Is this a Test ? Trying to figure Why….

Image via Wikipedia

My life has been filled with so many wonderful things and so much abundance that I shouldn’t feel anything but gratitude for everything I have been blessed with.  for 48 of my 51 years in this life, things happened in a magical way, everything I visualized came to pass quickly and usually in a way that was even better than I had imagined.   I have always looked at every event in my life as having a purpose and tried to take negative events and turn them around to work for me.   This way of managing my life served me well and helped me become the person I am today.  In my early 20’s I became hooked on self development books and audio tapes and spent every extra penny I had on going to seminars, buying books and buying tapes that had a positive message.   My purpose and mission in life have been shaped by quotes that have stuck with me, like Zig Ziglar saying you can get everything you want in life by helping enough other people get what they want.  I have always tried to focus everything I have done in life on serving others and it always seem to come back to me.   My Grandfather was a big tipper and always did extra things and gave away money even though he didn’t have any extra money to give away, he would always say ” It will come back to him”, my Mother and Grandmother believed in the same philosophy.  Both my Mother and grandmother were totally selfless in their service to others.  I watched my Mother give up everything in her life to care for my Uncles, my Grandmother and any one else that needed help.  She always worked multiple jobs, very seldom having the opportunity to enjoy life outside of giving everything of herself to others.  I know she did this because she enjoyed being of service to people and I know people took notice because even today I will run into people who see my name when I am sending a package at FedEx and they will tell me to say hello to my mother and tell me how much they cared for her.   The thing I don’t understand is how some people who give so much of themselves to others never seem to get a break in their lives.  Is it  God testing them…Why does this happen ?

1999 was a fantastic year for me, in that I was on top of the world and firing on all cylinders, everything was clicking, I had no debt, I had a ton of money in the bank, I could do no wrong in the stock market and I could finally give my Mother something special for all she had given to me and others.   I was able to let her pick out a townhouse and buy it for her with the hopes that she would have a great place to live and could finally take the time to enjoy her life and do some thing for herself.  I had never forgotten what my Grandfather had said about it all coming back to me, so now that I had the money I wanted to help everybody I could.  I did some crazy things that made me feel great, like writing regular big checks to my Church and putting them in the offering envelope on Sundays always feeling s sense of satisfaction in having the ability to do things like that.  I signed up to give a large amount of money on a monthly basis to a favorite charity of mine called the “Smile Train” and found way to help people anonymously every chance I got.  I had read for years growing up about mysterious millionaires who handed out hundred-dollar bills to homeless people and always wanted to do that.  I also remember reading a book by Wayne Dyer in which he said that when someone asks you on the street for money, you shouldn’t try to figure out if they are going to use it for a good purpose, you should give freely simply because they asked.  I did that on a regular basis and always got a kick out of the looks on people’s face when I would hand them a large sum of cash just for asking.  It did seem that the more good I did like this that good things started to appear in my life that seemed directly related to my random acts of kindness. I got addicted to helping others, so much so that when I started my 3rd business in 2002, I tried to help people in business that I felt deserved my help.  I raised money for projects to finance people’s dreams, all the time believing that it would just lead to more good stuff.

I never stopped trying to give but in 2008 suddenly, nothing was coming back to me, my business was failing, while some people stepped into help, it wasn’t the kind of help I needed to turn things around.  Having always put other people first,  I borrowed against my home, stopped paying myself from the company and did everything possible to put my employees and my investors ahead of everyone including my own family.  The result was I lost my home of 26 years, lost my business, lost the ability to take care of my wife and family the way I always had.  Things continued to get worse through last year culminating today with the loss of the townhouse I purchased for my mother and an absolutely evil GMAC Mortgage not willing to work with me any way to ease my mother out of her townhouse and into another place to live.  They love the word eviction and they love to use it so much it kills me.  I can handle having myself being evicted but the pain of GMAC Mortgage telling me they are going to evict my mother from her home and knowing it is all my fault creates pain that is almost unbearable.  The last 60 days have been extremely difficult and brought me to this point I am at today having lost my Mother’s townhouse and seating with exactly $2.98 in cash in my pocket and two checking accounts that are overdrawn thousands of dollars.  How could I end up here when I have tried so hard to do the right thing and to help as many people as I can ?  Worse, I have found that many people I thought were close friends were only friends when I had tons of money and could entertain them and take care of them. 

So what is going on ?  Is this just another way of God and the Universe testing me to see just how much I can take ?  Why is this happening ?  Why do so many bad things happen to good people ?  I always believed it was a test, and I believed all the books I read and tapes I listened to that told me over and over that when you are at your darkest moment that you are at the point things are totally going to turn around.   I believed all of that, but the moments just keep getting darker.

So as I sit here this morning putting all my thoughts on my blog,  a part of me is devastated by my situation but a bigger part of me is at ease saying everything is going to be ok.  I have done alot of praying lately and have to admit some doubt had crept into my mind about whether God or the Universe was listening.  But then I woke up on Monday to find an email written in the middle of the night to me from a high school classmate who I haven’t seen since high school (34 years), he had sensed something was wrong and sent me a long email that was not only exactly what I needed to hear but was so intuitive that he had to somehow be connected to me via God to know what was going on.  His message alone was enough for me to continue to believe that no matter what challenge I am faced with I am not alone, God is always there walking beside me.   While I know who walks with me in everything I do, I am still completely at a loss to understand the whys of my situation.  Mike Dooley who is an author and the creator of the Notes from Universe series always talks about focusing on the end result you want to accomplish in your life and not to get caught up in the “Cursed Hows”, I think he is right but I think almost or maybe more importantly we should never get caught up in the cursed “Whys”.  Trying to figure out why something bad has happened to you when there is no logical reason is probably what leads to more of the same.  If I have learned anything from the trials and tribulations of the last few years, it is to not spend time figuring out why, it is unproductive and gets you focused on all the bad stuff that has happened.

Having been to the Highest Peaks in Life and now getting the opportunity to experience the lowest of lows, I do believe that what my friend Terry Lyles has said that everything in life is a gift.  If anything, I know that when I do turn things around, I will be even more focused on helping those in need and having experienced what I have over the past few years, I will be in the unique position of understanding the pain and challenges people feel when they are lost and in what seems like a hopeless spot.

From this moment forward, my sole focus is on the end result I hope to achieve, I am forgetting about why this all happened and while many people have told me that I need to take care of my family first and forget about everyone else, I will put my family first but will never forget about everyone else.  My purpose is to serve others and I intend to do everything I can to get back to that place of serving others.   I do know things are going to turn around, and I know that the last 3 years have been a gift especially since as tough as things were they pale in comparison to the terrible suffering the people of Japan are dealing with, as well as our service men who have made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.    This is the last time I am going to write about the tough stuff, from here on out, I focused on the good stuff.

Related Articles

• Random Acts of Kindness that should be Normal Part of your life (misswhiplash.wordpress.com)
• 19 random acts of kindness (takechargesolutions.org)
• 10 Ways to be Happy About Your Life! (socyberty.com)
• What’s More Important, Goals or Assists? (betterlifecoaching.wordpress.com)
• Hope (nickjarosh.wordpress.com)
• Attitude Makes All The Difference (artofconversations.com)
• May I borrow some cash from you? (pathtousasec01.wordpress.com)
• 11 reasons why you should not never give up.. (rohitramann.wordpress.com)
• What is in Your End Zone? (vanessabrightsite.com)
• You were born to win, but to be a winner, you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win. – Zig Ziglar To your full potential life, Lacole Foster Grant President of L.I.M. Life Management Specialist International Author and Speaker Life In M (lacolefostergrant.wordpress.com)
• What Gratitude means (h3artfeltwordz.wordpress.com)
• An Attitude of Gratitude (thegemseekers.wordpress.com)

Time Warp…..Living in Dual Universes

Image via Wikipedia

Wow….I can’t believe how long it has actually been since I wrote my last blog, getting lost in a time warp wasn’t what I expected to happen last summer when I embarked on all out massive action to fix the issues in my life.  The thing I love most about my life is discovering everything the Universe and Life have to offer.  I love stretching the boundaries of time and space, finding out what is possible and finding out that very little in life is impossible.   Today’s entry is kind of warning about trying to stretch time too far while trying to create the life of your dreams.

