Fire By Sea

This will be my last Olympics post for awhile. It’s been a good time, albeit rigorous on my body and consciousness and focus. If there’s one thing I’ve learned this time it’s that athletics is one of the most honorable lifestyles, and for me a driving force in my progress.

For starters, I want this to be the last time I watch the Olympics on TV. The coverage is great, the media spin is great, but I imagine nothing compares to being present among fellow citizens of the world.

I’d like the Olympics to serve as my non-official pacesetter. This means setting the principles for:

• Being athletic. As Apolo Anton Ono said, “At the end of the day, did you do your absolute your very best?”
• Striving for the best: Bode Miller: Athletics is my form of self-expression, and the Olympics is the opportunity to do it at the highest level.
• Strength of spirit, “The Gift”: Joannie Rochette skating her ultimate best under the most heart-wrenching of circumstances.

And of course, getting my life aligned so I can bring my family to the 2012 Summer Games in London. Right now it sounds like an impossible dream, but it’s not impossible. It can be done.

This means I have to be prepared to buy event tickets next year and travel arrangements by early 2012. The Olympics give me something to strive for.

Gots to get organized, ’cause if I ain’t, I’s goin’ down.

I’m getting closer to understanding what I’m really doing with myself with work, and it feels better than ever. Here’s what it involves:

• Customers: building a community of (readers) to give me the true direction of my business.
• Artists: Rallying and scouting writers and bloggers with incentives to publish with me
• Distributors: Amazon, Apple — anyone who sells books
• Competitors: building visibility and credibility within the publishing community while also learning from and contributing to them, then absolutely destroying them.

The first three groups are my core nexus. It’s my job as a publisher and editor to draw harmony between them, with fantastic content as the common sustenance between us.

My “competitors” are a more sticky issue. I need to wedge myself into their affairs, let myself be known and likely ignored and laughed at. I’m definitely an outlier. But I need to penetrate their trade, get into their skill but without picking up their quirky habits.

Right now the real challenge is formulating a plan to “follow the reader.” I don’t know where to begin on that. How do you follow a reader, how can you anticipate what they want? How do you find them?

And then there’s the artists. I feel my biggest audience to date has been the artists. This is an important distinction to make — artists are not money makers, info peddlers. They’re artists.

As so this raises the question of my niche: non fiction? The question is a bedrock of who I am and what I represent and how I want to be associated in this life.

I do know I want to be helpful, which means non-fiction. Helpful and enjoyable and well-done. The complex made simple. Stories.

I think of the skating Olympic experience this week and I want to create and propagate that feeling, that Gift.

Today I wrote a post about something that almost everyone in my niche (and many others) writes about — a review of a certain piece of software. And I have to admit — I feel I did well in terms of credibility and originality.

This is important because it shows me that I can rise above the muck, the square thoughts that are so hard to push through.

Above that noisy trough where the masses feast on the leftovers of original ideas served up by leaders of thought.

Copycats.

Plus, it was much easier to write. I’m feeling like I’m approaching a point where I can take something commonplace and make it extraordinary.

So imagine taking something extraordinary and making it believable, then accessible, then dare I say, commonplace.

**

The ladies Olympics skating was beyond words tonight.

Write or Die

That’s my doctrine, and it’s a ruthless one. But without it I’m hollow.

Writing is my thing. It’s the only thing in this world I’m naturally properly aligned to do. Now I feel it’s almost within my reach.

Perhaps the daily exercise here on this blog is helping. Whatever it is I’m getting comfortable on the main blog. And that’s a very good thing.

But wait — I’m not quite there. This has never been an easy task, and it will never be an easy task.

When I spent years avoiding writing, I discovered that I had to write or die. I couldn’t see myself living life with my back turned on the predilection gifted to me.

So as I grow wiser I realize that the gift is to serve a purpose and timeline much greater than me. And speaking of gifts…

The Olympic Gift

Joannie Rochette is an Olympic figure skater who lost her mother suddenly to a heart attack two days before her Olympic debut in front of her home country.

Somehow, she did it. She gathered every morsel of her body, mind and spirit and skated a truly, truly beautiful and moving performance. And then, afterwards, she broke down.

The commentators (whom I’ve grown to love over the years) did not speak once during the routine — it was just so powerful.

After it was over, Scott Hamilton, choked up, says, “There’s no bigger stage than the Olympic games, but, the skate and the moment means much more than the competition.”

…which was immediately followed by the other commentator saying:

What a gift she’s given us.

That profound statement touched me deeply, and I humbly accept Rochette’s experience and performance as my Olympic gift of the 2010 games.

The gift is this: knowledge of the strength and power of the human spirit in the midst of unimaginable suffering. She shared her art with us under the most challenging circumstances, and for that I am deeply touched and forever grateful.

