A post for my Grandmas

My Grandma Barbara and Grandma Clark are the best two Grandma’s in the world.

A few months ago my Mom made two private facebook groups for both sets of Grandparents. Apparently they both love, and I mean LOVE, hearing updates from everyone through pictures and stories. Since I have been the families biggest slacker in both groups, I am going to make up for my slacking by doing a life update letter full of pictures and stories, just for my Grandmas.

 

Dear Grandma Barbara and Grandma Clark,

Here is whats been going on over the past three months… Hope you enjoy!

January: 

After Graduation I was able to put my entire heart into something that I believed in. We were fortunate enough to find an office at an affordable rate, which made growing parqo much easier than doing everything via Google+. One of my highlights during this moving into a new office experience was going to IKEA with my Mom, Jan, and Michelle along with my business partner Nate. The girls brought their A game and together we were able to turn a rectangle shaped office with bare walls into a creative kingdom!

Some other highlights of January included:

1.My Birthday– We were able to go to Benihana’s as a family (which was SOO good). And I was so overly grateful for all the presents including the money that you both gave me (Thank you both so much).  Jan got me my dream present and I was happy as a clown!

2. The first month of work that didn’t involve any school homework– Both Nate and I were on the same page from the get go and worked our tails off in January. The parqo.com website got done thanks to our awesome developer, now friend, Wylie and wer were able to meet some incredible people throughout the whole month. Its amazing how many incredible human beings their are in the world. We were blown away by all the people that stepped up and helped parqo in any way they could for nothing in return. Those people know who they are and they should also know that what goes around comes around. (Thank You)

3. Living in Utah– When I was 17 I moved to Idaho as you both know. 8 years later, I made it home and I love it. As much as I loved Idaho, which is a lot, I am so happy to be back to what I can truly call home. I loved being able to watch every Jazz game, many with fellow Jazz fans, and being able to see people I hadn’t seen in a long time. I also have loved being able to play basketball with my old high school friends as well as my old ward. As I put in my last post, Basketball is truly one of those things that helps sharpen my saw. I also must say that I went to Harmons in Farmington for the first time in January and fell in love with it. If parqo ever takes off, that will be the store Jan and I shop at. Every time I go in, I get this overwhelming sensation of happiness. 🙂
February: 

This is the month where things started getting busy and when I say busy, I mean a lot of fun.

Since we really want to get connected with the event parking world, we saw an opportunity to attend an Event Expo in Los Angeles and meet lots of great people.

Side Note: My favorite website in the world, besides parqo.com, is priceline.com. This company has saved us so much money and has made our trips very enjoyable.(back to the story)

So before we went to Los Angeles we knew we needed to stay in a hotel somewhere close to the airport. I named my own price, something like 90 bucks I think, and we got put in a Yacht club hotel in Redondo Beach (10 minutes from the airport).

The Event Live Expo and the trip as a whole was a big success. We met tons of amazing people and also had a great time at our Yacht Club. The people staying their were a little too hoydee toydee for me, but the room was nice and also convenient.

Another Side Note: I may or may not be the biggest sucker for salesmen in the world. When I flew into the Long Beach Airport, I picked up my bag and went to the rental car place, I may or may not have gotten suckered for the upsell. I got to the counter and the man working was super nice and super cool. I had prepaid for my rental car and got an extremely good price (Thanks to Priceline). I denied all the coverage and prepay gas nonsense and at the very last second of the sale his eyes got really big and he pulled a fast one on me. “Mr Clark. I just noticed that you qualify for an upgrade for 10 dollars extra a day”.

You’re probably thinking “No way does he fall for that one”.

Well, I fell for “that one”.

He continued “Mr Clark, for 10 dollars extra a day, we can put you in either a BRAND NEW Ford Mustang or a even Newer Chevy Camero”

Needless to say…

I fell for the latter…

Last side note: My business partner Nate, who I think both of you have met at one point, is 6 feet 9 inches tall. We also had two big suitcases and 2 big heavy duty golf club carrying cases that did not fit in the trunk or the backseat. Not only did Nate’s neck hurt for 3 days because he could not sit up straight in the car, we had to carry the golf clubs on our laps, which was not at all convenient. I learned my lesson!

