Not to hear him tell it: As opening night approached, Buschel says his emotions were more about “emptiness, desolation, uselessness, anxiety [and] gloom.” For two years, the restaurant was his obsession, but it was mostly in his head. He was Southfork; it didn’t exist without him.

Now, with the doors finally opening and the registers ringing, Buschel recognizes that “it’s kind of over for me.” He’s got a chef and a manager to do the heavy lifting, and they’ve hired a staff whom he barely knows. He’s reached a conclusion that he never anticipated: “I could vanish tomorrow and Southfork Kitchen would be the restaurant I envisioned, more or less.”

Buschel never says so, but I suspect he’ll move on relatively quickly to another project, even as his current business prospers. It’s not that he’s greedy or dissatisfied or ADD. Instead, he’s a classic serial entrepreneur. He loves to create, not operate. Taking a vision and turning it into reality — that’s the measure of success. Gross revenues and operating margins seem mundane by comparison.

“The creation has happened. It is the eighth day. What next?” he wonders at the close of his column. It’s a good question, and one that entrepreneurs should ask themselves from Day One. Either find a business that you love — Prost! is perfect for me because creation happens on a daily basis — or find a partner with the operational passion you lack.

This time, the very next item in my inbox was good news from another, much larger distributor. Coincidence? Only partly.

When Distributor #1 first contacted me, it seemed like a perfect fit with plenty of upside. Still, I have a firm policy: Any time I get potentially good news from one customer, I hedge my bets by consciously going after another. So, even as I started work on a deal with Distributor #1, I identified and made contact with Distributor #2 — the very same day.

Yes, I’m disappointed that we couldn’t come to terms with Distributor #1, and maybe we still will. But I didn’t lose any sleep over it. In fact, I slept like a baby and literally dreamed about Distributor #2. (Hello, Dr. Jung?)

Today I’ll get busy hammering out a deal with Distributor #2, but you know there’s more than that on the agenda. I’ve tasked myself with contacting three brand new potential customers, just so there’s always fresh hope in the pipeline.

If you’re a wine retailer, you might be hearing from me today. And a few weeks from now, I just might be dreaming about you.