I’m generally content with the path I’m on in life. But recently I’ve had minimal patience for life’s little hassles, which can instantly trigger some very black moods. Today it happened when I was writing an email to a client of Darren’s and mine and asked for his editing help. This turned out like it did when I used to ask my mom to edit my high school essays, and they came back marked up with red ink. Much scowling ensued.

Me to Darren: Will you take a look at this email before I send it?

Darren: Yeah! (Reading the email) I think that you could emphasize X here instead of Y….

Me: (Giving him the evil eye) Well, why don’t you send it yourself, then? I’m late for yoga. (Storms off)

Of course when one irritation happens, there are only more to come. My car, which has had trouble starting in the intense afternoon heat, didn’t care that I was already late for yoga and decided not to start for me. I refuse to drive Darren’s flagging Ford Escort, with its cracked windshield and skewed alignment that forces you to turn the wheel to 2:00 just to drive straight. (Yes, we be classy.)

So I stomped back into the house, announced that I would be missing yoga because the damn car wouldn’t start, and I would be going to the gym instead. I closed the door loudly for emphasis. It wasn’t quite a slam. I mean, I’m not juvenile or anything.

I knew that I needed to unravel the anger ball before I went back home, for Darren’s benefit and my own health. So here are the five things I did.

1. Spent some time alone.

When I get into a mood like that, woe to anyone within a mile radius of the dark cloud over my head. As an introvert, I like to spend some time by myself each day, and it’s nice to give Darren a break, too. We spend most of every day sitting six feet away from each other in our home office, after all.

2. Sprinted for 10 minutes to dance music.

Fortunately, there’s an air-conditioned indoor track at my gym, or else I might have fainted in the Mississippi heat, which wouldn’t have done much to improve my mood. When I feel anxious or angry, running at maximum speed satisfies the fight-or-flight instinct and takes my mind off my troubles. (Plus, I am in love with the Chris Brown song “I Can Transform Ya.”)

3. Grabbed an Oprah magazine that someone had generously left at the gym and found something inspiring to read.

I hit the stationary bike and turned to a personal narrative series called “The Breast Cancer Monologues.” I read a piece by Kelly Corrigan, wife to Edward and mother to two young girls, who is trying to throw one of them a birthday party despite coping with her illness. She wrote the piece in second person, which put me easily in her shoes.

Then, between calls to medical centers, long sessions on breastcancer.org, and emails to work colleagues, Edward says, “We’re not gonna do the party, right? It’s too much.” But you say, “No! She has to have it!” because you are feeling magnanimous and like you can’t possibly let cancer have its way with your daughter’s first real birthday party. He says, “She’ll never even remember it.”

“I will,” you say.

Cue humbled tears and counted blessings.

4. Back at home, ate a good meal and watched some comedy.

Darren, being the good man that he is, had recorded Seinfeld for us. “I thought you’d like to watch something funny,” he said. He made a butternut squash ravioli dish with garlic alfredo sauce, veggies, and sausage, and he gave me a big hug despite my quite uncalled-for heinous wenchiness. The episode of Seinfeld was the one in which Elaine, Jerry, and George all botch their volunteer jobs with senior citizens, and of course it cracked me up.

5. Caught up with a dear friend.

One of my oldest friends, Miss Katherine Rose McGuire, called unexpectedly just to exchange life updates. We became friends on November 19th, 1993, at a youth leadership retreat in Sonoma County, and we not only finished middle school together, but attended the same small high school and college as well. It’s comforting to talk with someone who has seen me at my best and my worst and has stuck with me through all of it. We can still laugh together as if we’re 13 years old, and to me that is priceless.

With all of these efforts, I am pleased to report that I unraveled the anger ball tonight. Tomorrow there may be another, or the next day. But I will be ready for it. I’ve found that time alone, music and exercise, inspirational reading, good food, comedy, and dear friends are remedies for anything that ails me. And if all else fails, I’ll find myself an episode of Sex & the City to watch. That’s a cure-all that works every time.

Your Two Cents: Leave a Comment!

What are your favorite ways to cheer yourself up?Similar Posts:

• Looking Back and Moving Forward: One Year Later
• Do Unto Yourself As You Would Do Unto Others
• Where I’ve Been Lately

As much as I’ve intended to blog regularly, life has gotten in the way since last November. One of the main obstacles is that I’ve been doing writing and other communications for a living, and I don’t have a lot of energy left for my own writing. Plus, when too much time passes between posts there seems to be too much to say, so I don’t say anything at all. C’est la vie. Here I am now.