Some other highlights from February:

1. I had to go on a really tough business trip, cough, in Hawaii– After the Event Live Expo in Los Angeles we packed our bags and went straight to the great state of Hawaii. When we received some of our investment money for parqo I knew one of the first things we needed to do was join a parking association. We ended up joining the NPA (National Parking Association) in the middle of January and found out that they would be holding a Winter Leadership Forum for most all the big wigs of the parking industry. This was a no brainer to both Nate and I and our two investors. Not going would be like being a pharmasuitical sales rep and hearing that all the decision maker Doctors were going to be in one spot for 5 days, and you decide not to go. (Like I said, no brainer).

As we did research about the conference, we saw that it would be held at the Ritz Carlton in Maui. The NPA got a discount for $350 a night, I repeat $350 a night. We both knew that as a start up we would need to cut costs, so we turned to our best friend negotiator (priceline.com) and saved a lot of money by staying at the Sheraton down the street. Don’t get me wrong, the Sheraton was amazing, and we saved almost half of what we would have paid… A double win!

The conference was everything we had hoped for. We soon learned that the parking industry is quite the brotherhood. These people have been working with each other for many many decades. We knew that these experienced Vets were not going to want to let two little tech geeks into their circle. It took a few days, but we were able to break those barriers down, and we walked away with some incredible friendships. We were able to participate in every event, including the annual golf tournament (on the kapula plantation course) and in turn continued to build life long friendships that we consider priceless. At the last dinner, both Nate and I received numerous awards and were approached by many of the CEOs of these huge parking companies telling us how grateful they were that we came. We were able to set up a few meetings and the trip, which wasn’t cheap, ended up being absolutely worth it and more! I will post some pictures of the trip below:

2. Valentines Day Adventure with Jan– Unfortunately February 14th was on a Tuesday this year. Jan happens to have class from 12pm-10:30pm every Tuesday in Salt Lake at the BYU Salt Lake Campus. I knew this was the case weeks in advanced and turned to my best friend for help… If you guessed Priceline as my best friend, you were correct. ha. I put in an extremely low price for a 4 star hotel and to my surprise I won the bid. We were put in the Hilton in Downtown Salt Lake on Monday Feb 13th. I didn’t tell Jan till the day of and everything ended up working out really well. After I got done with a meeting for work, I went to the hotel to check in and to my surprise the computer systems shut down and nothing was working. I waited in the lobby for a hour or two (Jan was at class by the way and would be arriving around 7:30) Jan showed up right when the computers got fixed. We had a gift card to PF Changs, thanks to our awesome friends Brad and Bryna Lords, and enjoyed a very tasty dinner. After dinner we may or may not have gone to The Vow, and I may or may not have thought it was a pretty good movie. The next day Jan went to school right across the street and I went back to work. If I had it my way, I would celebrate every valentines day on the 13th.. Nothing was crowded and it felt more special!

3. Living and Learning– Its funny. When I was in my last semester of college, I had this mental picture of how life would be. I was so confident that parqo would be rolling in gold and Jan and I would be looking for a house and get out of my parents hair. Well, reality happened and things have been a lot different than I would have imagined. The thing is though, I have no complaints. The things I have learned in the month of January and February have been priceless. I have gotten on my knees more than I ever have since I’ve been home from my mission. Their have been many nights were I have asked myself ” I wanted this?” but their have been just as many nights were I have thought “I WANTED THIS!!!!” (In a positive pumped up tone). I remember I was having a frustrating week where I felt like the most unsuccessful human being on the planet. That all changed after I started listening to a book written by the guy who started the shoe company Toms. The book is called Start Something that matters and it changed my life.

At the very beginning of chapter 1, the author says a quote that changed the way I looked at life. It is a quote that I reflect on often now. Its about success… Gosh I love it…

Here it is:

Success: To laugh often and love much

To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children

To earn the appreciation of honest critics

And endure the betrayal of false friends

To appreciate beauty

To find best in others

To leave world a bit better – whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition.

To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.

This is to have succeeded.- Emerson

I have this quote hanging in my office. If us mormons were allowed to get tattoos, I woud but this on my stomach. 🙂

That was my february! Now last but not least.. onto March

March:

Although tis not over, March has been one of the most exciting, busiest 3 weeks of my life. Let me explain:

March 1st was my awesome wife’s birthday. It was also the start of  traveling gone wild for me. We were able to celebrate Jan’s birthday on leap day which was an absolute blast! On the 1st, Jan and I went to Kneaders and I experienced the famous Kneaders french toast for the first time. It was like it was my birthday, not Jans! We had great conversation and I gave her my gift and she then took my to the airport.

