And that’s OK… But is it independence?

In an effort to be really Naked with you… I felt like a real freak most of my life… I really felt that I was a misfit. Like I didn’t fit in… Maybe you can relate to that. I was never one of the popular cool kids… I was the kid that got picked on, the kid picked last for sports, and I had a BITCH of a time dating!

Now looking back, I was different. I zigged while other kids zagged. I was always a Theater geek and found a place for myself behind the scenes. Who knew that that was gonna be a life choice. Now the kid that was beat up does special effects for bands like Taylor Swift, The Blue Man Group, Carlos Santana, Mariah Carey etc…

Now I also, based on a lot of my life experience, very successfully Coach many adults to success. Ya see, if I hadn’t been a misfit, I never would have found the lessons I needed to really reach a successful place in life! It’s finally being kinda happy being a misfit, that has made me successful

The reason I tell you this is I am starting a new Coaching program. It will be ONLY for young people, I think 15-21 years old. It will be a safe place for them to communicate their fears, to get feedback on their ideas, and to help them realize that “different” is GOOD! That just because they don’t feel like they fit in doesn’t mean they can’t be wildly happy and successful…

My first group will be in Shelton CT. Not sure where yet, we will do this as a group, a Mastermind if you will. So we’ll limit this to 12 young people. This will be a serious group, though it will also be a LOT of fun. I have proven that if you are passionate about something, you have a dramatically better chance of being successful. Stop trying to fit that square peg into the round hole!

I often fantasized about being a Rock Star and sometimes felt kinda empty because I was just a Roadie… Until one of my friends Charlie Hernandez (Tour Manager for Artist’s like Madonna, and founder of Just A Bunch Of Roadies ) said at one of our conferences “ Ya know if it weren’t for us… these guys would be just a bunch of old guys running around the stage in makeup!”. It was then I realized how important what I do is and how glad I am to be a misfit….

If you would like to be in our first group or if you have a child that you think would be a great addition to the group, just text your name and e-mail address to:

(203) 567-4214

In celebration of Our Nations Independence please enjoy this video that celebrates our individual independence!

Have a safe and happy Fourth of July!

Your genuine action will explain itself, and will explain your other genuine actions. Your conformity explains nothing. The force of character is cumulative. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance

If ‘the voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tracks,’ then it is more genuine to be present today than to recount yesterdays. How would you describe today using only one sentence? Tell today’s sentence to one other person. Repeat each day.

Today is a tired jumble of many things to do, it will be painfully long, but terribly short!

#Trust30

We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death, and afraid of each other. Our age yields no great and perfect persons. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

You just discovered you have fifteen minutes to live.

*******************************************************

I’m in shock… how could this be… I have always known that we all have the same exit… I just figured it would be later for  me…

Fuuuuuuuuck!

This sucks!! I have so much left to do… So much left to say… I cry for a minute… I then realize… I’m wasting time, what to do?

I’m stuck, but realize I better get unstuck pretty quickly. I pour myself a glass of  the Appleton Estates VX Rum that I bought in Jamaica 25 years ago. i always promised myself I would drink this when I moved to paradise… well that never happened, or maybe it’s about to happen. Hmmmm will I go to heaven or hell? Did I learn the lessons I needed to learn here? Did I teach the lessons I needed to teach? I guess I’ll know in about 12 minutes.

The Rum tastes good… smooth, and warming… it has a little bite in the back of my throat… Well time to stop regretting what I have done or haven’t done I guess!

I am alone, I can’t spend the next 12 minutes phoning friends, They would be shocked and it would be a lot of crying etc… not really how I want to be remembered….

I decide the best thing I can do is leave a message – should it be video, should I write something, this is my chance to leave a legacy.. what is my message?

I start, Well you will likely be as surprised as I am by this, but I am about to say goodbye for the last time. (I start to cry a little) I will miss everyone terribly – (Or will I? Who knows what’s ahead of me now!)

If I had one thing left to say… I think it would be to ask everyone to please take care of my Wife Amy and my two dogs Coconut and Mango. Please help them through this transition and please help Amy find someone else to love. My Dogs already love everyone!

Please follow your passion. Lift is too long to be miserable.