Thank you for this gift, Joannie. My heart returns back out to you and others, as you have filled mine in permanence with your selfless gift of skating art.

Korea sits there, going on without me. I sit here, going on without Korea.

Unfortunately, for now, Korea is but a distant October memory. The language remains tongue-tied within me. My relatives have silently returned to their private lives, the brief connection between us now faded.

The main reason Korea is so far away is that my life here cannot afford to let anything in, anything at all. As much as I’d like to explore that vast and mysterious heritage, the reality is I can’t. Too busy and not enough money to do anything.

I do think about the few things I learned from cousins when I was there. The most poignant one was that “members of the Ko family don’t like to work for other people.” Meaning they like to work for themselves. The statistic for success sounds about 40%. Not too great for me.

Another thing is Uncle’s connection to Canada. I happen to love Canada (Vancouver 2010 baby!). It’s nice to know that there is a North American outpost for that part of the family.

I wonder if they’re waiting for me to make a move. Sitting back and seeing if I have it in me. Well sure wouldn’t want them to see me now, overweight and not pursuing money through hard work (that’s the cultural ethic by the way).

Instead, I’m being an idealist American. Inventor of innovation, delivering nothing…yet. What would they think of that? What would Grandfather think of that? What kind of advice would I get?

If there’s one, just one single take-away, one virtue I could distill from my Korean roots and family, it would be the work ethic. I want the 4am-rise-to-the-till-the-rice-paddies-360-days-a-year ethic. Something that I’m hoping courses through my bloodstream.

Combine that with whatever brains are available and I should be able to pay a visit back to the Motherland.

is the thin but necessary wafer of reality needed to succeed. It’s like the rubber gasket that keeps a pipe from leaking. It’s like going hunting for sustenance, not sport. Or a full-commitment takeoff on a wave.

One thing I’ve noticed is the suckling of my energy from old unsuccessful people in this town. Unlikeable and uncharming folk with no promise or direction in their life.

Like the guy in the front office stopping by to ask me for help on get oriented with his daughter’s freshman college schedule. My landlord spilling yet another tale of personal and professional failure, trying to angle me into another one of her schemes. The moody ideologue who pays well but makes no sense and makes no progress in the real world.

Who are these people and why are they bothering me?

Single-minded focus doesn’t even need an answer to that. To know precisely the goal is to eliminate all that does not support its realization. So let’s go over the goal: freedom from reliance on others, and the process: Greatness, Action, Independence.

• Right now I have no cash reserves, and so eliminating the office would help maintain what I need to run the business.
• Time is my most valuable resource, so not working with Mr. Amateur would restore any remaining time I have.
• Since I need his cash, the Ideologue needs to serve as my resistance: a lesson in learning how NOT to operate a (publishing business).

Seems pretty obvious to me. Grab the rifle, lace up the boots, open the door and step into the crisp winter air. I’m going hunting.

is by far the toughest job on the planet.

Children require the best of our essence until the day we die. It’s part of the cycle of perpetuation, an effort to improve the gene pool, the legacy, the future. A responsibility like no other.

Right now we’re caught in a battle with our parents while striving to raise our children. Nobody is perfect in this charade (save the children) but one thing is true: we’re working together to bring stability to our kids’ lives and in doing so, compromise what our parents think of us.

To them, we’ve taken on too much: a huge mortgage, high cost of living and private education. How can they take us seriously?

From our point of view I don’t expect them to take us seriously. Their view of our world is based mostly on what they think is right for us and not for our children, and we feel that is their ultimate failure. Our children come first, not us. And while we may complain everyday about this we’re committed to our mission to raise strong, confident, successful, LOVED children.

Unfortunately we weren’t raised feeling this, but we accept this worthy challenge. We struggle with it every day in the tasks, sacrifices and catering we do for our children.

Children, especially teenagers, need to know they have people behind them, because there’s honestly nothing scarier feeling and knowing that we actually have nobody. You feel as if your identity just drops off the map.

So we keep plowing through, trying our best and hoping for the best.

I plan for 2012 to be a massive breakthrough year for me and my family. I expect the change to be so significant that all the life I’ve lived up to this point will become known as “that time before 2012,” or akin to an Old World historical period.

• Become  fully self-employed.
• See 1st child graduate from high school.
• Move somewhere new.
• See my wife enjoy more freedom and happiness.
• Take a long trip to Europe with family which will include the London 2012 Olympics.
• Create a confident income stream.
• Show children more of the world.
• Be in control of every day of my life.
• Start on a big, exciting project.
• Etc., etc., etc…

It’s a complex epiphany, because the date seems to be some magical marker yet nothing is going to happen if I don’t work my ass off for it. Gone are the days of miracles, unprecedented luck or special cosmic passes.

Must work ass off.