MERRY CHRISTMAS

Season with Real Reason

Merry Christmas, everyone. I just got a subtle nudge from my great friend Tim Sams who wrote in an email, "Update your blog, man!"  Leave it to a brilliant, beardy carpenter drinking Bourbon on Christmas evening to only swing the hammer once AND use the word man.

So, I am pulling myself out of my post-amazingly large (and very delicious, thank you Mom;) Christmas dinner stupor to write this post. I planned on waiting until I got back to the N.C. coast, but since Burlin the tipsy, wizard carpenter commanded it, I will tell my recent Christmas story now.

I was in D.C. last weekend to see one of my favorite musicians, Rhett Miller (of Old 97s fame) at 

Black Cat and the show was amazing!!! Had a great suite at the Grand Hyatt, saw the White House Christmas tree, had a great dinner, saw Rhett, and stayed out into the early morning (3:00 am!) with friends. And while I truly couldn't afford to be away from work and present buying, I counted it as a little Christmas gift to myself and had a wonderful time. Even got together with my beautiful friend Elena P. who helped me speed-shop at Tysons Corner and nearly checked off my entire list in a blur. Plus, I bought myself a great pair of Pumas;-) And while they weren't a surprise when I unwrapped them this morning (have already worn them a few times) they made me happy.

So, anyway, I got home around midnight Sunday, did a little packing, and finally fell asleep sometime after 1:30am. Had to be up early and hit the road to be in Greensboro, NC to meet my friend and client Don for a lunch meeting. I left about an hour early so I could stop at Southern Seasons in Chapel Hill to buy a basket for Don's gift. I was work out, all hopped-up on coffee, caught in early morning Raleigh traffic, and on the phone trying to schedule three photo shoots, ad copy for two different ads, negotiate a contract, and taking notes (please don't try that while driving 80 mph;-). I know I looked down somewhere around Faison, N.C. and noticed I needed gas, but knew I had about 25-30 miles on reserve and would stop later. 

Later came in the far left lane of Interstate 40 when my little SUV lost power. Just slowed down and wouldn't respond to my pumping of the accelerator. It hit me--I'd forgotten to get gas. I WAS OUT OF GAS! and speeding down a bust highway. I checked the three lanes to my right and wrestled the steering wheel to take me across the lanes and up a convenient off-ramp. The SUV topped the ramp and limped about 40 yards until I slid it onto the shoulder. I WAS OUT OF GAS! In all my years of driving, I'd never run a car out of gas. Never! And there I was, on a minor exit, on an exceptionally cold morning, with nothing but office buildings around for at least a mile in either direction. The first thing that crossed my mind was that it was par for the course for my year-end: Laptop crash, loss of everything on it, BlackBerry mishap in which my trackball wouldn't stay in so I had to get a new one and AT&T couldn't transfer the saved info. on the old one to the new one, NOW I was sitting on the side of the road in an SUV with no gas on the way to a business meeting. 

I got out of the car, closed the door and took a long look up the road in both directions. As I was contemplating how far I would have to hike and deciding which direction to go and larger SUV came toward me from the exit ramp. It pulled up and the passenger side window came down. A smiling man leaned across the console and asked if I needed any assistance. I told him the story hoping he would offer to drop me at a nearby gas station. Instead, he offered to go and get the gas and bring it back to me. I, of course, accepted and watched him drive off then climbed back into my car to wait. 

Ten or so minutes passed. I pulled on a knit cap and wrapped my scarf around my neck in the metro-way I'd learned from walking around cold, windy, snowy D.C. when I lived there. As I did, a negative thought popped into my mind: Maybe he wouldn't come back. Maybe he stopped to be nice, but was late for work and, while he wanted to do the right thing, would keep on trucking and I'd still have to walk those few miles one way, get the gas, and walk the few miles back. ALL IN MY NEW PUMAS!  

I shook the thought from my mind. This guy had a genuine smile. He looked like a good guy and heck, he didn't have to stop when he saw me. I wasn't flagging him down or anything. He stopped because he was a good guy. Yep, he would be back soon with the gas. 

I got out of the car and did a walked around it once. Just cleared my head and took in some cold air to wake me up. As I made my way back to the driver's side I saw the same SUV coming up behind me. Genuinely Nice Guy waved as he pulled up. He then hopped out, went around behind his car and came back carrying a bright red plastic container with a bright yellow cap.

"Sorry it took so long," he said. "The first place I stopped didn't have gas cans, so I had to find another." Genuinely Nice Guy was apologizing to ME? I, of course, told him how silly it was for him to apologize. I apologized for ruining his morning. I think he tried to apologize for something else, but cut him off with an apology for making him apologize. 

He handed off the red container and I opened the gas tank and placed the nozzle into the tank, but quickly pulled it back as gasoline ran down the side of the car. The can's nozzle had a hard plastic nub onto which one was supposed to place the cap so as not to lose it. In our case, it was preventing the nozzle from getting into the small opening of the tank. All of Genuinely Nice Guy's work in vain. Not to mention I'd be late for that meeting. Nice guy just smiled and walked toward his SUV. He disappeared to its rear and a few minutes later reappeared.

"Hey, I've got these wire cutters. Wonder if they will work?" He proceeded to place them over the hard plastic nub and SNIP! It cut through it like butter. SNIP again! And the nub was gone. Number one: What are the chances the guy has a tool like that in his car? One of the FEW tools that could cut through hard plastic like butter? There was no way this was a coincidence. 

I tried the nozzle, it fit! So, I emptied the 2 gals. into the car with ease. Once I'd finished I put down the can and took out my business card. "Hi, my name is Dale." 

He stuck out his cold hand, "I'm Allan."

"Look Allan, if I can ever do ANYTHING for you, please let me know." He studied the card and asked what SeaChange did. I explained and he pocketed it. He made his way back to his SUV and I followed thanking him profusely. Being the genuinely nice guy, he played it all off. After he climbed into the driver's seat, he leaned out of his window and said, "Merry Christmas!" He started the car and he drove of waving. 

I know Allan was real, but I can't help believing it was a gift from God. A reminder that there are Fred Selfe-powered people on every street (and exit ramp) in the world. And it was a less-than-subtle reminder that this Christmas season is not about Puma's or new laptops or new BlackBerrys or material things of any make or model. Instead it's about doing what Allan did, and being selfless. It's about helping others. It's about giving, and giving, and giving, and giving, and

giving. 

