Motivated!

For the regular readers of my blog, I apologize for abandoning it for so long. For the irregular readers of my blog, might I suggest getting more fiber in your diet. But I digress...let me just jump right in lest I lose my motivation to write again.

Sylvia got back from Vegas yesterday morning. She was there because Eric Worre (known around here as "The GoPro guy") was hosting a seminar for entrepreneurs that was stuffed full of motivational speakers. If I truly did live in a Sitcom, her character would have gone to Vegas because her best friend heard of a way to sneak away from the families and pretend to go to a seminar. There would be a scheme where when you checked into the hotel they would give you a binder full of notes that made it look like you sat through a bunch of lectures as proof to show the unsuspecting husband. The plan would fall apart when the money for the new dishwasher would be missing from the bank account and when he checked it out at the bank the teller would have wondered aloud why wife would have withdrawn the dishwasher money in singles. It would have worked out because, well....sitcom, and then the credits would roll. But now I really digress....

I can assure you that Sylvia actually went to the conference and, true to their purpose, she came back motivated! (...but it did sound like they were playing the soundtrack to Magic Mike every time she called me to check in. Kidding!)

The first indication that she was part of something different than other seminars she's gone to was when she sent me a picture of Rob Dyrdek. For the many people in my circle who might not have heard of him, he is the host/creator of a show called "Ridiculousness" and it is not Sylvia's favorite show. It's sort of like America's Funniest Videos with extra pain. When Jake watches the show, laughing endlessly, Sylvia will walk by and comment on how stupid it is. She sees no redeeming value in the show, cannot believe people would tape themselves being so, well, ridiculous, and always manages to find something else to do when it is on. When she sent me his picture, our text exchange went something like this:

Sylvia: It's Rob Dyrdek.
Me:      He does that show Ridiculousness.
S:         Yes. That's him.
M:        You kinda hate him. LOL
S:         I know. He is not like he is on that show at all. He's actually very smart!
M:        Cool! Are they playing the soundtrack to Magic Mike? I can hear it through your text!

OK, so the last line didn't happen, but the others did! To have that guy be able to sway Sylvia away from her opinion that he was a moron who enjoyed it when people hurt themselves, he must be more than very smart, he's gotta be a bona fide genius! (My computer seems to not be a genius since it is trying to tell me that "bona fide" is not a real phrase and it wants me to change it to "boa fife" or I have to live with the little autocorrect squiggles under those words. Sigh...)

Back to Magic Mike....I mean the seminar....

Sylvia came home and immediately during the ride from the airport she was telling me about all the jewels of wisdom that the speakers shared. She was impressed with the lot of them and she was sorry I wasn't able to attend. That's the life of a teacher during conference week. Getting away 3 out of the 5 days scheduled isn't easy.

I am not going to share all the things she learned because I don't want to infringe on the copyright that these speakers have on their content. One of the speakers was Tony Robbins and I'm worried that he would hypnotize me in an elevator as revenge for giving away his secrets. (Shallow Hal is a universal reference right?) I also don't want to give away all the secrets that Sylvia will share when she is on the stage being motivational to thousands of others! If you think I am kidding then you don't know Sylvia very well. I'd say check back in three years. I will be going to that one. After all, I will be retired from teaching and traveling the world with her by then.

When we got home from the airport she talked about some habits that people have to move them forward, as well as habits that hold them back. I particularly liked the one about not mowing your lawn yourself since your time is too valuable to be wasted on trivial things like that. Pardon me while I visualize never having to garden again...ahhhhhhh. Let's just say that gardening not really my cup of tea. Although tea is not really my cup of tea either. Maybe I should say that it's not really my cup of Dr Pepper. There I go digressing again...

Can you imagine! When I retire I will have so much more time to write! Just think how many rambling random posts I could write! It boggles the mind! (Technically, it would BLOGgle the mind...but let's not quibble over made up words.)

At the house while Sylvia was following me around unpacking and giving a recap of the most important points from some of the more inspirational speakers I washed the dishes, made the bed, went to the ever-growing pile of junk mail, and never turned on the TV once. (That was one of the suggestions. I'll give you that one for free.) Talk about motivated! Actually the overarching theme was to prioritize what was valuable to you and don't let distractions get in the way of the most important things in your life. I took stock of things and decided that writing was something that was important to me, I enjoy doing it, and I hadn't put it anywhere near the top of my priority list in recent times. I decided to change that today.

I will make a "boa fife" effort to write more often starting now.

Thanks for reading.