I have been in Colorado the last few days and haven’t posted like I would have liked this week. I did have the opportunity to see some professional speaker buddies both from there and other places. So I posed the question, “What did you do differently during Turn Off TV Week and/or Earth Week?

Non-verbal communication expert Patti Wood said:

I went to Inman park festival by MARTA train rather than drive downtown. I also  went four days without television while I was in Key West and back in Atlanta. It created a space for me to have more conversations with friends and with people I met on my trip. I also took longer walks and wrote more. Too much inputting is bad for the soul.

My speaker buddy and motivational humorist Scott Friedman celebrated by starring at his radio during prime time every night for an hour. His contribution to Earth Week:  I went through my house and threw away everything that wasn’t bio deagradeable. Also, I told flight attendants to collect all the recyled articles (then I got a few phone numbers to follow up for potential dates).

Minneapolis based speaker John Crudele said he’d like Earth Week to be a reminder for him to earn more GREEN for his Partnership for Youth foundation. John works to bring dynamic speakers for his Catholic programs for teens.

What did you do? 

Tim Richardson is an inspirational speaker who speaks about how giving increases employee morale, lowers employee turnover, increases customer loyalty and creates higher profits for Fortune 500 companies, associations, and national conventions. He is the founder of the The Worlds Biggest Blog Party an event which will connect bloggers from all over the world to raise money for charity. He is also founder and president of the Bill Walter Melanoma Research Fund and co-founder of the Jeffrey Roth Cycling Foundation. Click here for more information on professional speaker Tim Richardson.

Happy Earth Day. Seems appropriate that Earth Day and National Turn Off Your TV week are the same week. How about combing the two and:

1) Walking or biking somewhere you would normally drive and

2) Pick up trash on your street or in your neighborhood along the way to …

3) Buy local produce and prepare a gourmet meal then

4) Have dinner by candle light and reward yourself by

5) Showering with a friend (Like I said, Earth Day, Everyday)

Tim Richardson is an inspirational speaker who speaks about how giving increases employee morale, lowers employee turnover, increases customer loyalty and creates higher profits for Fortune 500 companies, associations, and national conventions. He is the founder of the The Worlds Biggest Blog Party an event which will connect bloggers from all over the world to raise money for charity. He is also founder and president of the Bill Walter Melanoma Research Fund and co-founder of the Jeffrey Roth Cycling Foundation. Click here for more information on professional speaker Tim Richardson.

I love Mondays. It’s often my favorite day of the week. I love it for the following reasons:

1) I love my job (I am a motivational speaker)

2) I love starting the week off with projects, phone calls, and excitement

3) I love beginning to work on things I have been thinking about during the weekend

4) I love being optimistic that my week is FINALLY going to go like I plan!

5) It’s just a fun word to say (waste a few minutes and practice saying it like you are from England, Jamacia, Kazakhstan (now THAT is a fun word to say!)

Monday this week means the start of National Turnoff Your TV week. I promised some alternatives to watching the tube. Here are a few:

1) Star gaze. If it’s clear where you are (and it’s beautiful here and close to a full moon) get outside or if you live where it’s too bright due to lights, head to a planetarium

2) Watch the sun set. There’s no show on TV that can surpass that

3) Go out to dinner. Ditto comment above.

4) Clean your sock drawer or that “McGyver” kitchen drawer. You know the one that has has pliers, thumb tacks, tape, paper clips - stuff McGyver would use to save a third world country from a terrorist. By the way, there is a hysterical spoof on McGyver that Saturday Night Live parodied. Google it and watch online - next week of course).

5. Do something for someone else. This list could be endless. If you are local, participate in this week’s MS Walk and start walking today.

I am THINKING about a contest. For the person who does the most creative service to others project during National Turn Off TV week. I am thinking of giving away a TV - mine.

Question of the (Mon)day: What would you do if you were stuck in an elevator for 41 hours as the Business Week production manager Nicholas White was?

It’s Patriot’s Day. Not the NFL football team but REAL Patriot’s - people like Sam Adams, John Paul Jones, Ben Franklin and John Hancock. These men totally rocked. Two hundred thirty three days ago today, Paul Revere road through the streets of Concord yelling, “Annie Get Your Gun” or something similar. As a result, lots of misfit farmers grabbed their weapons - Super Soaker, silly putty, and G.I. Joes with Kung Fu grap and went after the Red Coats and kicked some #&@*!  Thanks to them we are the United State of America. I think Paul Revere should be sainted. SO because he is my historical hero, I dressed up in period costume and gave a talk today at our library (check back for pictures). I had a ball and learned something too. Happy St. Patriot’s Day….