You make the rules, except for a very few things like Death… and taxes – and it would seem that some of us don’t pay taxes…. Nothing else is written in stone.

You can change today! You can be who you always dreamed of being. Don’t believe the assholes that tell you you can’t! I’m here to tell ya, at least for the next 5 minutes, that they are wrong. There are no limitations on your life, there is no stop sign setup to keep you from achieving your dreams.

Your parents did the best they could do, stop sniveling about what they did to you or didn’t do for you… Take charge of your own life!

Take chances, live without a safety net. It’s true that sometimes we need to jump first and grow our wings on the way down!

Do things that leave you breathless, do things that leave other breathless.

Love fully. If you have been harboring resentment or anger at or for someone, let it go… I promise you that resentment is hurting you more than them, in fact they likely don’t even notice it!

This is not a dress rehearsal, this is LIFE, the real show!

Be happy every day, if you’re not, change what needs to be changed to make you happy.

If you want to live somewhere else, pack your shit up and move… Or leave it behind!

Don’t be afraid to re-invent yourself. I’ve done it dozens of times and it really feels good.

You’re never too old to learn, develop a passion for learning new stuff! Just random fun stuff!

One minute left, the old cartoon ‘Goodbye Cruel World” keeps running through my head… What will this be like? I remember my Mentor Berta teaching me and reading in The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying that I should be peaceful, I take some deep breaths and try to settle in for the trip, will this hurt, will I know it’s happening, will I just be worm food in a couple of minutes, (Will I press publish in time???)? I’ll see ya on the other side…

If you want to join me and take the challenge go to http://ralphwaldoemerson.me/

My wife and I were ta our local Mall before Christmas and we found this cute Tea store called Teavana . First I’ll give ya why I love Teavana.

1. The store is really cool. Lots of ornate teapots, teacups, statues and tea. Really up my alley! I love looking at “Old World” type of stuff. They have a great range of teapots.. Did you know that some cast iron teapots can set ya back over $200.oo!  Definitely something I’m not ready for yet, but as I’m getting to like different teas, I’m starting to covet them!
2. The Teas are great. They must have 50 different teas to choose from, if anything it’s a little bit overwhelming, so many to choose from! I am really enjoying this process of becoming areal Tea drinker, Who knew!

Here’s where they are really chapping my hide… And please realize that this is my experience only, but I will add that my wife had the exact same experience when she initially bought me my teapot and tea there….

As a Customer… Especially a new Customer I expect to be treated fairly and with respect. That means you listen to how I respond top you, and you remember my responses. That didn’t happen!

The girl that was helping me was nice enough, in fact maybe even a little too “familiar”. When she approached me she asked if I was a tea drinker already.  I explained that I was a new tea drinker, told her that my wife had gotten me a pot there for Christmas and some tea and that I was just looking a round trying to figure out what to buy… She asked if I had a Cast Iron pot (those are the $200 pots) I said no, and she immediately tried to sell me one… This after I just told her that my wife had given me one not ten days ago from their store for Christmas… Was she indicating that my wife had made a bad decision and that they sold me a bad ceramic pot?  If she had offered me a trade up, perhaps I would have taken it, but there was no offers coming, just pitch about the pot!

Next I was trying to select teas, I explained that I liked the fruitier sweeter types as I had no sense of smell and that affects my tastes…

She asked if I was interested in the health benefits, I told her not really, if I liked the tea and it was good for me, well, that was an added bonus. So she proceeded to list all the teas with health benefits…

10 minutes later I told her again that I didn’t care about the health benefits so we moved on, I had read in their literature, (which is VERY well made and fascinating) about a bunch of the teas so I wanted her opinion of them.

She proceeded to take each tea off the shelf, show it to me and whaft the scent of the tea at me with the lid… Well to me they all look like something that I raked up in my back yard, and I have no sense of smell. So I explained and asked her nicely to stop waving the lid around, it was doing me no good… She didn’t listen, just kept on waving and kept saying it was force of habit….

Finally I had decided on a six teas. You have to buy them by the ounce with a  2 ounce minimum per tea. Some are as high as 10 to 20 dollars an ounce. I’m OK with  all that.

