WELCOME TO
Jonathan’s Christmas Epic
(episode 8)
My 2006 experience summed up (ha!) in 9 short pages (single-spaced, 12 point font).
Past Christmas letters (epics) are available at http://www.strive4impact.com/letters.html
Jonathan's Christmas Letter 2006
At the end of 2004 and 2005, I got so excited about the new projects that I was going to be working on in the upcoming year, that I simply didn’t make the time to sit down and write my “famous” Christmas letter, as a reflection back on 2004 and 2005. I say famous not out of vanity, but I can look at Internet statistics, and see that I rank really well in Google for the term “Christmas Letter.” In the past three years, thousands of people have actually visited my Christmas letters online, and many of them even stuck around long enough to read the letters.
Introspection takes time, and it takes some time to let my brain stop moving forward long enough to come to a place where I’m completely in the present, so that I can focus on reflecting on the past and bringing the lessons forward for use in the future. Realizations about the past can really help me to grow into the future. New and big realizations are inevitable in anyone who makes the time for some serious reflection and introspection. So that’s what I try to do when I sit down to write one of my Christmas letters, because it allows me to draw the lessons from the past and use them for the future.
Knowing what I know about the Internet and seeing the changes it has undergone in recent years has also caused me to stop and think that perhaps some of the introspection, which tends to be rather personal, is better left in a notebook, (to be published posthumously or something,) but what sense does that make? There are people who can use the introspection I’m doing in my life, and have it be of benefit to them in their own lives. I can serve a good deal of people by being open about my thoughts, and by broadcasting my letters online, so that’s what I will continue to do… publish my Christmas letters online.
Will I write letters for 2004 and 2005? Maybe someday. But possibly not, and definitely not right now. 2004 was, to use a building metaphor, the year I broke ground and started digging a hole for where I could build a foundation. The challenge with digging a hole, in order to build a big building, is that you must dig the hole very deep, and, to the average onlooker, it really doesn’t look like much is happening. There are so many lessons I learned in 2004, but they won’t be written about much in this letter, for the sake of brevity (I sometimes have a challenge in conveying what I want to say in a short space). 2005 was truly incredible as well. It was a year I continued to dig a foundation, but also was a year in which I selected a lot of materials to build with. I also spent, I think, too much time in 2005 sort of floundering around… not really digging as much as I should, and also not really doing as much building as I should have been doing. However, 2005 was a year in which much of 2006 was decided, including the decision to buy a house in Parker (Colorado), the decision Carrie and I made to climb Mount Kilimanjaro in 2006, and also during the last few months of 2005, I made a very important decision that would affect the rest of my life, which I will talk about later on in this letter.
So, without further ado, here is my 2006.
In December 2005, I won a contest run by a man whom I have learned a LOT from. The contest was not difficult, and if you believe in luck (which I really don’t), then you could say that I was the luck of the draw. The prize, in the drawing that was held by Joel Comm and Shawn Collins, was a free ticket to the Affiliate Summit, in Las Vegas, January 8-11. I guess I had a bit of hesitation on attending the event. I just wanted to make sure that the three days and about $650 I was going to spend on the airfare and hotel were going to be worth it (which was a big deal at the time, since we were saving towards our big summer trip). Carrie helped me with this dilemma when she said “Why don’t you go? What’s the best that could happen?” (As I was perhaps focused on the wrong question of “what’s the worst that could happen?” I would definitely recommend finding someone as supportive as Carrie in your own life.)