It’s spring. Time to get rich by tuning into something other than TV. Next Monday is the 14th annual Turn Off TV week. There is lots of information on the Turn Off TV Week web site, downloadable information at the Center for Screen Time Awareness and a Turn Off TV blog entry with some info on this years event.

I serve on a task force to fight obesity in our schools and was amazed to learn that kids are having major health concerns at an alarming rate because of our sedentary lifestyle. We REALLY need to have at least two additional campaigns:

1) Turn in your TV - get rid of your TV all together and get a scooby snack. (Of course, I wouldn’t know about scooby snacks had I not spent a trillion hours watching TV as a kid!).

2) Turn off ALL electronic gadgets (and gas powered ones) for one week each month. Heck, I’d settle for a day.

Hear ye, hear ye… all couch potatoes…turn if off, get off your duff and get outside. 

Starting on April 21, the first day of Turn Off TV week, I’ll give a few ideas with each blog post of things you can do with your kids to avoid the tube or the screen of death (I know, my computer contributed to a rotater cuff problem).

Does Money Buy Happiness? I have never thought that but in today’s New York Times there’s an article entitled Money Doesn’t Buy Happiness. Well, on Second Thought… I’ll comment later…chime if you think it does or know it doesn’t.

Tim Richardson is an inspirational speaker who speaks about how giving increases employee morale, lowers employee turnover, increases customer loyalty and creates higher profits for Fortune 500 companies, associations, and national conventions. He is the founder of the The Worlds Biggest Blog Party an event which will connect bloggers from all over the world to raise money for charity. He is also founder and president of the Bill Walter Melanoma Research Fund and co-founder of the Jeffrey Roth Cycling Foundation. Click here for more information on professional speaker Tim Richardson.

I  became a mega weathly man today. No I didn’t inherit a large sum of money from a rich old uncle, the stock market didn’t turn around, and I didn’t win the Tennessee lotto. After being in Florida for the last few days, I had a deficit in my family time bank account. Today that changed. We all had an early breakfast together before church. Then we enjoy some beautiful John Rutter music in the confirmation service for my son. My parents came over from their home in Western, NC for the day and we enjoyed a lunch made for Sunday afternoon - in the dinning room, on the fine china, with great conversation.

During lunch, my parents told stories I don’t ever remember hearing about as I grew up. They discussed my birth and the birth of my four siblings and what it was like LONG time ago. We had a wonderful homemade dessert made by my wife accompanied by a cup of hot tea. More conversation and then I  took my parents and older kids to a soccer practice. While my son was practicing, we had our own soccer game and belly laughed as we made up rules to our game as we played. I had all five kids solo while my wife took a much deserved evening off. All were bathed, the dishes done while we played the game Three Questions. Then I read to them about my historical hero, Paul Revere and they actually paid attention. I just loved today as simple as it was but it even gets better IF that is possible. Just for kicks, I put my youngest child (a few days shy of 18 months) on the potty. She produced. Not just, what you would expect on the first try either. I am QUITE sure that Warren Buffett isn’t as rich as I, that Bill Gates just suffered through another Sunday, and that Larry Ellison didn’t share a pooh pooh moment with a toddler. You couldn’t make me change places with any of them - I’d lose too much.

Tim Richardson is an inspirational speaker who speaks about how giving increases employee morale, lowers employee turnover, increases customer loyalty and creates higher profits for Fortune 500 companies, associations, and national conventions. He is the founder of the The Worlds Biggest Blog Party an event which will connect bloggers from all over the world to raise money for charity. He is also founder and president of the Bill Walter Melanoma Research Fund and co-founder of the Jeffrey Roth Cycling Foundation. Click here for more information on professional speaker Tim Richardson.

I am in Daytona Beach for the 11th annual Bill Walter Melanoma Rayz Awareness run. As I was walking on the beach early Friday morning, I noticed most of the other beach walkers were elderly. I started thinking about how empty it must be to live a life like some of the people I see in communities liek Daytona Beach. When I returned to my friends place, I was watching CNN. There was a short clip about a music group called Young at Heart . If you want to be touched, watch them perform Fix You by Cold Play on YouTube. If you want to laugh, watch them perform, “I want to be Sedated” by the Romanes  or ‘Schizophrenia’ by Sonic Youth.

