Today I was in Virginia Beach, VA for taping of the CBN show Living the Life. The segment I was on will air on September 19th and it’s about discovering REAL Richness and the Richest People in America. It was a very cool experience which enabled me to see the behind the scenes look at how a show is produced. I was treated like royalty starting and ending with Humberto who picked my up at the airport and took me back. Humberto is a security officer with CBN who aspires to be an actor. He lived in New York City but after 9/11, he became very depressed and almost ended his life. At 3:00 am after a night of heavy drinking several years ago, he walked by a downtown church, a place where he didn’t feel at home. The church looked like a theatre which was a place he felt at home. He decided he would go there the next Sunday which ultimately turned his life around. Later, he moved to Virginia Beach and began a new life where he LOVES his work and serves the people he meets as part of his job and the homeless people there with great passion. 

The lady who did my hair, yes I had a makeup artist and hair dresser (there are a few pictures of that but to see them, people like my friend and former journalist Rick Laney would have to pay ALOT of money). My hair dresser had a story too. Somehow it came up during our short time together that today was both the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina as well as the anniversary of her son’s death. He was a commercial diver who was killed off the coast of New Orleans. Later that day, she had planned to commemorate that occasion with family and friends. She was a beautiful woman both inside and out and looking at her and the joy she radiated, I would never of thought she had a worry in the world.

It was somehow at bit twisted that while sitting in a dressing room, with a gown on and a hair net, I heard the announcement that McKain’s VP candiate was Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Here I was surrounded by cheering ladies supporting someone who could make history as the first woman to be elected Vice President of the United States. The evening before I had watched Barack Obama make history when he accepted the Democratic nomination on the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech. Needless to say it was an interesting week and one that made me glad that I was living the life in these historic and interesting times.

Is there such a thing as a chance meeting? I don’t think so. I think people come into our lives when we need them and sometimes we come into the life of someone because they need us. In almost twenty years in the National Speakers association, I have had the pleasure of meeting and being mentored by some great speakers. Most aren’t household names yet they have made me feel like a star because they have helped me when I needed a lift, encouraged me when times were tough or inspired an idea that helped propel my business. The sharing is never done with an expectation of anything in return. It’s one of the many things I love about my professional speaker career and my NSA buddies.

In February, I met a new member of my NSA organization. She is a doctor, a speaker AND a flamenco dancer named Dr. Susan Biali. She is a Canadian who lives in Cabo, Mexico with her husband where she enjoys the RICH life (see her post Would You Like to Be Rich? ) 

When I met Susan, I happily provided her with some counsel that she has followed. Though we have only met once and exchanged emails just a few times, I feel like I have a new friend far away who is  as close as an email. I’ve added her to my blog roll as she is a great writer and the first “official” member of my blog editorial team. She’ll be checking in regularly to make sure my writing makes sense both in context and in grammar, spelling and style. You’ll occasionally be treated to a guest post by Susan and of course you can also check her out by visiting her site to keep you focused on your goals, life balance and health and wellness. Connections are great. They are part of what makes life RICH.  

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.

Sometimes the REAL world can hurt - I mean REALLY hurt. This morning early, I took a neighborhood friend to the airport. He was flying to Philly to officiate at a funeral - a funeral for a wife, a mother, a daughter, a beloved child of God who had leukemia and died at age 41 . She had just flown to visit her ailing mother. Two days later she was dead. 

Two days ago, I spoke to a friend whose brother committed suicide last month. He’s owning his brother’s death, and shoulders part of the blame. It was a tenuous relationship and he admittedly tuned his brother out. Now he’s questioning what role he could have had in saving his brother’s life. In our call, he told me life sucks.

Last weekend, we received an urgent call from another friend requesting prayers for her eight-year old-niece, Claire Atkins. Claire had fallen from a tree and broken her arm. In the hospital, an unrelated brain problem was found. She died early Sunday morning. I don’t know how I could react like her father did in the Asheville Citizen article about her. The family has already turned their tragedy into something good (watch the clip dancer honored on ABC 13). When the family returned home after their childs death, friends, neighbors, and church members had a meal prepared, their beds turned down, notes written and left on each of their beds. They had also filled the tree where Claire had been playing with hundreds of notes and cards. This family and their friends are a reminder of the importance of RICH relationships and of the power of a rich life.