Last summer and late fall I took on three full time jobs that left me with next to zero time for sleep.  I literally worked around the clock 7 days a week, catching no more than 3 to 4 hours of sleep per day.  It seemed to work pretty well with no ill effects for about 4 months, but in late January, I went from consciously creating what I wanted in life to just going through the motions, I had deprived myself of time to think and because I live by “Thoughts become things”, I no longer had time for my thoughts to become reality.  When I was at each of my jobs, I seemed to perform just fine, pretty much like a robot going through the motions, in between jobs I was dead tired and just plain irritable, yet when I arrived at the next job I became energized and ready to go.  That’s where the time warp stuff comes in, I had replaced valuable and extremely important dream time (unconscious, sleeping dream time) with an overnight job.  In the light of day, the overnight job and all that happened overnight felt like a dream, it felt like I never really was at that job and it really was just a dream.   Guess what ?  Replacing your valuable dream time with a remote control 3rd shift job is not a productive way to create the life of your dreams if it steals your real, unconscious dream time from you.

I find valuable lessons in everything that happens in my life, and the experiment of the past six months has taught me that while it is possible to exist on little or no sleep it blurs time and space and steals the opportunity from you to organize your life and create the things you want in your life.  The other and more painful thing I discovered is that an existence of this type steals  valuable time from your important personal relationships, and disrupts the connections with those closest to you.  So while it was an interesting and valuable experiment, it was not sustainable long term if I was going to get back to the place where I was firing on all cylinders and living the life of my real dreams.

While I was lost in the time warp, the Universe kept on working and helped me land in a place that is what I had dreamed of the last time I was firing on all cylinders.  While moving through this time warp, I landed  exactly where I wanted, I have inserted myself into the career that was my life long dream, with a company that is exactly what I dreamed of in all regards, from the management, ownership, compensation program and industry.  As a matter of fact, I recently spent a day in St. Cloud with the owner of the company I work for and his son who manages the sales team.  As I sat in the meeting and listened to them talk about their vision for the company, the new services we were adding, the sales approach with prospects, etc.  I had to pinch myself to make sure I was awake, it was as if they had performed Spock‘s Vulcan mind meld to find out what I was thinking would make their company perfect for me.  This truly is the opportunity, company and industry I have spent my whole life dreaming about and now that it’s here I am throwing everything I have at it.   I still have a lot of personal challenges to deal with from the economic melt down of the past few years but the path is now clear to get back in that place I call “Groovin”.

So it really feels like I have been living in two different Universes, the Universe of my dreams and the remote control Universe where I just go through the motions in interesting, fun jobs but not the career that I have now found.  It is amazing how thoughts and dreams do come true, and how God and special people are working behind the scenes on your behalf.  I don’t think it is any coincidence that I found the opportunity of my dreams and on Friday of this week, a special lunch was set up for me with someone I have wanted to connect with my whole life, and while it seemed like it would be impossible and that the time would never come, receiving an incredible text message from a very special person last Sunday confirmed the time had arrived.  Having faith and believing always works, it may not happen as quickly as you would like but when the time comes, it seems as if it was instantaneous.  Which always reminds me of what Wayner Dyer says   “Infinite patience brings immediate results”, thing about that one, it really works and has served me well. 

So after not blogging for a while I feel like I have just been rambling again, but if I can offer any advice today, it is to make sure you don’t let yourself fall into the time warp.  Don’t ever give up your personal dream time, all those experts are right you really do need a good night’s sleep and not just for your physical health but more importantly for the health of your life’s dreams and for time to create the life of your dreams.  Over the years, I have used a technique that has always worked for me and always brought me what I wanted and needed in my life.   Saying a prayer in the form of a conversation with God about your dreams and desires right before going to bed is the first part of this technique.   When I was 12 years old, there was nothing I wanted more than to play baseball and hit like my favorite baseball player Rod Carew.  I hadn’t done much praying in my life at that point but when I started out the season as a 12 year old in the Babe Ruth league with no hits in the first 4 games, I turned to God, I prayed every night and went to Church on Sunday and focused my thoughts on hitting while sitting in Church.  Within a week of starting to pray, I went 4 for 4 in a game, 4 hits that were solid line drives, that season I went on to hit .675, about 300 points higher than Rod Carew hit that year.  I have been a true believer in prayer ever since.  The other part of my technique is writing what I want in my life down on paper which I also review every night before going to bed.  Sometimes I write things down, misplace the notebook I wrote it in and find it years later, only to discover that everything I wrote down came to be.  Now that I am emerging from the Time warp, I am focused again on my prayer and my notebook of dreams.  

I spent a lot of time driving the past few weeks which has given me quiet time alone to think, dream and analyze my life and the challenges of the last few years.  Two things popped into my head, the Time Warp that I wrote about today and Daydreaming.   In regards to Daydreaming, I thought about the power of Daydreaming and how the only time I got in trouble in school was all the times I got caught daydreaming.   Somehow, the teachers had it all wrong, Daydreaming is good, not bad.   As a matter of fact, if our schools were truly enlightened they would teach kids how to daydream and set aside time each day specifically for daydreaming.  More on daydreaming in my next blog entry, which I know will be soon, I also intend to get back to writing regular entries in my blog again as there is nothing better for your soul and dreams than writing about your thoughts.   Sweet Dreams to you !

Related Articles

• Is Daydreaming Bad for You? (healthymemory.wordpress.com)
• Time Warp (preshrunk.org)
• Dreams, daydreams, and nightmares (lindacassidylewis.com)
• Dreams … They are changing? (oriondiamond.wordpress.com)
• The history time warp (campjack.wordpress.com)
• Dream Time at New Year (mockingbirdsatmidnight.wordpress.com)
• Living in a Dream World: The Role of Daydreaming in Problem-Solving and Creativity (preview) (scientificamerican.com)
• Time Warp (susanalley.wordpress.com)
• Wake Up: Your Dreams Need a Reality Check… (eof737.wordpress.com)

Love Train

Image by Orangeadnan via Flickr

The Beatles had it right…”All you need is Love” !  I will admit that I didn’t know what this meant back in the 60’s when I was in grade school but I finally understand that “Love” really is all you need to accomplish anything you want in your life.  1967 was the famous Summer of Love and I was definitely in love, with a 1967 Red Mustang , to this day that is my dream car and was the first time I “loved something”.  Love was always a difficult word to define, understand, experience or use but over time I finally get it.

Love isn’t something that just happens, I don’t think love is something that happens to you, I believe Love is something you create.  Love is a choice, it is a decision you make in your life but once you understand it’s power and use it the right way it can deliver anything and everything you could ever imagine.  One thing I still don’t quite understand is accepting Love from others.  It is one thing to Love someone or something or some activity it is another thing to feel the Love someone else.  I am not sure I can define or describe that kind of Love, I am not saying that people like my family don’t Love me, but I am not sure feeling the Love of someone else for you is the same as Loving that person and giving them your Love.  You see Love isn’t about being loved, it is about Loving someone or something.

