It’s quite common knowledge now that Madeleine Albright discovered the extent of her Jewish roots later on in her life. This book was an effort to better understand those roots. It led to some painful discoveries. She lost a lot of family members during the Holocaust. But it also offers a fascinating story for a book. With the combination of family involvement in politics, extended family suffering due to being Jewish, and Albright’s desire to know all aspects of these connections, this book provides an incredible understanding of the war from a particular country in the midst of the battle.

It was also amazing to learn about what happened immediately after the war. Germans and Hungarians were kicked out of Czechoslovakia. The Communists gained power. One foreign power was pretty much traded for a new foreign power. Yet none of this ultimately destroyed the spirit of the Czech population.

I recommend this book to anyone with Czech roots or anyone who is interested in learning more about the WWII years. Albright was in London during the war, so you receive a Czech and British point of view of the war years. You come to understand what it meant to live in each of those countries during the war years as both a Jewish citizen and as a non-Jewish citizen.

I was thinking the other day about what it would have been like had they captured Hitler alive. What if the judge had required a family representative for each Jewish person who was killed to personally confront Hitler and tell the story about that person. I don’t think there would have been enough time in Hitler’s life to have had heard every story.

That Maxima was such a great car. It had a stick shift, black leather interior, Bose stereo, SE edition, and was fast. The car went on quite a few trips to Florida, one to Ohio and another to Texas.

I had a lot of great memories in that car. It’s amazing how a car can last through so many changes in life. From college, to trips to the Florida-Georgia games in Jacksonville, to driving to my first job, to taking trips with my wife.

The reason I sold it is because my wife and I can get by with just one car. We live in the city. I walk to work and she works from home. We can usually work out our schedules to where we can get by with just a car. And if we ever need it, we can also use a car with Zipcar. We have 5 available Zipcars wihtin a few blocks of our place.

Apparently, this is a trend with “millennials.” We want to live in areas where we can walk to work, to restaurants, and to basic places like grocery stores. We simply won’t do traffic.

So, although I’m a little bummed about selling the car, I’m excited about the move to one car.

I started reading the New York Times at the beginning of 2001. It was required reading for my business law class taught by Dr. Marissa Pagnattarro at the University of Georgia. She was one of my favorite professors at UGA. It was an incredible year to begin reading the New York Times.

In March of 2001, I was to head to China during spring break. I knew some people studying there and I was to spend 3 days in Beijing and 6 days in Chengdu. At the beginning of 2001, there were some major news stories dealing with the Chinese government’s response to the Falun Gong religious group. During these tense months, members of Falun Gong lit themselves on fire right in Tienanmen Square. I was about to go to Tienanmen Square. Eric Eckholm was the journalist who covered these moments in China. I eagerly anticipated articles from Eric and clipped many of them out in order to share with the other students who would travel to China.

After my law class at UGA ended, I continued reading the Times. The thing I enjoyed most was their International coverage. I was studying International Business and I enjoyed reading articles written by journalists who were actually in the countries they were writing about.

Then came September 11. I remember that the September 11 edition of the Times actually had an article where Osama Bin Laden was named. I remember going out to get the paper on September 12th still hoping that the previous day’s events had just been some sort of a horrible dream. They weren’t.

My attachment to the Times grew after September 11th. The Times began having two pages of the paper dedicated to Portraits of the Sept 11th deceased. I remember getting teary-eyed almost every morning as I jumped first to the Portraits section and read little snippets of lives lost. It would tear me up. I bought the book that contains all Portraits of the 3,000+ people who lost their lives that day.

Soon after this, I began reading books that the New York Times’ op-ed columnists had written. My 3 favorite op-ed columnists were Nicholas Kristof, Thomas Friedman, and David Brooks.

I started reading Kristof first. He had written about China and Asia and I read through those books during my time of wanting to know more about China. One line really stuck out to me from one of his books. Kristof and his wife were in China during the Tienanmen Square massacre in 1989. He said that journalism is the only field where you run towards the very situation in which everyone else is running away from.

Next was Thomas Friedman and his book The Lexus and the Olive Tree. I attribute my basic understanding of the global shifts that took place from the Cold War to our recent times to that book. It was as if the knowledge I gained in college studying international business came together with macro forces affecting the world and business. He helped it all make sense.

