Recently, I’ve watched a number of films that have lead me
to question the future of a project that I have been working on for the past
two years. Enron: The Smartest Guys in
the Room got me thinking about where I want to be in five and ten years. Up
until this recent viewing, I hadn’t really put too much thought into it. I
figured I would be travelling the world on an assignment for the company that I
am going to launch within the next year.
I’m thirty-two years old and about to graduate from the
Entertainment Business Master of Science program at Full Sail University. What
a road it has been.
I grew up the class clown. I
attribute my young behavior to an insecurity of who I was. My twin sister and I
were raised by our single mother in Essex, Connecticut. My father was never in
the picture. I think, for the longest time, I was trying to fill a void that
was never there. Confused and unsure of so much, I remember being quiet in many
social settings. In school I always tested well and did well in class, but
rarely did homework and got bored easily when I wasn’t challenged in high
school. I dropped out at seventeen years old. I was a junior/senior and frustrated
with the faculty and curriculum provided by the school.
The following is the story of the summer
before I left high school.
My story
begins in the summer of '97. I had just turned 17, just gotten my license and
school had just gotten out for the summer. It was great. The first few weeks of
my summer would be spent in Europe. Sweden and Denmark to be specific. I had
played soccer for more than 10 years up until that point and this was the
pinnacle of my sporting career. Two teams were taken across the pond. A boy's
and a girl's team both made up of some of the best players from the state.
So off I
went. Two weeks of world class soccer. I couldn't ask for anything more. And
when I got home… I had a car, a girlfriend and the rest of the summer to look
forward to. Or so I thought.
It wasn't
long when I got home from the largest soccer tournament in the world, next to
the World Cup of course, that my dear mother informed me that I would not be
enjoying the rest of my summer in my car with my girlfriend driving to party's
and the beach everyday. Instead, I would be leaving in two days for a 28 day
"wilderness adventure." Right. Needless to say I was not very happy.
And that's an understatement. My true feelings, at the time, pushed closer to
utter vexation. I was upset beyond upset. Devastated, for a 17 year old,
anyway. What did I know? In the following 30 I would find out. What I did
know... and more so, what I didn't know. I was in for, what I call now, the
experience of a lifetime.
So there I
was at home, with no intention of making the flight to the Denver airport. I
don't recall so vividly now, but just so you understand how much I DIDN'T want
to go on this trip; it probably took me a half hour just to get a pair of socks
into my new hiking backpack.
Barely
catching my flight, I took my seat between two of the oldest women I had ever
met. Well, that's not true. One was probably in her eighties and the other
probably hovered somewhere in her 60s. I just say that they were old for
dramatic effect. Anyhoo, picture me sitting between these two old goons for 12
some-odd hours. Not cool, especially for an exceptionally cool 17 year old with
much better things to do that summer. So not cool.
Moving on, I
sat there between the loudest snorer to ever walk the earth and a woman who
felt that the coolest kid on the plane actually wanted listen to her blab for a
good 10 of the 12+ hour flight to Denver. Cursing my mother and wishing I was
on some beach back home, I listened to this lady tell me her whole life story.
It seemed as if she told it 10 times. "What a nightmare" I thought to
myself.
12 hours
later puts me in Denver. Trying to find the 9 other suckers that had obviously
been forced by their parents as well to take part in this 28 day nightmare in
the woods of Colorado. As I located this group of unfortunate not as cool as I,
of course, kids, I remember telling myself "myself. You are going to need
more than some beef jerky to keep you entertained on this trip." So I
grabbed a book. A BOOK! What had the world come to? The world, my life and more
importantly my SUMMER was falling apart. The book, books being on the banned
paraphernalia list, turned out to be one of my favorite books ever.
After
joining the death camp we were unsuccessfully searched for banned
paraphernalia. No disc-men. No magazines and books. I was one for one. I'm
smooth. What can I say?
