Ok, you are going to have to read on to find out what this entry is all about. This isn’t Twitter, folks.

Why did I sign up to do an Ironman? I am not sure exactly why but it was really foolish. When I signed up, I could neither swim a mile nor had I ever actually done any kind of triathlon – much less the hardest distance of all. It was probably a healthy blend of stupidity, boredom, ego and overconfidence that got me to believe that signing up for Ironman Switzerland was a smart idea. Plus there is a part of my brain that literally forces me to get, achieve or do whatever it might be that my mind has begun to contemplate. Once I want something, I usually get it. And I know that probably sounds cocky but there is a reason for that and that’s what this entry is about.

Here comes a story.

About 30 years ago my 20-year old mother became pregnant with me. At the time she had just finished her training as a nurse after leaving high school at the age of 16. Having kids was not at the top of her list of priorities, but my father felt very strongly about starting a family so that is how little Mario made it into this world. Two years later my father (who I loved dearly) turned out to not be the committed family man my mother had envisioned him to be which resulted in his stuff on our lawn and my mother becoming a single mom at the age of 22.

Most people weren’t too excited about my mother’s choices which resulted in her quitting her job and us moving on a horse ranch somewhere in Northern Germany where my mother cleaned the stalls and I learned how to ride ponies, dogs and the neighborhood goat.

When things settled down a bit, we moved back to our hometown where my mother got to experience the great joy of being a single mom while working full time. We had no car, lived in government housing and had a black and white TV the size of my iPad.

But to me everything was perfect. I never missed  anything, and if I was, I certainly had no clue. I was the happiest kid in the world. I am pretty sure there is no kid who played more than I did in the first five years of my life.

When it came time for me to go to elementary school, all that play time almost bit me in the ass. I was five years old and really couldn’t speak. Well, I could speak but unfortunately nobody could understand me. The German education system thought I must have some brain damage and it would be best for me to enroll in special ed school. My mother said “no way”, and I got to go to normal elementary school and then spend my afternoons at speech therapy. Turns out I didn’t have brain damage after all, but was just too preoccupied playing and never really focused on developing those muscles in my mouth that allowed for the proper pronunciation of important letters such as s,t,k and h.

I know this is a long story, but there is a point that I want to make.

My mother always believed in me and in my 29 years of life, I never was told that something was not possible. Even when the odds were squarely stacked against us, I was too ignorant and optimistic to ever recognize. My mother protected me from things like negativity and pessimism which allowed me to focus on the one thing that I was really good at – follow my dreams.

We never had enough money for vacation, so I spent my summer vacations with our neighbors.

Once I got done with elementary school, it was decided that I was to enroll in the mid-level of our high school system. That would have meant I would have been done with school after 10th grade and would then go on to learn some profession that didn’t require college. That’s what my mom did, and that’s what she didn’t want for me. She believed in me. And while the public school system didn’t allow for me to take the collegiate high school route (the highest level of schooling), my mother took me from private school to private school until a small catholic private school 30 minutes away from my hometown agreed to take me. I was by far the worst student, protestant and expected to not last more than a year. I would have gladly failed but them catholic nuns and my dear mother wouldn’t let that happen.

When I was 12 years old I met some college student at the local soccer field who had been an exchange student in America. I went home that night and told my mother that I was going to do that. The plan was to play soccer, learn how to surf and meet lots of California girls. She said ok and four years later, I moved to Montana which is almost like California.

I came back after a year, and told my mother that I didn’t want to go back to German high school but instead go to college in the US. It was going to cost $15,000 a year (college in Germany is free). My mother had some serious doubts but that didn’t stop my parents from depleting their savings (which only paid for the first semester) and hope for a miracle. Well, that miracle happened (me working as a custodian, me getting straight A’s, me getting scholarships, etc.) and now 12 years later I am still in America.

Five days from now, I am going to take on what arguably will be the biggest physical challenge of my life. I am not sure if my body is ready for it, as quite frankly I have never exercised for 13+ hours before. Come to think of it, I have never exercised for eight hours before either.