Side note: At the end of January, West Coast Conference Basketball Tickets went on sale. I had heard that they were going to sell out quick so I came up with a plan. I decided that since I wasn’t making any money from parqo yet, I would take actions into my own hands and become a part time ticket scalper. I ended up buying 6 extra all session tickets and felt great about it at the time… keyword: at the time.

As the weeks went by, I was shocked that my tickets hadn’t sold on neither stubhub nor KSL.

Now back to March 1st. The tournament was 1 day away and I still hadn’t even gotten a bite. Jan was on my back, as she should have been, and I was doing my best to even break even. We were about 2 minutes away from pulling up to the airport and my phone rang. It was a number I hadn’t seen before, which usually means I won’t answer it. For some reason I felt that I needed to answer this call, and to my complete utter surprise, it was someone who wanted 4 of the 6 tickets! Happy birthday to both Jan and I again!

Jan dropped me off and I was off to Boulder, Colorado for the regional round of the walmart better business plan competition.

When I was in my last semester of college at BYU-Idaho one of my favorite teachers in the whole world told me that I needed to enter this business plan competition. She said its for a green sustainable idea. I laughed and thought she was joking but she was adamant about me at least entering. Well I entered and ended up advancing through two rounds, which lead us to Boulder, Colorado.

I met Nate at the airport in Denver and away we went. Talk about a cool town! Boulder blew me away. I loved that city!

We showed up to the competition the next morning and walked into the room where 5 of the competing schools were waiting. We started asking what everyone came up with and soon learned that we probably were in the wrong competition. When the girl from Colorado State told us that she had started a business that would build schools and completely re organize how school systems work in Ghana, we knew we had lost.

We presented and put our hearts on the table and…. we lost…

We soon learned that walmarts goal in this whole thing was to help build their image, and we knew that putting their name on building schools in Africa sounded a lot better than cutting down gas emissions through prepaid parking reservations. We were able to go back into the judges and get critiqued, which ended up being worth the trip itself! We took the information and zipped outta there!

Some more highlights from March thus far:

1. The Annual BYU Basketball Tournament in Vegas with my Dad and usually Christopher (Sniff Sniff.. I miss that guy)-After we presented and got the results we jumped on a plane headed to vegas. Nate’s wife Melinda is an assistant coach for BYU womens basketball, so it ended up working out really well that we both needed to go to vegas. We got in, rented a car, and zipped to The Orleans Arena. My awesome Dad had flown in earlier that day and had already started to sell my last two tickets for me. I arrived to the arena about 10 minutes before the BYU vs San Diego game tipped off. The tradition continues!

We had a great time and like always, our cougars let us down and didn’t make it to the championship. We kinda suspected this would happen and planned ahead by pre renting a car that we could drive back to SLC when BYU lost. Before we left, I was able to meet up with one of my favorite old roommates and his wife (The Paces), and see their baby for the first time. My Dad and I also were able to eat some amazing fish at Roy’s, go shopping at Norstrom Rack, and do what we love to do most… Watch a lot of basketball!

2. New Orleans– While in Hawaii we were able to get to know one of the heroes and most respected men of the parking industry Herb Anderson. He now owns a parking company in New Orleans called Royal Parking and we had the opportunity, because of Hawaii, to meet with him and talk about how parqo could help his company. Nate and I decided that this meeting was too important to just bring the two of us, so we called up “the backbone” of parqo to join forces with us. Nate, Wylie, and I showed up the night of the 7th and thanks to, you guessed it, priceline.com, we were able to stay at another really nice hotel for a very good price.

The next morning we woke up and went and met with Herb and his son Niel. The meeting went GRRREEAT! Their was such a good feeling in the room and goods things will be coming in the near future with Royal and Parqo.

Since the flight was a lot cheaper to leave on the 10th rather than the 9th, both Wylie and I stayed an extra day. Wylie’s plan was to go fishing for Reds and my plan was to meet up again with Royal Parking and get a tour of some of the lots and garages that they own. Long story short, Wylies fishing trip got cancelled and I didn’t get the meeting with Neil  until 4:30 that evening. The SEC basketball tournament happened to be in New Orleans and since it has always been a dream of mine to see the #1 basketball team in the country play, and Wylie had nothing to do, we jumped in a taxi and headed to the New Orleans Arena.