Let me explain where I am going with this and why I feel like I finally “Get it”.   I have embarked on a new career in a field I absolutely, positively Love.  My new career is selling Cinema Ads, the kind that run on the screen before the main movie starts.  My job involves going door to door, cold calling on businesses of all sizes most of which have “No Solicitors” signs posted on their doors.  There was a time in my life that this would have scared the hell out of me and I can honestly say it would still scare the hell out of me if I didn’t Love my product, Love my company and Love my prospects, yes I said Love my prospects !.   I have spent the last few weeks knocking on at least 20 doors a day and with only a couple of exceptions, everyone has greeted me kindly and only once was I told I should have read the sign on the door about soliciting.  I truly believe that since I have come to understand the true meaning of Love, it has served me well.  I know that if I didn’t go into each business I call on thinking I was going to Love the people and Love handling their advertising, I wouldn’t have been greeted so kindly.  I also know that Loving my job, every part of my job, makes everything go better, I know that without this Love for my career, I wouldn’t be as happy as I am sitting in this hotel by myself tonight.

Love can serve you in many ways.  One of the things I am working very hard on is using Love in every portion of my life no matter what the situation is.  When my son or daughter call me  in the middle of an important meeting with an urgent message which turns out to be they need money to buy gas to go some place fun, I pause and think what Love means in this situation, does it mean be kind or get angry for the interruption ?  it always, means to be kind.  To me that is the definition of “tough love“, deciding to be kind when it is really tough to be kind.  When I am in a tough situation and trying to negotiate with a mortgage company, a creditor or anyone that isn’t exactly trying to be your friend, I have recently taken the approach that I am going to send my Love to the person I am talking to and my experience so far is that without fail, the Love comes back to you in the form of the result you had hoped for.

April 26th, 1980 was an incredible day, that was the day I married Suanne Fodstad but it was also the day I really listened and took to heart 1 Corinthians 13 from the Bible.  This passage is in my opinion the best definition of Love there ever was and as I have re-read it the past couple of days, it is truly amazing to me how it applies to everything I have been doing to turn my life around and get back on track.  If you have never read this passage or have forgotten what it says it is worth re-printing here for your review:

1 Corinthians 13

¹ If I speak in the tongues^[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.³ If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,^[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. ¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. ¹² For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Faith, Hope and Love….. there it is.  Can you see what I mean about how this can apply to every area of your life.  Just in the way you do business or deal with others, if you do it with Love you cannot fail.  A dear friend of mine from High School sent me a great power point presentation today called “Life on a Train’, I don’t think she had any idea how much I love trains, and love riding them but this presentation she sent me compared Life to a long train ride and it was so right on, it was just another one of those moments where the light clicked again and everything in my life has started to make sense.  That power point presentation got me thinking about Love and what it has meant to me recently as I have tried to apply it to everything I do.  Then that mental Juke Box of mine picked up Love message and combined it with the train analogy from the power point and wouldn’t you know it, it flipped on the turntable in my head and started playing the O’Jay’s classic  “Love Train”  which led to me writing about Love today.   So let me leave you with the words of the O’Jay’s  Start a Love Train  and Please don’t miss this train at the station, because if you do, I feel sorry, sorry you. Join hands Start a Love Train, Love Train….it is all you will ever need to get everything you want in life…..I love you !

Related Articles

• Love is the Greatest (lovemeanyway.wordpress.com)
• 1 Corinthians 13 (asorensen.wordpress.com)
• What is Love? (marysaggies.blogspot.com)

Creating Your Own Reality

Image via Wikipedia

It used to bother me when people would say things like “Tim is in a world all to himself” or “Tim lives in a fantasy world” or “He’s always so lucky, but some day his luck will change”.   Up until the point those comments started bothering me, I really did live in a fantasy world and in my fantasy world every fantasy I dreamed came true starting in High School.  You see everything in my life was created in a thought or a dream so when I had great thoughts and great dreams that is exactly what my world was made of, when I started listening to people make comments like I mentioned earlier, I started thinking that maybe they were right, the minute I started thinking that way, I got exactly what I was thinking of.

I have spent alot of time analyzing my 51 years of life here on Planet Earth, especially with the trials and tribulations of the past three years.  I had to find out why 48 years were about as perfect as a life could be and then the last 3 years were as ugly as life could be.  I say ugly only because they were so dramatically different then the first 48, while it wasn’t great it was a lesson I needed to remind me about how powerful our thoughts are and why it is so important to create your life as you want it and not by what others may think is right for you.

So let me tell you about the reality I created the last 51 years, including the last three which were also my creation.  Growing up in Crystal, Minnesota I was always fascinated with all the things you could do in life, I wanted to experience everything.  In the fourth grade our class took a field trip to the North Hennepin Post Newspaper, I thought the News paper business was really cool after that visit, so I went home and started my own neighborhood newspaper.  The first paper I created was on a manual typewriter with 5 pages of carbon paper(for those who don’t remember, carbon paper was something you could put between two pages of paper and make a copy of the first by either pressing hard with a pen or typing), because I was trying to make so many copies, my fingers got very sore from trying to slam down the keys so it would go through all 5 copies.   Later, I graduated to a printing press that I found in the Montgomery Ward catalog.  I remember sitting in front of the TV with a TV tray watching the Batman TV show and setting type letter by letter in my little printing press.  It was a fun little operation and I had several subscribers both in the neighborhood and at school who were willing to pay 5 cents a copy.

My next dream come true was when I decided after spending time growing up at the Terrace Theater in Robbinsdale it was time to open my own theater.  I loved the theater business from time my mother started working at the Terrace when I was 2 years old.  I was at the Terrace alot and took my time to learn how they did everything including getting to spend time with the Union Projectionist in the projection booth learning how to run the projectors.  So in the 5th grade, I opened the Hollywood Chief Theater in my basement showing silent films I took out at the public library on my Super 8 projector.  This venture was so succesful that I opened a second theater in my backyard, called the “Bike-In” theater which was created by stringing a large white sheet between two trees and pointing the projector out the back window of our house. 

Moving on to 6th grade, I decided that it was time to get with the latest technology after seeing my favorite disc jockey from my favorite radio station at the State Fair broadcasting live.  You guessed it, I signed on my own radio station WTIM using at first a CB radio and broadcasting the latest top 40 hits so all the kids in the neighborhood could hear them on their walkie talkies.  Later that same year, I found a kit at an electronics store called Lafayette Electronics for an AM Transmitter so I could broadcast on real radio.  The kit was very specific that your antenna should not exceed the 12 inches of wire that came with the kit, well I would have no part of that because I needed the whole neighborhood to hear me so I strung a 50 ft antenna from my house to the highest point I could climb to in one of the trees in our backyard.  I guess this radio empire was the beginning of my mini-media empire, because the next thing I did was buy an FM transmitting microphone from Radio Shack, now I was big time, AM and FM.  But that was just the start, 8-track tape players were all the rage and I was fortunate enough to get an 8-track tape recorder for Christmas that year which led the way for me to open up yet another business I called Sound Dynamics.  Today that business would be highly illegal and would be called Tim’s Pirate music company, I had no idea that I was pirating music by buying a vinyl album, recording it to 8 track and then selling to my friends.  I did quite well with this business adding cassette tapes to my 8 tracks.  So by the time I had graduated 6th grade I was operating 2 radio stations, 2 movie theaters and a record company.

I went to Hosterman Junior High in New Hope Minnesota for my next three years of school.  Alpine skiing was huge back in the 70’s and I loved watching the Olympics and the coverage of skiing including the local ski show hosted by local weatherman Barry Zevan.  I went skiing for my first time in 7th grade and by the end of the first day, I was skiing about as good as most of the people on the hill at Snowcrest ski area in Somerset, Wisconsin.  My dream was to become a ski racer and have all the girls admire me especially petite blondes which I decided was what would be the perfect fit for me.  At that time, Cooper High School had a ski racing team , the High School was for grades 10 to 12 while the junior high was 7 to 9.  I  heard that you could be on the High School ski team if you were good enough in 9th grade so I convinced my friend Steve Banker to try out for the team with me.  Steve and I had skied together quite a bit with the boy scouts, so what the heck, I thought we should give it a try.  And just as I had dreamed it, Steve and I made the ski team as 9th graders and by the time we were in 10th grade we were co-captains of the Cooper High School ski team.  Now you tell me that you can’t create exactly what you want.  I went from never having skied to the captain of the High School team, my first year in High School, pretty powerful life creating powers I had and you have as well.