I went to the Las Vegas Affiliate Summit, and it was more than worth it. I got to meet Joel Comm (who has helped me tremendously with my Internet business) and attend his workshop at the event. As an added bonus on the first day of the event, I saw another workshop put on by Dave Taylor. The three hours I spent in that event completely changed my approach to building business on the Internet, and has re-shaped how I do a lot of things online. If I had gotten nothing else out of the Affiliate Summit, these two presentations would have made the entire trip worthwhile. So, the moral of this little part of the Christmas letter is: If there is a trade show or event in your industry or field, or if there are people that you know you can learn from, and they are speaking at an event, it is completely worthwhile to make every possible effort to attend that event. In this case, it meant that I jumped on a plane, at relatively last minute’s notice, spent three nights at a hotel, and paid for a couple of meals in Las Vegas. Meeting the people I met at the Affiliate Summit completely re-shaped the direction of my online business for at least the next few years, which is priceless. So, if you can get to a trade show in your chosen career or profession, stop thinking about it and just go… Go for the people you will meet, what you can offer them, and what they can help you accomplish.
Also at the end of December 2005, Carrie moved down from Greeley to the house in Parker. In the January or February time frame, people asked us frequently what it was like to now be living together. I don’t think we really had much difficulty adjusting to living together. However, I did have to take a couple of classes on how to load the dishwasher properly. I think, after more than a year of living together, I may finally have gotten to where I understand not only how to load the dishwasher properly, but also how to make sure that I don’t load it improperly (which, I think in the long run, is just as valuable)!
Carrie and I really enjoy living where we do. We have great neighbors on either side of us, and we are close enough to be able to access whatever we want to get to, while not being right in the middle of everything. We probably won’t stay where we are now long-term, but for now, it’s close to family, is super-convenient, and the home works really well for the two of us.
February brought Carrie and I to our four-year anniversary, which we celebrated by making dinner, and eating it in front of the fire at our home. It was also the first time either of us had Port Wine. It’s really a must for any chocolate lover to try the combination of port and dark chocolate, and drinking it in front of a warm fire in the middle of winter is really an experience to be had.
I think March is when we knew that we really had to get serious about our Kilimanjaro trip. Prior to March, we had been going to the gym 2-3 times per week, as our schedules allowed, and also, that was all we really made time for in our schedules. In March, we realized that we were leaving for a long trip, part of which included a trek up one of the world’s largest mountains, and even though we had been preparing for the trip (mentally, physically, and financially), we really got serious. 5 days a week, we were in the gym. We also did the Lemonade Diet for cleansing purposes, which was a great experience. It was challenging, but was absolutely worth it, and is something I would recommend to anyone who is looking for a way to press some sort of big reset button on their body. I think we both found the lemonade diet challenging and also very worthwhile.
Carrie and I were also in a fairly serious car accident in March. We weren’t injured seriously, but both experienced a fair amount of residual pain for at least a month afterward. I got the ticket, even though I was hit by a car that was coming from behind me, and tried to go around me on the inside lane. I’m still baffled by the entire thing, including the fact that the district attorney can add an additional 4 point violation to an accident they never witnessed, simply because they don’t want to go to court. (So, I took the plea bargain.) Feel free to view the pictures (http://blog.strive4impact.com/personal-news/accident_31806.html) and draw your own conclusions. What I learned from the accident? I am fortunate to own a vehicle, be able to afford insurance, have legal advice, and that life can bring the unexpected in a very quick way, so having some sort of advance plans for unexpected events is a good idea. I’m not sure if I’m as good about this as I should be just yet, but it is something that I am working on.
A few days later in March, I found myself back in Oklahoma City again for my sixth Pre-Paid Legal convention. Carrie, Laura, Adam, and myself shared a room at the Biltmore Hotel, which isn’t the nicest of hotels, nor is it the closest to the Cox Convention Center, where the Pre-Paid Legal convention was held, but with the car rental, it turned out pretty decently. We really enjoyed the time we spent with Adam and Laura. It’s fun to get to build a business together. And we had a great showing from the team for the OKC event, which was a lot of fun.
