Chicago 2012

The past few days were a blast in Chicago.  What a city!  I love it.

I was invited to participate in Chicago Ideas Week (CIW) this year and flew there Tuesday for a Wednesday “round table” Q&A type presentation, or at least so I thought…

Lugging my golf clubs halfway across the country in hopes that a round of golf would happen, I landed at 7PM Tuesday and took the subway to town.  It was just an 11 block walk from the blue line exit to my hotel, so I strolled down the streets on a relatively mild Chicago fall eve carrying my golf bag like some lost caddy.  It has gotten to the point where life feels more natural when totting golf clubs, even through the middle of downtown in the third largest American city.  Perhaps it is safe to say that I am and have been for quite some time, officially consumed and obsessed with this game

Late as it was, I didn’t do much Tuesday night, but woke early to explore some of the city before participating in Wednesday’s CIW talk.  First stop was at Intelligentsia coffee to see how it holds up to local Portland hero Stumptown.  The coffee was pretty good, although seemed a bit over-roasted and not especially worth the $3.50 a cup.  For 2 bucks I would have been quite happy.

Afterwords, it was off to see some touristic destinations such as the super-photogenic Bean:

It is nearly impossible to not take a picture of this thing, quite worth checking out if ever in the area.  I wondered around the park for a while then went to where I thought my talk was going to be that afternoon: The Art Institute of Chicago.  I had read in an email that my talk was at the Contemporary Art Museum and assumed it was that one.  Good thing I checked in 2 hours early because where I was supposed to be was 2 miles down the road.

I stopped back by the hotel and changed into something a little more presentable then headed to the Contemporary Art Museum.  When I was four blocks away I received an email from one of the organizers asking where my powerpoint and key note speech were..  EEK!  Powerpoint?  Keynote?  I thought this was a Q&A Roundtable!  What should I do??  I looked up the original emails and saw those words: Q&A; Roundtable.  Did I miss something?  Could I put together a presentation in four blocks?  I had 15 minutes, what could I do…

It was pretty much impossible to throw something together that quickly; I didn’t even have my computer with me so images and videos were out of the question, so I decided that I would just have to wing it and worse case scenario I could open up the floor to questions and make it into a Q&A.  After all, how many people would be in the audience?  I figured 20-30 tops.

I came to terms with this and decided that from now on I would have an “emergency” stock presentation ready so that I would never be in this situation again.  I have given talks before and know the journey/material by heart, so talking wouldn’t be a problem, but I never like not being prepared.  Still, I could do this and was going to make it work regardless.  That’s when I walked into the room and saw what I would be standing in front of:

Ha!  There were more than 250 seats.  This was going to be bigger than I thought.  I honestly had no expectations or ideas of what I was getting into until I walked into this room.  I was going to have to figure something out, and fast.

A Chicago Tribune sports’ columnist who had called me the day before to do a story on the project was there.  He had asked a bunch of good questions and would be introducing all six of the evenings speakers.  Basically, I told them I didn’t have an official powerpoint or structured presentation ready so we all decided to change mine into a last minute Q&A.  Perfect.  I was more than willing to give a 15 minute talk about the project, but thought this would be a better way of structuring that.  My mind relaxed and I knew it was going to go well.

I slowly began to meet the other five people who were there to give talks and realized that I was in for a special treat.  The first man I met was Daniel “Rudy” Ruettiger.  The actual Rudy from Notre Dame and Hollywood fame, think Sean Astin.  It was a trip to spend time with him.  He is one of the nicest and kindest guys you will meet.  Here’s the two of us in the greenroom.  The gentleman in the background is Bob Bowman, AKA Michael Phelps’ swim coach:

Bob was also a presenter, as were Cynthia Bir, Ph. D. in biomechanics, North Western women’s lacrosse coach Kelly Amonte Hiller, and 12 time Olympic medalist Natalie Coughlin.  I wish I could post all of their talks right here right now, but they won’t be online until November.  They were inspiring and wonderful to hear and I will post them as soon as they are up.  For now, the main thing I took from each, and the commonality between them all, was that in order to succeed you need to set goals and stick to them.  No matter your path in life or your desires, having concrete goals and not wavering from them is the secret to success.

Rudy spent 10 years in Hollywood pitching his movie before he found the right person (who gave him 3 minutes to pitch).  Natalie torn her labrum and thought she would never swim competitively when she was just 15 years old, but kept at it in order to get a free college education and eventually came back stronger than ever.  Bob said Michael Phelps came to him when he was 13 and said he wanted to be the best ever and they built a training program to make it happen.  Kelly’s team (who have won 7 of the past 8 national championships in their sport) sets out each year determined to not let success get in the way of success.  Inspiring, all of them.

It was my time.  I was the third of six to talk.  I was right in the middle of these amazing people.  Standing on the stage, I decided I would make myself feel comfortable by taking out my camera and taking a picture of the crowd.  It did the trick and after I snapped this shot I felt like I was at home having a chat with friends:

Unfortunately, the time flew by.  I could have spent all night up there talking, but my 12 minutes were over and it was time to head back to my seat.  Afterwords, I went out to dinner with Rudy and got to hear about his experiences and he was extremely encouraging of my journey.  There are a lot of parallels in our stories and seeing someone who has carved out his own piece of life on his terms will be endlessly inspiring.

There is more to the trip, but it is getting late here now.  The rest will come soon.

Be present, Be mindful