Here’s where I am really pissed. I asked for two ounces of the first tea, she poured 3 ounces in the bag and asked if that was close enough… I said no, I only wanted to pay for 2 ounces as I have no idea if I will like the tea, she begrudgingly took out some of the tea and proceeded on, we had this same ritual six times as I was trying six types of tea. Each time I told her I only wanted 2 ounces.

Ya know…If I was buying bologna at the deli at $4.00 a pound and they go an ounce over I’m not worried about, but at ten bucks an ounce, if I order 2 ounces I want 2 ounces. PERIOD.

Well, I get home and am discussing this with my wife, and they did EXACTLY the same thing with her. So I checked my receipt to see how much tea I had bought…

Each and every tea was rung up at over 2 ounces. One of them was 2.90 ounces! In my opinion that’s stealing from me. That’s unscrupulous, dishonest, deceitful business practice.

(I have to assume they are trained to do that as they did it to my wife, and she had a different clerk.)

She them proceeded to try to sell me tins to keep the tea in. I was lucky that she asked me, they just added the tins, one per tea to my wife’s order.(The tins are about 6 bucks each). She was shocked when I came home with tea in a bag as that was never an option of her, they just hustled another 24 bucks out of her!

SHAME ON YOU TEAVANA!

I appreciate that they are training their clerks to sell. I appreciate that artful upsell. What I don’t appreciative is deceptive and dishonest sales practices. And that’s what you are doing.

Will I buy there again… MAYBE. I have to look around online and see what my other options are now. As a new Tea drinker they had my loyalty until they stole from me… Now they need to earn it again, and it aint gonna be easy to do…

Folks, never, ever steal from your Customers. Never, ever treat them like anything BUT your best friends. Nothing good will EVER come of deceiving them!

Why is that?

I have my theories as you might imagine…  I think we make decisions early in life based on what other people want, what other people expect from us, regardless of whether it fits into our dreams.

How many people do you know that have a college degree that they worked hard for, and somebody likely spent a lot of money for, and now are either doing something else entirely? I’ll bet you only know a handful of people that are are doing what they were “schooled” for and of the ones that are,  I’ll bet many of them are miserable!

Some of our decisions are made for us… Like children. Many kids are “accidents”. But they are accidents that can change the course of your life! Some of us even go so far as to marry the person that we have an accident with… Kinda like compounding the accident. Before ya say it, I’m all for kids having two parents, I have just seen too many of these situations NOT work out because the parents are miserable with themselves and each other… and the kids feel that, and will pay for that for years to come!

Here’s a challenge for ya, and I have asked this before and gotten some replies, but I challenge you to go deeper this time. To spend some time with this answer. It’s important, so treat it like that!

I’ll do mine and my hope is that you will follow me!

What is your dream?

This will come as no surprise to many of you. I dream of living my life in Key West, Fl. (Now here is where I DON”T want you to stop… Go deeper)

I dream of living a life where I can be in service to other business owners and people. I already have a pretty successful Coaching and Consulting practice, but I want to focus my skills and talents in Key West.

Key West is a small Island, with a LOT of businesses. I want to make a real difference to the city, the community and the people of Key West. I want to help people achieve the dream that they came to key West looking for.

Many people move here looking for a place that they can enjoy a life filled with their friends and family and fun in the sun. Sadly most get lost a long the way, many people haven’t stepped foot  on a boat in years (Even though this was a big chunk of their dreams) I want  to help them find and achieve that dream by helping them grow their businesses, by helping them re-prioritize their lives, by helping them learn to dream again!

I know if I follow this dream fearlessly, if I ignore all the naysayers and jealous people, if I listen to my intuition, in the end, I’ll lay my head to rest for my final rest with a peaceful soul… and that in the end is my dream… To live life with a peaceful, loving soul and a life filled with laughter and love!

See as I wrote this I gained clarity! My dream is really “To live life with a peaceful, loving soul and a life filled with laughter and love!”!

Please take some time to really think about your reply. I would LOVE to help you follow your dream fearlessly as I am!And don’t get me wrong, I go through periods of wondering if I am doing the right thing, but I always, when I search in my heart, realize that I am on the right path to achieve my REAL dream!

