What you can learn from the Presidents

One of the great things about having kids is that you go back to school every once in a while. Not only do you go back physically during parent teachers conferences and wonder how you ever drank out of those little fountains.

I used to really enjoy history class in school, but somehow got out of the habit of paying attention to it as hit more tennis balls. Dumb I know. As a student of history you better understand why things happen today, let alone understand the human condition. My avoidance of history happened over time because my priorities changed over the years and of course you get into earth shattering habits like watching American Idol!

I digress.... I had the opportunity to look at a book that Phil was reading. It was pretty interesting really, since it was a book about American presidents. We haven’t had all that many, forty three I think… But, I realized that in my lifetime their have been 7, but I can only really remember 6 with clarity.

Looking at their lives from childhood to post presidency got me thinking and wondering if I would have had the same drive to overcome the obstacles some of these men and their families endured to become our Nation’s leader.

What do these names have in common?
Richard Nixon
Gerald Ford
Jimmy Carter
Ronald Reagan
Bill Clinton

They were all President of the United States, right? They were all the most powerful man in the world at one point. However, I am looking for something else...

Richard Nixon... Nixon was born in the home his father built. He won an award from Harvard his senior year of high school. However, his family was unable to afford his leaving home for college. He instead attended Whittier College.

Gerald Ford... Ford was born as Leslie Lynch King, Jr. In 1913 his mother left her abusive husband and took her son to live with her parents. She met Gerald R. Ford, whom she married and gave her child his name Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr. He was the only President to be adopted. Ford worked in his stepfather's paint and varnish store growing up. He coached boxing during college to afford his tuition.

Jimmy Carter... He was the first member of his family ever to go to college and his father was a peanut farmer.

Ronald Reagan... he was the son of an alcoholic traveling shoe salesman. He worked his way into show business by broadcasting baseball games. At forty, he was divorced and his career was at a dead end.

Bill Clinton... Born William Jefferson Blythe IV, his father ( another traveling salesmen) died in an automobile accident three months before he was born. His mother married Roger Clinton and Bill took that name. Clinton grew up in a turbulent family. His stepfather was a gambler and alcoholic who regularly abused his wife, and sometimes Clinton's half brother Roger.

None of these men were born into wealth and prosperity, yet they each achieved the rank of most powerful person in the world by working hard and not making excuses. That is 5 out of the last 7 Presidents or 71% of Presidents in the last generation born into normal families who struggled. Yet, they refused to use that as an excuse.

'The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.' You have heard it a million times. However, my guess is that you have never heard it from the mouth of the 'rich'. Instead, this echo has most likely bounced to your ear with its origins being an excuse. That is right... an excuse. Excuses are what many use to pacify their guilt of not accomplishing what they are capable of.

I am not suggesting that wealth is success. My inference is that success is the progressive realization of predetermined worthwhile goals. It may be something as simple as raising a family.

I guess my point here is that life is too short to make excuses. Set your goals and pursue them. If you have been dealt a 'worse' hand than another, it may indeed be a gift that teaches you the value of hard work. Your story will be richer and your success sweeter when you achieve your dreams.

Til next time…

How long do you think you'll live?

Normally I don't usually do these things, but with it being a holiday I couldn't help myself. Peter Russell has a calculator for Real Age, that looks at your lifestyle and then predicts how long you might live.

In my case with my current lifestyle, I am projected to live another 13,100 days. Or almost 36 years. However if I just change two things in my lifestyle, easy ones at that, I would statistically live to almost 17,200 days or 47 years. huh...

For a whole lot of reasons, but mainly trying to outlive all those tennis pros who whooped up on me when I was playing - read that as spite (Using up my son's inheritance comes to mind as well!)... I think I'm going to make those lifestyle changes permanent over the course of this year.

Why don't you check out the website and see how you do.... the web address is: http://www.peterrussell.com/Odds/RealAge.php

Til next time....

The moral of the story is....

I had the good fortune of spending some time in Savana Georgia a few weeks ago. We had an afternoon to explore and I found some terrific old bookstores down by the river and spent a pleasant afternoon window and book-shopping.

In one of the stores I found an old autobiography with yellow pages and grainy photos. I happily paid $19.95 for it, and stuffed it into my backback and rediscovered it just the other day.

Here’s how it begins:

"In 1915, when I was nineteen, I fought Johnny Sudenberg ten rounds in the wild mining town of Goldfield, Nevada. I was in there with a good fighter, one much better than I was, but I took the fight because I was dead broke and my manager of the moment, Jack Gilfeather, had been able to jimmy a $100 guarantee out of [the] promoter...

Sudenberg almost killed me. For two rounds it was a fight. For the next eight I was a helpless, blood-soaked punching bag. It was the worst beating of my life. I don't remember going down once, because I still don't remember the last three or four rounds.

Goldfield was a tough town. A stranger who got his brains knocked out in Goldfield was no rarity. Hardly worth bothering the doctor about. So they dumped me, unconscious, into a wheelbarrow and some good Samaritan pushed me through the hilly streets. He threw me on the bunk in my "home." I slept.

My "home" was a cave in the side of a hill. Goldfield had been a boom mining town and a room cost five dollars a week. In advance, for a skinny young hobo with holes in his shoes and a newspaper for a suitcase. ...

I remember nothing at all until I woke up at three o' clock the next afternoon – nearly twenty hours after I'd been wheelbarrowed "home."
Everything hurt, of course. But I was young, and I was hungry. I stumbled over to the saloon where Gilfeather hung out, to collect my share of the purse.