The months since December have been so wild for me that I can best explain them in terms of my vision collage. This is an exercise that I like to do around New Year’s, to visualize what I want for my life in the coming 12 months, and to set my intentions accordingly. And guess what? It seems to work.

Here’s what I put in my collage, and how it’s showed up in my life since January.

1. Play. The photo in the upper left corner shows children puddle jumping, with the words “Youth is in your genes. Reactivate it.”

I’m lucky that Darren and I work from home and can be goofy with each other throughout the day. He loves five-year-old potty humor almost as much as I do, which helps.

2. Music. The pink guitar represents my desire for more music in my life: my own, and others’.

Through practice, I’ve learned the fine art of listening to music while I work, although I used to need complete silence. This is how I’ve discovered bands like Iron and Wine on Pandora. I’ve taken the time to play a bit of guitar and piano now and then, especially when I need a 10-minute break from work. This is another upside of working from home, because in an office, I doubt that my cubicle neighbors would appreciate my vocal stylings.

3. Books. Though I read a lot of articles online, I hadn’t sat down and read a book for a great long while except for on the plane.

I’ve been getting in the habit of reserving the last half hour of my day for curling up in bed with a book, and I’ve finished a few, including The Help, Switch, and What the Dog Saw (I’m a sucker for books about business and sociological trends). I’m halfway through Elizabeth Gilbert’s Committed, and though of course it can’t match Eat, Pray, Love, I still adore her.

4. Money. Last year, I had enough but could have felt more comfortable. Darren and I lived very simply while we were both getting our freelance work going, and we didn’t have many luxuries. I wanted to become more financially stable so we could travel more (particularly to see our loved ones) and indulge in the things that made us happy. Of course I’d like to do more practical, boring things as well, like pay off our private school student loans and save up to buy a house.

A couple of things happened to put us in a better spot financially. His design and my writing picked up through word of mouth, enough for us to employ a few freelancers as contractors. We ended up incorporating as Fresh Press Creative, a brand that we’re growing slowly. The picture on the collage of a couple canoodling, sipping coffee, and working on laptops at the same time pretty much captures a day in the home office for us.

The second thing was a windfall: We were chosen to be in a “customer testimonial” commercial for our phone carrier, Cellular South. A friend of ours, Tom Beck, is married to the Marketing Director, who recommended us to the fancy New York ad agency creating the series. We were invited to become part of a pool of 30-or-so applicants (three stories would be selected). Based on our personalities, our “look,” and our Cell South story, we were chosen to fly to LA and do a one-day shoot. It was an amazing experience that I’d still like to document in writing. I can say that I miss having a personal hair and makeup artist, and it was nice being referred to as “The Talent.”

That’s all to say that we got paid for the commercial and get royalties as long as it airs; Cell South is finally phasing it out after five months of airtime. Did I mention that it premiered during the Super Bowl in the Southern states that Cell South serves? AND that the Saints won? Watch the commercial here.

We’re not rolling in cash money by any stretch of the imagination, but we don’t have to live freelance check to freelance check anymore. We’re still working on our own avoidance issues around money, but we realize that we need to learn to have some relationship with our money if we want it to stick around.

5. Love. Well, I already had that, but I put a picture of a bride and groom on my New Year’s vision collage because I really wanted to get engaged.

As luck would have it, I did. Darren proposed on our second anniversary, February 3rd, at Amerigo, our favorite local Italian restaurant. The wedding will be at the end of next February here in Jackson, Mississippi, and we’ll do a California reception later in the spring. I cannot tell you how happy I feel when I look at my sparkly engagement ring, a family heirloom.

6. Home. Darren’s former bachelor pad was getting too small for the both of us, especially because he had his desk set up in the bedroom and couldn’t separate work time from down time.

In January, Darren found a post on Craigslist for a townhouse five blocks south of our apartment. We toured it, fell in love with the hardwood floors and amenities (a dishwasher! a washer and dryer!) and signed on it the next day. We now have a home office downstairs and a bedroom upstairs, so there’s a clear delineation between work space and living space.

7. Food. We’d gotten into a bit of a cooking rut, so I’d hoped to get more creative with our meals.

Darren and I bought a couple of Real Simple magazines and a Cooking Light weeknight meals book that contain quick, healthy recipes with few ingredients. They have helped immensely, because sometimes we just need new ideas.

