Turning the Ship

As a creative person, my mind works like moths flying around a laser beam. Creative ideas and imagination are fluttering in chaotic orbits around a hyper-focused central idea, goal or mission. When my central focus is on faith or hope, my creativity produces good things. When my central focus is on fear and doubt, my creativity produces a mess. Anyone paying close enough attention to me over the last five years got to see both things happen.

From 2005 to 2008, my heart and mind were focused on GeekBrief.TV. That show was all about faith, hope and expectation. For the first time in my life, I truly believed I could make something valuable out of nothing more than what my mind could invent. Watching a dream turn into reality was powerful and motivational and it lead me to dream other dreams. I had the idea for The Big Trip, a dream where we would take the show on the road and travel to all 50 states in an RV or bus. When we were ready to buy the Big Trip vehicle, the economic crises was starting. Had we tried to purchase the vehicle sooner, we would have been able to get a mortgage for a bus just like on a house, but by the time we were ready, banks weren’t taking the same risks. As the dream of doing the Big Trip started to go down in flames, my focus shifted from faith to fear. I call it, “Going all Glen Beck.” I started worrying about the country. I started worrying about my future with my wife. I didn’t sleep well and the joy that was in my life gave way to misery and worry. If you followed me on Twitter during that time, you saw me collapse.

Dogs don’t bite because they’re mean. They bite when they’re scared. I’m like that too.

At Blogworld 2009, Chris Brogan said something like, “Be nice or get off the Internet.” That started to change my life, but changing one’s life is like turning a big ship. It takes some time to shift the momentum and that takes us back to that idea of where my laser is pointed. When my laser was pointed in the direction of fear about Obama and socialism, I did more damage to my soul than Obama and socialism ever could do to my bank account. When my wife left, the stuff happening in D.C. became irrelevant in my life.

Chris Brogan’s speech at Blogworld helped me to start to turn the ship, but I couldn’t turn it fast enough to save my marriage. My wife is filled with hope and optimism and living with my despair made her miserable and it isn’t something I can salvage because I’m alone in wanting to fix it.

It’s sad, but it’s a cautionary tale that I hope will end up strengthening other people’s marriages. If your life is filled with worry, doubt and fear, your life is going to crash. I believe in God and I believe God is a good Papa who wants good things for His kids. You may not have to believe in God to be optimistic. I do. Faith, hope and love will bring good things into your life. Fear, doubt and anger will bring bad things. It is just about the same as driving the Titanic in the general direction of an iceberg. We’ve all seen the movie. It doesn’t end well.

It’s very difficult to change who we are, but it’s rather simple to change how we are. It’s just a matter of changing our focus. I’m seeing it happen in my life. I’m experiencing joy and peace that I haven’t had for years and it’s simply because I slowly started turning the ship from a focus on fear toward a focus on faith, and not just faith in God, faith that tomorrow will be better than yesterday.