The next two
days were mostly spent driving. Yeah. You read it right. D.R.I.V.I.N.G. The
afternoon of day two was spent hiking 6 miles to the base of some random 12k ft
mountain. Yup. Ooooooo. Ahhhhhh. Riiiiight. Yeah. The scenery was beautiful and
I was around some good people. Whatever. All I could think about was my car
that I wasn't driving, my girlfriend that I wasn't holding and the rest of the
summer that I would not be enjoying. Those were my thoughts as I went to bed
that night under the stars. The shooting stars I might add: 27 of them... and 6
satellites. A truly incredible sight.
Day 3
consisted of climbing my first mountain. Like I said. 12000 feet. Give 'er
take. Probably give. Like 400 feet or so. I have to over embellish for the
story a little right?
So there I
was. Just above the tree line on a 13k ft mountain. Eating ritz crackers, tuna
and an apple for lunch. Surrounded by the Colorado Rockies…. And I was
miserable. After eating we continued our ascent to the peak.
"A long
25 days" I thought to myself. "A long 25 days is right Jon."
Evidently I had said it out loud because one of the trip leaders responded with
agreement. And as I dragged my soccer worn body up the mountain all I could
think was… was… "this sucks." And after a few hours of a combined
hiking/stripping just about every piece of clothing that weighed me down, my
bag and my hat, I made it to the peak. It wasn't long before I collapsed on a
boulder, a boulder that looked like a Sealy Posturpedic, if you can imagine
that. "You don't look so good" said Chris, the captain obvious of
trip leaders. It wasn't but a moment later that the term projectile vomiting
was coined… or displayed, but coined sounds better. That's what it was in my
life. And out came the, close your eyes for this one: Ritz, tuna and an apple.
(Picture that with a… Canon. Oh no. I think it's a Kodak. Either way. )
"Everybody down. Down off the mountain NOW!" screamed Chris and Emily
simultaneously. Emily was the other trip leader. So as everyone grabbed their
things and started heading down… I slowly sat up… and took a look around. I,
figuratively, took a step back, and smelled the roses. Noticing that I was, and
had been, surrounded by the Colorado Rockies, I was blown away. It was
beautiful. Even my words would do it no justice. It was a special moment for
me. It was humbling moment; a moment that I will never forget. This is where
you get goose bumps and feel like you just might get a little teary-eyed.
Sitting
there on that Sealy Posturpedic, wiping off leftover tuna/ritz/apple off my
face, I realized that I had been wrong… about Colorado, about how awful my
summer was going to be… and about myself. I thought that I knew a lot, a lot
about life and people and myself. At that moment I learned that I knew very
little about all three.
Life is like a
peanut. Uh. No. I take that back. I can't think of a good way to relate life to
a peanut. Life is like… baseball. In baseball you'll strike out. And you'll
have another at-bat. Another try. Another opportunity. Such is life. A
challenge if you let it be. Take risks. Enjoy the moment. And be open to what
life, and this world, has to offer. Those are but a few of the things that I
learned up there on that 18000 ft mountain. Lessons that I will carry with me
always.
I eventually got my G.E.D. and then worked full time for a
few years. At twenty-three, I went back to school with the goal of becoming a
corporate attorney. This idea popped into my head while I was doing masonry
work for the then President of America Online. The story goes that he was
retiring because his wife made more money than he did and he wanted to spend
more time at home with her and their kids. I found out that she was a corporate
attorney making a ridiculous salary.
So off to college I went. It was a small private school
about a half hour south of Boston. Finally being away from home was a welcomed
change in my life. I loved dorm life and looked forward to learning about
business and law and economics and accounting. I was no longer the class clown.
I loved being in school.
Things changed quickly when I couldn’t afford room and board
and had to commute my second semester. I managed to fit my schedule into three
days a week. Every Tuesday through
Thursday I would drive an hour and a half up to Franklin, Massachusetts and
back. After a long semester of commuting I found myself living in a hotel off
campus because the school “overbooked” the dorms. That was a pretty sweet
semester.
I earned my associates degree the following year. It was a
long two years in which the most prevalent lesson was that “it is was you make
of it.” This lesson wouldn’t really sink in until years later.
