Making New Friends, Bear Attack, Meditation, and One Simple Request

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." 

— Margaret Mead 

4:53 a.m., who in their right mind, gets up at this hour?  Well, me, I’ve got a 7:00 a.m. appointment in Golden, I have my morning routine I need to follow. 

We had an amazing day yesterday; we ran some calls in the morning before heading out to meet a couple of strangers. My friend Paul connected us with Kevin and Tiffany, based on his recommendation, we met them for lunch.

We dined at a quaint little restaurant in Morrison, learned about their lives and shared ours; I’m pretty sure we found some more friends. They will be joining us at Redrocks for a future show, never forget the key to life is quality human connections, the more you have, the fuller your cup.

I just got an alert of a third bear attack in Aspen this year. I’m not sure who sent it, but they must have concern for our safety. We’re not concerned, the bear is just another visitor to our property. Yesterday we had deer and fox; our home is a zoo without cages.

Plus we are going to die. It’s inevitable, we could die many different ways, we could die of disease, in an accident, in a plane crash, or we could be eaten by a bear. I would take being eaten by a bear over dying in an extended care facility. 

I’m not sure how I’ll transition to the next phase of life, but I think I’ll have a pretty cool death story. I say that because I have a pretty cool life story, people with cool life stories usually end up with decent death stories.

After our lunch, we headed to Denver to meet our business coach. We spent some time working on our company, looking for areas to improve. I’ve got a good topic for my Board meeting this morning. We are starting to sense some growing pains, and we are looking at various solutions to keep our policies and procedures in line with our growing machine.

I think the difference between our firm and most others is we constantly are checking our dashboard, looking at numbers, planning for our future, looking at various scenarios that can have short term pain but long-term gain. We are not afraid of trying something, minor experiments to test ideas.  

We ran another appointment before heading back home. When we arrived, we had received many messages about our dearly departed friend Alice, if you took the time to send a note or flowers, we thank you.  If you are confused about our loss, dial-up yesterdays word soup for some context.

I started meditating yesterday using the CALM app. I’ll do it again this morning and make a 10-minute mind cleanse a daily exercise.  I’ve wanted to try this for years, many friends use meditation, I’m late to the party, but I think over time using meditation to help slow my mind will be a good thing for yours truly.

We often hear how bad our world is, how hate rules over love, but here’s something that shows the light is brighter than the darkness. One of the people killed in the El Paso shooting had no family and just a few friends. They posted on social media for people to attend the funeral of this person few people knew. Over 800 people showed up to pay their respects to a person they did not know.  Many from the area, but some drove from California, Arizona, and other parts unknown.

If you are a shiny happy person, I going to ask that you use some of your energy to help others in need.  People are struggling all around, and if you are blessed, lucky, and fortunate to have your health, a positive attitude, and a little time use those gifts to impact one other person.  Instead of giving the homeless man, woman, or transgender money, give them a granola bar and a Gatorade. Buy someone coffee, give flowers to a sad stranger, use your joy to brighten another human’s day.

Collectively we can change the tone of society. We can remove the shrill screams of anger and hate and replace them with a beautiful song of joy and happiness. This is not hippy-dippy bull shit, this is a reality, we can improve our world, but it starts with you. Join me on my quest to make our world “just a little bit better.”

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." 

— Margaret Mead