None of these things make sense. I’ll never understand tragedy, senseless death, suicide or loss of young lives. Sometimes words are difficult but you can also reach out and touch - a gentle hand, a loving embrace, a heart felt note and a shared tear may be all that is needed.

Today is the day to treasure each and every day, your children, and the people who are most important to you. That’s Real World. That’s RICH.

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.

This week, I have once again been reminded about how giving trumps receiving.  I am in Colorado Springs, CO and camping near Garden of the Gods. The reason I am here enjoying this beautiful place is because of the generousity of new friends MJ and Mike Coon. About a year ago, I was speaking at CUNA CFO conference in Phoenix. As participants were walking in the room, I happened to notice Colorado Springs on the name tag of one of the attendees (MJ). After my keynote speech, MJ and I were talking and I told her I would be speaking for paralympians at the US Olympic Training Center   about a month later. She suggested that I might want to stay for the weekend after my speech (which I did with my 11 year old son). We had a blast and had a RICH experience riding the COG train to the summitt of Pikes Peak, watching Paralympic hopefuls in training, and going to dinner and attending their church with MJ and Mike (I ate my very first fish taco in Colorado FAR from the ocean - I am still not sure what type of fish it was).  Mike and my son told jokes all through dinner. MJ and I watched in astonishment as each joke reminded one of them of another.  A friendship was born.

MJ and I continued our relationship by emailing back and forth.  Then I was a keynote speakers for the Credit Union Executive Society annual meeting in Steamboat Springs,  Colorado in March (I spoke for an hour and a half then skied with them for a few hours then spoke again at the end of the day). On that trip, I saw MJ and Mike again.

They became more and more convincing that spending time here would be incredible for my family and me in the summer. So here I am with my family, camping in their camper enjoying the wild life, hiking around Pike’s Peak, starting each day with morning bike ride around Garden of the Gods, visiting the Olympic training center, horse back riding and more. It’s been a blast. They know how to give and even rejected my attempts to buy MJ a day spa gift certificate and Mike a brand new motorcycle fish taco and a joke book. Instead they insisted that IF we wanted to do something, we make a donation to a charity that they suppport…anonomously. I came here for vacation and am leaving with RICH memories AND a valuable lesson about hospitality, generosity, and giving.

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 thought I had life pretty good in Maryville (aka Mayberry) but Fort Collins, CO rocks. This morning at 6:30, I took off on a bike around Horse Tooth lake. It was goregous… cool air, clear skies, and no crowds. In fact, Colorado state is one of the healthiest places I have ever been - it seems everyone is into the outdoors. On the drive from Boulder to Rocky Mountain National Park, I must have seen more than 50 bikers in a five mile stretch. Then I wake up this morning to read the Fort Collins Coloradoan newspaper and there’s a great article entitle Bike Library Booms. It seems Fort Collins loans bikes to ANYONE who has a library card. In Denver, during the Democratic National Convention, bikes kiosks will allow visitors to rent bikes for the week.  I wonder if Barrack will be recumbent bike around town? How about John McCain cruising on a beach cruiser? The only thing more humorous would be seeing McKain and Barrack riding a tandem bike with Hillary sitting on the handle bars. Now that would REALLY make Colorado Cool.  

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.

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 just returned from a concert at the Steve Kaufman Acoustic Kamp. Steve is one of the worlds foremost celebrated flatpick guitarist and lives right here in Mayberry (Maryville, TN). Each year, Steve hosts musicians from all over the world who come to learn how to flatpick. As I heard him play tonight, I was reminded of what I had thought the first time I heard him play, “It would take years and many hours of practice to be half that good.” The interesting thing is years have already pasted and many hours have gone by yet my guitar sits off in a corner in my office. I see it regularly and think, “Oh, if I only had the time…”.  I have a POOR attitude about guitar playing thus I am a poor guitarist.