While I loved sports, the media bug was still in my system so I started a film company to make ski movies.  I learned to ski backwards so I could ski down and look up the hill to film my friends.  I learned how to edit film, sync sound from a cassette recorder and eventually made 3 feature length Super 8 films with sound.  My friends hated my new film company because we would take a trip to Montana or Colorado to ski and I would spend half the time making them film me or letting me film them crashing off jumps and cliffs.  It was quite the deal for a junior high kid and it was exactly as I dreamed it would be.

Once I made it to Cooper High School my thoughts turned to having the greatest High School experience ever.  My favorite TV show was always “Leave it to Beaver” and I always wanted to be just like Wally, so while I continued to ski race, my real passion was Baseball, Blondes and good grades while having the greatest high school experience ever.  I had always loved baseball but was never able to keep up with the star athletes from my junior high days but after buying a book called “Show the Coach” and attending a summer of Baseball Camp, I was the starting 3rd baseman for the Cooper High Junior Varsity team and wouldn’t you know it just as I had dreamed not only was I the starting 3rd baseman but I had the perfect coach in Ted Leuer, who recognized how much attention I paid to playing the game right.  For the next 3 years in high school and 1 year of college I played and enjoyed baseball more than I had ever dreamed of.  But the point is I dreamed it and knew it would happen exactly the way I wanted it to happen and it did.

As for the Blonde, my bride of 30 years plus walked into the Terrace Theater in the Summer of 1974 and I saw the vision of the woman I had always dreamed of.  It took me almost a year to convince her to go out with me but just as I had dreamed and thought about constantly, we went out for 5 years and got married and moved to South Dakota where I had the job I had been dreaming of, I was morning disc jockey and Basketball Color announcer for the radio station.  I was living the dream and things only got better.   I dreamed of waiting about 8 years to have kids and knew that I wanted 1 son and 1 daughter which is exactly what we ended up with.   I won’t bore you with all the details but for the next 20 years, I got the houses I dreamed of, the cars I dreamed, travelled all over the world to every place I ever wanted to go, built multiple companies that I had dreamed of.  I even played a half season of 40 plus baseball.  During those amazing 48 years, I can’t tell you how many times things would happen exactly as I had dreamed they would or thought they would.

So what about the last three years ?  Well, I dreamed about those as well.  Unfortunately, I forgot how powerful my dreams and thoughts were.  I can tell you when it all started, I had paid off everything, I had zero debt, I had a ton of money in the bank, things were going incredible.  I can actually remember the exact moment that my thoughts changed to thoughts of what has happened the last three years.   I was on a Northwest Airlines flight flying from Minneapolis to San Francisco, sitting in First Class enjoying my status and thinking about how fortunate I was to have had all my dreams come true, then a thought popped into my head, a thought like I had never had in my whole life, “What if I lost it all ?” started going through my mind, which was something I never, ever would have even considered.  Things got weird after that thought popped into my mind, about an hour out of San Francisco, the Captain came on the PA system to tell us that the plane had hydraulic problems and we were going to have to make an emergency landing.  The minute I heard that, the thoughts of doom and disaster just got worse.  We dumped fuel and as we landed in San Francisco, fire trucks raced down the runway beside us.  The Captain had done an incredible job of landing the plane and nothing serious happened to anyone but my thoughts of loss grew stronger each day after that event.   As time went on, I noticed I had started to worry about crazy things like the election between Bush and Gore, my thoughts of impending disaster continued to grow leading up to the morning of September 11, 2001 as I sit in my home gym riding my Lifecycle watching Good Morning America as I saw the second plane, crash live on TV into the World Trade Center everything changed and for some reason from that day forward I was never able to get 100% back in the groove.   I had thoughts of my business failing, of losing my home ,of losing my cars and losing everything I had worked for my entire life.  It was at this time that I should have thrown myself into the good stuff like I have for the past 6 months.  I had created my own reality and what I had worried about starting in 2001 came to pass in 2009.  Talk about a wake up call !   Thoughts really do become things and that is why it is so important to choose them carefully.

Today,  I am seeing signs of the thoughts I had six months ago coming true, I dreamed of the perfect opportunities coming my way and sure enough they are, on a daily basis.  But the most important thing I have learned through all of this is that we really do create everything that happens in our lives.  It is easy to create exactly the life you want and it is just as easy to create exactly the life you don’t want.  It’s your choice, choose the good stuff or worry about the bad stuff.  I can tell you I am done with the bad stuff and totally focused on the good stuff including getting in the best physical shape of my life.  It’s kind of funny on this physical shape thing because, I have watched what I have eaten in the past in many attempts to lose some weight but for some reason over the past 9 years it never worked well.  Now that I am back in the “Groove”,  40 pounds has effortlessly dropped from my body primarily because I knew it would and visualized myself being in the best shape of my life for the 35th Class reunion of Cooper High School Class of 1977.  I will have a lot more to report on creating the life I have always wanted to live and boy do I intend to live, for at least another 70 years !  I hope you will consider my story and take some time to thing about the life you want for yourself, think about the good stuff and don’t ever, ever worry about anything bad.  Speaking of the Cooper High School Class of 1977, it was the greatest group of people I have ever met, and I spent most of my life telling the world about these special people.  I know many of them, maybe without knowing it have created exactly the lives they have wanted.  A few worried about things they shouldn’t have and have had to deal with the reality that brought them but I hope they have found what I have in the power of creating your own reality through visualizing the good stuff.  Thanks for spending a few minutes with me, you know I have been thinking of you.

Related Articles

• 10 reviews of 8 track tapes (rateitall.com)
• How Ford Helped Invent The 8-Track [Car Tech] (jalopnik.com)
• Forget Nostalgia, Success is about the Future – U.S. News vs. Tribune Corporation (blogs.forbes.com)
• Create an Image Book about Life Dreams (brighthub.com)
• Rumor Patrol: New Batman TV Show on the Way (screenrant.com)
• Are you a Waiter or a Creator? [David Balcon] (ecademy.com)

Groovin’

Image via Wikipedia

The transformation taking place in my life is amazing and I can’t get over all the cool stuff that is going on in my head.  It has proven to me once again that we can and do create what happens in our lives, we decide if we are going to be happy or sad, tired or energized, everything revolves around our thoughts and as Mike Dooley says “Thoughts become things”.  The real key to all this magic is being conscious,  or at least consciously filling your mind with the good thoughts and the good input from outside sources.  TV, Radio and Newspapers can unconsciously fill your head with doom and gloom, shape your opinions about our leaders and take you out of the “zone”.

9th grade was my breakthrough year when I was playing baseball, prior to that I dropped the ball, especially when the game was on the line, I struck out, especially when I shouldn’t have and no matter how bad I wanted it I couldn’t get a hit.  Then two things happened, I started praying two to three times a day, and I got my hands on a book that talked about athletes performing at their best when they were in the zone.  As I look and think back to that time, the praying part was much more than just asking God to help me with my baseball skills as I took the praying seriously and really went into a state of total focus on asking God to help me but also repeating to myself what I wanted to happen, which in this case was I wanted to hit like Rod Carew.  The other thing was reading that book that talked about being in the zone,  the zone was when an athlete got himself into that perfect state where he was firing on all cylinders and everything was working perfect which allowed him to perform at the highest ability possible.   I have never  forgotten these particular strategies in my life and as I talked about in a  past blog, the things I learned on the Baseball field have served me well in life.