But Friedman’s other book, The World is Flat, had such an impact on me that I began studying for the GMAT pretty soon after finishing that book. I realized that I needed to and wanted to go to Grad school to learn more about international business. I needed to get better at my skill set in order to compete with the ever expanding pool of talented workers around the world. There have been a few books in my life that immediately led me to make a big decision. This was one of them.

David Brooks was the other columnist I really enjoyed. He was witty and his books were hilarious critiques of American life.

But in the last 2-3 years, I began noticing a big change in the news coverage in the New York Times. I know a lot of it had to do with my views leaning more towards the right. But I truly believe that the Times also began focusing their articles solely from a liberal/left point of view. Maybe I’m just naive and I missed it the whole time from 2001 – 2011, but it seemed to me like every article in the paper came from a strong, no, very strong liberal and left viewpoint. I understand that newspapers have an opinion section and that those sections usually lean one way or the other. The problem happens when the opinion section creeps into the main section and onto the front page.

The final kicker happened last year. I canceled my New York Times subscription. I didn’t want to. I used to look forward to coffee and the Times early each morning. And the Sunday Times, well, that was just a little piece of heaven. But the July 31st Sunday NY Times set me off. One article in the opinion section started with this statement:

“Barack Obama can’t catch a break from the American public on the economy, even though he prevented a depression and saved global capitalism.”
– Stanley R. Greenberg – Chief Executive of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, a polling company that works with center-left political parties in the United States and abroad.

“…prevented a depression and saved global capitalism?” Really? My disappointment had been building, but this sentence threw me over the edge.

It came to the point where I felt that the Times was blatantly and knowingly lying to the public. I was especially incensed at the economic coverage of the paper. They should know better. The basic premise of every article was that Obama’s economic stimulus worked and that it was the right thing to do. That premise was never questioned.

That was not the only unquestioned premise. There were many others. Any story that fit the NY Times left storyline was given unbelievable coverage. I know this happens in every newspaper. I thought the most respected paper in the world might have a bit of a higher standard. Especially since the price for the paper was over $650 per year. I obviously thought wrong. The paper has op-ed columnists like Paul Krugman and Maureen Dowd. They are disgraces to the world of journalism.

I have been to a number of countries around the world and the unfortunate fact is that most of what the world reads about the United States comes from the New York Times, or from papers who reprint or mimic the NY Times articles. The NY Times even has their own sister paper, the International Herald Tribune, that is the international voice for the NY Times. The NY Times is one voice, but it’s not the only voice. The other voice just isn’t getting told around the world.

My idea is that I would collect all of the golden tickets from all of the students and then we would go in and make purchases together.

To this day, I’m not sure how I did this, but I convinced every member of the class to follow me on this idea. Everyone submitted their golden tickets. The good kids with 5 golden tickets gave their tickets to me as did the other students with 1 or 2 tickets.

I was in a good spot. I had a desk full of golden tickets. The inevitable day came where we were we could all purchase from the school supply store with our golden tickets. We all decided together that we would all get erasers. But there was a problem. There were not enough golden tickets for an eraser for each student.

I don’t recall my exact punishment, but I do remember getting in trouble.

I’m not sure why I thought collecting all of these tickets would be a good idea. Perhaps I thought the bigger pile of golden tickets would better impress the school-supply store owner. They didn’t. Perhaps I convinced the students that we would be able to buy bigger and better things together with all of the golden tickets. We couldn’t. Or perhaps, I discovered greed and preyed on the poor suckers in my class.

I learned a number of lessons that day. One, is that you can’t pool money so that everyone gets what everyone wants. Two, golden tickets collected and piled together don’t somehow create more value on their own. And three, happiness produced by a deskful of other classmate’s golden tickets doesn’t last very long.

What’s great is that we get to play music together. She usually plays the guitar or piano while signing and I join in on the violin or guitar. We did three trips with Avanti last year to locations all around Europe. For one stretch of 5 weeks, we lived in England while traveling to different countries each weekend for events. It was a lot of fun, very meaningful, and great for our marriage.

It’s also very neat for me personally. I took my first international trip while in high school and it left a lasting impression. I went to Mexico with my youth group. I was fascinated by the new culture. I also found that I learned a lot about the United States while being abroad.