I’ll leave you with these lyrics from “The Impossible Dream” from the Musical “The Man OF La Mancha”…

To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go

To right the unrightable wrong
To love pure and chaste from afar
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star

This is my quest
To follow that star
No matter how hopeless
No matter how far

To fight for the right
Without question or pause
To be willing to march into Hell
For a heavenly cause

And I know if I’ll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I’m laid to my rest

And the world will be better for this
That one man, scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star

Good luck and I look forward to your comments!

I was at my Chiropractors office and a report on the TV in the office said a plane had flown into the World Trade Center buildings. I figured it was a small Cessna that lost control… something like that. Horrible for the Cessna pilot and the folks and families of those on board, but not earth shattering. That was the beginning of a really weird and scary couple of months!

It turns out it was a large jet airplane, one of four that would, by the end of the day be crashed by Muslim, Taliban suicide bombers. The death toll was 2996, most of them civilians. Most of them dies when the World Trade Centers in NY, NY collapsed to rubble. It was plain old , down home scary. We had no idea if this was the beginning of something,or was this an isolated attack. Friends of mine that were previously pacifists bought guns, we all felt extremely violated, for the first time in our lives!

Fast forward 10 years. Their is a group of Muslims that want to build a Mosque 600 feet from where the WTC used to stand. And there is a group of folks that are pissed. They find it to be horribly disrespectful! And… there is a group of people that say let them build it…

I happen to be one of them. I say let them build it.

After all, our incredible country was founded on our freedoms; freedom of speech, freedom of religion etc. By stopping these folks from building their house of worship, we are essentially saying that Ossama bin Laden and his band of terrorists won. Heck the Patriot Act has kind of done that.  The Patriot Act strips us of our right to privacy… Please don’t get me wrong… I understand the reasons for all of this. I understand the fear that folks like me had when we were terrorized…

BUT.. I refuse to let them win.

For instance against a lot of pleading friends advice, I flew to Chicago within 30 days of the attack… To not go on and conduct business as usual let’s them win. To live in fear let’s them win. To change our life because we are afraid, lets them win. After all these guys promote terror… give into your fear and their promotions have worked!

Please commit to yourself today that you won’t let these guys win your hearts and minds. If you react in fear because you see someone that does not look like you, perhaps they look a little like and dress like the Taliban guys did, well… you have let them win.

I say build your Mosque. Build a Catholic Church, a Jewish Synagogue, and a  Buddhist Monastery right next to it.. After all, we, as Americans are the most unique race and group of people as many of us are Mutts. And in the end folks, even though we have different beliefs, we look different and have different religious practices.. we’re all flesh and blood. air breathing and blood pumping people. If we are afraid of each other, largely because we don’t understand each other, we have let them win. Don’t let the terrorists win! An educated American is our best weapon!

I bid you love, peace and happiness. My prayers go out to all the families that have lost someone thanks to terrorists.

John

I was driving to see Berta yesterday and my iPod was randomly shuffling through songs.  (As an aside…. I always seem most inspired by music) The universe always picks out what I need when I need it.

The first song was Bruce Springsteen “Born to Run”. Now that song just kicks ass any way ya look at it. But, as I was reflecting my upcoming 50th birthday, it kinda spoke to me. Bruce encouraged me to remember that I was born to Kick Ass! That I was born to push myself to the edge and often just a little over the edge. He reminded me that it was my position and birthright to run and not let ANYONE hold me back! Good message

Next up – and I know this is a shocker that it’s even on my iPod – Miley Cyrus “The Climb”!

Now I’m not a huge fan of teen pop, but my wife loves this one. I never really paid attention to the lyrics… yesterday I did!

Miley encouraged me to reflect on my journey. I realized that often my life has seemed like an uphill climb. Between business associates going off the deep end, family members being well… family members, health issues, etc etc… it just seems like I have been pushing hard for 50 years. And I have!

But I also looked at all of my accomplishments. I looked at all I have learned. I looked at all I had taught.

I have had an amazing Climb! I have accomplished a lot more than I  was ever expected too! I’ve had a lot of challenges but have usually hit them head on and often won… but Miley reminds that we’ll lose sometimes… and that’s OK. It’s part of the climb. Thanks a lot Miley!