So, thank you Allan. You made my year--put me fully into the Christmas spirit and saved me. And thank you God for the lesson. You're really good at that;-) Thank you, Timmy, for making me write this. Oh, and thank me for the Pumas--because, really, they are smokin' new shoes and I needed them;-) 

I hope you and yours had a wonderful Christmas day and wish you a very prosperous 2009! 

Make it the year of BEING FRED SELFE!! 

EXHALATION

LOOKING AHEAD

I’ve learned some really important lessons this year. How NOT to use a chainsaw was one of the more painful. That one cost me surgery, an astronomical medical bill, a scheduled triathlon, and the proper movement of my left leg.

Another equally painful lesson I’ve learned in just the past month is about loss and letting it go.

On Sunday I awoke, filled a mug with Café Bustelo, and turned on my laptop to find my data missing. What data, you ask? ALL data: Every document and file gone. Music gone. Pictures gone. Everything gone. At first I panicked, paced frantically around my house—which is my usual way of dealing with catastrophe. Next I called professionals and spent hours on the phone trying fix after fix to no avail. The data wasn’t there.

Now, for you to understand my state of mind, I must also confess that just a few weeks before I experienced the end of what I thought was a life-changing relationship. Think driving a car. Not the most impressive car you’ve owned, but something about this car makes you want to drive. Makes you want to get out and take it places. Something about the car drives you. Something--everything--about the car makes you want to own it for life.

So, you start slowly at first, then opening it up to higher speeds, feeling it respond to the pressure on the accelerator, getting in-sync with your hands on the wheel. You look down to find you’re driving at over 100 mph. The world flying by, colors blurring, feeling one with the machine. Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, there is no gas in the car. None in the tank, none in the gas lines and none in the engine. The ride ends you never know what happened to the gas. How did it disappear? How could it happen when the ride was going so well? Nothing left but question. I’d been sleeping about 3-4 hours each night, not eating, working out furiously, and focusing my thoughts on work.

So here I was, on Sunday, with that not far behind me sitting and looking at a laptop on which I run my business and my personal life. Looking at nothing. I suppose I could have put on my running shoes and gone for one of those long runs during which I grit my teeth and my hands so tightly they ache for hours after. The ones where I push my leg to exhaustion then keep on until I’m running through sheer pain and sometimes wiping tears away so I can see the road.

But I didn’t. I sat down in my big chair and put up my feet. For the first time since the week before my relationship ended my heart beat slowly and my mind was at peace. There were no questions. No what if I’d said this or done that. No pain. Everything stopped and I could hear my heartbeat.

I did what I advised her (the woman I previously compared to a car--and to be very clear, she's really a wonderful person so, while I miss her, I don't regret her) to do when her job (a financial company in the midst of the financial crisis) hit the fan and her office was chaos and her job was to help keep things cool—I exhaled. I took a long, satisfying, deep, chest-empting release of breath and exhaled. Then I smiled. What I understood at that moment was that if the data was just hidden or non-indexed I knew someone in High Point who could extract it. If it wasn’t—if it was really gone, forever and ever amen—it just was. There was nothing I could do about it. Asking why it happened wouldn’t change the loss. The past, everything that happened prior to that moment, was past. Memories. Gone.

I had to live in the moment. I had to be here now. I couldn’t sit around, as Colin Hay says in his song by the same name, “Waiting for my real life to begin.” The relationship ended when I felt it end on a cold, Sunday when something in her voice shifted. It was really over when we were at a quaint country inn having a wonderful dinner and time and I caught her sneaking text messages to someone when I ducked out to give her new puppy water and let her out of my car for a little walk. Over. Everything I'd felt the moment before was gone.

The data wasn’t where I could get at it, so it wasn’t there. I had to accept that reality and do the next thing. I had to either have someone extract the data and buy a new laptop or just buy the new laptop and try to recreate what I could.

Start from scratch. She (the woman I previously compared to a car) told me once that she and her neices count down the days until they see each other until the night before when they announce, "No more days!" So, this moment for me was that point, "No more days!" My life has to continue in whatever direction I choose from this moment. No putting things off. No blaming events/people from the past for not getting or doing or having or being. No excuses at all. No more days. Today is it. I awoke this morning and made a huge list of things I AM DOING. Moving back to DC, apartment there, new clients, taking all the inherited money I have squirreled away because it embarrased me and putting it into viable investements, personal goals (triathlon in 09!!!!), selling the first novel AND the screenplay, etc. Sure, it's long, but I'm ticking it off as I go...and I'm going each of the 1,440 minutes I have today.

So, here I am. At the beginning. Nothing behind me, and an endless panorama ahead with a pretty good road map to get there.

One bright point: I called her (the woman I previously compared to a car) because she has the only known copy of the latest novel I’m writing. She emailed yesterday that she is putting it in the mail, so I’ll have it. And, even after the initial few seconds where I stopped breathing when her name popped up in my email in-box, I slept through the night. Finally. Things are looking up—and ahead.

NEW PAINTING

Remembrance Day

Thought I'd share my latest painting (24"x36" acrylic on canvas) Can you tell things are looking up?;-) Oh sure, my laptop opened yesterday with NOTHING on it--not one single doc or file or pic or music and neither of my novel/manuscripts. But, the sun came up today and I had a few cups of Cafe Bustelo and some really sweet texts from some really cheeky friends. Yep, I love poppies, don't you?

GIVING THANKS

Wishing you all a wonderful holiday. Please give thanks for each and every thing you have: friends, neighbors, family, husbands/wives, children, lovers, pets, your job, joy, happiness, pain, and grief. Reaffirm your appreciation of them and their importance to your life.

Give thanks for even the smallest, most seemingly insignificant things, because even the smallest can become the greatest.

I am thankful for all of you friends who come to this obscure blog and allow me to share my thoughts. You're the best!

FROZEN BOSTON

HELLO FROM THE FROZEN NORTH

I just returned from attending the Greenbuild show in Boston with my friends and clients, NCFI. Greenbuild is U.S. Green Building Council's international show and they proved their smarts/savvy by holding it in Boston in NOVEMBER! All joking aside, it was a great show and I had a fantastic time. Thanks to some new Selfe-powered friends for help navigating the T around the city and the great bottle of Catena Malbec that awaited me at my groovy boutique hotel. It was the ideal gift to thaw me after the long train ride. You ARE the best!