But here I am – sure as hell that I am going to finish this Ironman.

And that is because of my mother who always believed in me and helped instill this crazy sense of optimism.

Bad shit can happen on Sunday. My bike could break. So could my body. But my mind, my mind will be strong.

No matter what happens on Sunday, I will finish.

And I know my mother once again will believe in me. But Sunday’s race isn’t about her believing in me,

Sunday is about me showing to my mother that I believed her when she told me, again and again, that I can do whatever I set my mind to. I still do, now more than ever. Just with less hair.

I usually forget mother’s day. So this Sunday will be my mother’s mother’s day. That should take care of that for at least for a couple of years.

Sunday is for the person who opened every door for me, and never held me back when I walked through.

Sunday is for the person who I love more than life itself. And who always felt the same way about me.

See you at the finish line, Mama.

Sunday is for you.

Before I got any further, let me now just tell you that I think anyone can have good ideas. You don’t have to be a creative person to have a good idea. The advertising industry (fortunately not my employer) is notorious for believing that if you lock two people into a room, one who can write and one who can draw, good ideas will emerge. I think that’s bullshit. Maybe they’ll come up with pretty print ads or funny TV commercials, but I don’t see any advertising copywriters and art directors being the ones who build products and companies that truly change the world.

Anyways, my point is that anyone can have a great idea. Most people have had amazing ideas, but only few move forward and actually execute. Even the greatest idea is no good if you don’t bring it to life. Regardless, that’s not what this post is about.

I believe that there two things that together allow for the creation of good ideas.

Time.

And happiness.

In order to have an idea, you need time to think. That time can happen anywhere and anytime. In the shower, in the car, during a conversation or maybe even in a conference room while looking at some funny dude with a pencil.  Personally, most of my ideas come while running or cycling. I purposefully don’t listen to music while exercising which forces me into deep thought. Time to think is the most important facet in the creation of a good idea.

The second component is a bit less intuitive. And maybe it is not an absolute requirement but I happen to think it might be. I believe that in order to have a great idea, you need to be happy. If you aren’t happy, then you likely will be distracted by things that bother you. Things that hurt you. Things that you struggle with. While there are many examples of great artists creating amazing pieces of work while being depressed about something, I believe such is more a form of expression rather than an idea.

Anyways, on the flip side, I believe many people find great inspiration in the beginning of events like the beginning of a romantic relationship, the birth of a child or while experiencing really any moments filled with great energy and hope.

So, the next time you’re in need of a some inspiration, set aside some time to think and then make sure you have nothing major on your mind that will negatively occupy your mind.  Clear out what you can, and learn to ignore worries that really shouldn’t bother you. Get in a positive state of mind, and then take some time to think. Look around. Whistle Pick your nose. Jot down random words on a notepad.  I promise you good ideas will come.

A personal addendum

I truly believe that most of my ideas have come while doing various forms of long distance sports. It’s like a double whammy as the exercise helps your brain release endorphins, which are the ultimate happiness drug, and then the extended nature of the sport gives you plenty of time to think.

And I think that every day, every minute and every second; someone is doing something amazing for someone else. Why? Just because.

To me the big question is whether I have shown those people my appreciation for all they have done for me. We are all quick to bitch and complain but do we say thank you often enough and loud enough?

