Our first stop was cute little Garland Utah where we visited with Bob Jensen, an old friend I’d met in England back in 1963. Then we drove to Providence Utah where I renewed my friendship with a middle school friend, Jay Low. Then it was onto Bear Lake where we stayed overnight with my good friend and prior business partner for over 17 years, George Winquist.

When we arrived at the tourney, we were warmly greeted by Stein and Francoise Eriksen and several other friends from my more recent past. The next day Bjorn Eriksen buzzed the house in his small plane to let us know that he and his girlfriend had arrived. For the next three days 40 of us played tennis, laughed and talked over great wine. Isn’t it amazing that you can go a year or even many years without talking to a good friend and then you pick right up as if no time has passed at all?

Even our drive back was highlighted by great conversation. In Jackson there was another middle school friend, George Thompson and wife Jett. The next day we stopped to see sister Sue and her husband Paul and my brother Scott and his wife Pat. And every conversation just recharged me more.

Family, friends, and tons of great memories made just filled me up on this trip. It gave both my wife and I a super re-charging of mental and even physical batteries. All of us can and should re-dedicate ourselves to staying in touch and re-connecting with friends and relatives–it’s the best stuff in life, keeping us pumped up and making life so much richer.

It didn’t seem to fit at all and it took a while to get somewhat used to seeing the simple Buddhist ways combined with modern technology. Didn’t Buddhist traditionally renounce conventional living? But it occurred to me after a while, that they also attach great importance to community and isn’t keeping in touch part of that? And then there’s the Buddhist philosophy of “if you can’t change something then accept it”. And I’ve been thinking about that particular outlook on and off ever since then.

It’s really a very important idea, one that we should all make a part of our lives. Whether it’s a simple thing like not getting upset at standing in line or being in a huge traffic jam or the heart-breaking circumstance of dealing with the illness or death of a loved one, we need to focus on accepting what we cannot change. Fighting it by getting angry, depressed, or taking any other destructive or non-constructive path will not make it better and often leads to more unhappiness.

I know it’s easy to say, accept it and let it go or embrace it, and much harder to act on that idea. But if there is any time of the year that would make it easier to try and live by this philosophy, it must be now, during the holiday season when forgive and forget, be of good cheer, and learning to see that it’s “A Wonderful Life” is being preached and practiced all around us. So, let’s all think about that and put it into action in our lives and I promise that we will all feel so much better.

A Happy Holiday to you and yours.

One thing that stood out while walking and being driven in the heavy, crazy traffic of Kathmandu was how the culture and habits of the people there differed so very much from our own. We saw so many near misses between cars and pedestrians, watched our drivers and others being regularly cut off by wildly driven vehicles, and heard so many, many horns. I mean Kimberly, I, and my two daughters, Nichol and Cammy, came within an inch or two of being hit by motorcycles as well as cars. It was quite scary at first but amazingly you get used to it. It’s just how it is there. Back home in Utah, if any of those things happened you most likely would get an angry look or get flipped off while in some other cities in the U.S. you even might get shot.

However, in India and Nepal, people never seem to get upset or mad at the honking, getting cut off, or nearly being hit. It would seem that living in very crowded conditions combined with the both the Hindu and Buddhist attitudes results in a very calm, non-defensive, understanding. It would be nice if we could realize, in our country, that things get crazy sometimes, but it’s just not worth the energy and unhappiness of being upset.

There is so much for us to learn from other countries and peoples. It’s a shame that everyone in the world can’t visit dozens of other countries and see how much we, as humans, are very much the same and that we can learn from our differences.

It doesn’t matter where you are, what you’re doing, or where you’re headed. No matter what the circumstances, be bold, talk to strangers, strike up kindly conversations with anyone you have a chance to say hello to. Yes, some of them won’t care for your forward manner. Many people are too busy to stop and chat or they might be suspicious of what you’re after but don’t worry about those people. If you have such an encounter, just move on. Most people are actually happy to talk, especially if you ask them about themselves. Taking notice of them and having an interest in their life is flattering and encourages them to share.

I’m not saying you should put on an act either. You really should be interested in them. Everyone has a story that will help you understand the world better. Most people has some surprising ideas of their own, and they might even be the connection to other wonderful people. Just don’t let the possibility of getting a strange look or a curt rebuff deter you.

Some of the strangers I’ve meet over the years have not lead to ground breaking business ideas but they have become dear friends and enrich my life as much as, if not more than, those that have helped me in my successful business ventures. We meet up with our Danish friends, Karina and Mark, who then introduced us to several of their friends. We were also honored when a young man, Reto Moro, flew from Zurich to Paris with his daughter Ana just to go to dinner with us. Then we meet several more bright and interesting people from several countries on the ship we took from Copenhagen to Tallin.

There is no reason at all that you should deny yourself the rich opportunities that are but a handshake and a “hello” away. So this week, another challenge. See how many new people you can meet this week. Ask them about their lives and their stories and see what remarkable things come of reaching out and connecting with just a few more people in this world.

“I was lucky to have the right heroes. Tell me who your heroes are and I’ll tell you how you’ll turn out to be. The qualities of the one you admire are the traits that you, with a little practice, can make your own, and that, if practiced, will become habit-forming.”
- Warren Buffett

Warren Buffett’s 7 Secrets for Living a Happy and Simple Life
Part of success is mindset – and those who are successful at overcoming challenges or excelling make great mentors. They understand the power of your mindset. A mentor can be someone you know personally (or seek out and become friends with), people you read about, or those no longer living.