Also, thanks to Sara Gutterman, CEO of Green Builder Media. Always good to see a familiar, smiling face. Look forward to working with you and Ron in 09.

I have to give a plug and recommend (highly!) the restaurant BokX 109...check out the menu http://www.bokx109.com/. Amazing dinner...smoked paprika fries done in duck fat! Are you kidding????? Nothing like a neat Knob Creek, fois gras, tenderloin, tater tots drenched in truffle oil and duck fat! They had a cardiologist on call. Big evening and just what I needed--well, perhaps I didn't but I've been really good and lost 28 pounds recently and am back in fighting shape--in fact my suit pants wouldn't stay up and my belt didn't have enough holes. So, one night of sin is okay, right?;-)

NOTE: That photo was taken Thurs. at 4:45 outside the Convention Center/Waterfront by a very capable person (thank you Alicia-you are a sweetheart;-) and I think the extreme cold made the camera hinkey. Or maybe I've just become fuzzy.

LATEST PAINTING

Thought I'd share my latest painting with you. Winter Begins, Again. 3'x4', acrylic on canvas.

THIS IS THE LAST TIME I QUOTE RUMI. EVER.

I hesitate to write this post. I’ve been contemplating it for weeks, and this is probably the worst time to write it because of my current state of mind and emotions. But, as it happens, a wise and wonderful woman convinced me over coffee in Old Town Alexandria yesterday morning to do it. She reminded me I wrote the book, Great Big Small Things, not for me, but for others and that those people--like her--came to this obscure blog to read and learn more. I pleaded that my current heartache would make the posting too personal and too dark, but she replied that I was allowed something personal. That it might have some bearing on the world around us, so I should be genuine and put it out there. Thank you, Elena. The spark in your eyes gave me the courage to write this and, as I promised, I write what is on my heart on this cold, rainy Wednesday morning.

I will never quote Rumi again.

I curse the day I stumbled upon Mevlana Rumi’s ruinous Diva-e Shams. I wish I’d never come across them or, at the very least, that I could go back in time and stop myself from ever reading his words, for I’ve lived them and they’ve shaped me into something I cannot seem to control. Something hard on the outside— strong of mind and body--yet brittle and roiling and dumb beneath. I blame Rumi, and I turn away from him now.

I should be like other men and worry about interest rates and stock prices and my 401K. My mind should be enthralled by NFL scores and stats and tires and hunting and such things. Instead, I read Rumi.

I stupidly think of starlight and how it travels millions of miles and years to reach my eyes. And I wonder if I seen it before. I think of the singularity--the place where soul meets the body. If pain transmutes or if we can shed it like a skin as we cross over. I wonder about the eyes of a bee and what they must see when they flutter around us. I consider the taste and smell of honey or a pear that drips its syrupy juice and see a thin, ruddy, beautiful face and hear a distinct, sweet voice. I waste my time caring about what holds us to each other and to the world around us. If on a sub-atomic level—like String Theory suggests—we are one because of the tiny vibrating waves that hold together each thing. Is this the music of our souls? Are these the notes of our great human symphony?

I wonder about the difference between our hearts and our souls. We humans put so much faith in our hearts. We even have a symbol for it that we use to represent love. Yet, we have no understanding of our souls. You could never draw it, nor do we have days assigned to it. It is overlooked and rarely considered, and yet, it is more important than the heart. Love resides not in the weak heart, but in the everlasting soul.

The heart is but an organ—an ill-designed mechanical pump, so delicate and complex. It is limited in size and scope and bound to the place it rides in our chests. It cannot overfill, for if it does it bursts and our life ends. The soul, on the other hand, is limitless. It expands to our greatest joy. It is where God lives and speaks to us. The Shekhinah.

Like an endless accordion file it opens again and again on itself to hold our passions and thoughts and prayers and loves and power. It can hold every moment of a whispered breath and all the pain and suffering in the world. Holocaust, genocide, rape, hunger, loneliness, despair, hopelessness, anger, terror, pain and suffering all fit within it. It’s the soul Rumi made me understand. The soul I’ve sought to know and for which I search in myself and others. And he’s damned me with it.

This kind of thinking leads to the opening of your mind and soul and that is where trouble and pain come in.

Rumi poems are like thick, amber honey held out to parched lips. They are sweet and strong and fill you like you’ve never eaten before. They cover your tongue and run down your throat like a trail of fire opening a way to the hidden soul. To those who eat of it willingly it provides not just sustenance, but becomes like manna. It opens the soul and white-hot light comes from within and changes you in an instant. You begin to believe in blue skies, and soft flower petals and that the most powerful thing in our human world is the sound of a baby laughing. You see hope in everything and a brother and sister in everyone. You wake and go out into the front yard and open your wings to rise into the sky where you float on invisible bubbles of warm air.

You believe, therefore you see.

He is sly, and dangerous, for he uses mundane things like wine and the wine bearer, the pearl and the ocean, the sun and the moon, the night and day, the caravan, and pilgrimage to make us believe he is writing about the world in which we all live. But that is a lie. He is writing about the world within us. The soul we hide. His words burrow into us and crawl into the folds of our brains and lodge there. Suddenly we are thinking of love and lips and kisses and eyelashes and smiles and the feel of warm fingers on cold skin. He traps us with his words until we can do nothing but see what he sees. Who can resist wine? Who can turn away from the moon?

But Rumi, in his ecstasy, denies the tangible world in which we live. When you seek the soul, you must turn inward and go so deep there is no sound or light or heat. It is a peaceful place. Yet, does the turmoil of the world around us disappear? No, it is still there with all the rules and laws that govern it and us.

When you climb a tree and go out on a limb to better see the beautiful indigo bird, you must remember the translucent truth of gravity. If you fall from the limb, you will continue to fall downward until you come into contact with the earth. If you fall from the limb you end up where you started. On the ground below the tree. You cannot be the same person again even though you were just in that place a moment before. There is pain from the landing. Perhaps a dislocated shoulder or broken bone that twinge each time you see a tree. And you are now weary of climbing any tree. They are suddenly too tall. Too thin of limb. Too difficult. Climbing trees is a silly way to spend your time.

