What’s In Windsor?

I’m down in the restaurant having an egg white omelet, typing away on my ipad loving the fact that I can do this anywhere… have a blog up and running, get inspired, or just force myself to do it, whatever, and whenever.

Anyway, we played last night in Windsor, Ontario and the people are so sweet up here. I love looking out into the audience seeing familiar faces, some new faces… just taking it in. I don’t know why but I have really kicked into a mode of appreciating what we have left, and there is plenty.

I really think it’s so easy to get into the mindset of “What I’ve lost… what I DIDN’T do… the mistakes I’ve made…” I’ve heard a great phrase recently and it makes such perfect sense…

“We’re headed in the direction we’re *facing*”. Wow… so simple and so true… if I’m looking *back* and beating myself up over what didn’t go right, that’s the direction I march… if I’m looking at the future, that’s where I’m headed.

I’ve been having the best conversations lately with the other nuts that are overzealous like me, the uber excited… the unrealistic, the delusional… the “Everything’s gonna be just fine, actually, it already IS just fine…”, and as I mentioned earlier, as long as I’m on stage with Chicago and get to hear Jimmy Pankow’s trombone right there in my ear… how lucky, right? One day, we won’t have this… so I take it in, daily… everybody is… you can feel it… why not, right? What’s not to be excited about?

Sure, I’ve found the problems over the years… I’ve found what’s wrong with my life but then one day I wake up to look in the mirror and say, “Really? Go complain to some of your friends who’ve never had the chances you have, Jason… see if they’ll feel sorry for you…”

I’m reading an AMAZING book right now called “How To Stop Worrying and Start Living” by Dale Carnegie. PLEASE, if anybody is depressed, if anybody can’t stop worrying, get this book. I’ll give you one bit that really struck me yesterday…

So here’s a great part of the book where a lady talks about going through the bombing of Pearl Harbor… she’s pretty much bed ridden… a semi-invalid… has all the reasons, best excuses to stay there and then something magical happens… she becomes the information hub for all the wives that don’t know if their husbands are ok or not… she says…

“At first I answered these phone calls while lying in bed.  Then I answered them sitting up in bed.  Finally, I got so busy, so excited, that I forgot all about my weakness and got out of bed and sat by a table.  By helping others who were much worse off than I was, I forgot all about myself;  and I have never gone back to bed again except for my regular eight hours of sleep each night.  I realize now that if the Japanese had not struck at Pearl Harbor, I would probably have remained a semi-invalid all my life.  I was comfortable in bed.  I was constantly waited on, and I now realize that I was unconsciously losing my will to rehabilitate myself.

BY HELPING OTHERS WHO WERE MUCH WORSE OFF THAN I WAS, I FORGOT ALL ABOUT MYSELF.

THAT, sums it up.  When I start focusing on others and NOT on myself, I get calm. My life gets much easier.

All it takes is to be reminded… it’s in the books… in the great audio that’s out there…

So what’s in Windsor? A great day, what else, right? I have the choice, and so do you, on what this day will be… even with all its challenges… go grab the book “How To Stop Worrying”, and if you get it, I want to hear from you! I want to hear from anybody who gets this book and how it’s impacted you. You see, that becomes my story too… all the ripples that happen from what we do. EVERYTHING counts… everything helps, or hurts… everything…

I’m finding that lesson is one I want to take to my kids… by leading by example… do I have a checkered past? You bet! And I wouldn’t change a thing because I now know that if I could change one thing in my past, EVERYTHING changes… EVERYTHING… that means I wouldn’t be here writing to anybody reading this, wouldn’t have my wife and kids, wouldn’t be in this band… I really believe that… if I could change anything, everything changes… soooooooo, let me think for a second… ok… I’LL TAKE IT. I’ll take everything that’s happened if this is the result, thus far.

That means I FACE FORWARD. That is the direction I’m headed… and I can’t tell you how grateful I am for all the folks who’ve joined me, allowed me to join them…

It’s vision, it’s the highest hope… again, if I’m completely delusional… if I’ve just got my head in the clouds, my favorite question is, “What’s the alternative?”, and you know what? IT’S WORKING!!! All the workouts, all the books, all the great nutritionals that I take, THEY’RE WORKING! I’m not the same, as I was 4 years ago… in a very good way.

Again, I’ll take it. Sometimes when I get so pumped up, so excited, you can see people who are put off by that… they wonder, “What’s he up to? What’s his AGENDA? What’s he SELLING?” I’ll tell you what I’m selling… a vision of a great future, for me, for my family and for the folks who I run with. I’ve learned to stop trying to sell my dreams to ANYBODY… they’re mine and it doesn’t take anybody to co-sign them. And the good news is that it’s working.

Yeah, it’s tough at first to change… a LOT of opposition… especially those who are closest to us that don’t want to change. A lot of people throwing slings and arrows and it takes some maturity to not let that get to us… it really does, but that’s the part of growing up that is so rewarding… to realize that in order to grow I must go it alone at first… .