After that trip and subsequent international trips, I decided to choose a career where I’d have the opportunity to continue traveling. I chose International Business. I then worked in the international division of an apparel company and did over 20 international trips while there.

To now be able to go on international trips with my wife is something I really never dreamed of and I’m looking forward to more in the future.

It all started in the 7th grade at the annual talent show. I remember this vividly. One of the 8th graders got up on stage with an electric guitar and played some riffs on the guitar. A few weeks later, a friend of mine was doing a music report on the band Van Halen. As part of the presentation, he had brought in Van Halen’s Live album from 1993. He said he didn’t like the album and would be willing to sell it to me for $5.

I didn’t know much about Van Halen at that time other than knowing some of their biggest hits. I remember thinking that even those hits were a little cheesy. But I put in this live album when I got home and I heard some of the riffs that the 8th-grader had played in the talent show. But this guitar solo on this Van Halen live album was unlike anything I had ever heard. It was 12 minutes long and it blew me away.

I had a friend at that time whose brother was a huge Van Halen fan. He had the live concert video. I remember watching Eddie play the guitar on that video and I was mesmerized. For the first song, Eddie Van Halen took a drill and let the electronic waves of the drill make a sound through his electric guitar. Who thinks of that? And to watch Eddie perform his guitar solo on this video was just unbelievable.

I made it a point right then to learn how to play that solo on the guitar.

And that is what I set out to do. I found a guitar teacher who happened to be the youth pastor at my church. I walked in the first day and said I wanted to learn how to play the 12 minute Eddie Van Halen solo. I have a strong music background, so I knew it wasn’t totally out of reach.

I spent the next 6 months learning that solo. I learned how to finger tap before learning most chords. I didn’t bother with scales as they weren’t necessary in the solo. At the end of 6 months, I pretty much had the solo down. There are still some parts that are near impossible to mimic because Eddie is so talented. I can still play the solo.

But, from there, I picked up the acoustic guitar. Because of Eddie, I led the music at my high school youth group, college ministry, played guitar in weddings, in restaurants and bars, and now all over the world with my wife. I don’t know that I would have picked up the guitar to that extent had it not been for Eddie Van Halen.

While learning Eddie’s solo, I quickly picked up every Van Halen album available. Over the past 10+ years, I have seen Van Halen perform live 3 times. Once with Sammy Hagar. Once with Gary Cherone. And once with David Lee Roth.

I first heard Van Halen on their live album with Sammy Hagar, so Hagar continues to be my favorite Van Halen singer of them all. Hagar had a great line in the Van Halen Live video. He said, “to sing from the heart is the most direct form of communication.” He went on to say that painting or playing an instrument creates a barrier between the feeling and the output, whereas with singing, it is just straight out of you as a person. I thought that was a cool way of looking at it.

In 2007, I took a trip to Cabo San Lucas and went to Cabo Wabo. That was pretty cool. No one from Van Halen was there, but it was cool to be in Mexico where Van Halen and Sammy the Red Rocker had performed a number of times.

Last year, I read an article about Eddie that saddened me deeply. The article described Eddie in just a horrible state. He would wake up and start drinking, speak incoherently, and pretty much just waste away. I was saddened because in some strange way I care about the guy. He had such a big impact on my life and I hated reading about him wasting away with alcohol.

I had a great experience just a few weeks ago in Florida. I was driving down the road and was flipping through channels. I knew the newest Van Halen album was set to be released in the near future, but I didn’t know that any of the songs were out yet. While flipping radio stations, I heard a song come on that sounded like David Lee Roth. The guitars were just playing the main melody, so I hadn’t heard anything that identified the song as Van Halen. That is until the solo. It was classic Eddie. I had chills and I turned up the volume even more. The song was Tattoo. It was just a brilliant experience. Here, I thought Van Halen was over. I thought I had heard the last new song by Van Halen. And here they are jamming away like it was the 80′s. Eddie can still kick out a solo.

I purchased the new album last week and am enjoying Tattoo and Stay Frosty. Stay Frosty reminds me of Ice Cream Man from Van Halen’s first album. That was the album with Eruption. That was the album that launched a thousand guitarists.

I know the media likes to poke fun at Tebow’s faith, but his faith is real. This is not a fad in Tim’s life. It is his life.