I have kept my eyes on the soul and ignored the truth and laws of my natural world. I’ve fallen and— bruised and bloodied and broken—risen again to keep searching. Because I read Rumi. Because I quote Rumi. Because I think in his damned way and whirl like his dervishes when my soul opens to joy and love and kindness and kisses so deep and warm they make you into a single being traveling across space in toward the source of the starlight. I have been damned by his words, and cursed by my own soul.

Honey that once tasted so sweet—like there could never be anything sweeter come from God’s own hand—is bitter gall to me now. I spit it out of my mouth like yellow bile and watch it wriggle on the ground as it rots the dirt and kills the grass. So, this is the last time quote Rumi. These are the last of his words that spit out to rid myself of them and him. You have been dead for 800 years and remain dead. Take this back from me and ruin some other with it. For I refute it and will never quote you again.

"The minute I heard my first love story
I started looking for you,
not knowing how blind that was.
Lovers don't finally meet somewhere.
They're in each other all along."

Never again.

RANDY PAUSCH WAS SELFE-POWERED

Remembering the author of the "Last Lecture."

Randy Pausch, the Carnegie-Mellon professor whose "Last Lecture" to his students (former and current) wife, three children and colleagues became a viral sensation on the Internet, has succumbed to pancreatic cancer. In true Randy Pausch style--and because I watched and am a big fan of the lecture--we won't get into the details of his death, but rather we'll celebrate his life. Randy taught at UVa. when I lived in Charlottesville, and while I did not know him or his family, I have friends who did and say he was one of the most encouraging, entertaining and genuine people they’ve met. He was Selfe-powered! *(A new term I'm using to describe people who care about the Great Big Small Things;-)

Randy knew his cancer was terminal when he delivered what was actually titled, "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,” yet, instead of being gloomy and sullen it was one of the most inspirational talks I've heard. It made me, and countless others around the world, want to live--and to live better lives.

He began by showing the audience scans of his liver tumors and explaining his grim diagnosis. "That is what it is, we can't change it, and we just have to decide how we are going to respond to it," he said. "We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand. If I don't seem as depressed or morose as I should be . . . sorry to disappoint you!"

He went on to provide some amazingly simple, humorous and heartfelt insight into living life fully and without regret:

SOME RANDY PAUSCH LESSONS

To live well, a person must first be grateful for being alive

Being alive and living does not mean that one has beaten the Grim Reaper

What matters more are the things that a person does between birth and death

The unchanging fact is that the Grim Reaper will come for every single one of us

To beat the Grim Reaper, a person has to live fully and well

To live well, a person must follow their heart and passion, and do what he/she is excited about

If a person has not found their passion yet, continue searching

A person should never give up the search for passion

Without passion, all a person does in life in merely waiting for the Grim Reaper

Passion is not found in material things

If a person uses material things as a measure of living well, they will always find other people around who have more of those things. This will lead to discontentment and unhappiness

Passion must always be grounded in people

Passion is about the relationship a person has with other people, and how they are able to gain the trust, respect, and love of those around them

Like passion, true love is worth searching and waiting for

A person should not settle for anyone, but rather, seek the person whose happiness is more important that one’s own

When the Grim Reaper shows up, it is already too late to do all the things you wanted to do, but did not get around to doing

At a person’s deathbed they are likely to regret what they did not do, not what they did

Randy says there are always obstacles (like cancer) in life, but he believed they serve a purpose. "The brick walls are there for a reason. Right? The brick walls are not there to keep us out, the brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don't want it badly enough," he said in his lecture.

Thank you Randy, for leaving the world a better place. God speed.

***(I tried unsuccessfully to upload the YouTube/Carnegie Mellon video of Randy's Last Lecture. If you'd like to view it, please go here and watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo&eurl=http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92922083)

FRED SELFE FIELD OF DREAMS

Phase One Nearing Completion

I stopped by dear ole Emory last week and was pleasantly surprised at the condition of Fred Selfe Stadium. The turf field is down and they are gluing in the numerals and stripes. The brick wall is up and they've cleverly chosen a beautiful white masonry cap for it--which looks absolutely gorgeous! The 12-foot fence was going up that very day around the entire complex. The supports for the massive new scoreboard (rumored to have instant replay capability!) are up and they were bricking in the bottom half. Earth moving equipment was furiously running back and forth from the east end of the field to the western end (Van Dyke/Brock end) to create the new "Wake Forest" effect of a grass hillside forming an angled wall as the western entrance. The massive concrete supports were up for the new lights. Giant rolls of tiny flecks of crumbed rubber--made from recycled tires--sits ready to spread atop a layer of sand in between the synthetic grass blades fiber woven into a poly fabric.

It was a treat to spend a hour talking with Coach Bob Johnson and run into Dr. Don Reichard (who was pumping iron next door.) Coach J offered to give me a brief tour and explained the entire building process (Phillipe, the French-Canadian supervisor of the company laying the field says Coach J has been on the field every day overseeing the laying of each brick and each load of dirt.) I left heading south re-energized and ready to help Coach Don Montgomery and the Wasps have a stellar 2008 season.

If you'd like to see more visit E&H's web site and take a peek. If you're in the area, stop by and see it for yourself. (Five or six cars slowed down to take pictures in the 30 mins. or so we were on the field;-)

Oh, and if you haven't donated, please do so now as we wrap up Phase One and get ready (after 2008 season) for the big Phase Two (new stands, new amazing field house.) Just drop a check in the mail to Emory and Henry's Dev. Dept. and note that you read about the excitement here and had to get involved!

Blue and gold shall reign on high!

SUMMERTIME

“Come to the edge, he said.
They said: We are afraid.
Come to the edge, he said.
They came.
He pushed them and they flew.”

COACH BOB JOHNSON

Honoring a Great Servant Leader

Please join me and many others for a day of honoring the 27 years of blood, sweat, tears and service of basketball coach/teacher Bob Johnson. This Saturday, Jan. 19 at Emory and Henry College:

2PM--Tip-off of men's basketball game
Halftime--Special Presentation
Following the game--Reception
4PM--Tip-off women's game
6PM--Reception for Bob Johnson at Townhouse Grill in Chilhowie

Come and show your support and thanks for a true servant leader and a great friend of Fred Selfe.

CHRISTMAS TIME

Wishing you and your family and wonderous and merry Christmas! Please remember the true reason for the season and give what you can to help others. Keep others in your prayers--including your enemies--for they need it more than anyone.