8. Organization. Both of us are typical “messy creatives” who seem to attract piles of clutter in our work and personal spaces.

This is a work in progress, as I’m still finding homes for everything. We may pay an organizational consultant for a couple of hours just to tell us what storage solutions we need. In the meantime, I’m making the bed every day and picking up after myself frequently.

9. Travel to Beautiful Places. ‘Nuff said.

I absolutely, positively don’t know how this happened, but I was able to visit China, Israel, and Puerto Rico for different work trips within the span of two months. I hadn’t been out of North America since 2007, so it blew my mind to pack such major travels into such a short time. The China trip was for the tour operator Pacific Delight Tours, where I contribute to the company blog (I’m documenting the trip in a series of posts), and Darren accompanied me at a companion rate. IDEA took me to Israel and Puerto Rico for education work, and I loved seeing such completely different cultures.

10. Gratitude, Self-Care, and Joy. I am constantly reminding myself to enjoy life instead of taking it so seriuosly. I chose words like “Live Your Best Life…It’s your life…so enjoy it,” and “Make a conscious decision to appreciate yourself every day.” (Thank you, Oprah Magazine.)

I’d say that while I still have my periods of melancholy, they don’t last as long as they once did. When I’m able to get enough sleep, I feel much more capable of dealing with life’s curveballs and the times where I bite off more than I can chew (a habit I have yet to break). Yoga helps. Laughing with Darren helps. A walk in the morning around the block, before the Mississippi sun gets unbearable, helps as well.

Sure, there are a few things on my vision collage that haven’t quite come to fruition. I haven’t gotten a dog yet, but I did dog-sit for a weekend and realized that Darren and I are not ready for that kind of responsibility. I haven’t gotten any more fashionable — is it possible that I’ve gotten less so? — but I’m finding it a blessing to be able to spend my work day in a t-shirt, ponytail, and no makeup. I haven’t yet figured out the answer to the question “Who Are You Meant to Be?”, but having it in front of me, hanging above my computer, reminds me to keep asking it.

1. Invite your partner and friends to make an evening out of collaging. Even if they aren’t super into personal development, they will most likely enjoy it (Darren really appreciated the time to be artistically creative and think about his goals). Of course it’s OK to do this on your own, but I find it inspiring to share this activity with people you trust.

2. Prepare thin pieces of posterboard (I buy big sheets and cut them in half), glue sticks, scissors, and magazines. Provide enough for each person and ask your friends to bring magazines, too.

3. When your group gathers, explain that the purpose of the vision collage is to visualize what you want your life to look like, so you can set your intention toward making it so. It’s hard to meet your goals when you don’t know what they are. You can combine pictures, words, hand-drawn elements, whatever.

4. Put on soft music if you like, and give everyone at least an hour to search, be distracted by celebrity gossip, cut, and paste.

5. When you’re all finished, take turns explaining to the group why you chose the elements you did. Share as much or as little as you like.

6. Encourage folks to post their collages in a place where they will see them every day: over their work desk, on their bedroom wall, etc. Visible is memorable.

If you were to make a vision collage today, what kinds of pictures and words would you put on it?Similar Posts:

• Reschooling Tool #18: Personal Firsts As a Sign of Progress
• Are You Still Reschooling Yourself?
• Feelin’ the Christmas Cheer

When I decided to undertake Reschool Yourself, I was struck by how people found it odd that I’d return to my beginnings in a structured way. I thought it was odd that they wouldn’t, and that there wasn’t a rite of passage involving a pilgrimage back to the place you started from — especially to school, where you spent so many of your young waking hours.

I was pleased to see that one high school, featured in a NY Times article, has been holding such a rite of passage for about 10 years.

At Trinity, one of Manhattan’s oldest independent schools, a roomful of graduating seniors and their childhood teachers unearthed these pieces of the past at the annual survivors breakfast, a rite of passage for seniors who received all 13 years of their formal education at Trinity. Over coffee and bagels and chocolate Jell-O pudding doused with crushed Oreos and gummy worms (a class of 2010 culinary tradition), the students reconnected with teachers and dished about who, at age 5 , ate Play-Doh, sang well and cried whenever his mom left the room. …

… The breakfast was the brainchild of Tom Roberts, a fourth-grade teacher. About 10 years ago, he noticed that the graduating class seemed sentimental. They made frequent treks to visit their teachers and talked about how much they missed their early years. He thought it would be nice for students who spent all their school years at Trinity to return to where they started — on the day they graduated. Trinity’s kindergarten classrooms are directly above the Great Hall, where the graduating seniors put on their robes and line up for their class photo.

