Jan 30 2008
I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and this week the leader of my church passed away. Glen Beck says much of how I feel, his video is below.
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Jan 27 2008
My lovely wife and I went to the Garth Brooks concert in Los Angeles last night with a couple of our good friends. There was a period in my adolescence that I only listened to Garth and so I own all of his albums and know all of his songs, even the Christmas and obscure ones. Being at his concert was a pretty amazing experience. I haven’t been to many concerts so I am sure I am describing phenomena that are common to stars but I was amazed by the amount of energy that flowed through the Staples Center and directed at Mr. Brooks. We had seats that I really think were underrated. We were in the up stage left corner (any drama geeks reading this know where that is, for the rest of you we were in the back right corner). This location allowed an excellent vantage point to see a lot of what the performers got to see. I was a little overwhelmed when I looked out at the crowd that was cheering so energetically for Garth. To think that one person could generate that much positive attention is impressive. I’m not much of a singer, but I would love to be in front of a crowd like that with people cheering for me. I don’t know why they would but the experience seems worth striving for. The greatest thing for me was to see how genuine Garth appeared to be. I imagine that many performers get to a point where they begin to expect praise from large throngs of fans, but to Mr. Brooks it was as though he was utterly surprised and appreciative every time the crowd went wild for him. In his last of 2 encores he brought up a concession stand worker that had snuck backstage to meet him and had asked him what it was like to be in front of all those people. He brought Alva up and had her stand center stage and experience the view from his perspective. After singing ‘my song’ The River he had her come back to center stage and asked the entire audience to take out their cameras and take their picture. I had seen this amazing display earlier in the night when Garth and Trisha Yearwood were singing and got close to each other. The entire venue went aglow with bursting flash bulbs. Amazing!
After the concert the traffic in our parking
structure was at a stand still so I looked up nearby restaurants on google maps on my phone. The closest place was Kiki’s, just a couple blocks away. We headed over by foot in the drizzling rain. When we got close to the corner I spied Kiki’s, a quaint little taco stand that although it had an ‘A’ in the window was most certainly closed. Blasted google maps! We walked back and drove to Clearwood’s Northwood Inn where we threw some peanut shells on the ground.
I hope to one day be able to have the sort of influence upon people that Garth Brooks has. I don’t mean that I want to be a music star, as if that was an option anyway. I feel richly blessed in my life and want to help people live a life full of passion. I want to inspire people. To have people that need a little kick in the pants, a little motivation, some reframing or a new perspective come to me and I want to lead them on a journey to greater personal strength. What Garth did, in taking a little time out to share his experience with Alva the concession worker, was amazing. In those few moments Alva’s entire life may have shifted course. I may be hallucinating this but I see a girl that had poor self esteem that now has something she can hang on to as a reminder that she is of infinite value. I see a girl who will now take charge of the life that she may have been drifting through. How can I make this sort of impact in the lives of people I am lucky enough to be a part of?
Jan 19 2008
We are packing up and moving to a bigger house this weekend. I am amazed at how much ‘stuff’ we have accumulated during our 5 years of marriage and 3+ years in this house. Perhaps the hardest thing is to look at everything and realize that it had a cost. I have boxes and boxes and boxes of stuff that I don’t really use. It must have cost me thousands to buy all of this stuff but it adds up piece by piece and dollar by dollar.
How much do you think you’ve spent on ‘stuff’ that you don’t use? What could you have spent that money on instead (philanthropy, investments, HDTV)?
Dec 08 2007
Recently I have been devouring self-help books, psychology texts and biographies of people I admire. I am on a bit of a self development kick and am loving the revelations that are coming from trying to better myself. One of the books I am reading is an old copy (1980) of Tom Hopkins How To Master The Art Of Selling. Here are a couple of quotes:
“People always choose the economic level they’ll accept – it’s never thrust on them.”
This got me thinking. When I was going through college I remember thinking that if I could get a job making $100,000 a year then my life would be amazing. I would be living in a land of milk and honey and money would be so plentiful life would be blissful. My first ‘real’ job was working for Washington Mutual as a loan consultant (I don’t count owning a little restaurant before that as a real job, nor the dozens of part time jobs either). The day that I got hired was the same day as an awards ceremony for the previous year. I was invited to the party and my wife and I sat there as the annual production awards were handed out. The top achiever for the year, and the man assigned to be my mentor for the next 6 months, had funded close to $200,000,000 in home loans resulting in a annual pay of over $1,000,000! All of a sudden $100,000 seemed paltry. I watched the attitudes and the resulting production of the different loan consultants that I worked with for the next couple of years and noticed that each of their production was limited to what they felt they could attain. The built their own glass ceilings. This leads to the next quote:
“You’re choosing a level of life that’s poor compared to what you could have with the extra exertion you are capable of.
It’s all on your shoulders, and there’s no way you can shift a bit of the responsibility to anyone else.”
I believe that I have limited my level of life in recent years and that my goals and attitudes need to reflect a higher focus. This leads me to a challenge and a question that I hope to get some feedback on:
Challenge: Raise the bar as to what you thought was possible in your work, relationships and personal achievements. Believe that you can attain greater job titles, production numbers, income; believe that you can have more meaningful relationships; believe that you can achieve great things. Then start out today to do so.
Question: Has there ever been a time in your life when you have had a similar paradigm shift? A time when you went from thinking that one level of life was acceptable to aspiring for something greater? If so, how did you make the change?
I leave you with an example of a different paradigm. I recently purchased a copy of Robb Report and read about a cell phone that cost $6,000, private jets, a yacht that costs $250,000,000, and cars that made my mouth water. An old friend of mine blogged about a family he is working with on a project to develop the private island they bought into fractional ownership luxury properties. That family obviously doesn’t accept the 9-5, 3% annual raise, get your pension paradigm.