On a personal note: Please keep Coach Bob Johnson in your prayers. He is undergoing cancer therapy at Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas. Coach J recently resigned as head basketball coach at Emory and Henry after more than 27 years to move to Houston and he and his family need/deserve our support during these trying times. According to the college sports blog: "Bob Johnson has built a national reputation for his coaching, having taken five teams to the NCAA playoffs, two of which finished in the Sweet 16. In April 2007, the National Association of Basketball Coaches awarded him the Division III Service Award, which was presented at the NCAA Final Four tournament. Johnson finishes his E&H coaching career with 370 wins and 334 losses. He was honored three times as Old Dominion Athletic Conference Coach of the Year and three times as the NCAA South Region Coach of the Year."

I wish you all the best in 2008 and look forward to seeing and hearing more about your growth and good deeds!

Dale

QUICK THOUGHT TO START THE WEEK

Bird Watching

I spent Sunday afternoon at the very southern tip of Fort Fisher. I parked my car at the end of the road (literally) and sat looking across the Cape Fear Sound. I was intending to go for a run and maybe study some ideas for packaging a client's product but the sun, blue sky and quiet lapping water had warmed my soul and, perhaps, made me so introspective I just wanted to sit and let my mind go for a bit.

I sat with the forty-foot-tall mound of sand marking the last redoubt (aptly named Mound Redoubt) (thanks to roaddog from Illinois for correcting me. "That would have been Battery Buchanon you were at if you were down by the rocks, south of the ferry.The Mound battery was further to the north and a part of the main fort.." Thanks for reading and thanks for the help in making the post better;-) in the old fort at my back looking across the acres of marsh that spread out along the eastern edge of the land leading it out to the breakwater ridges of sand and scrub guarding the sound from the Atlantic Ocean. As I jotted down some notes on a recent multimedia project a shadow darkened my padfolio and I looked up to see a great white bird gliding over. I recognized it as a Great Egret; about 3-4 feet high and with a 4-5 feet wingspan. It circled the marsh for a few minutes then parachuted to the ground.

The bird touched down about 75 feet away and, after a few position adjustments, straightened its back and stared back at me. There we were: the bird looking at me thinking 'what is that thing and why is it looking at me?' Me looking back making up that scenario of the bird thinking about me. For some reason, perhaps I was tired of watching and wincing at the woman out in the water learning to windsurf and falling face first into the chest deep water each time she tugged the plastic sail up from the water, I watched the bird for half an hour.

There was a simple elegance about it. Once it had gotten used to me, it stood looking patiently out over the reeds on two long, spindly black legs. It didn't move for the entire thirty minutes. Then, without any warning, it jabbed it's long yellow beak down into the reeds and came up with a silver. struggling fish. It shook the fish once, then tossed it up and swallowed it. Then it went back to standing and staring. Very efficient, and obviously, very effective.

Again, I felt introspective. A life insurance salesperson would say that life is a long process for most. They could even show a life expectancy chart to prove it. When we want something, we usually run around trying to make it happen. How much of that running helps us achieve or get what we want? The Great Egret flew around finding the best ground, landed, then patiently stood watching until the fish came by, then WHAM! it struck with precision. Lunch, or a late afternoon snack or third meal...or whatever egrets call their eating times.

The egret proves that planning is important, patience is vital and striking quickly makes all the difference in a beak full of mud or a great lunch. This week try being the egret: plan carefully (make sure you've chosen the very best hunting ground) then wait for the right opportunity and strike quickly and with precision.

IF YOU BUILD IT, HE WILL COME

HELP BUILD COURAGE, CHARACTER, LEGACY AND A BETTER FUTURE. DO A GREAT BIG, SMALL THING AND HELP BUILD FRED SELFE STADIUM!

Fred Selfe Sports Complex, Emory and Henry College

This classic, small college design includes a ProTurf field, new attractive field house, home stands with press box, visitor's stands, and a fence that blends with the surrounding buildings. It's a wonderful new design--not too overstated and not too understated. It's simple, strong, clean, and does the job. It's Emory and Henry and a field of which Coach Fred Selfe would be extremely proud. Of course, he would fight like hell to keep his name off it, but he would beam with pride each time the Wasps swarmed onto its field.

Help us make the field a reality and break ground in early 2008.

How often do you get the chance to play a role in shaping thousands of young minds and lives? The tab for the complex is a very doable $4.5 million. You can write a check, and find others who will do the same. There are a number of naming opportunities--rooms, lockers, buildings, etc.--and your family, company or organization can show that you really care about the Fred Selfe's of the world who work, sacrifice and serve to save our culture from a certain downhill slide; people who serve with no thought of awards or spotlights or even a thank you. You can show you care about those people by helping us build this important foundation.

Do a Great Big Small Thing and build Fred Selfe Stadium.

If you'd like to help please email me directly: dalemcglothlin@ec.rr.com

LOOK UP! LOOK UP!

The Clouds are Lifting, the Sun is Breaking Through. We are Coming out of the Darkness into the Light

Charlie Chapin’s 1940 satire of Nazi Germany, The Great Dictator, is a brilliant film. Besides being his first “talkie” it’s also an amazingly prophetic work about the aims of Nazism and the plight of Jews in Europe. In it, a Jewish barber is mistaken for the dictator, Adenoid Hynkel. In my humble observation, the true brilliance of this film is found in the Chaplin’s final speech by the “barber.” Considering it was written in 1940, it has some extremely relevant observations and equally applicable advice in these chaotic times. The following

is the speech:

I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible, Jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another, human beings are like that. We all want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone and the earth is rich and can provide for everyone.

The way of life can be free and beautiful. But we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men's souls, has barricaded the world with hate; has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed.

We have developed speed but we have shut ourselves in: Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little: More than machinery we need humanity; more than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.

The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men, cries out for universal brotherhood for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me I say "Do not despair."

The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress: the hate of men will pass and dictators die and the power they took from the people, will return to the people and so long as men die liberty will never perish.
Soldiers: don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you and enslave you, who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel, who drill you, diet you, treat you as cattle, as cannon fodder.

Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts. You are not machines. You are not cattle. You are men. You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don't hate, only the unloved hate. Only the unloved and the unnatural.
Soldiers: Don't fight for slavery, fight for liberty. In the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke it is written: “The kingdom of God is within man.” Not one man, nor a group of men, but in all men; in you, the people.

