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Lost in the Parking Garage
Missed deadlines and broken ops don’t vanish - they suffocate.
R.J. A.
September 18, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes
Table of Contents
“My fish are dying! I can see not caring what happens to us. We’re human. But what about the fish? The fish?”
tl;dr
Lose your systems, lose your reputation.
Suddenly everything’s urgent, nothing ships, and the goldfish? Dead in the bag.
Previously on Seinfeld
In The Parking Garage (S3E6), the gang buys an air conditioner… and immediately forgets where the car is parked.
Elaine begs strangers to save her suffocating goldfish
Jerry and George both get busted peeing in dark corners by mall cops
Kramer abandons the A/C, then vanishes on his own side quest
Hours later, they finally find the car… but the engine won’t start.
The “quick errand” ends as a full-blown disaster.
Yada Yada Insight
This episode hits too close to home: four smart people, zero systems, endless chaos.
Founders do the exact same thing:
No system for tracking decisions. You think you’ll remember the spot. Spoiler: you won’t.
Scattered priorities. You ditch the A/C, telling yourself you’ll circle back. You won’t.
Overconfidence. You spin up an excuse like “uromysitisis.” Nobody’s buying it.
Ignored deadlines. George misses dinner, Elaine loses her fish, you lose your client.
Lesson: Chaos isn’t what kills you - the lack of systems does.
In The Waiting Game Strategy, we saw how delays sink deals faster than bad terms. Here, delays don’t just sink deals —> they suffocate goldfish.
Punchline: And unlike goldfish, reputations don’t go belly-up once. They keep floating back until you finally fix the system.
Takeaway: Write it down. Track it. Systemize it. Or circle forever.
Unlocking the Vault
The Parking Garage Rulebook
Why it matters: Without systems, every founder ends up wandering in circles, peeing in corners, and explaining “uromysitisis” to investors.
Write it down. Every decision, deadline, and deliverable. If it’s not written, it’s lost.
Don’t ditch the A/C. Half-finished projects rot in the garage. Finish what you start.
Build in buffer. Parents, partners, and clients all run on clocks. Respect them…or watch the fish die.
Cut the excuses. Nobody buys fake diseases. Own the miss, fix the system, move on.
Test the ignition. Double-check before launch. Nothing kills momentum like a dead start in front of your team.
Stop circling. Start systemizing.
Every suffocating goldfish is a missed deadline.
I help founders stop circling, start systemizing, and keep reputations intact.
That’s Gold, Jerry!
When your ops are on fire but you keep telling the team, ‘We’ve got this under control’👇
Meanwhile, the fish is filing for Chapter 11…
Let’s Catch Up at Monk’s
If you liked this week’s lesson on systems, here are three more:
🥨 The Pen Principle – Why reputations hinge on the smallest details.
🐶 The Dog Dilemma – When distractions derail the whole system.
📚 Bookman Never Forgets – Accountability always shows up, even if it takes years.
📨 Know someone who’d love this? Forward it to them or better yet, drag them to Monk’s and make them subscribe.
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