April and May were spent really prepping for our Washington D.C./New Jersey/Amsterdam/Africa/Pennsylvania/Florida trip. In looking at the costs, I came up with this idea that to help offset the cost of the trip, we could set up sponsorship of our trip, and that for $100, any company could become a sponsor of our trip and of our web site. So if you visit www.kilimanjaro2006.com, you will see the sponsor logos rotate (in banner form) at the top right hand corner of the page. The site is currently receiving an average of 100 visits/day, so for a lot of these companies, I would say that’s $100 well spent… (Here come a bunch of numbers: We had 25 sponsors, so each one gets viewed 4x/day, 365 days/year, that’s 1300+ views/year, so for their $100, they will probably get about 4,000 views over 3 years.) I’m probably biased, but it seems like a good deal to me, and I think, if nothing else, our sponsors seemed to enjoy being “on the trip” with us. They got to “come along” via the patches Carrie made for each of our sponsors. You can see them on our shirts in our pictures.
I learned so much going through the process of promoting for the sponsorship of our trip. There are a lot of things that I think people take for granted about the way that news is created, and the way that events get recognition. All the things I learned are probably going to be saved for a different letter some time, but suffice it to say, it helps to be persistent, and to have friends who are centers of influence. My big thanks to Joel Comm, Shawn Collins, Dave Taylor, and everyone at Fox31’s Good Day Colorado, as well as to our sponsors, families, and friends, for all they did to help the trip become a reality. We certainly wouldn’t have been able to go without all the help they offered.
The big question we get, as far as the sponsorships go, is: Did you pay for your whole trip with sponsors? The answer – not even close. But we were able to offset about $3,200 of the cost with sponsors, we got discounts by buying through MooseJaw (Their slogan is “Love the Madness” and we DO love the madness!), and we got to check out some cool stuff which was sent to us by sponsors, including the Playaway Digital Ebook Players and the Solio Solar Charger. Both are pretty cool products.
We pulled an all-nighter getting ready to go, and it’s not completely that we left things to the last minute, although we did have to leave some things to the last minute.
Anyone who’s gone away for a week or two can imagine that it’s really difficult to prepare for being gone for 6 weeks, and it just seems like there were a fair number of things that couldn’t really be done until the last couple of days before we went, so the all-nighter, though perhaps not fun, let us really know that we were ready for the time we were going to be gone.
When you spend 6 weeks solid with someone, you get to know them very well. Carrie and I knew eachother very well, and outside of the time she spent in Germany, there aren’t too many days we have been apart since we first met. So traveling together, and being together pretty much constantly for six weeks wasn’t difficult for us. In fact, we really enjoyed it. I think that on the trip, we really grew to appreciate the strengths of one another, as well as learned to just be completely comfortable and appreciative with each other on a whole new level. That’s an awesome place to be with another person, and I’m really glad to have lived such an amazing experience with such a beautiful person.
There are so many things I could say about our trip… I could talk about how I came up with the idea to seek sponsors for our trip, the bumblebee at the DC Metro stop, the many amazing people who helped us along our travel, what it felt like to stand at the roof of Africa after climbing for 6 hours straight (and really 6 days solid before that), how we ended up being interviewed on Denver’s FOXTV morning show (twice), or….
But rather than tell you all about the experience, I’d rather show you. So, on our Kilimanjaro2006 site, I’ve set up a page where you can go to watch our trip, from beginning to end, in video segments that Carrie and I have put together.
One of the questions we are asked most often is what we did to prepare for the climb. Honestly, the best preparation we did for climbing Kilimanjaro was to be tourists for two weeks in Washington, D.C. Walking 6-9 miles/day got rid of the soreness for us that many people in our climbing group experienced in the first couple of days of the climb, simply because our bodies had become accustomed to doing a lot of walking from the time that we spent in D.C.
One of Carrie’s favorites from this time on the East Coast is the video from Day5 (Hint: it’s the one with the Marilyn Monroe song, about a word starting with Dia, and ending with Monds).