You the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness. You the people have the power to make life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy let's use that power, let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work that will give you the future and old age and security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie. They do not fulfill their promise, they never will! Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfill that promise. Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness.

Soldiers! In the name of democracy, let us all unite!

Look up! Look up! The clouds are lifting, the sun is breaking through. We are coming out of the darkness into the light. We are coming into a new world: A kind, new world where men will rise above their greed, their hate, and their brutality.

The soul of man has been given wings, and at last he is beginning to fly. He is flying into the rainbow, into the light of hope, into the future, that glorious future that belongs to you, to me and to all of us. Look up! Look up!

TEAM HOYT

This was shared by my beautiful friend Maria from Cullman, Alabama and is one of the greatest stories of love, inspiration, kindness and selflessness I have ever encountered. I will bet you cannot watch this story without shedding a tear...not of sadness, but of joy. Please pass this along to everyone you know.

A LITTLE SPARK OF LOVE AND HUMANITY

I received this the other day as one of those pesky viral emails. Goodness knows how many times it's circled the globe. I thought I'd give a perfuctory read then hit delete (as I do most of those pesky viral emails) but when I read it I was faced with a choice. I spend a good deal of time searching for personal encounters and events or filtering through unique thoughts to develop posts that will reflect the character and life-lessons of Fred Selfe. Lessons that will provide one more grain of sand; a single thought or act that may tip the scale of your life for good. So, when I read this much-passed-along story, I had to decide if it was one of those grains--would it help others make good choices to bettter themselves. Is the message better than one I could post to tell the same story and give the reader the same grain? I believe it will, so instead of posting the original story I intended, I am posting it. Enjoy!

Have a Shay Day

At a fundraising dinner for a school that serves learning-disabled children, the father of one of the students delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended. After extolling the school and its dedicated staff, he offered a question: "When not interfered with by outside influences, everything nature does is done with perfection. Yet my son, Shay, cannot learn things as other children do. He cannot understand things as other children do. Where is the natural order of things in my son?"

The audience was stilled by the query.

The father continued. "I believe that when a child like Shay, physically and mentally handicapped comes into the world, an opportunity to realize true human nature presents itself, and it comes in the way other people treat that child." Then he told the following story:Shay and his father had walked past a park where some boys Shay knew were playing baseball. Shay asked, "Do you think they'll let me play?" Shay's father knew that most of the boys would not want someone like Shay on their team, but the father also understood that if his son were allowed to play, it would give him a much-needed sense of belonging and some confidence to be accepted by others in spite of his handicaps. Shay's father approached one of the boys on the field and asked (not expecting much) if Shay could play. The boy looked around for guidance and said, "We're losing by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning. I guess he can be on our team and we'll try to put him in to bat in the ninth inning."

Shay struggled over to the team's bench and, with a broad smile, put on a team shirt. His Father watched with a small tear in his eye and warmth in his heart. The boys saw the father's joy at his son being accepted. In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shay's team scored a few runs but was still behind by three. In the top of the ninth inning, Shay put on a glove and played in the right field. Even though no hits came his way, he was obviously ecstatic just to be in the game and on the field, grinning from ear to ear as his father waved to him from the stands. In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shay's team scored again. Now, with two outs and the bases loaded, the potential winning run was on base and Shay was scheduled to be next at bat. At this juncture, do they let Shay bat and give away their chance to win the game?

Surprisingly, Shay was given the bat. Everyone knew that a hit was all but impossible because Shay didn't even know how to hold the bat properly, much less connect with the ball. However, as Shay stepped up to the plate, the pitcher, recognizing that the other team was putting winning aside for this moment in Shay's life, moved in a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shay could at least make contact. The first pitch came and Shay swung clumsily and missed. The pitcher again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly towards Shay. As the pitch came in, Shay swung at the ball and hit a slow ground ball right back to the pitcher. The game would now be over. The pitcher picked up the soft grounder and could have easily thrown the ball to the first baseman. Shay would have been out and that would have been the end of the game.Instead, the pitcher threw the ball right over the first baseman's head, out of reach of all team mates. Everyone from the stands and both teams started yelling, "Shay, run to first! Run to first!" Never in his life had Shay ever run that far, but he made it to first base. He scampered down the baseline, wide-eyed and startled.

Everyone yelled, "Run to second, run to second!" Catching his breath, Shay awkwardly ran towards second, gleaming and struggling to make it to the base. By the time Shay rounded towards second base, the right fielder had the ball ... the smallest guy on their team who now had his first chance to be the hero for his team. He could have thrown the ball to the second-baseman for the tag, but he understood the pitcher's intentions so he, too, intentionally threw the ball high and far over the third baseman's head. Shay ran toward third base deliriously as the runners ahead of him circled the bases toward home. All were screaming, "Shay, Shay, Shay, all the way Shay" Shay reached third base because the opposing shortstop ran to help him by turning him in the direction of third base, and shouted, "Run to third! Shay, run to third!" As Shay rounded third, the boys from both teams, and the spectators, were on their feet screaming, "Shay, run home! Run home!"

Shay ran to home, stepped on the plate, and was cheered as the hero who hit the grand slam and won the game for his team. "That day", said the father softly with tears now rolling down his face, "the boys from both teams helped bring a piece of true love and humanity into this world."Shay didn't make it to another summer. He died that winter, having never forgotten being the hero and making his father so happy and coming home and seeing his Mother tearfully embrace her little hero of the day!

AND NOW A LITTLE FOOTNOTE TO THIS STORY: We all send out thousands of jokes through the e-mail without a second thought, but when it comes to sending messages about life choices, people hesitate. If you're thinking about forwarding this message, chances are that you're probably sorting out the people in your address book who aren't the "appropriate" ones to receive this type of message. We all have thousands of opportunities every single day to help realize the "natural order of things." So many seemingly trivial interactions between two people present us with a choice: Do we pass along a little spark of love and humanity or do we pass up those opportunities and leave the world a little bit colder in the process? A wise man once said every society is judged by how it treats the least fortunate amongst them. Have a Shay day!

BE NICE OR PAULA DEEN WILL EAT YOUR HEAD

Why is Common Courtesy so Uncommon These Days?

