Thursday, August 16, 2012

Motivation Found on a Dusty Shelf (Revised)

            Writing has been a tool people have used for centuries to communicate ideals and philosophy that they themselves have learned, developed, and used during the course of their life in hopes to inspire others to adopt and follow. These writings range from topics of religion, Do-it-Yourself, Self-Help, cooking, and several others; but the story behind the writing, I find is more interesting.
A child could grow up in an upper middle class loving family, good home, parents with a good job, and all the love and support in the world from mom and dad.  Mom is head of the PTA at the local elementary school and dad is the cool dad; coach of the little league softball team.  Anyone looking in on this child would see nothing wrong and would consider him lucky to have such a good home life. What about all the things not seen on the surface? What about the dark little secrets each person and family carries with them? It is typical that things that look too good or perfect… aren’t.
Good old PTA mom uses the position as a status symbol, an envy of all the other mothers, the leader of the pack. Tackling the big issues that affect our school; like, school uniforms, the cafeteria menu, what play to put on in the spring, or the annual bake sale. Any pleads from her son about bigger serious issues go unheard and brushed aside.  Seeking comfort and validation form dad he soon finds himself alone; cut from his own dads little league team. The only comfort comes from a pep talk given at the end of the try-outs when he gives the same rehearsed speech, “It was a close one this year and you just barely missed it. Keep practicing and come back next year, I’m sure you will be ready then.”
Ignored by the two people that are supposed to love and support him, he finds himself alone. Over weight he is tortured and tormented by the school kids and teased relentlessly. Sent home constantly bruised and in tears he tried to tell his parents about the troubles, but he was shot down and told to exercise more, quit eating so much, and boys will be boys. His day was guided by fear and he would spend hours in the library until dark and would take the long way home in the hopes to avoid all of the neighborhood kids. Overtime he read a lot of books about anything and everything, mostly in the self-help section; his favorites were books about overcoming adversity and anything motivational. Within those stacks he would make a vow to himself to fix his problem and help others do the same.

For the remainder of his years at home and through high school the beatings would subside but the teasing would continue. The stresses of his home and school life made it difficult to lose weight. No matter what he did the weight loss seemed to plateau and he was never able to reach a socially acceptable weight. Trying to remain focused on his vow and dream of helping people he would continue reading anything he could on how to motivate people and even volunteered for the Peer Counseling Team and Teen-Line. He had found solace in being able to help his fellow students with problems that he himself shared. He did this all four years of high school and had granted him scholarships that would allow him to leave his parents and attend an out of state college.  
Once in college and away from the negativity of his parents he developed a stronger drive to lose the weight; to practice the message he would one day soon give. He took several weight lifting and nutrition classes on top of his major in communications and public speaking. He took on more classes than his advisers suggested but never fell behind his studies and stuck to the strict diet and workout schedule he developed. Every time he looked in the mirror he saw the weight loss and he grew more and more confident. That confidence was the main source of all his drive. That drive hurled him ahead to put him one semester away from graduating a year early; all his goals achieved but one… to have his book done before graduation.
During his last semester he dropped most of his electives he was taking and really focused on the completion of the book. To maintain an “active student” status he kept two easy classes and picked up a creative writing class; he felt that it would help him become a better writer and was easier enough that he didn’t have to take a lot of time away from his motivational/self-help book. During that last semester that was exactly what he did; he would do the bare minimum to get my assignments in and really pounded away at that book. Everyday pages upon pages of writing would fill his notebook. The ideas and concepts poured from his head, sometimes almost faster than he could write. But every thought, every word he wanted was captured and nothing was ever lost; like he had devoted years of hiding in libraries and countless tears to memorize the entire contents of the book he wanted to write. 

His book would be finished within days of the end of the semester. Totally exhausted but excited that his book was done he took the last few days to relax, wind down and prepared for his last finals. He took my final with no distractions and for the first time seemed excited to be in my class and excited about the final. On the last day of class he had come to me and apologized for his distance and being preoccupied during the semester. I comforted him in that I understood and that the purpose of the class was to write and reminded that the final is the only thing really there for a grade. Before he left my class that last day he had stopped and asked for permission to use some of my ideas in his book to help with some exercises used to create goals and set up his idea of the ideal mind set. I was puzzled at first by the request but after a few minutes I granted him the permission and wished him luck with his book.
A few weeks after that last day of school I had phased myself out and followed him around for a while. I was surprised to see that he was meeting with a publicist and discussing an upcoming tour. What had happened was that after class ended he moved as  fast has he did the three years of college and quickly found a publisher and a publicist that loved his book. His publicist was as excited as he was about his book shared similar feelings that they were on the verge of the next big craze. Not wanting to lose any momentum the two quickly worked together to set up a series of book tours and signings, to help get the book out there in circulation, that would follow a small run of seminars he would be hosted at some of the top companies in the country in front of hundreds of people.
The idea was that he would do the five to six seminars with limited copies of the book but will provide preorder options that would give those companies a two week advance copy of the book before the book signing tour began. The hope was that they would create a buzz in the corporate world as well as the inner circles of friends and family of the hundreds that attended the seminars. This route was taken to get his name and face out there so that when the books did hit the selves that people were familiar or at least had an idea of who he was.

On the eve of his first seminar, he began to prepare as he was the key speaker for 600 plus business men and executives the following morning after breakfast. The company had rented out an entire hotel with a large conference space to host the event. He double checked his presentation slides and note cards and assured himself that everything would go great. The next morning as hundreds of well-fed men piled into the conference space one could already hear the buzz going around about the upcoming presentation and excitement became to fill the room. The presentation was to begin promptly at 9:30am and at 9:35am as a straggler snuck in trying not to disturb the presentation he noticed that the presentation hadn’t started and the once positive buzz quickly turned to restlessness.
As of today the book is currently on book shelves around the country but unfortunately those shelves are still in the book stores. The book was released as scheduled but there was no booking signing, there was no buzz, there was nothing. The morning of the seminar, in the sold out hotel, with men buzzing about the next best motivational movement there was a prep room on the side of the stage where the founder and creater sat and waited for his time to go. I was there watching as he centered himself and counted down the last few minutes to the moment he worked so hard for. As the final seconds approached and he walked towards the door, I watch as his eyes closed and he fell to the floor. I claimed another one. In the official reports it states that he had a coronary episode from a pre-existing condition that had developed from his being overweight as a child.

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