When I saw these clips, I realized the director of this group was a prime example of a person who does something that he is passionate about. Too bad more elderly people aren’t young at heart. Curious if you know someone who is young at heart. Let me know.

The headline in today’s Life Style section of USA Today is Randy Pausch’s Life, ’Lecture’ goes from Web to book. If you read NOTHING else today, read that article. It’s an update on Randy Pausch for whom I posted in my Living Rich blog last fall. The Carnegie Mellon professor, who is dying of pancreatic cancer, has just released a new book. His book is now on the top of my reading list as is the ABC News Last Lecture special airing tomorrow night. In my series of writing about people who are passionate about their work and life, this man takes the prize. No one else will even come close for a long time. His attitude toward death is astounding. He simply is unbelievable. Make time to watch tomorrow night at 10 pm and let me know your thoughts. Randy is the epitimy of someone who lives RICH. He is the poster child for the book When Bad Things Happen to Good People.

 Some of his quotes:

” People will show you their good side.”

” I have never found anger to make a situation better.”

When asked if he is made about dying and leaving his wife and three kids he responded with:

“I can curl up in ball and cry or I can sew a net.”

His interview is “most see TV”.

Tim Richardson is an inspirational speaker who speaks about how giving increases employee morale, lowers employee turnover, increases customer loyalty and creates higher profits for Fortune 500 companies, associations, and national conventions. He is the founder of the The Worlds Biggest Blog Party an event which will connect bloggers from all over the world to raise money for charity. He is also founder and president of the Bill Walter Melanoma Research Fund and co-founder of the Jeffrey Roth Cycling Foundation. Click here for more information on professional speaker Tim Richardson.

I have been writing recently about work people do that they are passionate about. It appears that there are some who take their passion too far. Had I know that DEATH was a potential hazard from blogging, I don’t think I would have ever started my blog. According to stories both on CNN and in the New York Times yesterday, people are blogging themselves to death! Of course, I would not be one to make light of something like death but can you imagine the obituary? What about the tomb stone? Or the article in a home town newspaper. Blogger, Bob Webb, died today. He lived well but died due to complications resulting from blogging. He is survived by his IMac, his Iphone, and his Ipod and his dog who was rescued after barking for hours at Bob’s computer screen.

If you read the article or saw the CNN piece, know that I don’t intend to lose sleep, weight or my life, SO… I am done (for the day).

I will be back soon with a healthy post on living. It’s what I do best.

Tim Richardson is an inspirational speaker who speaks about how giving increases employee morale, lowers employee turnover, increases customer loyalty and creates higher profits for Fortune 500 companies, associations, and national conventions. He is the founder of the The Worlds Biggest Blog Party an event which will connect bloggers from all over the world to raise money for charity. He is also founder and president of the Bill Walter Melanoma Research Fund and co-founder of the Jeffrey Roth Cycling Foundation. Click here for more information on professional speaker Tim Richardson.

Today marks the 40th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s death. When I think about it, I am still amazed that I actually went to segregated schools for my first couple of years of school. I am horrified at how Africian Americans (and others) have been discriminated against and that people are alive today that did horrific things to people just because of the color of their skin. I am embarrassed that even though he meant no disrespect, my grandfather used the term “niggers” when referring to Africian Americans. The past can’t be erased but we can change the future.

In honor of MLK and to keep with the theme of blogging about people who are passionate about their work, I am going to interview Knoxville’s #1 morning talk show host, Hallerin Hilton Hill. He and I talked today and I’ll be interviewing  him soon. Do you have a question you want me to ask Hallerin? He is an awesome interviewer , a business man, talented song writer (he wrote one of the songs from the Whitney Houston/Denzel Washington movie The Preacher’s Wife), part time motiviational speaker, entreprenuer, father, husband, and community leader. Send an email and I will ask Hallerin.

Tim Richardson is an inspirational speaker who speaks about how giving increases employee morale, lowers employee turnover, increases customer loyalty and creates higher profits for Fortune 500 companies, associations, and national conventions. He is the founder of the The Worlds Biggest Blog Party an event which will connect bloggers from all over the world to raise money for charity. He is also founder and president of the Bill Walter Melanoma Research Fund and co-founder of the Jeffrey Roth Cycling Foundation. Click here for more information on professional speaker Tim Richardson.