My friend Amy from Va. Beach gave me an idea for a post. She wondered aloud tonight what had happened to common courtesy in our society and I was jolted into remembering twice in the past few weeks when I was asked myself the same.

Once my sister, brother-in-law and niece were enjoying the movie Ratatouille and the woman in front of us started talking on her cell phone. Talking on her phone in the middle of a movie! Her husband obviously recognized her gross faux pas and tried to get her to put the phone away, but she promptly swatted him with her open hand and yelled at him. Then, this past Saturday my niece and I were stretched out on the beach reading when four people crammed themselves in the narrow space between us and the next group of people AND, once they’d gotten their chairs where they wanted them, their cooler unpacked, and all helped apply tanning lotion to each other they turned on a boom box and cranked the volume up to the point at which I could no longer enjoy my book.

So, again I ask, what happened to common courtesy? I’m considering calling Nancy Grace or Greta Van Susteren and setting those bloodhounds loose on the trail of our missing decency, civility and proper etiquette. They have vanished and in their place we find isolation, unkindness, insensitivity, poor manners, and excuse-making.

Here’s a little test for you to try this week: Open the door for as many people as you can for the next seven days and record how many people say thank you. Then come back here and post your results.

I’m not going into all the possible reasons for the continued lack of common courtesy here (that post could be a book in the making), but will, instead, say we should stop tolerating it. If we let it happen we are complicit in it. Instead we can each stand up and change it.

Here are 10 Ways to Make Courtesy Common Once Again:
10. Say please and thank you

9. Open the door for the person in front of you and turn to see if you can hold it for anyone coming in after

8. When you go indoors, put your cell phone on vibrate and turn it off in the theatre, church, a quiet restaurant or any place where people meet and talk

7. When the lane in which you are driving is ending, let the driver in the right lane go in front of you

6. When you walk in front of someone in a grocery store or
book store say, “Excuse me.”

5. Return phone calls as soon as the opportunity arises

4. Send thank you notes or emails when you receive a gift

3. If you use call waiting, don’t! If you feel you must, when
you are one call and another comes say, “Will you excuse
me one moment,” switch to the incoming call and that caller
you will call them right back, then return to the original call

2. Live up to your promises. That goes for being on time.

1. When someone says hello, return the greeting with a smile

Fight anger, disrespect and disregard with love, grace, kindness, and thinking of others before yourself. Turn them around with common courtesy—and if that doesn't work we can sentence them to community service cleaning up after Paula Deen--voted the nicest woman in the U.S. She’d kill them with kindness or eat their big fat heads.

CAPITOL HELL

The People Who Make Money Dividing Us Are Killing Our Country One Advertisement at a Time.

I guess I've spent so much time in NC lately that I forget what DC is really like. Don't get me wrong, I love the city--love the parks, the museums, bars, restaurants, art, architecture, etc., but some of the people make me quezy. I have really good friends there, and my former teammates on the Virginia Congressional Softball Team, Big Tobacco [formerly The Va. Hams] are great people. It's the smarmy political pimps that turn my stomach.

I was on Capitol Hill yesterday visiting some friends. It was a normal mid-summer DC day--hot, muggy, just rained buckets and the water was already evaporating. I asked one friend, (I won't disclose the person's name--all I will say is that he is a senior staffer in the office of a Republican Congressman from a state in the southern U.S.) what was new on the Hill. After a ten minute recap of the newspaper, The Hill's "Hottest on the Hill" list, he told me how the Republicans were reacting to the recent ads the Dems are running congratulating themselves on their accomplishments.

I'll paraphrase: They did this, so we're doing this. They want voters to believe this, so we're going to do a direct mail campaign to likely Republican voters on how they did this and that and more of this. "Off the record, we're using a new database to find disaffected voters and..." [Okay, I'll keep the content secret, but you get the idea.] Thirty minutes later I was shaking my head. I realize that with two parties heading into elections there will be competition, but this was a plan for war. In fact, it was a brutal assessment of how one side would dismember and destroy the other. To be fair, I called up a Dem. friend and solicited what he knew of his party's plans and, not surprisingly, they sounded just like the Republicans.

What I realized is that, while traveling around and working in NC, I see what American voters [and I would challenge my demographer/pollster friends to check this, but I believe the people I've met an ideal cross-section of American voters] think about their government and the political process. It ain't good. People have lost hope. I went online and these are the first legitimate poll numbers I came across. Here's what a recent AP poll found:

• Only 24 percent of those polled approve of the job the Congress is doing as a whole
  


• Poll respondents from both political parties say they're tired of the bickering between Congress and the White House, and they want the two branches of government to work together on such issues as education, health care and the Iraq war
  
  
• While public approval of Congress has dropped 11 points since May, the percentage of Democrats who are turning up their noses at Congress nearly doubled
  
  
• Approval among Democrats fell 21 points, down from 48 percent in May to 27 percent
  


• Approval of Republicans, at 20 percent, has not changed significantly in the past two months



• Only one-fourth of the people, or 26 percent, said the country is headed in the right direction

These numbers are pathetic! What would happen if a corporate executive got this "vote of confidence" from board members? He or she would be out the door tomorrow. What would a board of education do to a principal who received this kind of feedback from teachers and the community? Gone! And, the saddest part is that these numbers are normal. Sure, they go up and down a bit, but, for the most part, they are status quo. Am I supposed to tell my young cousin and little buddy, Graham Warren, this is what he should expect from his country? I refuse to do that. He deserves better--we all do.

So, what's being done about it? You have to ask yourself, if this isn't one of the major contributors to the sorry state of our culture. I certainly believe it plays a significant role. If we don't trust--can't trust--our elected leaders, what does that do to us? I've written before about the fact that most Americans claim they have no heroes. Is that any wonder when you consider that the guy getting ready to break a long-standing baseball record may be indicted for steroid use just after he hits number 756? Will slapping an asterisk on the number restore confidence in our national past-time? Will we never recover from the "depends of what the definition of 'is' is?" Have we finally fallen into the gray area of relativity and drowned in it?

I wondered if there a group within either political party working on reforming the party? Anyone turning over the tables or putting up barricades and lighting torches? So, I called my political consulting friends and even a woman I know who works for the RNC. Guess what? They don't believe there is anything in need of reform!! They like the way things [don't] work. Again, I used my contacts inside the Republicans,but I guarantee the DNC is the same. Same monster under a different bed.