We were able to get awesome tickets at a great price and enjoyed watching one heck of a game between Kentucky and LSU as well as some of Florida and Alabama.

That night Wylie and I headed to our hotel that was closer to the airport and I ate my first crawfish of my life… and I LOVED IT!

Side note: On leap day 10 days earlier, I started to feel sick. In colorado, I stayed sick and lived on Dayquil and Nyquil. In Vegas, I started feeling a tiny bit better, but it was the first night in New Orleans where I thought I had seen my last day as a living human being. Remember that…

3. Nashville, Chicago, and Washington DC– Remember when I said “remember that”? Well I got home from New Orleans on Saturday morning feeling more sick than I have ever felt in my entire life. I couldn’t stay warm and I felt like my lungs we’re clogged with crisco. I finally humbled myself enough to do what my dear wife and Mom had been telling me to do for 10 days prior… I went to the Doctor. It was a tender mercy that my doctor, who is a neighbor in my ward, happened to be working on this specific Saturday. He told us later that he usually only works 1 saturday every six weeks and this happened to be the saturday. I show up and didn’t even have the strength to sit in the chair. I had to lay on the floor in the waiting room curled up in the fetal postion. Call me a drama king, but I really didn’t think I was going to make it. ha.

I was suppose to head to Nashville the next day for our first ever Parking Expo… That all change when Dr Anderson came in the room and said “Pneumonia” and “You are not safe to fly, which means you are not going to Nashville”.

One peanut butter shot in my bum later, I was out of there! I was told I needed to rest for at least 1 week, which for me is about the worst news I could have heard. ( I can’t sit still for 1 hour let alone 1 week)

One week of resting later and I was on a flight to Chicago, IL for our 2nd expo. We had heard that this expo would be much bigger than the expo in Nashville, and sure enough, it was!

Yet another side note: Heavenly Father has Parqo’s back. Let me explain: When BYU’s women’s team beat Gonzaga in the WCC final they earned an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. Both Nate and I knew that BYU womens first game was going to be on the day of our important expo in Chicago. Nate, being the great and supportive husband that he is, told me that he would go to the girls game to support his wife before he went to the expo. This meant that I would have to endure this beast of an expo all by myself, after coming off a week of being out of commission with pneumonia.

Well, monday happened and guess where the women of BYU got sent to play for their first game? If you said Chicago, you just won a million dollars! How cool is that? Oh and the best part was, the arena was literally a 30 second drive from the Hotel that I had booked 3 weeks prior. (I’m giving priceline all the credit for this once again)

I showed up around 2 and was able to get a ticket from Nate’s wife to go watch BYU take on Depaul.

The expo started the next day. We were able however to go church and hear some great talks from a wonderful ward near Rosemont, IL.

When we showed up to the expo, we were a little shocked to see how little the space was that we had been given. Their was no way that our 10 by 10 display was going to fit and we didn’t know what to do. We went and approached the head guy of the whole thing, he told us that their were no extra spaces anywhere but he would do his best to make us happy and get us a bigger space.

The man upstairs stepped in again, in a funny way. Their happen to be a bus company that was planning on bringing a bus inside of the exhibit hall and parking it in their reserved space. If you guessed that the bus didn’t fit through the door by 5 inches, you win another million dollars. Because of that travesty for them, we were able to take some of the space that they no longer needed, which ended up being one of the best spaces in the whole Expo! A lot of prayers of gratitude were said on our part for that one!

The expo went till tuesday night and it ended up being quite the success! People were loving the movie that our good friend Sean had made for us and we we’re able to get in touch with a lot of decision makers!

Oh by the way. I had never been to downtown Chicago in my life before this trip. After two days of exploring that city, I must say I was VERY impressed! I could see myself living in a city like that someday!

Last but not least, (you both are probably thinking.. FINALLY) where I am right now.

It’s 2:13 in the morning and I have a flight back to Salt Lake in less than 5 hours. I am so excited about this post though, I don’t even care about sleep.

Flashback: Remember that tough trip that I had to take to Hawaii? Well while we were there, we became close to more than just Herb Anderson. It was the second day that we were there and a man named Andrew Blair spoke to us about his company and himself. I remember sitting in the room with all the other big wigs of the parking industry and thinking, this guy is the type of guy I want to work with.