What a beautiful way to send graduates on to the next phase of their lives: by reconnecting them with the people and places that helped shape them into who they are today.Similar Posts:

• Five Assumptions About High Schoolers
• The Story of Reschool Yourself, Chapter 4
• Hot lunch!

Here’s a description of this, well, awesome, blog.

One fine fall day, after getting a little hyped up on caffeine, eating bagels, finding pennies in the street and discussing really cool things, Kristin Flickinger and Michele M. Larsen came up with the brilliant (and totally awesome) idea to start 365 Awesome!  Then we asked our dear friend, Celia Wheeler to join in the fun and now here we are: cataloging awesome people, places, organizations and more – daily.

We believe the world is filled with awesomeness.  We also believe it’s easy to overlook all the really cool things, people and places around us.  With daily reminders from 365 Awesome! we hope to change that.

Thanks, Michele and Kristin, for featuring me and reminding readers how many cool and wonderful things are going on in the world, if you open your eyes to them.Similar Posts:

• Thank you for Amazoning!
• Do Unto Yourself As You Would Do Unto Others
• Reschool Yourself in the News

Check out the rest of the Everyday Learning site, which features virtual tours of the houses of homeschooling families and ideas for teaching and learning outside the box. As Rachel writes, “Childhood should be FUN! Learning should also be fun…and a natural extension of your daily life.”Similar Posts:

• Reschool Yourself in the News
• New Forum, Video Hiatus
• RSY Featured in YES! Magazine & Where You Lede

Why I’ve been delinquent:

While I have the best intentions for keeping up the blog and writing short, regular posts, I have not quite mastered this art. My biggest challenge is writing for a living, because I end up writing for other publications instead of my own.

What I’ve been doing instead:

During most of my waking hours, I’ve been birthing a baby called IDEA: The Institute for Democratic Education in America. It is a very large baby, and as Communications Director I am one of its proud parents. Our goal is to bridge the gap between our country’s values of participation and empowerment and the top-down way we educate our children. That is, we want all young people to have an education that nurtures their creativity, curiosity, and collaboration. In addition to shaping the organization’s message and website (designed by Darren), I’m leading an awesome blogging team of educators, students, parents, etc. from around the country, and I’m blessed that they’re great writers with a lot to share. Please check out the organization and follow us on Twitter and Facebook (I’m the one updating those sites).

I love the comfort and flexibility of working from home, though the downside is that I don’t maintain boundaries between my work and home life. In the new year, I am really going to try to change this, because most days I work until the moment I crawl into bed, and that is simply not healthy.

On the side, I’m doing freelance writing projects for small businesses and nonprofits, including social media marketing. Darren and I spent four days in Orlando, live-tweeting a diving trade show (random, yes) for our client Diver’s D\Lyte. The next weekend, I went to New York for a Public Allies board meeting and IDEA workshop. Traveling, while exciting, takes a lot out of me.

What I’ve been doing for fun:

Though I haven’t been good about building a lot of fun into my day lately, I do keep up with my favorite TV shows. It’s funny, because I didn’t watch much TV at all for years, and I went out a lot. Now, I’m enjoying being a homebody, and a good-quality show is what I look forward to at the end of a long day. The Office, Grey’s, and Fringe are must-sees. I usually keep up with Modern Family, Nip/Tuck, and SNL. Lost, Mad Men, and Dexter are on the back burner for now, but Darren and I love those, too.

I’m keeping up with yoga, maintaining the garden (though the winter will soon claim it), and trying new recipes. I’m still singing with The Mississippi Chorus and will have my first performance — of Handel’s lovely “Messiah” — on December 5th. My guitar-playing and reading ebb and flow.

Jackson’s the kind of town where instead of going out to clubs and loud house parties like my friends and I did in San Francisco, people keep their down time low-key. We have dinner parties (such as a neighborhood pre-Thanksgiving potluck) with organic food and wine, hang out at coffee-shop music performances, and see everyone we know during community “art walks” where businesses in the Fondren district keep their doors open late.