The last song on my short ride was Kenny Loggins “Danger Zone”. I’ll bet you remember that as one of the hit songs from one of my favorite fluff films – “Top Gun”. This song always get’s me revving the engines! It reminded me that while I am on this climb that I have to push myself into and past the Danger Zone. I get stopped dead in my tracks sometimes by fear. And I’m starting to recognize that as a warning sign… not a stop sign! I’m starting to develop startegies to deal with the fear and get past it! It’s a really big push for me, and I have to thank Kenny Loggins for reminding me that getting past my fears is part of the equation for success!

It’s great to be 50 years old. I can’t wait to see what the next 50 brings!

Remember – Just “do you”… and remember to kick ass at doing you!

“Forgiveness liberates the soul, it removes fear. That’s why it’s such a powerful weapon.”

This is a quote from the movie Invictus. Nelson Mandela just took over the country of South Africa as the president after 27 years in prison. He was imprisoned by the people he was now to lead. Mandela decided to integrate the  country, including his security forces When the white capital SAS security guard showed up for work, the black Mandela security guards were shocked! How could they work together?  These were the people that imprison them, these were the people that tortured them, these were the people that raided their village and killed their families.

Mandela asked them to forgive. “Forgiveness liberates the soul, it removes fear. That’s why it’s such a powerful weapon.”

This was just at the beginning of the movie, but it was such an important message for me. Forgiveness. Such a simple thing, but so hard to do.

It’s so easy to harbor hate and anger. For some reason, it just feels right. Someone has wronged us…  we should be angry with  them. If they don’t apologize  – we don’t forgive them. If we don’t think they’re giving us a genuine apology we don’t forgive them. It’s our righteous way. Actually… It’s our ego talking.

Have you ever been angry at someone for a long time, maybe so long that you almost forgot why you are angry with them? I’ve been there. Harboring my righteous anger.

If you think about it, who is that anger hurting. It’s quite possible the person you’re angry with, doesn’t even  remember that you’re angry with them, maybe, never even knew you are angry with them.

So who are you hurting?

It’s simple, the only person getting hurt is you!.

Perhaps  someone has really wronged you, maybe they really hurt you. I challenge you to think this way; is it possible, that they never really intended to hurt you, but were only doing what they thought was right to preserve themselves.

In the above example I talk about the persecution of the black people in South Africa for decades I challenge that the white population that they were persecuting when Mandela was released from prison maybe forgot what started the persecution 27 years before! Heck, some of them may never have even been born then! But, they were raised angry! They were raised to persecute! They were raised to discriminate!

Were they wrong to do this? Well… of course they were wrong. But, it’s what they were taught and raised to believe was right. So consciously, I think, what they were doing was self-preservation and what they thought was right… not something to really wrong the black people. Does this make them any more right? No. But maybe it gives you a reason, to forgive them.

If you were to drive in America, we drive on the right hand side of the road. If you take a holiday in the UK, and you drive on the right-hand side of the road, never knowing that in the UK, they drive on the left-hand side of the road, are you wrong?

Yes, technically you are wrong. You’ll cause accidents. But it’s all you were ever taught! So could you be forgiven for driving on the right-hand side of the road. Sure. Though… once you realize that you should be driving on the left inside the road, you need to learn to drive on the left-hand side of the road. Otherwise, there will be accidents.

Question… Are you harboring anger against people that have wronged you that may not even realize they did anything wrong. Is it possible that you never expressed you’re anger with them? If so…perhaps they don’t even realize they should ask for your forgiveness.

Just an idea… Maybe it’s time to offer forgiveness more freely. Maybe it’s time to stop harboring such anger. Maybe it’s time to stop hurting yourself by harboring this anger.

Imagine a day without anger. A day without that seething anger that you may be harboring against someone or some group of people for years. Try just letting go of that and forgiving them.

Now your initial gut instinct and knee-jerk reaction, could be righteous. “I have a right to be angry!” “I have a reason to be angry!”  And that may be so…

But who is the anger really hurting? It’s hurting you. Especially, if the other person or party you’re angry at doesn’t even know you’re angry with, or perhaps doesn’t even care that your angry with them!

Make a list of the people you’re angry with. Maybe it’s a shortlist, maybe it’s a long list. Try and remember why you’re angry with them. Pick one person, and forgive them.