If you have been following my transformation through this blog, then you know that I was pretty much in the zone for the first 47 years of my life, just about everything I dreamed about or wanted for my life came true, I had mastered being in the “zone” of life because I “Knew” I could make things happen and I knew things would work out exactly as I planned.  Then I lost my way, I gave into listening to people tell me I wasn’t being realistic, that things weren’t going to be as good as I thought they would, I listened to the negative news on talk radio, TV news and read it in the paper and those thoughts became things and my world wasn’t so good for three years.  In July of this year, I decided to take massive action, including not letting any of the outside media or opinions of others affect what I “knew” was the truth.   The transformation has been incredible, I have effortlessly lost over 30 pounds, I feel better, I am positive and I have so many opportunities coming my way it is truly incredible.  But nothing explains this better than the music that plays in my head.

In August,  I was very stressed out one morning even though I had started down this path of knowing, I still let myself slip but I was enough on the right road that music started playing in my head when those stressful thoughts entered.  The Beach Boys ” Don’t Worry Baby” and the lyrics “everything will work out” played in my head and corrected my thoughts.  That worked so well that I wrote a blog post about the power of music and how hearing that song in my head, set my thinking straight that day.  The transformation and music continues, things have been going so well that I wanted to come up with a term other than being in the zone to describe this state I have been able to get myself into.   So while I was out walking my trusty companion “Flash” the golden retriever,  the juke box in my head started playing that old classic by the Young Rascals “Groovin“.   I immediately knew that was what I was going to call this state of mind, so right now I am “Groovin'” and on my way back to the incredible life I knew I could have.

I am not sure if you remember my “Don’t  Worry Baby” post but I got so excited about my mental juke box that I started talking about all the great lyrics of those songs  that have played in my head.  So after “Groovin” played on the juke box and wouldn’t stop playing, I started thinking about the lyrics and they are amazing especially when it comes to creating the world you always wanted for yourself.  Check this out…Groovin’…on a Sunday Afternoon (I choose to be Groovin 24/7)   I can’t imagine anything that’s better, The world is ours when we are together (I took this line as the World is ours when me and my thoughts are together)  There ain’t a place I’d like to be instead of Groovn’.  And it only get’s better as the song goes on…There’s always lot’s of things the we can see…we can be anyone we want to be..And all those “Happy” people we could meet just…Groovin.   We’ ll keep on spending sunny days this way, we’re gonna talk and laugh our time away…I feel it comin’ closer day by day…Life would be ectasy…..Groovin.   If that doesn’t describe my personal transformation of the past few months, I am not sure what does.  Those words are perfect if you are trying to start “Groovin” or getting in the zone, whether it is “We can be anyone we want to be” or “I feel it comin closer day by” these are incredible affirmations that will help you get in the zone or as I like to say “Groovn”.

So fire up your personal juke box in your head,  remember those songs that touched you and had a positive impact on your life and maybe even find some new ones that take you where you want to go.  For me, there is no place I would rather be than….Groovin !

1977

Image via Wikipedia

I have to say that 1977 ranks at or near the top of my all time favorite years.   I was blessed with having the best classmates on the face of the earth and in my opinion the greatest collection of teachers and coaches ever assembled in one High School.  I was incredibly proud to be a Cooper Hawk whether as a student, baseball player, ski racer or cross-country runner, Cooper High School was the best and in particular my senior year 1977 was the absolute best year of school I ever had.

Over the past 50 years, I have made thousands of friends and had the opportunity to talk to thousands and thousands of people in my travels not only around the United States but around the world.  To this date,  I still talk about my experience at Cooper High School and what I find is that I can’t find anyone that has had a high school experience to match mine.  It’s true many people have fond memories of high school, but none compares to my experience.

Every chance I get, I drive by Cooper High School trying to re-live those incredible days, some times I will throw on the Bruce Springsteen CD and play “Glory Days” over and over.  I like to go sit in the dugout at the baseball field and re-live the great times I had playing with the greatest baseball teams and coaches ever assembled anywhere.   Don’t tell me the Yankees or my Twins had a better team or mix of players than the teams I played on in 75, 76 and 77.  Whether it was playing baseball, running cross-country, making films in speech class or sitting in Humanities class there wasn’t one moment I didn’t thoroughly enjoy.   This incredible environment made me strive for great grades and winning performances in sports.  I am not sure I can explain this because I haven’t seen anything like it anyplace but at Cooper during my time there.

The other amazing thing about Cooper High School was that the friendships I developed during that time have endured, all of my best friends went to High School with me, when I moved to my second home in Maple Gove in 1986, the whole neighborhood filled up with Cooper High School graduates.  The strong bond that connected us in High School carries on to today, my class in particular holds formal reunions every 5 years that are well attended, informal reunions yearly at the Crystal Frolics in July that include Heidi’s home tours of all the old home we lived in during the time we were in High School and of course a run to everyone’s favorite mexican fast food restaurant Zantigo.   Because there was so much time (5 years)in between our last reunion we even had an all class 50th Birthday party and this weekend we are having an all 70’s party.

When I share my love of the class of 1977 with other people they always think I am from a small town, with a very small class, the opposite is true, Cooper is in New Hope, Minnesota a large suburb of Minneapolis and our graduating class was at least 700 in size.   The friends I made, the teachers who taught me and the coaches who coached me have all played important roles in my life,  The success at Cooper High School set the stage for the success I enjoyed in my life.  Specifically, I had a network of friends that supported me and were always behind me every step of the way, you can always depend on a Cooper Hawk to have your back.

1977, what a year !  Besides my incredible experience in High School, I enjoyed my hometown, my jobs and dating my girlfriend Suanne who has been with me since 1975, married since 1980.  I long for a Saturday night dinner at the Nankin Chinese restaurant followed by a movie at the Mann Orpheum Theater on Hennepin.  I miss meeting my classmates at  Happy Joe’s Pizza in Crystal and I really miss letting all my classmates into the movies at the Terrace Theater in Robbinsdale where I worked as an usher.

The late 70’s was of course the dawning of the disco era with dancing at Scottie’s on 7th, I had one of those White Suits (just like Steve Martin’s) and all the craze was the silk shirts imprinted with different pictures and of course you were not allowed to button the top three buttons on the shirt.  I never got into the gold chains but believe they were huge at the time.  My all time favorite Baseball player, Rod Carew was the American League MVP in 1977.  I drove a 1977 Mustang Mach I that is still my favorite car.   1977 and everything that went with it is still my favorite year.  Everything was firing on all cylinders not only was the year great but the expectation of being able to go out on my own and pursue my dreams was forefront in my mind.

I was truly in the zone in 1977, I had a picture in my mind of what I was going to do with my life and I “KNEW” I could make it happen and I did make it happen for the next 30 years almost exactly as I dreamed about it in 1977.  I know how strong my dream was and how good I was at visualizing exactly the life I wanted so I am dubbing my system for creating the life you want, System 1977, if you can remember how you felt  when you graduated from High School and can remember the dreams you had and the plans you had, you can return to that feeling anytime you want and once you do, you can create the next 50 years to fit your  dream.  I know I had the unfair advantage of being a Cooper Hawk and having the support of the greatest classmates on the face of the earth, but I know everyone has the power to create the life they want and the best way to describe the feeling you need to have is taking yourself back to a time in your life when you were full of dreams and expectations and about to launch into the world.

For me,  1977 and everything about Cooper High School is etched permanently in my mind and nothing means more to me than having the opportunity to return to those days whether it is communicating with my classmates, having dinner with one of my incredible coaches or sitting in the dugout at the Baseball field.  My time at Cooper, confirmed for me that the world and life could be anything you wanted to make it.  Thank you Classmates, Teachers and Coaches, you mean the world to me and I appreciate everything you have done for me.