We can’t save time. The hours are ticking by regardless of how we spend them. The reality is if I only played twice a week, I would be a great guitarist. I started playing guitar 30 years ago and took lessons from a fantastic guitarist at Florida Southern College while working on my undergraduate degree. Whether its guitar, parenting, sports, dancing, or riding the unicycle, its just not going to happen if you don’t invest the time.  People who are RICH in living (like Steve Kaufman), find the time to pursue things they are passionate about. It exudes from every note he plays. I’d like to bottle his talent up and save it and break open the bottle some day.  Oh for a someday…

 Anyone who is alive, should celebrate today. The past several days have reminded me about the precioiusness of life. In my  ”My Stroke of Insight” post, I wrote about the tragic death of the brother of one of my best friends. Since then, the wife of another friend was killed in a head-on collison on the way to the grocery store and a friend of my twelve year old son, died while running too hard in the heat of summer. All this in a span of about 10 days.  These tragedies are difficult to understand.  While now is the time to grieve for those close to these families, there comes a time to heal.  While healing takes many forms and I certainly am not an expert on the subject, I like to weigh in. Below are some things I have done when I have experienced loss:

Cry - it’s important to let it all out, freely.

Remember - Spend some alone time thinking about memories that were created with the person who you lost. Watching video tapes, while difficult, can keep the memories alive and remind you of cherished times from the past. 

Write - start a journal both for the sake of posterity AND to help with healing.

Act - Ten years ago, I lost my best friend to Melanoma. Both to deal with my own grief and to help give him hope, I started a foundation in his memory. To date, our foundation has raised almost $500,000 to give away to people who can’t afford treatment and to try to find a cure for Melanoma.  There have been over 20 athletic events in Florida and Colorado to raise money for the foundation. Tomorrow, there will be an event in East Tennessee to Rayz Awareness, our mantra, about the dangers of too much sun exposure.  There will be something for everyone: a 1mile fun run, a 5K run, a 10K run, free skin cancer screenings, massage therapist, and music by a local group called Pistol Creek (they are a totally fun blue grass band). There was a story in yestedays Daily Times which you can read by clicking here: 5K and 10K run in East Tennessee.

Below are the other details:

When: Saturday June 14th

Where: The Rush Fitness Center in Alcoa (new Midland Plaza) Call 273-1360 or visit www.TheRush247.com for directions 

When: 7:30 pm (we are having it at night for OBVIOUS reasons!) Note: Registration begins at 6:30 

Why: Because skin cancer is the fastest growing, most preventable form of cancer.

Cost: $25 IF you print this and bring with you.

There will be t-shirts, free sunscreen, prizes, and more.

It’s Friday the 13th, go ahead make YOUR day. 

NOTE: The picture below is from our Colorado event. Kathy, Bill’s widow is on the left with a melanoma AND breast cancer survivor and her friend. That’s a whole another story!  

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.

Yesterday, was a great day and an really bad one too. Why it was great: I attended my first Decoration Day Celebration with my family and was able to ride the Cades Cove loop with my son.  Previous to yesterday, I had little knowledge of Decoration Day. To the relatives and families of those burried in Cades Cove in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, Decoration Day is a time to honor their families burried there. They travel to churches in the place there ancestors settled in the pioneer days to decorate their graves and celebrate their heritage. As I sat in a hard wooden pew listening to singing without musical instruments, a bird flew into the room. Then the cicadas kicked it up a notch. It was a visual and audio feast for eyes and ears. I imagined 100 years earlier when the pioner farmers rode many miles to the old church in a covered wagon or horse drawn carriage. It was a treat to meet some of the people for whom history may someday forget. Sadly, the park service is making it difficult for these celebrationt to continue though some of the people who attended lived in the Cove until moved by the US Government.  I heard the old-timers talk on the way out about Decoration Day in the past where there were so many people that the church couldn’t hold them all. It was a great day with my family but a terrible one for one of my best friends. While we were enjoying learning about how people celebrate life, my buddy was questioning why life was so hard. His brother, father of two precious little girls, took his life yesterday.  In doing so, he changed the lives of so many who knew and loved him. Yes, yesterday was a very good and terrible day - a day when many would like a “do over”. Yet another reminder of the preciousness of life. Hug your child a little tighter today. Reach out to someone you know who might be going through a tough time. Write a letter to a friend and tell them how much they mean to me. Pick up the phone and have a heart to heart conversation. Life is so very precious…