One thing I would like to tell you about, which you will see in the videos, is what happened when we reached the summit of the mountain. I hinted at the beginning of this letter that in the fall of 2005, I really spent some time thinking about what I wanted from my life. As part of this, I realized that the person I wanted to be with, for life, was Carrie. So sometime in December ‘05/January ’06, I decided that I was going to ask her to marry me at the top of Mount Kilimanjaro. That was one of the more difficult secrets I ever kept, and I did a really great job of it until, while staying with our friends Viliam and Julie in New Jersey (about 14 days before we would reach the summit), I sent Carrie into my backpack to look for something (don’t remember what now), and she found the envelope, inside of which was the ring and the card that I’d managed to keep hidden during the previous three weeks of our trip. I had her put the (fortunately unopened) envelope back into the backpack, and I don’t think she knew that there was a ring in the envelope, but it definitely tipped her off that something was going on. She said later that she thought it could be a proposal, and that she had hoped it was, but that she didn’t want to get her hopes up too high if that wasn’t it, so she put it out of her mind.
I’ve devoted a lot of this letter to the trip, because it was definitely the highlight of 2006. After coming back from Africa, we spent two days in Amsterdam, which was just right. We weren’t huge fans of Amsterdam. Once you’ve seen the Anne Frank House, the VanGogh Museum, a few girls in windows, and a few drunk and stoned tourists, Amsterdam sort of loses its pedestal nature. At least it did for us… And, I was either excellently pick-pocketed, or somehow lost 50 euros (about $57), so that may have contributed to our being done with Amsterdam.
Oh, by the way, we flew KLM Royal Dutch airlines, and even in coach, we felt like TOTAL royalty. If you have a choice for travel across the Atlantic, we highly recommend KLM. We arrived at Newark airport in the afternoon of July 4th, and had planned to head to Washington D.C. for fireworks, but that plan fell through for a variety of reasons, so we ended up crashing a barbecue that our friends Viliam and Julie were at, and we must have been total zombies, because we were both asleep at Viliam and Julie’s house by 9 PM on July 4th. I think I saw like three fireworks that night. (Thanks for being so flexible Viliam and Julie!) From there, we spent five days in Pennsylvania with Carrie’s cousin Angela, her husband Jay, and their son Tyler. Getting to their place included a serious detour, which we’ll tell you about sometime when we see you in person. Our time with Angela, Jay, and Tyler included a fun trip to Hershey Park, as well as the BEST Roller Coaster I’ve ever ridden. Then we flew to Orlando, Florida for three days at the second Affiliate Summit I’ve attended (Thanks Shawn Collins)! After three days there, Carrie’s aunt Jerry and uncle Terry came and picked us up, and we stayed with them for four days. Those were very fun days, and included alligators, a trip to NASA headquarters, and a visit with Carrie’s aunt Terry and uncle Harold who came to visit us at Terry and Jerry’s.
Then, we got on a plane, and as much as we loved the travel, we were also very happy to be back to our home, which was very well taken care of by Deanna, Mom and Dad, Carrie’s mom, and Beck. Thanks everyone! (And to anyone who did ANYTHING to help with the trip who I’ve inadvertently left out, THANK-YOU!!!)
After we got back from our trip in mid-July, Adam (my brother) told me about Matt and his world travel (http://www.wherethehellismatt.com) whose entire experience was sponsored by Stride gum, and who did a lot more traveling than we did. Needless to say, it was highly motivational, and it got Carrie and I thinking about how we will be spending our next big adventure. Getting married is first on the list, but traveling is definitely high up the priority chain. You’ll be able to follow all of our travels together on our new site: www.carrieandjonathan.com.
August was spent doing nothing. Just kidding. But relative to the rest of the year, we used August as a time to just get back home, and really remember that we actually lived somewhere that didn’t involve removing clothing from a backpack.
