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Sunday, March 8, 2009
From Book Averages to FacebookAs the base of scratch bowlers has slowly eroded over the past two decades, one of the least talked about but
most profoundly disappointing byproducts is the loss of camaraderie among fellow competitors. Namely, in the form of simply
keeping in touch with one another. If you read my JAT Alumni retrospective last week, you’ll notice that one of the
things I focused very little on in retelling the story of my surprise (to me at least) almost-victory, was the joy of running
into old friends, some of whom I hadn’t seen in literally half my lifetime.
The single most important factor
in bringing us all together again (besides the monumental efforts of JAT Tournament Director Dave Yamauchi), is the social
networking site Facebook. You see, the JAT also ran an alumni event last year, but this year’s version attracted at least twice the attendees,
most of who mentioned to me were due to hearing about the event on Facebook.
One of the things I’ve observed
about bowling tournaments is that the most effective marketing tool for increasing attendance is word-of-mouth. Whenever I
show up at a tournament, a number of other bowlers inevitably ask if I was going out to Norco for their 8-gamer next week.
Or to Port Hueneme for their monthly 10-gamer. Or to Del Rosa for their 6-gamer. Or the regional in Visalia. Back when I was
bowling every scratch tourney under the sun within reasonable (and sometimes ridiculously unreasonable, “Hey there’s
a 5-game scratch no-tap in Utah this weekend! Who’s in?!”) driving distance, I recall doing the same thing. No
doubt, these “kind” folks are merely masking their desire for my company to lure me out to donate my hard-earned
cash, right? More and more, I’m sure that’s what a lot of you scratch-caliber bowlers out there have come to believe.
But with Facebook, I’ve noticed that my fellow bowlers do indeed seek a connection greater than that which the
combination of my ability to pay a tournament entry free and my shaky bowling skills to part me with that entry fee provide.
When my wife and I had our baby last month, I received dozens of congratulatory, heartfelt Facebook messages from folks I’d
not seen in years, but were once part of my extended bowling family. It made me sad for the changes that time had brought
on, but also hopeful that in the future, using the networking technology that Facebook provides, we could once again get together
more often and enjoy that camaraderie we’d built so long ago through our common interest in the sport of bowling.
For those of you not familiar with Facebook, it is an extremely simple concept. You just visit the Facebook site,
create a profile for yourself by entering in some facts about yourself and, “voilá!” the networking begins.
For me, the number of friends built slowly, but in bursts. First, an old high school friend noticed I was on there and, before
I knew it, I had 30 friend requests in my email Inbox. Then, a few weeks went by and some of my bowling friends noticed I
was on there. Another flood of friend requests and email messages. A few weeks later, I received an email from Facebook about
the JAT Alumni tournament (emanating from Mr. Yamauchi) and, behold! I knew about the tournament. More friends came after
the event, and more after that as friends of their friends started to find me. It was kind of like that old shampoo commercial
starring Heather Locklear.
At any rate, I am excited to think about the possibilities
for tournament bowling in the age of Facebook. Tournament directors and promoters should all jump through their butts to be
building a local Facebook site for their tournaments, and then the easy work of building a list of all the local bowlers who
might be interested in reconnecting with their old friends and the sport they love (or once loved) will begin. To me, the
personalization of Facebook adds that extra element of nostalgia as a selling point in convincing people (at least once) to
show up to the event. And once their back, the magical addictive qualities of tournament bowling will have a chance to lure
more and more of us out of our self-imposed “retirement” and back to the sport and the competition that makes
us feel alive. Or if that doesn’t work, then maybe you could even hook up with that hot guy/gal you always wanted to
ask out in high school but never had the guts. Either way, join Facebook today and start connecting!
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.
5:50 pm edt
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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. 