I like meeting people I admire – most of them are completely within reach. It’s surprising how easy it is to meet people if you are persistent – it’s something I’ve done all of my life.

I’ve met the Dalai Lama and the president of the United States, plus many people you may not know about who’ve done great things and overcome huge obstacles.

Where can I find great mentors?
One way to find mentors is through organizations. I’ve belonged to real estate associations, political associations, and other groups. Some are a waste of your time, but others like one I’m involved in is the Granite Education Foundation. This organization have been very helpful and extremely rewarding for me. Find organizations that are doing good work in your community and you’ll likely find mentors who you can learn from.

One way I find people to follow is I read newspapers, magazines (like Fortune, Forbes, Time Magazine, Newsweek) and see who is being talked about. Then I seek those people out. It’s not hard to get to know people. One way that can work – is to keep asking for an audience until you get a response.

Once I decided I wanted to meet the Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonalds and I did it through sheer persistence. Ray didn’t make his fortune until he was 55 years old. He started by studying the success of a small burger joint in Southern California and later bought it and franchised it around the world. He made several billion dollars.

He started out flipping hamburgers and 40 years later he was the CEO of the company. How did he do it? I wanted to talk to him, find out more. So I devised a method and I persisted. I called his office asking to meet him until one day he gave in. He gave me 20 mins. but when we got talking I was there for two hours. We became friends and he gave me great advice that helped in a huge way to build my own fortune.

Another one of my heroes was the billionaire Aristotle Onasis. The story goes that he wanted to meet a famous Argentinian businessman. He only made 25 cents an hour and had little hope of ever meeting the man.

His plan was to stand by the man’s gate every day, not saying a word. After standing in the same place for several weeks, this important man that he wanted to meet finally couldn’t stand the suspense any longer. He confronted Aristotle and said who are you and what do you want? And from that initial meeting, Aristotle learned a great deal that helped his success.

Another person I want to meet now is Nando Parrado. I am planning to travel to South America to meet him. He was one of the few survivors of a deadly plane crash in the Andes mountains. He spent 72 days in freezing temperatures then climbed over 17,000 foot ice capped mountains and led a rescue party to the other survivors. It just about killed him but he lived and wrote the book about his experiences in, “Miracle in the Andes.”

I always have a list of people I want to meet. What do I want to learn from these men and others like them? I want to know their thoughts – what’s inside of their heads. How they survived and thrived through difficulties. Some disclose it in their books but not all do. I want to know how their experiences affect their lives now. How it affects their thinking.

So one of my secrets to passion in life is to make a list of who you want to meet and why you want to meet them.

Passion, like life, is about journeys not arriving. Kimberly and I have been planning a trip to Europe for a year. This was a goal of ours. You see the brain craves the new, the unfamiliar. Living in the moment also stimulates the mind. Of course it’s easy to live in the moment when you’re in Paris.

Another way is to experience something familiar through someone else’s eyes. We took our good friends  Frantoise and Stein Eriksen (who is now in his eighties and has a Wikipedia page) with us. We’d been to some of the places before, but they came alive again when we showed them. Our brain loves new experiences.

Everywhere we went I asked people what there passion level was. We visited a farm of a cheese maker in Switzerland. We stayed at the Palace Hotel in Gstaad Switzerland which had unbelievable scenery and impeccable service. I got to introduce the Eriksen’s to an Australian tennis champ. We were in Germany for Octoberfest (I’ll put up some video of the trip).

The most exhilarating part of the journey though started with a train ride that had some curve balls. Getting on the train and going from Zurich to Croatia there was no one was there to greet us. We had a tough time finding a cab to make it to the ship. We finally found a cab and arrived an hour late. Luckily, they waited for us.

Once we got onto the ship we realized it was not like the spacious hotel with great service. It was tight quarters. The bathroom was so small you could hardly change your mind, let alone change a shirt in it. The shower was a spout hooked up to the bathroom sink. You turned it on and sprayed yourself, along with the rest of the room.

The week long ship ride was full of adventure. There were people from all different nationalities speaking different languages. We stopped on islands of all sizes. We bicycled 30-40 kilometers. One island was so small that license plates weren’t necessary – everyone knew everyone else. With only a few hundred people, there were maybe 25 cars.

Then there were high winds – so high that the buses couldn’t run because they might blow over. So rented an expensive taxi, and headed back to make our flight home – which we barely made.

While we loved the more predictable parts of the trip, our real passion was in the unexpected – the missed rides, the cramped ship, the collage of cultures, and even the storm.

Do you fears prevent you from traveling (literally or figuratively) because you’re afraid to try something new? Sometimes people are so comfortable it scares them to do something different. Yet when they go ahead they look back that is what stands out, it’s what they talk about.

Mixing things up, trying the new, seeing something through another’s eyes, being open to adventure. This is how you create passion.

“Passion can be an elusive pursuit. As people age they have glimpses of passion here and there and then they lose it and they don’t know why.”

Have you every wondered how you get passion and how you keep it? In my book “How to Ignite your Passion for Living” I make the point that, from my experience, as people age, passion has to be kind of set up – or jerry-rigged. To jerry-rigg – is to put something together in an unusual, better or temporary way. The key to jerry-rigging passion is to set difficult objectives and work towards them.

From about age 25 every year your brain produces less and less dopamine and serotonin – the hormones that help you feel good. A child’s body is awash in these hormones. As we age we need to create these hormones. You have to stimulate them. You do this with eating right foods, exercising, and most importantly, setting goals and going after them.

Traveling can be a great way to jerry-rigg some passion. In my next post I’ll talk about a trip to Europe and how some unexpected turns made us love the journey even better.