How the reschooling is coming:

For the past few weeks, I haven’t done a great job of living by my own Reschool Yourself values. I haven’t been living very joyfully or taking care of my body.  I’ve gotten back into my workaholic habits of staying up until 2 working on the IDEA website and popping up at 8 with my brain on overdrive. I haven’t made much time to do the things outside of work that I enjoy. I’m exhausted, cranky, and a little sickly.

I’ve fallen off the wagon, as a friend put it. It happens. The trick is for me to stop before I get too out of control, and make the effort to correct my course. Fortunately, the holidays are coming — Thanksgiving with Darren’s family, and Christmas in Hawaii with mine — and I plan to use them to do a whole lotta nothin’.

I’m excited to report that I’m finally finishing up the Reschool Yourself book proposal — yes, that book that lingered in the distance for so long but kept knocking against the insides of my head to be let out. I’ll keep you posted on the publishing process, which is known for being unpredictable. Darren’s already thinking about who will play us in the movie. (I haven’t come up with someone for me, but I think Seth Rogen could play him.)

Another piece of good news is that we’re not in the poorhouse like we were last Christmas. We’re actually starting to make a modest living — not a corporate-sized salary by any means, but enough that we don’t have to wait for our next check to buy socks. It feels good that we’re able to work from home, as we want to, and make ends meet. And we’re only going to get busier from here, because a lot of businesses need websites. (Did I mention that I’m slowly learning to program in HTML? For a former technophobe, this is major progress.)

What’s to come:

In the new year, Darren and I will be moving to a bigger place in Jackson. We’ve outgrown our cute little two-bedroom apartment; we need more space in the living room and kitchen, and three bedrooms so we can each use one for an office (Darren works in the bedroom now, which makes it tough for him to shut down his brain at night).

I’m going to work on more consciously living out the Reschool Yourself values of joy in all things, continuous learning, and self-care. Yes, I’ve fallen off the wagon temporarily, but I’m going to get right back on again.Similar Posts:

• Feelin’ the Christmas Cheer
• Reschooling Tool #23: Vision Collage
• My First Week as a Southern Belle

At no cost to you, Amazon will donate a percentage of your purchases to Reschool Yourself. Right now, the donation rate is 4 percent, but it will increase along with the amounts purchased. Last year, this raised about $100 for the project, easy.

Being an indie bookstore supporter and former employee, I have to recommend buying local if you can, but if you’re shopping Amazon anyway, please support RSY in the process. And pass it on! Thank you.Similar Posts:

• Thank you for Amazoning!
• Exteme Makeover: Reschool Yourself Edition
• How to Support Reschool Yourself This Holiday Season

Since I was around five years old, my journal has been my closest confidant. I was still getting used to holding a pencil at the time when someone gave me a little hardback journal with a metal lock and key. Even though my secrets weren’t any juicier than “I went to Disneyland. It was fun,” the important thing was that I had a place to keep them.

As I grew older, my journals changed along with me. In middle school and high school, I used thick 8 ½ by 11 college-ruled Mead notebooks. As a preteen, I filled them with boy gossip and inevitably ended entries with “I heart so-and-so forever.” Often, I listed two or three names of boys that I loved deeply. In high school, I documented my teenage emotional highs and lows, my severe school stress, and the rare fights with my best friend. My journal let me vent and cry, even when I had no one else to talk to.

Read the rest of this post.

Similar Posts:

• Can’t Wait to Go to High School?
• Gratitude Upon Graduation
• All I Really Need to Know, I Learned in Kindergarten

Roger is the founder of the ZiZo Group, a creative multimedia company. He is married to actress Courtney Thorne-Smith, with whom he has a 21-month-year-old son, Jack, and lives in Los Angeles, CA.

What was it like to interview for the book? Who are a few of the centenarians you interviewed?

My colleague, Joe Rohrlich, and I literally zigzagged across America, Northern California, to Southern Florida, to Atlanta, Georgia, to New York, to Crow Nation and everywhere in between. It was 38,000 miles and a lot of red-eyes, and a lot of coffee. It was literally on the go nonstop.

I remember I took a red-eye into Charlotte, and Joe picked me up and we went over to see Bill Werber. He was the last living (major league baseball) player at the time—he just recently passed. He played with Lou Gehrig on the ’27 Yankees. It made me feel connected to a whole part of history. He was telling me about being on the train and playing cards with Lou Gehrig and Bill Dickey and Babe Ruth. I’m thinking, “The guy I’m talking to had firsthand real-life experience with (them.)”