I went back home and started a roofing company with my
cousin. It was tough work that I only miss in fleeting moments. Being on a roof
with my cousin… we had some good times. But, after about a year of that I
needed a change and did some landscaping for a year. At twenty-seven, I got
involved in a local television studio. I helped produce a show with a few other
kids.
In the spring of 2008 I received a call from my younger
cousin asking me to check out a school down in Florida. I did, and in July of that
year I entered the Film program at Full Sail University. I could write pages
and pages on my experiences in the Film program, but for the sake of this post,
I’ll cut it short. After the Film program I entered the Master’s program.
I started the program with the business idea for a magazine
that photographers could submit photographs to with articles that told the
story. I wanted the magazine to be a monthly hard cover bad ass publication
that everyone would want to be a part of. I envisioned a picture of the
Colorado Rocky Mountains on the first cover and my article being the first
story. I wanted to provide a publication that would encourage artists to submit
their work and tell their stories. It was to be a community of creative people
supporting one another as they grew as artists.
I wanted to create something that was all welcoming, a
business that supported people that have never been supported. After months of
development I revised the plan and considered the logistics of what I wanted to
accomplish.
The publication has gone from a monthly hard cover magazine
to a monthly online magazine that people will subscribe to. This choice was one
of financials. It’s ridiculously expensive to print a magazine and distribute
it. Project Vision The Magazine will be a website that encourages photographers
and writers to tell their stories the best way they know how. Photographers and
writers will receive professional feedback on their work and have their works
published by a global publication. I plan on printing a special edition
quarterly hard cover magazine by the second year.
Now, I started this post talking about Enron and motives. In
the documentary Enron: The Smartest Guys
in the Room there is a test done based on Milgram’s Theory. The theory is
that people will make decisions that have an adverse effect on others as long
as they are not held responsible. The test showed that half of the people would
cause harm to others as long as the responsibility for that harm caused was not
their own. This test, by Stanley Milgram, was likened to the executives at
Enron and all of the people involved that never stopped the fraudulent
activity.
I also mentioned that I had recently watched a number of
films. Bush’s War is another film
that got me thinking about corporate greed and how people come to decide
certain things. The Corporation sheds
some light on some of the motives that drive people to completely disregard the
welfare of others in the interest of making more money.
Finally, The Book of
Eli sparked a discussion that I had with a close friend of mine. The
conversation went from a review of the film to a talk brief talk about
religion, an even more brief talk about politics that somehow segued to an
intense discussion about the Star Wars films and George Lucas. We talked mostly
about what Lucas’ motivations may have been for making Episode 1,2 & 3 as
well as the purpose and questionable use of the character Jar Jar Binks.
At the end of the day I don’t want to question what is
really important. For me, I think it’s my duty to help others. I’ve been so fortunate in my life to
have had the experiences that I have had. From growing up without a father to
climbing fourteen thousand foot mountains and spending a month in the woods.
From dropping out of high school to cracking jokes and talking in an Irish
accent with my cousin while roofing. I’ve been to Sweden and Denmark and
Ireland and Montreal. I’ve lived with a drug dealer and broken my arm. I have earned
a film degree and next week I will walk across a stage and receive a master’s degree.
And all moments have their respective stories attached to
them. Stories like mine where I found myself surrounded by the Colorado Rockies
and humbled by their beauty. This post has actually been a series of
articles/stories. My company is based on people submitting their stories,
sharing their experiences and lessons learned.
I want to help give people a voice. I want to give people an
opportunity to tell their stories. I want to create a community of creative
people that inspire each other to do great things that they never thought possible
otherwise.
If you’ve read this far, I thank you. I ask that you take a
moment and think about how far you’ve come in your life and where you would
like to be tomorrow… where you would like to be a year from now. Write your
story. Share your story. You never know who might read it and who might be able
to help you. This is not a normal blog post, but then again, I guess I’m not a
normal blogger. Inspire vision.