You don’t have to make a big production of forgiving them. In your heart, just forgive them. Let it go. Just think to yourself, “It’s silly for me still to be angry with Pete. It was so long ago and it’s water under the bridge. We all make mistakes!” And let go of the anger, take  deep breath and just let it go….

Now doesn’t that feel better! I know, this is easier said than done. But it’s so important, anger is such a dangerous fearful emotion. It is my belief, that anger causes a lot of illness, a lot of pain.

Please try this, I know it may be difficult… But if you really, really, do this. If you really forgive those who harbor anger against you… You WILL  eliminate fear and pain. Good luck!

Fast forward to 2010. I’m now approaching 50, the Internet is commonplace, Facebook is the way we communicate with each other now. I started digging through old friends and found Susan’s Facebook page…. if I’m to be really naked, a bit of trepidation came over me. The 14-year-old boy in me was awakened. Old feelings came up. Am I good enough? Will she friend me back? What if she doesn’t friend me back?

Now logically, none of this really matters. I’ve been married for 10 years, dated my wife for 10 years before that, so what’s the big deal? I realize as I write this, that there is so much old programming that still controls what we do from day to day. As much as I think I’ve gotten rid of my old programming, there’s still a lot of that old beaten-down 14-year-old kid that resides inside my heart. Fear. Insecurity. Self-consciousness. And you know what, as I think about it, I’m not positive you can grow up without things like that programed into you. You’d have to live in such a sanitized world. I think, that you would probably have no personality! Plus… how would we learn, after all it’s the mistakes, bumps and bruises that from who we are today!

So… what have we learned here? Well.. You don’t have to be a slave to your old programming. It’s a matter of recognizing when the old programming kicks in. Then you have a choice… change or allow the old programming to control you. Seems easy… not always so easy.

I do think the secret is in living in the now. It’s about being present, and about being aware of your choices and the fact that you’re making choices. You see, if you’re living in yesterday, or if you’re living in tomorrow, you’ll never be able to see the choices that you make today? It’s only by being fully present, that we can move outside of ourselves and watch the choices we make.

Now this choice was a fairly innocent choice, but there a lot of other choices we make all day long but are not so innocent. When, a car runs you off the road, often the first choice you make is to get angry, to yell at the other driver, probably make an obscene gesture, and perhaps use language you wouldn’t use around your priest! That’s a choice! Now let’s analyze this for one second… many of us drive and are kind of asleep when we drive. This applies to the other driver and to you! Had you been fully present, you would have likely caught the other drivers mistake before it became an issue. If the other driver had been fully present, they would have likely not veered into your lane. Your choice would’ve simply been to make a correction, and go on with your day. You would have been free to make that choice, not get aggravated and a very calmly look at this as another driver’s innocent mistake… not an assault on you.

We make the same choices all day long, with our spouse, with our associates at work, with the person we order our Venti Mocha Latte from. How do we control the choices? I’m starting to understand, that the secret really is being present in the now.  For only when we are present in the now, are we free to make these choices. This is really easy to talk about, but not so easy to make a daily practice.

Here’s an exercise I’d like you to try with me. When wer’e driving, let’s commit to being totally 100% present and really in the now. See how it feels to not be distracted by the music on the radio, by the thoughts of where you’re going, or where you’ve been.  Just focus on what’s happening RIGHT NOW!  How long can you do that for? Try to make it through your whole commute to and from work.

How did that feel? Did you notice that you could make better choices? Did you notice you could make choices?

I’d like to leave you with a quote from Eckhart Tolle…

“Forget about your life situation. Pay attention to your life. Your life situation exists in time. Your life is now. Your life situation is mind–stuff. Your life is real”

Talk to me about the exercise you did above. Did you notice you can make better choices? Can use that in other places in your life? Imagine, being totally present when you sit down at your desk to work. Imagine being totally present, and totally focused on just what you are working on. Do you think you get more done, do you think you get more done faster? Talk to me!

Oh… How did things end up with Susan? She friended me back and we have been getting to know each other. She’s a lovely woman wand a killer artisan. You can see the jewelry she makes at her Facebook page . Glad I thought about it and made the choice!