Are You Ready for This?

Today is February 20. I’m sitting in the studio. It’s a gloomy day.

I moved here on February 5, just over six weeks after touchdown in the United States. 

I took down all the boxes from the rafters in my garage in Fresno, opened them up and went through everything I lived without for the past year. The truth is, I don’t really need any of this. I lived out of a backpack for 11 months. I could still do that, but it’s nice to have some stuff, especially more than three pairs of underwear.

Driving around California for six weeks was special and important. Unwinding. Decompressing. No…really, I was wound and compressed. Shaky. Rock solid.

I’ve told a lot of the same stories and some only once. I can’t tell any one person all of them, but I can tell a lot of people some of them. It’s like telling stories about some other person, a long time ago. A distant memory recalled.

My car at full capacity I pulled away from my house, with everything, for the third time. First leaving California for Virginia in 2005. The second, last January, and now. Each is seared into my mind and memory, years gone by shrinking in the distance. It’s like the feeling when you have one foot on the dock and one foot on the boat as it slips away.

I stopped in Visalia to visit with my beloved sister who made me cookies. In Los Angeles I picked up forever dear friend and electric Gypsy Rocker Melissa Ivey, visiting from Denver for a few gigs in her native Sunny California. She’s 5’3” and barely fit in my car.

We parked on Wawona Drive in Point Loma seven minutes ahead of schedule, promptly greeted by new training partners Lindsay Barto and Nate Browne. –>This is serious shit.

Moving in. Setting up HQ. Trips to Wally World. Catching up with Melissa and watching her hypnotize an audience at Jimmy Love’s.

That weekend I headed up to El Eh and SaMo for a Sigma Nu staff bro-reunion and Chinese New Year with friends for life. You really shouldn’t miss those. They don’t come by often, and they matter. Do you ever ask yourself what’s really important?

Back in SD I met up with Candice, a favourite Canadian gal I’d met in Australia, Thailand and Spain. Now coaching collegiate water polo she had a tournament at UCSD, and water polo chicks are savage. Q: How many people do you see in four different countries in four corners of the world in less than a year? A: One.

“Settled”

I have a room now, with a bed and a desk. A dresser and a closet…with clothes in them. Shoes, athletic equipment and coffee grinder. I grind my own beans. It feels great.

I’m at the Round Two Creative Group studio, where I work now, with Lindsay and business partner Laura. Over eight days we’ve hammered out upcoming projects, from the book to Round2 web designs to a secret project soon to be revealed. It might melt your face off. But don’t take my word for it, ask Superman.

You don’t want white rice with old carrots and dijon mustard for lunch? No problem. Just go make a few sales.

There’s no one here to tell you what to do, or how. There’s no instruction manual. There’s no HR or email signature policy or employee benefits package.

But there is roll call, it’s at 0545. There are high-speed bicycle pursuits through downtown San Diego. There are extras.

There is a white board; and ideas. And those aren’t nothing.

***

It’s on. I’m here for one reason: to crush. Overnight success doesn’t sit around much.

Are you ready for this?