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Sunday, October 26, 2008
Livin' the DreamNow that we're all becoming such good friends...me writing for you, so many of you writing me in return,
and me then writing you back (I always make it a point to respond to your e-mails, so if you do send me something, you will
receive a reply and my undying appreciation for taking the time to write)...I thought now would be a good time to tell you
a little bit more about myself and what I'm trying to accomplish with my writing. And I want you to know up front that
it's way more about helping others than it is about helping me.
You see, about four years ago, I decided to
leave my dream job at the PBA and my wife, our two young sons and I moved back to our native California to be closer to family.
After about eight months of being home and having moved on to a new job in the area, I had a bit of an "existentialist
moment." (Actually, it seemed more like an eternity). In less euphemistic language, that meant I thought the world was
meaningless, that I had no hope for ever being happy and my thoughts were, more and more, creeping ever so closely to the
dreaded "s" word (the one made popular by such luminaries as Hemingway, Cobain and, most recently, my all-time favorite
writer, David Foster Wallace).
Somehow, in the moment of my deepest darkness, a ray of light peeked through and
illuminated for me all of the things I had learned over the course of my 32 years, and reorganized them in such a way that
my former, cynical point of view was utterly shattered and reconstituted by an outlook of unwavering optimism. For a year
after this occurred, I walked around in a state of constant euphoria and every aspect of my life, from my career to my home
life to my relationship with the world improved to a degree that I cannot describe without coming off as boastful. I still
carry this happiness and peace of mind with me today, even though I have since moved on to conducting the day-to-day business
of doing the things I need to do (which, by the way, are much more fun than hard work because of how much I love doing them)
in order to accomplish the goals I have set for myself.
It is hard to pinpoint an exact event that catalyzed this
transformation in me, but the main thing that I realized was that I already knew (as, I believe, all of us do) most of the
important of life's fundamental secrets about success, meaning and connecting with others (and I had learned them almost
exclusively from my involvement in bowling since the time I was six years old) and now all I had to do was to begin living
my life according to them. I then began noticing how every example of success, spiritual fulfillment and philanthropy I had
heard, read about or seen on TV incorporated a very specific, easy-to-describe philosophy that each of us-to a person, really-already
understands but, in so many cases, we forget to live by.
Once I realized this, I decided to write a book attempting
to describe what those things are and how I learned them. It took me two years to complete the book, spending my nights writing
while continuing my 9 to 5 day job and still maintaining a healthy relationship with my wife and children. When the book was
finished, I decided to leave my job (although that took about six months worth of convincing my wife) and go back to doing
what I loved, specifically: working in the bowling industry, doing video production and writing.
Since I've
been back everything has not always gone according to plan. For, as that pillar of wisdom Mike Tyson once famously said, "Everyone's
got a plan 'til they get hit." And I've been hit a lot. I've had money problems, I've had a hard time
finding anyone to believe in me, and it's taken me quite a bit of time to even begin making even limited progress. But,
I'm often comforted by another aphorism, this one from Jacob Riis:
"When nothing seems to help, I go and
look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at
the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it - but all that had gone before."
Today, even though I have just as many problems (if not more) than everyone else, I feel very lucky to be living my
dreams (which, incidentally, is why I named my book Livin' the Dream) and doing what I love doing. I hope to keep doing
it for many years to come and that, by virtue of doing it, I can help others to live their dreams as well. I believe the bowling
industry is in very dire need of this and, if we as bowlers can overcome our collective belief problem, that we can gain the
widespread respect that we all feel bowling deserves.
And for those of you who were hoping to read something a
little more fun this week, be sure to check out my new feature ("Jason's TV Recap") over on PBA.com.
See you next week!
Jason Thomas,
jason@jasonthomasbowling.com For more info, or to purchase a copy of Livin' the Dream, click here.
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LIVIN' THE DREAM:
How
to get what you want, find true meaning and save the world by bowling!
AN INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR
Q:
What is the book about?
A: The book is about how the valuable
lessons I learned through my lifelong involvement in bowling saved my life and transformed me from an unhappy cynic into a
blissfully happy optimist.
Q: What made you decide to write it?
A: I had been out of the bowling industry for about two years and I had hit a very low point in my attitude about
life. Through the help of a family member, I was able to rediscover the important lessons about success, spirituality and
connecting with others. I was so excited about this transformation that I decided to write a book that attempts to detail
the metamorphosis while outlining the important lessons I remembered.
Q: How is this
book different from other self-help books?
A: The book is different in a number
of ways. First, I am a very unlikely person to have written a self-help book. If you had known me before I'd written the book,
you'd know precisely what I mean. But that fact alone reveals how strongly I felt about writing it, because I knew that if
I could change for the better, then I felt anyone could do it and that there was a good chance that I could help a lot of
people by describing the process and arranging the pieces in a way that could be easily understood.
The
other key point of difference is the way the book is arranged. The story is structured into three parts, The Method, Some
Cool Tricks and For the Hard-Core Cynics, each of which contain the important lessons I wanted to share. Every chapter is
also broken up with a narrative of my personal story, told for the purpose of detailing my amazing attitude transformation.
It begins with the extremely low point when others felt the need to reach out to help me to remember the important things
in life and goes on to detail the many people that helped me to learn the most important life lessons, including: my childhood
friend Robert Smith, my father (a former President of Disneyland International), PBA Chairman Chris Peters and former PBA
CEO Steve Miller.
Q: Is the book as funny as your blogs?
A: Yes! But there is also a serious side too.
Q: How is your book different from
something like The Secret?
A: My book is similar to The Secret
in that it proposes a method for success, but it is different in a number of ways. First, it is a bit more practical when
it comes to outlining the method for achieving success. The Secret comes very close to describing a similar method
for success in its "Ask, Believe, Receive" mantra. In my book, the first two of these elements ("Ask"
and "Believe") are integral (although I call them "Dream" and "Self-Belief"), but I believe
there has to be some proactive work done to achieve the goal. I call it hard work (which turns a lot of people off, of course)
but to use the model of The Secret, you would simply replace the word "Receive" with "Retrieve."
The best part of all this (and the good news for the folks who don't want to have to work hard) is that once you decide on
what you want and then you begin to believe you can get it, the work is no longer hard, but becomes a fun activity that fills
your days with joy and purpose.
Second, my book spends a significant amount of time discussing
how to deal with your success once you've attained it (and that conducting yourself in this manner before
you reach your goals will actually help you get there even faster). Probably the best way to describe my
book is that it's a cross between The Secret and the late Randy Pausch's book, The Last Lecture.
But I also quote a number of more research-driven books like Malcolm Gladwell's Blink, Sam Harris' The
End of Faith and Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate to help me make my point.
Q: Do you have to be a bowler to like this book?
A: Absolutely
not! Bowling obviously plays a major role (although it really serves more as the setting rather than as the primary focal
point) because of my involvement with the sport my whole life. But the lessons bowling taught me are lessons I could have
learned if I had chosen to be a golfer or a doctor or a writer (oops, I guess that one's a bad example now). My hope is that
the book will find its way into the hands of people who don't bowl and that these people will come away with a new appreciation
for bowlers and the sport of bowling.
Q: What is your goal with the book?
A: That is a simple one. To help as many people as possible to experience the gift of embracing an optimistic way
of life and to help them reap its many rewards. 