But then an amazing thing happens… others who are like-minded start coming around… and the next thing you know, I’m running with more people who are excited… who are living… man, that’s contagious…

And I keep having the question pop into my head, and not so much for me anymore but for the folks who are dying, reaching out for help… I tell them what I’m doing… and when they have those same initial fears, opposing forces… I ask, “What’s the alternative?” You choose…

And it’s not as easy as just flipping a switch… that’s like saying I’m going to take the last 10 years of physical neglect to my body and fix it with 3 days of P90X… no, it starts small…

With the mental fix, it started with the books, for me. I was a horrible reader in school. Hated it… because I wasn’t interested… and it was SO much that was required… of COURSE I rebelled… but this… this is EASY what’s been given me… 10 pages of a great book… that’s all… daily… watch your life change almost instantly by reading the good books.

I’ll just go out and say it, because it works for me… there is not enough time in our short lives to read all the classics so why would I spend time on trash? Gossip magazines… gossip message boards. What is that doing for my life? Nothing… but keeping me in a cynical, distorted attitude of the world. The world is an incredible place… don’t believe me?

For anybody who has given up… who feels they have no hope, look around and find ONE thing you truly adore… couldn’t live without… there is your lifeline… focus on that… it’s there… sitting right in front of us… build on that. And if that thing that we couldn’t live without is a child, a favorite pet, whatever… just remember that what we’re doing is transferred to it. How are we leading our kids? Are we projecting hope or hurt? And how do we find the hope? I just look at anything I love and realize something is responsible for it…first of all, my parents for giving me this opportunity… they brought me here… and for those who want to dive even deeper spiritually, what brought all of us here…

What I’ve found is it starts small… and it builds… one day, to the next, we’ve STARTED something, either positive, or negative… start the 10 pages a day, and get LIT. Or, stay mired in the mud…

This may sound lofty and that I’m placing myself on this pedestal, or soap box, when I say it but I’m only speaking for me…

I know that while I have a chance, while I’m still breathing… I have a chance to make a difference, one way or the other… positive or negative… I know so many people who are trying to do their best to make a better future for their next generations… their kids, their kids’ kids. By slugging it out with politics… by recycling… all of that stuff is great but what about the basics? What are we reading? Watching on television? We have no idea how much of an impact that has… and I’m starting to see it. What are our influences? Now I have to say, I’ve started watching the news again… not all day, but just little bits and pieces and actually, it’s only when I’m home. I’ll go an entire tour without turning my television on in the hotel room. That’s just me… not saying it’s for everybody. But as the great Jim Rohn says, “Don’t avoid the negative… that’s living in LA LA Land. No, *deal* with the negative. Wrestle with it, grapple, and come to some conclusions, solutions. MASTER the negative in your life.” That comes with practice and maturity.

I’ve started to enter that realm over the last 3 or 4 months… graduated from 1st grade of only wanting to hear the positive! haaaaaa But I get it now… we must deal with the negativity, it just can’t run our lives. So that’s what I mean, for me, about getting sucked into ANYBODY’S vision of the world, the future, etc. and for me, the media is selling an awfully distorted, one sided view of the world. That’s why I limit myself to exposure to it although taking it in so I’m not a complete ignoramus, ostrich with my head in the sand. And now, learning to “Discipline my disappointments”. Not letting a disappointment ruin my hour/day/month/year/life. Right? Amazing how much time I’ve wasted over the years worrying about things THAT NEVER HAPPENED!!!!! And that’s the beauty of finding the simple disciplines… the things easy to do, and easy not to do. 10 pages…

Just by the changes in my life, I see the ripple effect at home. When I started taking steps to improve my life… physical fitness in 2007 to repair all the years of neglect, and then on to mental health, personal development… I wanted it so bad for the rest of my family… I tried to tell them… and it was irritating… and who am I to say any of them needed to change? Needed help? You see there is where it’s about an agenda… making someone else do something… what if they were already doing it? As I started noticing, my wife had been reading for years… history, self help… she was WAY ahead of me. Does she need this rookie, (me), to tell her about his new found religion? It’s like when I got sober in 1986 and you want to save everybody! Hey man, SAVE YOURSELF FIRST!

So I backed off and followed my dream(s) personally, privately… because it wasn’t going to take the endorsement of ANYBODY else to determine whether I was going to follow through or not…it was for me… just like in an airplane when they say, “In the unlikely event of an emergency, put YOUR mask on first before you put your child’s mask on.” I get that now… until I am strong, I am little use for those I take care of… it starts personally… I believe that is the same for not only a family, a city, a nation, a world…

“Be the change you want to see in the world”, right? So as I started getting better, my family noticed… and started following, just as I’ve followed the good practices my wife and kids demonstrate. And now my wife tells me how my kids are exercising, even when I’m not there… she said just today, “They’re following you, in what you do” I can’t tell you how good that feels to hear that’s my influence on them… not to take the easy way out and only do the things that you’re GOOD at… like I did for so many years…

No, now it’s time to roll up the sleeves and get disciplined. I HATED that word in school but I’m so grateful to have found people, books, audio that has shown me it doesn’t take much. 10 pages a day? Easy to do… and easy not to do.

Alright, enough ranting and raving for this morning… I’ll close for now and just say once again… What’s In Windsor? A great day, a great memory of last night… and the promise of another great time, next time I come through… for the rest of today, I’ll relish in the memory of a great crowd last night… AND, to top if off, KISS is coming to this venue to play soon! What a club to be in… thanks for reading this… we’re all in the club… love it… Jason