Your Kiss is on My List

“My list of the best things in life”  includes music that puts a smile on your face and makes you feel good all over.  Like my Blog post “Don’t Worry Baby”, music is great therapy and hearing the Hall and Oates classic “Your Kiss is on My List” immediately brought me back to the early days of dating my wife ( 30 years of marriage, and 35 years of dating).  Not only did it bring me back to the early years of my relationship with my wife but it also made it clear to me that we are constantly creating our own experiences in life.  And what may seem a simple coincidence is actually much more.

Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events that are apparently causally unrelated occurring together in a meaningful manner.   Whether you call it Synchronicity or coincidence, I believe it all happens for a meaningful reason and it is up to you to figure out what the synchronicity in your life means.  So where am I going with Hall and Oates and Synchronicity ?  Well, something very interesting has been happening to me since I started writing this blog, meaningful and fulfilling synchronicity is started to appear daily, I am getting back into the zone where I was completely in control of my life and able to create things almost exactly as I wanted.  Miracles both large and small have started to happen but most importantly, friends, family and random people who have found my blog have started to have similar experiences.  I received an urgent text today from a business associate who has been reading my blogs who wanted to let me know what a great day she had and how everything was falling into place as she visualized it.  Now I know this particular person is very spiritual, has incredible faith, an awesome attitude and likes to read things like “The Secret” and similar works.  So she is understands the whole “knowing” thing that was the reason I started writing this blog in the first place.   What was really cool for me was that she created her day the way she always knew she could but she took the time to share her experience with me.   Her sharing of her experience today sent a positive shock through my body of knowing we can all create exactly the lives we want and that thought (good or bad) is contagious.  

Hall and Oates, what role do they play in today’s post ?  That’s another fun story I would like to share with you today because it is a great example of the incredible sychronicities in my life.   A few months back while searching Facebook for old friends, neighbors and business associates, I ran across Bren.  Bren or Brenda as I knew her back in the 60’s and 70’s was the cute Blonde from across the street in the neighborhood I grew up in.  Bren was a year younger than me but I had a crush on her during my entire elementary school experience.   Back then,  and I suppose at that age, you never hung around with girls in a grade below you and besides I never thought she had any interest in me.  But I always had that crush and anytime I had the chance to give her a ride on my Schwinn Apple Crate bike, I always was happy.   Well it turns out that Bren is a huge Hall and Oates fan, which was interesting because my wife when I started dating her in 1975  was also a huge Hall and Oates fan.  I have enjoyed Hall and Oates ever since my wife first played “She’s gone” for me from the “Abandoned Luncheonette” album.   So last week, I am checking out the news feed on Facebook and Bren posts that Hall and Oates are going to be in town and she wants to know who’s going with her ?.  I jokingly, immediately posted that I was going.  I really wanted to go but couldn’t justify spending the money at the moment.   So after posting my reply, I forgot about it, then late last week Bren sends me a message telling me that she has two extra tickets that my wife and I could have.   Wow,   I couldn’t believe the offer so I told Bren I just had to check with my wife to confirm.  Saturday rolls around and I tell my wife about Bren and the tickets, she was thrilled, so I immediately confirmed with Bren.  Now that was all incredible and fun but listen to this,  so my wife and I decide to go to a movie that afternoon, we decided to see “You Again” with Jamie Leigh Curtis.  Now, we decided to got to this movie just minutes after I confirmed with Bren about going with her to the Hall and Oates concert.  My wife and I really knew nothing about the movie except that Jamie Leigh Curtis  was in it.   So we are sitting in the  theater, eating a HUGE bucket of buttered popcorn when all of a sudden the couple in the movie are playing the Hall and Oates song “Your Kiss is on My List” on the radio, now that may seem like just a funny coincidence to you but to me it was synchronicity and a reminder to me that I played a role in the events that had just been created.  Even better, at the end of the movie and rolling into the credits, Hall and Oates and the cast of the movie sang “Your Kiss is on My List”.   While I always enjoyed that song, I never remembered the lyrics including the line “The Best Things in Life”, when I heard that, I knew the Universe was sending me yet another message about why happiness is the key to everything and when you know the outcome of your life, you can’t help but be happy.

You can have all of the Best Things In Life, you know you can, you just have to visualize your list of the best things and sit back and watch them show up.  I am adding something to my list of the best things in life, getting everyone to know they can create incredible experiences in their lives.  I know you can do it and I know that in my life, cancelling out the media has had a major impact and changed the way things are going for me.  I no longer listen to  or watch  any of the major news networks including my favorite Fox news, I don’t pay attention to the political nonsense going on in this country (I do intend to vote and I know my intuition will guide me to the right candidates),   I have turned off talk radio in favor of audio programs from Wayne Dyer, Mike Dooley and Joe Vitale.  Yes you could say I am brainwashing myself with positive, fulfilling and uplifting messages, and yes the brainwashing is working, I am washing out all the dirt and replacing it with clean new information.  I hope you will join me in creating incredible life experiences and if you get a chance, a text message, blog comment or email would be great, I love to hear about people and the great experiences they have created for themselves.  Get to work on your list of the “Best things in life” and make your life the best !

Related Articles

• The Hall and Oates revival (cbc.ca)
• Wandering the Aisles, Vol. 1: Hall & Oates for the Obsessed (popdose.com)

The Lost Art of Dining with Friends

Image via Wikipedia

Last night my wife and I had a terrific evening dining with my American Legion Baseball Coach (33 years ago)and his wife.  While we arrived at the restaurant fairly early we found ourselves all alone at the end of the evening in the dining room.  Usually when I go out to dinner with anyone whether it is my wife, friends or business associates it seems like I am watching the time to make sure the whole affair is limited to 60 minutes or less.  I am not sure where the 60 minute time limit came from but I know that I have felt bound by those time limits for most of my life.  The 60 minute self-imposed time limit was most apparent to me during my travels to Europe from 2002 – 2006 especially in Italy, Austria, Switzerland and France.  My wife and I would go into a restaurant, eat our food and would be ready to leave after 45 minutes but it usually would take almost another hour to get our check so we could finally pay and leave.  This was interesting because it forced us to start talking and relaxing while we waited for the check to come.   The more we dined out in Europe the more we noticed that everyone else came to dinner for the entire evening.  Now I know this is not unique to Europe and I know there are many people in the United States that spend more time at dinner than I do but I believe in the US the opposite is true at most restaurants, even if you want to make a long evening of it, the wait staff is usually quick to bring your check, ask if you need a box and clean up your table to hurry you out the door so the table can be freed up for someone else.

Last evening, we really spent the entire evening visiting so much so that it took me almost two hours to eat my French Dip sandwich.  I can only really recall two such evenings in the last 10 years where I truly spent the evening dining with friends or should I say visiting with friends and the dining was secondary.  Last night was fantastic as I had a chance to talk to my coach about the old days and spent a little too much time telling him and his wife about everything I had done personally.  I felt bad for talking so much but I think I just wanted to let him know everything I had done with my life and that he was an inspiration for my success and an example for me to remember when I felt sorry for myself or was facing a tough challenge in my life. 

The other all night dinner I recall took place in Cannes, France where I was fortunate enough to be invited to dinner with a group of guys, all of them English who were a big part of the British Invasion (Music) of the 60’s and 70’s.  The group consisted of former managers, agents , publicists and record company executives who had been involved with all the huge names of the era, Janis Joplin, The Who, Elton John, Michael Jackson, Ozzie Osbourn, ABBA and more.  I spent the evening listening to all of their stories and thinking that a book or movie could have been made just about our dinner conversation.   I remember just sitting back and listening and enjoying everything so much.  Several times during the course of the evening, I got apologies from people in our group who would say to me “I hope we are not boring you with our stories”, they actually thought no one else would be interested in what they had to say, but I couldn’t get enough.  The restaurant we were at had only two tables, the large table we were at with our group of 6 and a smaller table for 2.  The only customers of that restaurant that evening was our group of 6 and the couple that sat at the other table.  Our dinner and evening lasted at least 6 hours and the couple dining at the other table was there most of the evening as well.   The wait staff never tried to move us along, they simply brought more food and wine as the evening progressed.