• My mother has done so much for me, I would have to say thank you to her every second of every day to begin showing her my gratitude. Or at least, not forget her birthday and mother’s day.
• There is my dad, who wasn’t that from a biological perspective, but who gave up his twenties and dedicated his life to take care of a very misbehaved little boy and the most stubborn woman I’ve ever met. Some day I hope to be that selfless.
• There were my neighbors who always took me on vacation with them, because my family didn’t have the money to go. I learned to love other cultures at a very young age. And much to my mother’s dismay, I don’t get homesick anymore.
• There was my soccer coach who allowed me to play on his team after having been kicked off another team. It was the best season in my life. And without it, I know I would have gotten myself into all kinds of trouble. I never said thank you.  Rest in peace, Mr. Kugel.
• There was Sister Angela who sat down with me every day after school to help me with my homework. Without her, I would have never made it through seventh grade. And I know as a matter of fact that I never said thank you. Sister Angela, rest in peace. You are a saint.
• There were all kinds of people who let me copy their homework on that grueling 45 minute bus ride to school every day. Without them, I’d probably be smarter today but I still appreciate it.
• There is my best friend Alex who would literally finish his exams and then help me with mine. I know that’s cheating but we both turned out alright.
• There is my host family in Montana who took me in and treated me like a member of their family. And they didn’t even want to have an exchange student. But without them, I would have never been able to come or stay in the US.
• There are all the bosses I ever had (including the one who I hired me as a janitor) who brought me on board despite the fact that I really never had the experience that was asked for in the position they put me in.
• There is my friend Elisa who let me crash on her floor for about four months, which allowed me to work as a free intern in Seattle. Without her, I would have never been able to stay in the US.
• There are people who did amazing things to help me stay and live in America. You know who you are. Thank you.
• There are so many people who have introduced me to other people who then opened some door for me.

I could probably think of a few hundred examples of little and huge things (come to think of it, they are all big)  that people have done for me. Sometimes I showed my appreciation and other times I probably did not.

That worries me.

Do you ever worry about not saying thank you? Or, not saying thank you as loudly and clearly as you probably should.

I know people don’t help others so they get a “thank you” in return. Knowing what they did helped you is probably all they would ever want.

But we all love to feel appreciated.

So I want to say thank you to all the hundreds of people who have helped make my life what it is today. Without your help, I’d be nowhere and no-one.

There will be many thank yous that you miss to give, simply because you won’t recognize how much that person did for you until later in in your life.

So whenever you know that you have something to be thankful for, say thank you.

Loudly.

Our lives seem to get busier by the day, and thanks to modern gadgets like smartphones, laptops and ipads, it is so easy to never truly disconnect. Personally, it’s something I struggle with more than most. The problem with not disconnecting and constantly thinking or doing two things at once is that at some point you forget how to live in the moment. Once you forget to live in the moment, you stop enjoying the small things in life. If that happens, good luck trying to find happiness. You’ll be forever dependent on major moments of success and once they happen, you’ll stop appreciating the moment a new tweet flies by.

While such might sound a bit apocalyptic, I believe it to be true.

Here are some examples of situations moments and situations that I will never get back.

• Being on your laptop while watching a movie with your girlfriend.
• Doing other things while talking to someone on the phone.
• Bringing your iPhone (with which came my work email) on a camping trip.
• Keeping my iPhone turned on while having coffee with a friend.
• Responding to text messages under the table during dinner.
• Tweeting while being at an MLB playoff game live with one of your best friends.
• Pretending like I use my iPad to take notes in a meeting.
• Being on Facebook while trying to write this damn blog entry.

Those are just some examples, but you get the point. I constantly get distracted by technology when I could actually have a meaningful conversation, be productive or just enjoy the moment. For some people technology enables human interaction, rather than distract from it. Unfortunately, such is not the case for me. At all. I have zero self control and left to my own devices, I will live blog my own wedding.

Recognizing my own shortcomings, I am constantly trying new things to control my mind and attention from wondering. I am still not good at it, but off means off and here is what I do to be one step closer towards being one step closer towards eternal focus.

No lighted screens after 11pm

All lighted screens must be off after 11pm. No more TV, computer, Internet  or iPad. This rule refers to lighted screens as reading on my Kindle is legit. This helps me wind down at the end of the day.

Turning off my phone whenever I hang out with someone

Generally speaking I will not bring my cell phone when hanging out with other people. I usually just put it into silent mode and leave it at home or in the car. And then I forget about it, which has resulted into to the sad fact that I answer about 1 out of 10 phone calls.

Getting a corded landline phone

A few weeks ago, I got a corded landline phone. So if I ever call you with my New York number (don’t ask), I am ready to talk. Having a corded telephone forces me to be in one spot, which means I am not doing the dishes, surfing the web or cleaning the litter box while talking to you.