The fewer people vote, the less work they must do. They spend less reaching smaller and smaller groups. The fewer people the more that can rely on micro-targeting to differentiate and market to those people. As Harvey Kronberg,editor of the Quorum Report, notes in a recent article, "Karl Rove ran the 2004 presidential campaign on the premise the political center had evaporated and the country was sharply divided into right and left. In his book, Applebee Nation, former Bush pollster Matthew Dowd explained their campaign didn't try to win converts. Instead, it used a technique called micro-targeting to find and turn out likely Republican voters in otherwise Democratic strongholds."

Guess what, people like Karl Rove are responsible for dividing the nation into right and left--rich and poor--white and black and brown--for or against the war. They want us divided so they can prey upon our fears. They incite anger over an issue then provide the opponent. They want us divided just so they can herd us to the polling place to cast a vote. They don't care about the long-term consequence of that division. Instead of relating through what we share: a common American culture, national language, desire to see our children healthy and prosperous, belief in an "inalienable" right "endowed by our Creator" to personal freedom...we're left divided by our position on abortion or the Iraq war or stem cell research or amnesty for illegal aliens or "tastes great, less filling."

Once they've spent hundreds of millions of dollars dividing us through constant media images, they collect their paychecks, their candidates become elected representatives and we [the governed] get screwed. Now we're all riled up over some issue, expect these people to solve that problem and we're sorely disappointed when they can't do it. We dislike the people they've convinced us are the people creating the problem and we're ready to fight. This cycle happens over and over from the local town council to our U.S. reps. that we come to beleive that there is no solution. There are no solutions. So we quit. We quit voting and even worse, we quit caring. We tune out of those issues and tune into American Idol or CSI or Paris Hilton [God forbid!!]

The people we elect get hit too, because they KNOW they cannot solve the problem [which may or may not actually exist] and end up with only 20 percent of the American people liking them.

20 percent!!! Look at it this way, you're at a cabin in the woods with 10 other people. Only two of them like you--the other eight think you're a tool and want you to leave. How would that feel?

We must change this! We have to stop taking it from the political consultants and fight back for decency. Question everything and refuse to stop until we get real answers. Hold people accountable for what they promise. Fight for a reformed process where the political parties [preferably more than two] stand for a non-moving set of principles and the process works to attract more voters instead of locking out those people. Demand that the people we elect STOP PLAYING POLITICS and GOVERN...and GOVERN WELL.

If we refuse to eat the pabulum, someone...SOMEONE PLEASE...will step up and lead us into a better, more unifying process. If not, we're doomed and we can't blame the damn dirty apes.

FISH TACOS AND FAST COMPANIES

“A great part of courage is the courage of having done the things before.”

I overheard a business conversation last week at a little oceanfront, locals-only, surfer hangout at Wrightsville Beach that got me thinking. I've been involved with management and leadership for the past 20 years and am always interested in learning more and better ways of doing things. I believe being a leader is an organic process that begins when you decide it begins and ends when you die. You read, experience, question, challenge, fail, get up, and continue to move forward. Being humble enough to accept you’ll never know everything and living as a constant student is not easy, but it’s a wonderful way to live. Each time I visit my friend Jeff Scheffer, CEO of Stanley Furniture, I peek at the stack of books on his desk he’s reading and digesting. So, I perked up when the women began discussing their company, of which one was an SVP or C-level.

I was semi-quietly munching on a fish taco (hard shell, not soft and dumbly covered in Sriracha so I was also trying to stop the burning) and overheard a woman in a gray, chalk-stripe business suit (closer to my age than the 20-something crowd also having fish tacos) tell her companion the following [paraphrased because I could only hear some of the conversation over the crunching of the taco shells, nursing my burnt tongue, and The Connell's wailing from the speakers: "I want to make [company name] a place where we are constantly challenging the way we do things. A place where we consistently innovate and do something new. But, I'm worried about how we achieve that. How do we continue to focus on our customers and the process at the same time?"

Great question (and great fish taco--best I've had since my days working in San Diego.) For some reason, perhaps due to an email I received from him last week, I thought of my friend Paul Harris. Paul is a partner in a boutique law firm in D.C. where he migrated from Raytheon and before that the Bush Admin's first term as Deputy Assistant U.S. Attorney General. When I met him, though, he was a young lawyer in Charlottesville, Va. running for Virginia's House of Delegates. I jumped in to help. We sat on my front porch each evening with cigars and Bourbon discussing big issues, planning the campaign and deciding to try a new strategy: Paul would never mention his opponent's name and he wouldn't say even one negative thing during the entire campaign--which included negative ads that the Richmond consultants were already warning us we “had” to do or we’d lose.

One thing I quickly noticed about Paul as journalists pounced on him and his opponent got his shots in at debates and joint appearances. Instead of the larger issue, broader questions we’d discussed on my front porch, they were tossing out obscure and micro-subject questions: How Chinese apple imports were affecting growers in Rockingham Co., or a new connector parkway cutting through the countryside of the city and county. Paul amazed me (and the electorate) with his answers. Instead of acting like he knew anything about the apple growers in Rockingham, he stripped that away and went straight to the principle of the issue. Should we protect American products from cheap foreign imports? Time and again he got to the root—the principle—of the issue and gave his response based on his stand on the principle. It was a breath of fresh air and it showed in the results: he won the primary against a ferret-like opponent with 73 percent of the vote and the general election by 66 percent. Paul became the first black Republican elected to Virginia’s General Assembly since Reconstruction. I think it was the conviction with which he answered questioned that made the difference.

I wanted to put down my fish taco (but I just could not because it was soooo good) and tell the woman behind me that perhaps that was the way she could consistently challenge the status quo and maintain her foundation at the same time. She could balance her objectives by continuously innovating, changing, adapting, moving forward AND remain true to her company’s ethos by keeping their principles at the front of every choice she made. Stripping away the superfluous details and using the principle to guide you as you kick down walls and go into the unknown.

She could take the advice of Ralph Waldo Emerson who said, “A great part of courage is the courage of having done the things before.”

I wanted to stick around and maybe talk with them--perhaps share my supreme knowledge and professional advice--but I'd licked the sun and had to run away like a baby to find something to quench the fire. Oh, in case you try this, Corona--very cold Corona--works best;-)