In September, I was very excited to win tickets to another conference, the World Internet Summit, because of a call I was on with Brett McFall and Dave Taylor. (Thanks Brett and yet again, Dave.) This worked out so nicely, because I was going to be in Vegas Sunday-Tuesday for a Pre-Paid Legal convention anyway. The PPL Convention was incredible, and then Wednesday I caught a shuttle to the airport, rented a car, and my dad flew in and met me for the World Internet Summit on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. I loved the conference, learned a TON, met some awesome people, got to hang out with some really smart Internet people, which I enjoyed greatly, and really, more than anything else, loved getting to spend the time with my Dad.
Check out my Dad’s web sites sometime… www.thesolarplan.com/news and www.rulesforthegame.com.
In October of 2006, I realized that there were a great deal of things going on in the Internet world regarding video and video broadcasting. This phenomenon not only excited me, but helped me realize something.
I spend a lot of time helping people answer questions about how to do stuff on the Internet and on their computers. The thought went something like this: What if I could make little screen capture videos of what I was doing to help one person, and use it to help hundreds of people, through the power of video broadcasting online? That thought eventually expanded to: What if there were a single site on the Internet, kind of like howstuffworks, or ehow, but more inclusive of all “experts” with some knowledge of how to do something, where anyone could go to see videos dealing with How To type content. Any Video How To, about anything you could possibly want to do, would be on this web site. You would not just be seeing the “How To”, but you could actually have someone show you how to do it. And, the site would actually email you when new “How-to’s,” in whatever category you were interested in, showed up on the site.
Well, I began working on it, and discovered that there are several sites out there which do just that. Aside from the YouTube, Google Video, and Metacafe giants out there, there are also some smaller sites which are very specific about the type of “How-to” help they offer.
However, none of them really seem adequately set up to organize all of the content that is available in the How-To arena. So, the site has been a fair amount of work, but with Carrie’s help, and some outsourced workers, we’re now up to over 7500 videos (and counting) on how to do… well… everything. These videos have come from experts all over the web, and congruently, all over the world.
Check it out at www.showmehowtodothis.com. I think you will enjoy it, and I would love any feedback you would like to provide. Also, if you would like to have a how-to made for you, the site allows you to ask questions and have people make videos to show you “how to.” So, feel free to ask any “How-to” type questions you have. Maybe I’ll even make you a video!
In October, my friend Jason, and his now wife Gina, got married in Destin FL, so Carrie and I flew down to Pensacola, rented a car, and drove to Destin (because it was like $600 cheaper – and not that much longer – to do it that way). Watching Jason get married was awesome, and his new bride Gina is really someone whom I hope we’ll get to spend more time with. Carrie and I really enjoyed the time they took (in the midst of what was likely wedding craziness) to spend with us. Destin was also BEAUTIFUL, and is a destination Carrie and I would like to return to, just to lay on the beach, and maybe swim with dolphins, for a couple of days. You can see the pictures that Carrie and I took interspersed with Mike’s pictures and Jason’s pictures from the wedding at http://www.fortners.us/jason/jasGalleries.aspx?GalleryName=WeddingPictures.
Seeing Jason get married (and later hearing that he’s going to be a dad – CONGRATULATIONS!) makes me realize that yes, it is inevitable. We’re becoming more mature. At least one would hope that’s the case. I plan on never getting old, because old is a mindset, but hopefully we will become wiser over time. The time that Carrie and I got to spend with Jason and Gina, and their families, and our other good friend Mike, was awesome. Congratulations again J+G!
Our final bigger travel for the year was in November, when we flew to Texas to visit my brother and sister-in-law in their new home, north of The Woodlands, TX. The home they have built there is very beautiful, accenting both their styles and tastes, giving them and their dogs the room to explore and have fun! It was inspiring to see them turn their dreams into reality, and we loved our time in Texas with Brian and Jamie. It was different not to be in Colorado, as I think that I have been in Colorado for every Thanksgiving since I was born, but it was really fun to cook a huge feast with Brian, Jamie, and Carrie! We plan to get back to Texas for a visit some time very soon.