Dorothy Young was Harry Houdini’s assistant. This lady literally traveled with Mr. and Mrs. Houdini. Now there’s a lady who is still alive and has a great, creative life. She’s a phenomenal artist. I looked at her paintings, and they’re just stunning. She wrote a book about her life, and for her it was all about faith in yourself—sticking up for yourself, believing in yourself.

I love Native American history—its connection to the earth, the sky, and the world they live in. So we found out that there was a lady who was the oldest living Native American, Myrtle Strong Enemy. We went to go visit her, and she only speaks Crow—we had to have her daughter translate. Her daughter had to be 78.  And she had a very interesting perspective on the importance of not just telling your children how to behave, but encouraging them to observe, listen, and reflect on the stories and experiences of their elders.

The good news is, everybody has stories. If we’re genuinely interested, people will share them. We have to be respectful and honor them as well, because they’ve given you a part of themselves. We’re all connected.

I know what you mean about connecting to history by talking with older folks. I think my generation feels somewhat disconnected to history, and it’s only in talking with our grandparents, that it feels relevant and interesting.

The question is, how do we maintain that connection to history, to people, to stories, and to life when those people are gone? Hopefully what the book does is inspire people to reconnect. I’d like to have people follow my journey by following, and tracking, engaging with people who really matter to them, reconnecting and saying, “You are someone who made a difference in my life. I learned from you.”

I hope that people reconnect with their coaches, their mentors, their families, their friends, and that at the same time, they start to reach out to the person they pass on the street, or at the coffee shop, and just get a chance to reconnect. Because that, to me, is a life worth living. It’s a human connection.

What experiences stood out to you while you were traveling?

I think it was the joy of the kids, and the joy of the 100-year-olds. I just felt like there was this happiness, this curious happiness, that they were living or had lived. It was an appreciation for what they had. Not what they want, but what they had.

The kids were just fantastic. Whether it was the Bronx in Brooklyn, or Florida, or Northern California, or L.A., these just seemed like very happy kids that were these budding flowers that were ready to go explore the world. They weren’t caught up in the culture, or what was going on with everyone else. They were in that great stage where things are fresh, and things seemed to be wonderful.

Did talking to centenarians change your expectations of what it means to age?

Absolutely. With Dorothy Kennedy, or Dorothy Young, they showed me—they didn’t just tell me—that it’s a state of mind, and a state of health. When you have both, time sort of disappears, and all you feel is that spirit and energy of a person and a joy. Being 100 might be the new 80, and the new 80 is the new 60.

The people I met, I can assure you that they were not in rocking chairs. These were very active people. Dorothy Young was playing a board game with her grandson, and she was laughing and telling stories and showing me around her apartment. These were very dynamic people. What it taught me is that we have to be active, we have to use our minds and use our bodies, and we have to believe that we can lead a life, at many stages in our life, that is worth living. Leading a true life can be one of the healthiest ways. Maybe the only way, to lead an honest life and one you feel good about when your time’s up.

I think the thing that was amazing to me is that no one spoke about stuff. They talked about experiences. And people, and how they made a difference to them. No one talked about the material side of life, which I thought was so refreshing. It was a healthy reminder that what you take with you is literally the experiences of life and the people along the way. And what you’ve done, and what you’ve given, is what you’ve got. It’s not about the material.

What I Know is available through Amazon and in stores.

Your Two Cents: Leave a Comment!

Who is someone in your life who made a difference for you, whom you’d like to reconnect with?Similar Posts:

• Interview: Roger Fishman, Author of What I Know
• Reschooling Reason #2: Be a Grown-Up with No Regrets
• Not So Little Miss Popular

Author Roger Fishman decided to collect the wisdom from both sides of the age spectrum, interviewing 10-year-olds and 100-year-olds from around the country, for a book called What I Know. He wrote down their thoughts on the universal aspects of life, such as change, integrity, and longevity. The small gift book was released online and in stores just last month.

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Roger, who is authentic, inspiring, and passionate about life. The book, he says, is about “The importance of human relationships, the importance of human connection, and leading an authentic life with yourself and with others.”

I’m publishing our interview here because What I Know shares so many themes with Reschool Yourself. Roger recognizes the wisdom inherent in children and believes in an education that helps them become who they want to be. He understands that true happiness in life is not about how much you achieve, or how much money you have, but about choosing experiences that fuel your fire, and being with the people you love. I highly recommend the book, and you can trust that no one paid me to say that or to feature it.