The “Art of Dining with Friends” may not be lost everywhere in America but from my experience there are very few people who still go out with friends and enjoy an extended evening of really enjoying their friends company just at a restaurant.   After last evening and after thinking about what I observed in Europe, I plan on tossing out my 60 minute dinner limit, start searching for restaurants that would enjoy and accommodate a group of friends who linger at their table late into the evening, I am also going to toss out the movie that commonly was a part of going out to “Dinner and a movie” and of course I am going to start tracking down friends to join us for long leisurely dinners.

In these days of “Social Networks” that are primarily electronic, I believe that returning to evening long dinners with friends could really help people connect face to face with people again.   I am not knocking the electronic “social networks” as I think they are terrific way to reconnect with old friends so you can make plans for an evening of Dining with Friends.   So what’s the point of me writing this particular entry ?  I guess I am just trying to say that too many of us spend way too much time isolated at home or rushed to meet some self-imposed time limit on a meal, I guess that is why we have so much “fast food” in the United States.  Now I am thinking maybe I am the only one that hadn’t taken time to spend a long evening with friends, maybe it is only me that had lost the art of dining with friends, regardless I am going to make a point of at least one evening a month where all I do is find a group of friends that will join me to eat, drink and visit for entire evening.

E-5…Life Lessons from the Baseball Diamond

E-5  (Error Third Base) the last thing you want to see on the scoreboard in a tight game and your name penciled in as the 3rd Baseman.  Throughout my life I  have always processed the events in my life by what I learned playing baseball.  To the uninformed I know that sounds crazy but as I have grown older and really started to pay attention to everything, it was my baseball experience that helped me succeed in life, helped me to not give up and today it is helping me deal with the last three years of my life that have been filled with obstacles and crisis.

Last night I was at beautiful Target Field, the new home of the Minnesota Twins and enjoyed a great Twins win but more importantly observed the fan reaction to errors made by the Twins Shortstop and the Twins Second Baseman.  My son in particular was ripping both players and talking about how lousy they were and that we shouldn’t bring them back next year.  Being older and wiser, I thought to myself all of the good things these two players had done this season and for that matter over their careers and I also thought about how either one of these players could be the hero in tomorrows game.  Baseball is a game where you can fail 70% of the time and be called a superstar and earn $25 million per year.  It is also a game where one minute you can be the goat and the next minute you can be the hero.

Before yesterdays game, I spent about an hour on the phone with a close friend and business associate who has stuck by my side and helped me get through some very difficult times both personally and financially.  This particular friend has stuck in there and helped me even when everyone else has given up, but his patience has been tested on a regular basis as it has taken me much longer to get things turned around than I had expected.  On the call he told me that everyone else that knew me that he had spoken with no longer believed me or trusted me.  Hearing that was awful, a crushing blow to me on a day when I actually had made some substantial progress on a number of fronts.  This was particularly tough for me to hear because for 47 plus years I had a reputation for being incredibly honest, having the highest integrity and being the one person in the world that could be trusted beyond a doubt.  Everyone’s perception of me changed when my business failed and my personal financial situation hit the crisis level. Now I never changed, personally I think I have conducted myself through this crisis with honesty and integrity but people don’t see the honesty and integrity when you can’t pay them back when promised or when a Nationally known personality whose products you have developed appears on Oprah and the big sales rush from the Oprah appearance never happens.  Wayne Dyer says that you must be able to proceed “independent of the good opinion of others” and he is exactly right.

So back to Lessons from the Baseball Diamond, so two things happened after that call yesterday with my friend and business associate, first I was more motivated than ever to hit the Grand Slam and un-do all of the damage that has been done over the past three years and I thought about all the errors I made as an infielder playing baseball and how I was able to overcome every one of them by using them to motivate me to work hard (and have my coach Ted Leuer hit me even more ground balls)and to redeem myself in a clutch situation in another game.  You know it always worked for me and watching the Twins this year and watching the media and the fans attack virtually every player on the team at one time or another including Twins Superstar Joe Mauer it has taught me and reminded me to proceed toward my goals confidently and quietly without worrying about what people think or say.

Along the same lines, you always hear about how easy it is to kick people while they are down or go after the people at the top, if you step back and observe you will see how true this is.  People for whatever reason love to kick people while they are down, when a closer for a baseball team blows a save the fans and the media go nuts, so much so it amazing these guys can come right back and strike out the side the next day.  More baseball talk…so the Twins traded for a new closer in July his name was Matt Capps, from the minute we got him my son didn’t believe in him and didn’t trust him, I didn’t know much about Matt Capps but when I saw him run to the mound and pitch to that first batter, I liked what I saw, he looked confident and he went right after the batter and got a save.  The next day he was the goat and lost the save and I think the game and my son all but gave up on him.  Matt Capps never gave up on himself and he continues to battle and be himself every chance he is given.

So many people that don’t understand the game of baseball can’t figure out why I am so in love with the game, but to me it’s not just entertainment, it’s life unfolding before your eyes.  Now I am sure there are lessons in football, hockey and basketball but I don’t think it is the same.  Many people say Baseball is too slow to watch, but that is exactly what makes it much more than a game, in between every pitch you have the opportunity to think about what just happened, think about what is going to happen and in my case think about what each pitch represents in life.  Crazy ? right ?  I don’t think so as the other thing that I think is more true of baseball than any other game is the people and personalities it produces.  I have had the opportunity to meet many of my heros from the game including Brooks Robinson #5 whose number I always wore through High School and College, Harmon Killebrew, Rod Carew, Danny Thompson, Torri Hunter, Jerry Kindall and many others, they all were and are incredible people off the field as well as on. 

Lesson #1 from the Diamond, don’t let life’s errors or the fans comments get to you, those same people will love and adore you like no one else when you get the clutch hit or break out of the slump.  And the more upset those fans are, it just means they are that much more passionate about you and your success.  Use those errors and slumps as lessons and know that if you are in slump now, you are probably due for the big hit at any time.

Life Changers (Real Life Angels)

What is an Angel ?  I believe Angels are real and can take many forms including human form, those “human” Angels probably don’t even realize they are Angels.  It may be that describing certain people as Angels is not accurate, may be they should be called “Life Changers”, whether they are Angels or Life Changers, I believe they have all been sent by God to guide us and lead us to live the life that God has planned for us.  I have been blessed with an abundance of “Life Changers” showing up at critical times through out my life.  And without hesitation, I can tell you who they are, how I felt in their presence and what they have meant to my life.   I know that “Life Changers’ show up in everyone’s lives but I am not sure everyone is quite as aware of these “Life Changers” and that of course is the trick.  I am not sure what it is, but I have always been blessed with an awareness of the people that come into my life.  Whether I am looking for these people or I just recognize them when they show I couldn’t tell you but I am thankful for each and every one of these people that have showed up and changed my life.