Despite the crazy snowstorms we’ve all seemed to have this year, Christmas brought everyone together in Colorado (even though Brian and Jamie had to make a last minute decision to drive) for a very nice fondue Christmas Eve dinner at my parent’s house, and a very wonderful holiday season.
I have learned so much in 2006, and this letter is already 8 (single-spaced) pages in Microsoft Word, so I’ll begin wrapping up here, but two of the very most important lessons I have learned in 2006 are seemingly small, but they have been very helpful to me, so maybe they can be for you too.
1) The quality of your life is determined by the quality of the questions you ask yourself and others. We sure do spend a lot of time beating ourselves up over things, and this mental fight leads to a lot of things that we say to ourselves, perhaps leading us to be critical of others, and definitely leading us to be less effective than ought to be. So many people spend so much time asking crazy questions; things like “Where are my keys?”, “Why am I so stupid?”, and “Why did this have to happen to me?” are very common questions. When you ask questions, especially of yourself, all you get are responses. So, one of the best things I have been learning to do is to ask better questions. It’s not always easy, but it is always worthwhile. An example of this can be seen in the example where instead of asking yourself “Why did this have to happen to me?” you instead ask the question, “What’s good about this situation?” Just a small shift in the question can make such a huge difference in the way you react to the situation at hand. It did for us in the March car accident for sure.
2) Gurus are real people too. I have, in some circles, become a guru of sorts on the topic of Identity Theft, and have witnessed people be almost afraid to approach me because of the reputation of being an expert. I remember being afraid to approach experts too, but in 2006, I have had the opportunity to hang out with some of my gurus. Patrick Shaw, Joel Comm, Dave Taylor, Shawn Collins… and others. These are all people I consider to be “gurus” in different fields. In 2006, I also feel like these people became my friends. More than anything else, what changed is that I stopped viewing “guru” people as somehow being on a different level than me, and started realizing that they are people with hopes, dreams, fears, fantasies, and goals that they want to accomplish. The best way to learn from these people is to find ways to be of service to them. You likely have someone in your life whom you consider to be a “guru” of something that you want in your life. If you can find a way to be of service to them, they are more likely to be able to help you and teach you what they know. All a guru really is anyway, is someone who knows how to put you in touch with the right information for what it is that you’re seeking. And you’re likely to get this help from your “guru” if you’re able to be of service to them. Your experience may vary, but that has been, I think, one of the best things I learned in 2006, because it made me realize that I can approach anyone to ask for help, and if I come to the situation with an understanding that I may have to help them first, there’s literally no one whose help I can’t get. (Unless they won’t give it… in which case, it’s their loss anyway.)
One of the things I’m re-learning at the end of 2006, and into 2007, is something that I will be working on. This is remembering my ability to take time away from working, to just focus on me. Whether this be taking time to go for a walk or to the gym, or to listen to some music and focus on my breathing, this is time that I am learning I really have to have. You may not think you need it, but I am of the impression that everyone needs time for personal solitude, to just listen to what their own spirit is telling them, and I really feel like I’ve neglected that place in me, in off and on intervals, over the past three years or so.
Taking this time daily to just listen to the sounds around me, and to mentally create what I want my life to look like, is probably one of the most important tasks I can do to have a successful marriage, a productive business, and a significant life. So that will be one thing I will focus on in 2007.
What else does 2007 hold? Well, Carrie will graduate with her Master’s Degree in Linguistics in May, we will, of course, get married in the fall, and there is already lots of travel on the calendar! Again, you can watch all of it from our new site at www.carrieandjonathan.com
With that, I see that I’ve wrapped to page 9, and this letter is getting really long, so I will end it here.
However, I want to thank-you so much for your friendship, for the opportunity to be of service, for the love you’ve extended, and for your encouragement of us (Carrie and I) in the achievement of our dreams. (And I would be very remiss if I didn’t thank you for the time you’ve taken to read this letter)!
Here is to taking time for personal reflection and achieving all the significance you can in the lives of others, in 2007.
Peace Always,
Jonathan