That is an overriding theme of this book. I think a lot of people look at Tebow and think that now that he has this huge platform, he’s trying to push his faith on everyone. That’s not it at all. This is Tim Tebow. This is how he has been since he was young. His parents and family have had an extraordinary impact on him and they are all the real deal. Fame has not all of a sudden turned him into a new proselytizer.

I enjoyed reading this book and was really inspired by Tim’s life. Here are some of the topics that stuck out to me:

Parenting

Tebow’s parents did some really smart things with their children for the purpose of building character. For instance, they instituted a rule whereby the children were not allowed to talk about themselves unless someone brought up the topic first. Another thing was that the children were given $1 if someone complimented that child on an issue of character and humility. And after winning huge football games, Tim’s parents would praise him more for the kind things he did with children before and after the game than his performance on the field.

Football

I told a friend the other day that reading Tebow’s book was similar to reading the book about Steve Jobs. College football and Apple products have been a steady part of my life over the past 10 years. So, it’s amazing to read about the development process of an Apple product that I use. Similarly, this book has a lot of commentary on big college football games. These are games that I watched. It’s really neat to read Tebow’s point of view about these big games. You also learn about things you had no idea were going on during a particular game. The emotions, the pain, the relationships. You usually read people’s books after their careers are over. It was neat reading a book from someone who is really just starting at least at the professional level.

Work Ethic

I liked reading about Tebow’s philosophy on why he works so hard. If God gave him a particular talent, then he is going to develop that talent to the fullest. It’s like Steve Prefontaine’s famous quote:

“To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.”

Here is how Tebow says it:

“I may say I’m playing for my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. True. But it’s not just that. It’s about going out every day, in every setting, and working hard. It’s about being dedicated and playing hard because I honestly believe God receives joy when He sees me doing that with the skills he blessed me with. When you, too, do that, He sees you living the life He has given you and loving and respecting the abilities He’s given you by working as hard as you possibly can to improve them.

He also constantly quotes this voice in his head that says:

“Somewhere he is out there, training while I am not. One day, when we meet, he will win.”

Leadership

Tebow is relatively young but is constantly described as wise beyond his years. You really see that come through in this book. As the quarterback, he has a huge influence on the team around him. He really cares about the other guys on the team, cares about their souls and cares about their change to optimize their abilities. It seems as though Tebow can walk on to a team and completely change the dynamic of a team. Guys want to follow him. Guys want to work harder because of him. And Tebow takes this in stride by working as hard or harder than anyone else on the team.

The Media

The media has constantly told Tebow he couldn’t do it. What’s interesting is that it seems like Tebow is harder on himself than any member of the media could ever be on him. Therefore, the chatter doesn’t really affect him. If anything, the negativity pushes him harder. He answers to God and to Tim Tebow. I’m sure he’s affected by some things, but his focus is in the right place so that he’s not rocked by negative comments.

Overall, I recommend this book to people who want to get to know the real Tim Tebow. If you are a college football fan, especially an SEC fan, then this book will be hard to put down. I was also encouraged in my faith by reading this book.

Having worked for myself and for the man, and seeing the current job situation, today’s worker must be more versatile than even just a few years ago.

My friend Jacob Dearolph put it well the other day. The modern worker must be comfortable working for a company and comfortable working for themselves. They must be willing to take a job when the right one comes around but also be able to make it on their own should they not get hired or should it be time for them to move on. I’ve seen so many people stuck in their jobs. They aren’t learning anything new. They hate their bosses. But they have nothing else to go to.

Likewise, there are many people out of college now who can’t get work. Instead of joining occupy protests, they should be learning how to start their own company. They should be moving ahead with an idea, a product, or a service and figuring out how to serve people with that good or service. People pay for goods or services that create value.

I had a meeting with a client recently where she described a colleague who refused to use social media with the company because he said he was an accountant and not a marketer. These sort of distinctions are not really possible in this day in age. And in the future, that accountant is going to have a harder time competing against accountants who do understand marketing.

At the core, this shift in thinking has to do with marketing. Whether someone works for a company or for themselves, they are building a brand. At a company, they are building the company’s brand. For themselves, they are building their own brand or their own company brand. The shift here is that even when someone is working at a company, they need to be building their own brand. They need to be learning new skill sets and realizing that they may need to use these skills working for themselves some day.