirit” and is motivational by way of example. Chip and his wife demonstrate a lot of faith – faith in themselves, faith in other people, and faith in a higher being on their road to “success”, however you want to define that term. It is refreshing to see so much trust in action. Sure, Chip has been burned a couple times because of misplaced trust, but not enough to shift to living a life doubting the inherent goodness and abilities of others. I read this book in one fell swoop on my plane ride from Oakland to Houston. The writing style and self-deprecating tone made it an easy, relaxed read but never the less, very inspiring. At the beginning of the book, immediately after the forward, there is a hand-printed note from Chip Gaines which states: “for this period of time that we’re together, I’d like to be your coach... Side by side I’m going to run this leg of the race with you, but get ready, because in the end I am going hand you the baton.”

In keeping with this overture of intention, after the conclusion of the main body of the book, there are several pages of lined pages with merely the word NOTES in the header for readers to make plans in their own lives, to assess what they might do were not fear holding them back. Please peek beyond these pages. There is one more section, titled From THE DESK OF CHIP GAINES that I highly recommend you read. Three of his assistants over the years, when they learned he was writing a book, insisted that he let them, “Speak their mind”. Their anecdotal stories do so much more to reveal the kind of man Chip is, than the TV show or the preceding 170 pages. Do not overlook this fun conclusion. As I did for The Magnolia Story, I give Capital Gaines 4 stars out of 5. I deducted one star only because I felt the audience was limited.