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Thursday, February 19, 2009
Babies and Bowling GeeksI’ve had a few e-mails the past couple of weeks from readers telling me that my columns have veered off
the course of talking bowling. That is probably a fair assessment, even though I do try each week to include some kind of
connection to our beloved sport and that my intention is that this column is really about how bowling is life is bowling.
Starting next week, I do plan to get back into more hard-core bowling stories and analysis, but this week I plan to explain
why I’ve been so philosophical as of late.
Last Sunday, February 8, my wife and I were blessed with our third
child. It is our first girl, to go along with our two boys. We’ve decided not to have any more and have decided to take
measures to ensure that we won’t (really looking forward to spending an upcoming weekend with a bag of frozen peas by
the way).
I’d always wanted a girl, ever since my wife and I first decided we wanted children and, lucky
for us, the third time was the charm. But the biggest reason why this one was so special for me was that I kind of missed
the births of my first two children. I was there, physically, for the birth of both boys but my preoccupation with my work
and other elements of life kept me from fully enjoying and appreciating the moment like I was finally able to do this time
(even though the PBA telecast was on this Sunday in our delivery room while my wife was pushing…I’m sure she
appreciated the chants of “DUUUUKE” during her massively painful contractions very much).
With our
first child, I didn’t really know what to expect. Chris Peters, whom I wrote about last week, had just had his first
child six months before mine and he said, “having a baby brings half a millions negatives and a million positives into
your life…the bottom line is that it massively changes everything.” Boy was he right. Six months into having
our first child, my wife and I were at each other’s throats like two pit bulls fighting over a steak. Fortunately, she
forgave me and let me stay. Eventually, she let me do even more and we got pregnant again.
This time, the baby
was due on a week when I was supposed to give a big presentation to the entire 40-plus-person PBA staff. I’d prepared
for weeks and was very much looking forward to having my time in front of the group. As the day approached, I worried that
the baby would be born and I would miss my chance to shine. As luck would have it, on the morning of my presentation, my wife
woke me up to inform me that she was having regular contractions and that we needed to get to the hospital. I called then-PBA
CEO Steve Miller and regretfully told him that I wouldn’t be able to deliver my presentation (excuse the pun). When
my second son was born, my mind was only half there and, as soon as I could, I was on the phone to the office to ask how the
presentation went. Today, I don’t really recall what the presentation was even about.
This time, there were
no distractions. Not bowling or any other diversion was going to take my eye off of the incredibly special day that I knew
I was about to experience. The believer-in-fate side of me wonders if her being born on Sunday was a test to see if I could
lay down my work for a day and fully enjoy the moment. Most of you know that I write a TV recap for the PBA and, of course,
Sunday is the day of the show and the day I do that work. Even more tempting was the fact that the tournament was conducted
just 60 miles from where I live and I really wanted to go down there and see some of it in person. I resisted.
Now,
I have a beautiful little daughter (surprising, given the set of genes I donated) and every moment I spend with her is precious.
I like to think that I’ve made up for my early not-getting-it-ness in the early days of my boys’ lives by making
family truly my top priority. To be honest, sometimes this has been a detriment to my career but that is a sacrifice I am
willing to make and must make if I want to be truthful about my claim that family is my number one priority. As for bowling,
it was my first love and it will always be a part of my life but there certainly are things that are more important. Believe
it or not, that is something I had to learn.
So, to all of you hard-core bowlers out there who’ve been waiting
for a juicy, bowling-geek-tastic column from me, thank you for your patience and your continued patronage. And I promise that
next week, you will be rewarded with more bowling than you can shake a pin at!
See you next
week!
Contact me at: jason@jasonthomasbowling.com
Click here to check out a new interview with Jason Thomas about his book “Livin' The Dream: How to Get
What You Want, Find True Meaning and Save the World by Bowling!” To purchase a copy of the book, click here.
Click here to read “Jason’s TV Recap - Uncensored” on PBA.com.
To check out the latest episode of The Bowling
Show 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. 