No work email on my iPhone

This rule has been in effect ever since Bill Cosby’s manager nearly ruined my Kauai vacation.

Not bringing my phone on training rides

It would actually be much safer to always have my cell phone on my during my long training rides. But that would mean I would be taking pictures, checking my email and tweeting dumb jokes while training for the most important race of my life. Being out there with only my own thoughts can be complete bliss, which I am not willing to ruin.

No alerts of any kind

I don’t receive alerts of any kind. No meeting reminders, no to-dos and no mail notifications. I’ll check those things when I think it’s time to check them. Unfortunately, that means I miss a horrendously large number of meetings, deliverables and sometimes it takes me a couple of days to answer my email.  Oh well.

Please note, that I am still really bad at staying focused on anything. But these measures help, and every day I try to improve at becoming a better friend, co-worker, and son.

Off means off.

And when you’re doing something, that’s all you should be doing.

Until I  or one of you guys figures out the meaning of life, I have tried to live by one simple principle that helps me keep things interesting. Every year I set myself at least one ridiculous goal.  The meaning or degree of ridiculous(ness) changes every year, with the only consistent being that one has to be completely baffled by whatever the goal is – meaning it can’t be some teeny weeny goal and it shouldn’t be too expected.

This year my goal has to been to complete an Ironman, which is only my second ridiculous athletic goal (at some point, running a marathon was a ridiculous goal for me). I am not sure about next year’s goal yet but it’s somewhere between writing a book or trying to become a performing stand-up comedian. Other past goals have included buying a home and publishing a book (which was How To Complain For Fun and Profit).

One thing I have learned by doing this, is that it’s important that this year’s ridiculous goal should not interfere with setting a completely different ridiculous goal next year. And hence it’s perfectly acceptable to switch goals mid-year, just make sure they’re at least equally as ambitious (ambitious can equal outlandish). One year I set myself the goal of working on a crab boat in Alaska, which was in direct violation with a) my work permit and b) my ambitions of  getting a job in advertising. So I scratched that goal, and ran a marathon instead.

By the way, the first ridiculous goal I remember was to marry the neighbor’s daughter. She was 14, and I was 8. That didn’t work out, despite the what I thought very compelling and persuasive letter I had written on my father’s typewriter. The next year wasn’t much better. I tried to start a newspaper for my neighborhood (maybe 3000 people total) by plagiarizing neighborhood specific content from the regional newspapers (which my grandfather graciously and involuntarily donated) and then typing it up on, yup, my dad’s typewriter. I had most of the widows in my neighborhood signed up but the venture ultimately failed due to my unwillingness to spend money on copies and a quickly diminishing sense of excitement for spending every afternoon hammering away, one finger style, on my father’s typewriter.

Living in America was one of those ridiculous goals at some point, and I’ll be forever thankful that I never gave up on that one.

Ps. It’s not about achieving the goal, it’s about the journey of trying. That much I have learned.

For some reason there exists this perception that I enjoy to network, which I know can be tied back to the fact that sometimes I talk a lot. Probably too much.  The latter is true, but when it comes to the former nothing could be further from the truth.

I don’t like to network. Yes, I do like to talk but only about things that I am excited about. And while I do possess the ability to walk up to a stranger and talk to them (it should be noted that this doesn’t apply to women who I find to be attractive), I’d rather not.

Still, I network.  I meet new people every week who sometimes become  friends, business partners or in the rarest of all cases – cat sitters.

IdeaMensch is my primary way of making professional contacts and probably the easiest networking tool ever invented. When I need to get to know someone, I ask to interview them on IdeaMensch. That can open just about any door and is how I got to connect with people like Seth Godin or Craig Newmark. On the other hand, every week I also  get pitched by folks who want to get interviewed on IdeaMensch which is equally as effective of a  networking tool.

But not everybody is going to build a professional interview site (please don’t, people will drop IdeaMensch the minute they see an alternative) so here is my other networking strategy – one that I have used successfully and with great joy ever since I  graduated college.