Roger is the founder of the ZiZo Group (short for Zoom In, Zoom Out), a creative multimedia company. He is married to actress Courtney Thorne-Smith, with whom he has a 21-month-year-old son, Jack, and lives in Los Angeles, CA.

I’ll post the second segment of the two-part interview tomorrow.

How long ago did you start your own business?

A little over four years ago, after working for Creative Artists Agency, the talent agency. Before that, I used to work for News Corp., Rupert Murdoch’s company, and before that I did a lot of different things. I realized that it was really time for me to go try what I think was true to me: to have my own business and take what I thought at that time was a risk.

Then I realized that the risk is not taking one. If you don’t take a risk in life, you’ll never know if you could have. Part of your success in life is in trying. It’s not necessarily in achieving, but in trying to achieve something that’s important to you.

I’m really struck by how the people who follow their passions, and have purpose behind what they’re doing, tend to lead the most fulfilled lives. As I went around the country and talked to primarily the 100-year-olds in this regard, what was most important to them was the things that mattered most in life: their relationships, and leading a life that’s worth living, making sure that it’s substantive, and that it’s deep, and lasting. For me, the book and my life’s work came together.

What inspired your idea for the book?

It was three things. One, that I was really in love with my grandfather. He was just the warmest, sweetest man. He would talk to anybody and everybody. Wherever he went, he took the time to listen to people, to understand their story, and to genuinely care. So I always had this (tendency) sort of in me.

Then, when my father died when I was 13, I thought, “Well, where am I going to learn from? Who’s my male role model?”

And then my son was born, and I thought, “There’s so much wisdom in the world, and there’s so much I learned from my granddad. I want to make sure I can share it with my son.” And then that was sort of the genesis of, “Where do you find some of the best pieces of wisdom and truth?” That stimulated the whole notion of the book What I Know.

Did you choose the categories in the book—like Believing in Yourself, Integrity, etc.—based on what you think is the recipe for a successful life?

That’s actually a really interesting way to think about it. Yes, I would say that when you add those together, those components, those are the core tenets or foundation points that can lead to your having a wonderful life.

If I have one wish for the book, it’s that people get inspired by it and reconnect. I hope that when people hear the story, they’ll say, “I remember that person in fourth grade.” Or “I remember that religious leader,” or “I remember that coach,” because I think when you have those little moments, you start to realize how fortunate and blessed we all are. It’s the little things that make all the difference.

During your interviews, what surprised you about the 100-year-olds? About the 10-year-olds?

What amazed me about the 100-year-olds was the energy they had, and the great sense of humor. I thought, “Wow, 100 years ago. No Federal Express. No wireless phones. No computers. No McDonald’s. They’ve seen planes, trains, and automobiles. They’ve seen world wars. You also see the strength and resilience of humanity to successfully adapt. And with the people I met, not only to adapt, but to find optimism in the future.

I think what really impressed me about the 10-year-olds was the importance of what we, as adults, do and say and how much they take it all in. And that what we do and say counts, because they trust us. They expect us to be their fathers, their mothers, their uncles or aunts or teachers, their coaches. What we do should have their best interests at heart. What we do matters to them and counts to them, and it shapes them.

Did the centenarians comment on how the world had changed, and what they thought of those changes?

Everyone talked about it, and they saw change as a positive thing. It’s inevitable. And they saw that change is in our hands to make it good. That’s where the good of humanity, in their perspective, was such a core aspect of what the future will look like. They believed that people were good overall, and when things are not good, people have the ability to overcome it.

It’s the notion of looking and living in the present, but also thinking and acting on a long-term basis. Live both ways: Appreciate the here and now because it exists, but live with an eye toward the future. And I thought it was a really beautiful balance that they talked about.

Did you pass on the advice that other people had given?

Absolutely. We would share where we’d been and where we were going. We’d try to connect them through that dimension. I found that everybody was very interested, primarily because they realized that at the end of the day, we’re all connected directly or indirectly, and it’s the connections that count in life. That was a very strong theme from not only the 100-year-olds, but also the 10-year-olds. You find that people want to be safe, they want to be loved, they want to be supported for their dreams, and they want to be in a healthy environment and relationships. Those are common things whether you’re 10 or 100.

Read the rest of the interview tomorrow. What I Know is available through Amazon and in stores.

What have you learned from the children and the seniors in your life?Similar Posts:

• Interview with Roger Fishman, Part Two
• Five Things to Do Every Day
• My Aha Moment