The funny thing about these real life Angels or Life Changers is that they can touch you for a lifetime by just being in your life for a brief moment in time.  In the summer of 1974, I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the Rich Rollins Baseball camp in Rochester, Minnesota.  Back when I was 14, baseball was pretty much my life and there was nothing I loved more than spending a couple weeks at Baseball camp in Rochester.  Each week, a guest instructor would show up at the camp and spend a couple hours with us in very small groups.  I had the chance to meet and get to know Rod Carew and carry on a friendship with him through out High School until he was traded to the Angels.  I also met several other major league players and developed friendships with them that were very cool for a 14 year kid who loved baseball.  One day, my first “Life Changer” showed up, he drove up in a silver, Lincoln Mark IV which was a really fancy car back then, when he emerged from the car, he had huge smile on his face and his body almost glowed.   His name was Danny Thompson and he was the Minnesota Twins Shortstop this was special for me because I played shortstop at the time and I was really looking forward to working with him for an hour or two.  When he walked over and sat down on the grass with me and the other players, something was different, I felt different, I felt like I was in the presence of someone or something incredible.   Now remember, I had similar meetings with Rod Carew and major leaguers that were much more famous than Danny and while I was impressed and nervous to meet them it was completely different with Danny.  Unlike the other players that visited, Danny spent almost 6 hours with us each day he visited, the other players spent an hour or two.  When Danny looked you in the eye and smiled and told you that you could be a major league player, you knew he meant it.  I learned alot about playing shortstop from those meetings with Danny but it was what I learned after Danny had left that convinced me Danny was super human, a life changer, an Angel.  About a week after the last time Danny spent the day with us, I was back home reading the newspaper and there was an article about Danny Thompson and the time he was spending at the Mayo Clinic while the Twins were in town.  It turns out Danny had leukemia which at that time was almost always fatal.  The article talked about how after a Twins night game Danny would drive himself the next morning to the Mayo Clinic for treatment, spend the whole day in Rochester and then drive back to the Twin Cities to start at shortstop for the Twins.  The article never mentioned our baseball camp and none of the coaches or Danny ever mentioned the Mayo Clinic, his leukemia or treatments or anything else to us at camp.  I was dumbfounded after reading the article, how could he spend the whole day with us out in the hot sun and have more life in him than all of us.  The truth was that Danny Thompson was totally focused on touching the lives of others without concern for himself.  To this day, the lessons that Danny Thompson taught me have stuck with me.  Danny played with leukemia for three seasons after being diagnosed, in June of 1976 he was traded to the Texas Rangers, on September 29th, 1976  Danny played his last major league game at shortstop at Metropolitan Stadium against the Minnesota Twins, he went 1-3.  On October 2nd, he pinch hit for his last major league appearance and just two months later at the Mayo Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Danny passed away.  Danny had obstacles that very few of us could ever imagine, yet the only thing that could stop him from serving others by his example was death.  Danny Thompson may have been the Angel that opened my eyes and heart to look for these special Life Changing people that show up in our lives.

In the fall of 1974, I started my first year of High School at Cooper High School in New Hope, MN, fresh off a summer of baseball camp, I had my sites set on the coming spring and the baseball season.  In Minnesota, we always started Baseball practice early in March in our gym because the baseball field usually was covered with snow until the first week of April.  On the first day of practice we were introduced to the coaching staff which included a student teacher named Ted Leuer, Ted was a graduate of Cooper and a former athlete who had stood out in all the major sports, Football, Basketball and Baseball, I remember him being somewhat of a legend.  Like Danny Thompson, Ted always had a big smile on his face and any time I was around him I would get that same feeling I did when I was with Danny, that this was someone special sent to teach me some very special lessons that would stick with me forever.  Of all the coaches we had that year, Ted was the hardest worker and the one coach who never asked for any help with anything.  I am not sure what it was but I felt like Ted had taken a special interest in me, I overheard him one time telling another coach that fundamentally I was a very good player.  I don’t make a habit of listening to conversations, this just happened to be a chance thing and Ted had no idea I was around, but having the Cooper legend, Ted Leuer tell another coach I was good player was an incredible confidence booster for me and it made me work harder than ever.  As the season progressed, Ted worked with me very hard to improve my fielding skils and he took time just about every day to stay with me after the regular practice had ended to him me ground balls until I couldn’t stand up, not once did Ted tell me it was time to quit because he was tired, it was always me telling Ted it was time to quit because I was too tired to continue.  Ted and I had always had great conversations about baseball and when I found out Ted would be coaching our Summer Legion Baseball team I was ecstatic.  for the next 3 summers, Ted spent hours upon hours hitting me ground balls after the regular practice until I couldn’t stand up any longer.  Ted was amazing whether it was an encouraging statement about my play or getting on me for making a mental error on the field, I could always count on Ted to keep me pointed in the right direction.   Before each game, Ted would hit infield practice to our team and I  remember standing out on the field at 3rd base looking into our opponents dugout and thinking how lucky I was to have a coach like Ted.  I know he was an inspiration to everyone that ever came in contact with him but I remember thinking that  they just get to get inspired today by Ted, I get him everyday.  After College and Broadcasting School, I entered the real world and like everyone else I was faced with many obstacles along the way but I beat those obstacles with the lessons I had learned on the Baseball Field from Ted Leuer.  Anytime I was faced with an obstacle, I would think to myself this is nothing, look at the obstacles Ted has overcome and I would breeze through those obstacles and be on to the next.  Over the years, the one thing that people say to me that kind of bothers me is “how can you be so happy and positive when you have this big problem”, it bothered me because I felt like they were saying I should be upset and feel bad, but how can you possibly feel bad when you have examples for your life like Danny Thompson and Ted Leuer ?  Both of these guys proved to me that anything is possible and that there is nothing you can’t deal with positively.    Ted went on to a successful career in logistics and after years of trying to find him, I recently reconnected with him through linkedin.com and look forward to having dinner with him and his wife sometime soon.   Let me share something amazing with you, Ted had a tragic accident that would have had a negative impact on 100% of the people if they had to go through the same thing.  I am not going to tell you about Ted’s accident or the obstacles he faced because Ted did such a good job of overcoming them that I don’t think any of his players or people who saw him on a regular baiss ever saw Ted’s obstacles, because he could do more than 99.9% of the people out there.  Ted is another super human, life changer, Angel that appeared in my life, didn’t see any obstacles in his life and set a great example for a high school 3rd baseman that has stuck with me my entire life.

I have thre more life changers to tell you about but there stories are dramtically different than Ted and Danny.  These three people touched my life in a different way, the first, Harmon Killebrew, the Hall of Fame Home Run Hitter for the Minnesota Twins and the second Bill Olson, everybody’s best friend at Cooper High School and Val Wessel, my best friends father in law.  Harmon is an incredible human being, being in his presence again gives you the feeling of being with someone other worldly.  Harmon is gentle, caring and is totally focused on others which is unnusual for someone who has accomplished as much as Harmon has.  He has set a great example for how to deal with great success and give back to others.  There is much more I could tell you about Harmon and someday I will but I just wanted to give him a brief mention because he is an important piece of the life changers in my life. 

Bill Olson was everybody’s best friend at Cooper High School form 1974 to 1977, he had a big impact on the life of everyone he touched.  I mention him today because he was a life changer and Angel for me.  Bill and I, spent a lot of time together and I hope to write more about Bill on another day.

Yesterday, I attended the funeral for Val Wessel, Val was the father of my best friends wife, Jessica.  Val lived a full and succesful life and was 77 when he passed away.  I only met Val a few times, but for some reason, I always thought about him because he also had that aura like Ted, Danny and Harmon.  When my friend Pat called me with the news of Val’s passing, it sent a shock through my body that I have only felt a few times in my life.  At the funeral yesterday, Val’s daughter, Jessica (Pat’s wife) spoke about her father and his life that was totally committed to others.  She talked about him telling her and her brother to call him anytime they needed help no matter what time of day or night and no matter what the situation was.  Jessica also shared many stories about her Dad that further illustrated what kind of man and father Val Wessel was.  Jessica reminding me as she spoke of her father of all the things I used to do for my kids before I got caught up in the troubles that my business caused for me.   It hit me hard that Val was the example of the father I always wanted to be for my kids and that I had selfishly put dealing with my business and financial issues ahead of being a good father.  Val Wessel was a super human, life changer, Angel to his family, his friends and to me personally, I know the example he set and the reminders I have received will stay with me for the rest of my life.  Thank you Val for reminding me of what is really important.