Meet someone new for coffee every week.

I started doing just  that when I moved to Seattle and tried to break into the agency business. And since I didn’t have a network, I mostly asked my buddy Jerry to connect me to some of his professional contacts. I got to meet all kinds of people, and ultimately was able to  break  into the agency business.

But, it’s not uncommon for job seekers to meet people in certain industries or companies for coffee. So, here comes the ultimate networking secret.

Don’t stop.

Meet someone new for coffee every week. Even when you’re not looking to get something out of it. When someone asks to pick your brain, go to coffee with them. When one of your buddies talks about the great work one of his other buddies is doing, ask to meet her for coffee. A former client, coffee. A potential new client, coffee. Someone you might want to hire, coffee. An ex-girlfriend, voicemail.  Someone who might want to hire you, coffee.

You get the point.

Do it every week, and you will be absolutely amazed about the professional and personal relationships that will come out of it.

Plus, coffee is cheap, tastes great  and stimulates your digestive system.

image credit, in case you’re looking for a more interesting coffee date than the ones described above

It’s 7:30 in the morning and it’s already been a great day. My 83-year old grandfather called to congratulate,  and much-needed health care reform seems to be coming to life. While there is no immediate benefit to this legislation for myself, I have always wanted my American friends to have the same type of care that I enjoyed during my childhood in Europe. It’s not like health care in Germany was better necessarily (nor was it any worse) but it was always available to you, regardless of whether you were rich, poor, employed or just lost your job. When you need health care, it will be there for you now.

And frankly, I don’t care if it costs an extra $200 or $300 billion over the next decade. Why don’t we take it out of the $322 billion dollars that we’re planning to spend on F-35 fighter jets. If that’s not enough, we might have to just cut down on our warfare and only fight one at a time. 3000 people died on September 11th. 45,000 Americans die every year because they don’t have access to health care. This bill will save more American lives than any weapon system ever could. What a great birthday present.

Enough about politics, it’s my birthday. I am going to spend the rest of my twenties trying to bring to fruition that Ironman ambition of mine. Last but not least, I will change the battery of the clock in my kitchen. Then, while I am still planning to live an interesting life, I am going to try my hardest and slow down a bit. Things have been a bit blurry as of late, and it seems to make more sense to live life one thing at a time. Plus, I am really bad at multi-tasking. Like really really bad.

29. It’s going to be a great one.

I have a good job, and gotten plenty of recognition for what I’d call my career. I have all the physical possessions that I will ever need or want.  I’ve run a few marathons, given a graduation speech, taught a college course, traveled more than most,  lived in a few countries and have gotten to do pretty much whatever I set my mind to. I am training for an Ironman, because it seemed like something one should do in their 20s. I am healthy, moderately hansom and really can’t complain about anything at all. Most people who I love are alive and well. And my cat is cooler than your dog.

I’ve found nothing but good fortune in my life. But I haven’t found myself.

I am almost 29.

And for the first time, will make the time, to find myself.

In our childhood, most of everything we do and see is a new experience. Actually everything is new. We are constantly learning and evolving. We don’t allow negative habits to form. As a matter of fact, the only negative habit I remember from my childhood was the stress of having to do/copy all my homework on the bus ride to school.  Thanks to all these “new” experiences, we have a much greater sense of awareness of time. And it doesn’t move fast.

But then as we grow up, habits form. We all pretty much do the same thing all the time. Wake up, go to work, work out, feel stressed about certain things, get frustrated with the same folks and life just seems to just go by. Life gets pretty boring. At some point we ask ourselves where time went and what the heck we did with all that time. We don’t make nearly as many memories as we did throughout our childhood.

Thanks to this insightful NPR piece, I will try my hardest (and sometimes I already do a pretty good job) to experience as many new things as possible.  To try and not get stuck in too many habits – especially not ones that I don’t like.  To learn new things all the time. And whenever I can to try and see the world through eyes of a kid.

Don’t let life get boring.