This past weekend, while attending a confirmation retreat with my son, I had the good fortune to “bump into” Duffy Robbins who  was the speaker for the weekend. He was just coming into breakfast while I was finishing but I invited him to join me. Frankly, I was surprised he joined me since he had a paper under one arm and later told me he had a full day workshop to plan. Though I am an extreme extrovert (I make my living as a professional speaker) there are times when I am on the road when I just want to be by myself. I don’t want to talk to anyone and just want to be alone with my thoughts, a good book, or the morning paper. There are times when I like to strike up conversations, even with total strangers. I’m grateful that Duffy was open to and accepted my invite to talk to someone who was a “stranger”.

Duffy is one of the most dynamic, effective, and humorous youth speakers I have every heard and author of a great book about speaking to teenagers. I first heard him speak at St. Simon’s Georgia in 1992 while chaperoning a youth retreat. At the time, I was youth director at Beach United Methodist Church and a newly married man. My wife and I accompanied the youth of our church on the retreat shortly after our honeymoon. There is nothing more unromantic than spending a weekend with hundreds of hormone producing youth. I still vividly remember both hours of sleep I got that weekend and learning fifty seven ways to use your arm pit and nose to gross out your friends. The only song I can remember from that weekend was Kum Ba Ya (we were proud of our spiritual kids)! Actually, the kids tarred and feathered me ANYTIME I broke out my guitar to sing Kum Ba Ya or Pass it On (two songs from the Greatest Hits of the 60’s and 70’s church camp retreat album). I used to enjoy embarrassing them by showing up at the schools at lunch time with my guitar for a song fest. No these kids were way too cool for that but they sang the timeless classic hit by Right Said Fred - “I’m Too Sexy for my Shirt” about 17 trillion times. Some (guys and girls) even acted it out on the back of the bus I was later told. Ah, to have a positive impact on young people. Anyway, it was a good thing I was only working “part-time” OR I would have been a full resident at the home for mentally deranged youth workers.

My “other job”, which kept me sane, was as a full-time professional speaker where I got to speak to people who thought about something other than practical jokes and the opposite sex. I was also president of my local professional speakers association. ANYTIME, I came in contact with someone who was an effective presenter, I would “pounce” on them and tell them that they had to join the National Speakers Association. Way back in 1992, I had a few minutes with Duffy and told him both about NSA and urged him to consider speaking to corporations. I still remember Duffy’s reply though it was 16 years ago. He told me that he was passionate about speaking to youth. He went on to explain that he knew youth, was good at speaking to them, and had no desire to speak to corporations where I had assured him he could make lots more money. He was focused and knew exactly what he wanted to do and how to use the talents for which he had acquired. Though I didn’t ask why he didn’t want to entertain my suggestions, I understand now. Simply stated, he knew who he was and where he shined. IF branding had been in vogue then, he would have been the poster boy for branding for youth speakers. In addition to knowing his voice, his place and his craft, he has designed a lifestyle many would covet. He teaches two or three classes a semester at Eastern College on Mondays and Wednesdays. He gets a month off at Christmas and has every summer off. He travels all over North America delivering seminars for Youth Specialties. He has recently been granted his second sabbatical, this one lasting 18 months. I’m pretty convinced that there is a big correlation between his lifestyle by design and his rigor and love for youth ministry. I think his time off makes him even better at it. I think his focus keeps him passionate about youth ministry and makes him one of the best speakers in the youth market. His time off renews his relationships, helps him be excellent, and keeps his fire burning.

I wonder what would happen to employee loyalty, turnover, and motivation in companies that provided more flexibility for their employees? Would companies that gave stellar employees time to pursue outside interests, write books, or take sabbaticals see benefits that affected their bottom line? What cha thinking?

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.