In the saloon a few heroes laughed at my battered face. A few made jokes about how funny I looked being trundled through the streets in a wheelbarrow (which is the way I found out about that journey).

I asked where I could find Gilfeather.

A bartender said, "He left town last night, kid. He got drunk and Blew his wad shooting craps."

I had been almost killed for nothing. I was broke and starving. It was the lowest point of my entire life..."

Four years later, on July 4, 1919, Jack Dempsey – yes, the dog-eared old book was Dempsey’s Autobiography—demolished the hulking giant, Jess Willard, to win the single most coveted prize in all of sports in that era: the Heavyweight Boxing Championship of the World.

Is there a moral there? I think there is.

For Champions, the most essential attribute is a grim determination to succeed. Successful people have patience, tenacity and they never quit. They never yield. They never give in. They always keep on going...

Just like Jack Dempsey.Just like every single person in the history of the world who has dared to dream great dreams—and to turn those dreams into reality, no matter long or how hard the journey.

If YOU want to succeed, you MUST accept this fundamental truth. Success requires effort. It requires hard work. It demands persistence. There is always a price. Nothing in life is easy. Not for you, not for me, and certainly not for Jack Dempsey.

And yet – look at what he accomplished, against unimaginable odds. Take it to heart. It’s a classic example of the indomitable power of the human spirit.

No matter what the odds, if you keep on fighting the fight, you WILL win. I guarantee it.

Til next time....

My thoughts on Georgia

Hi Everyone, just got back from one of those bike tour thingees.

I worked the Tour deGeoriga presented by AT&T (got to get the plug in - I got some free shirts!) professional cycling race. It was pretty neat.

You see... with these types of adventures I get to travel roads and visit towns somewhat off of my personal road map. In my myopic world and workplace when someone mentions Georgia, I think of Jimmy Carter, Billy Beer, the Cheetah club and Pecans.

I remember getting lost in "Hotlanta" during my crazy college days. I looked up at the signs in the intersection and knew I was messed up when I was at the corner of Peach Tree and Peach Tree. Probably not a good a good start to my sophomore spring break considering the amount of alcohol in my system at the time.

But that is not the basis of my opinion any longer....

I had the good fortune and opportunity to eat some of the best and freshest seafood ever on Tybee Island and in America's first planned city of Savannah. This Midwesterner didn't normally think of the state of Georgia being on the eastern seaboard. The marshes and tidal areas are amazing and still fairly pristine. The history from the area is rich and with a little investigation literally comes alive.

You get a real good sense of what the soldiers, citizens and slaves had to endure from both from the revolutionary and civil wars. Apparently GA was pivotal because of it's sea ports in our early conflicts.

As an example Fort Pulaski. This national monument is located just off the coast between Tybee Island and Savannah.

President Madison ordered a new system of coastal fortifications to protect the United States against foreign invasion after the war of 1812. The fort was named after the famous Polish General from the Revolutionary war, and was actually built under the direction of General Robert E. Lee in 1829. (the good general was trained as a civil engineer before the war between the states).

The place is a testament to advanced engineering and hard work. Even after the bombardment of the Union's new rifled cannons during the Civil war, this fort still maintains its seven foot walls on marsh land without one single crack in its foundation. (With all the advances in technology why can't they do that today with the drywall in my house?)

Within 30 hours of the Union's attack during the Civil war, Col. Charles Olmstead had to surrender the fort, the Union had developed a new technology - a rifled cannon shell. Those 60 pound shells could travel far distances (up to 5 miles) and easily passed through the fort's brick walls. This advance in weaponry made brick fortifications obsolete.

(As an aside, the good Col.was the uncle of Fredrick Law Olmsted who went on to design Central Park in New York and Jackson Park in Chicago. He dropped the "a" in the last name because he did not want be associated with a confederate. Small world ain't it?)

We also had the opportunity to stay in a bed and breakfast that was well over 200 years old. (LaFayette Manor) As a matter of fact, the one who built the manson was one of the original signers of the declaration of independence - George Walton. As a lawyer and a plantation owner he held a great deal of land in the north Georgia and had much influence over the direction of our new found country.

The "house" was later named in honor of General LaFayette who used the manor as a base of operations during the revolutionary war. It was even said that George Washington spent some time in the area because of his close friendship with LaFayette.

But what heartens my day, during these sojourns, is that I get the chance to meet people in small towns that have no desire to be connected to their crackberrys or have a need to check their emails every 15 minutes. People who genuinely enjoy having a conversation with an outsider, and care about the others who live in their town.

It seems that the half step slower pace allows one to connect with people and share commonalities that albeit quaint, are quite comforting and for me, help to restore my faith in Americans and our ideals.

Even though some of the towns reminded me of Mayburry right down to the "five and dime" and included Floyd the barber, the citizens in each town usually stopped and smiled and were genuinely concerned with your response to their "hello, how are you doing?".

Too often we get so busy with the goofiness of our day, that we really don't connect. Being connected via email, blackberry and blue tooth, is very different than spending the time to talk to our neighbors and get to know the community.

I enjoyed doing just that on this trip. When you do really connect, you can learn so much more and really appreciate the situation you are in and the life you have a chance to live.

So I have a challenge for you, go talk to someone today - really listen to their response, you might just be surprised how fun it can be.

Til next time...