Two weeks after Hawaii, we were invited by Andrew and his company, Colonial Parking of Washington DC, to come present for 1 hour about parqo and its technologies and Colonials parking technology forum. They invited 6 other companies and we each had 1 hour.

Nate and I prepared well and took all the things we had learned from Boulder, New Orleans, and Chicago and prepared a presentation from our hearts.

We woke up at 3:55 in the morning on Wednesday March 21st and headed off to the airport. My flight was at 5:40 and Nate’s was at 6:00 am. I had a connecting flight in Atlanta and then onto DC to arrive at 11:35, which was an hour and a half before we were up to present. Nate on the other hand could only get a flight into Baltimore and had to rent a car and pray that their was no traffic, so that he would make it in time. Heavenly father stepped up for us again and Nate was able to make it in the nic of time.

We went in and presented to the Colonial Parking leadership team which consisted of 15 or so people.

I had just listened to a podcast about “the art of the pitch” and in that podcast the author said “You’re AV, sound, and technology will always and I mean always not work when you need it to”. I remember sitting on the plane smiling and thinking, “yeah right”. Well if you guessed that our technology clicker thing stopped working, you win another million bucks… heck its late.. you win 3 million bucks.

I was in charge of the clicker, which was on my cell phone. I remember Nate getting close to the end of his first slide and I looked down and I see in big bold letters “Connection Lost”.

I had to act quick, so I walked over to the computer, did an Indian Squat, and clicked through the slides manually. When it was my turn to speak, Nate and his 6 foot 9 frame had to do the same. Somehow we pulled it off and it didn’t seem to distracting at all.

The presentation felt great. We put our hearts on the table knowing that it is a longshot to be chosen, and left feeling really good about everything.

We got to our Hotel, which thanks to priceline, is the nicest hotel I’ve ever stayed in, (The Mayflower Renaissance) and went straight to lunch.

After Lunch we headed to my new favorite museum in DC called  The Newseum. I am a media Junkie and this 6 story building filled all of my media and news needs! It was fascinating. I wish I could have spent 3 more hours in it, which if you know me, is not in my personality.

After the museum, we were exhausted! We went back to our hotel, and took a nap and ended the night sending out emails and preparing putting our shoulder to the parqo wheel.

Today, March 23rd, was a day I have been looking forward to for a few weeks. When I booked my flight from Chicago to DC I got a pretty good deal. When I talked to the agent about getting from DC to SLC she wanted 500 bucks. She said It would be a lot cheaper to fly out friday instead of thursday and as I was talking to her I found a one way flight that was only $200 dollars. That meant I got to stay an extra day in a city that I love and save the company a little money while doing it.

When I came with my family to DC after the Clark Family reunion the thing I remember most was the incredible food that Christopher and I scarfed down and loved everyday!

So in behalf of Christopher I went to Pizza Paradiso:

That is ROOT beer by the way. 🙂

After this great pizza, Nate and I went on a quick drive around the city and then he had to go back to BWI to catch his flight.

He dropped me off in the middle of the city and I spent the next hour or so going on a little adventure, which I had a blast doing.

I came home, took a nap, then went exploring again and went back to potbellys and sat at the window table and people watched for the next 2 hours. I loved every minute of it.

I have loved this city! The feeling among the people here is amazing! Everyone does stuff together and people eat right here! I was reminded while I was here, why I love people so much!

 

Grandma Clark and Grandma Barbara,

Now to finally end, I must say how grateful I am for the two of you. I am grateful for you loving me and all the other cousins unconditionally.

I hope you enjoyed this and didn’t get to bored. I just remember how much my parents said you enjoyed my mission letters and thought that I would take the time to do a mission letter type “life update” for the both of you.

Thanks again for all you do!

 

Love your grandson,

Jason

Sharpening the old saw

Im laying in a bed in Chicago, Illinois and I can’t sleep.

We (Parqo) have a HUGE day tomorrow and the only thing that I feel I should be doing right now is  updating my “journal/blog”.

Its amazing how right Steven R Covey was when he talked about “sharpening the saw” as one of the most important keys to being a successful person. In the past three months, I have not sharpened my saw enough and its time to change that… Starting now.

I love writing. I understand that my grammar makes english majors want to jump off cliffs, and to them, I pray that there is water at the bottom. I have such a strong conviction of keeping personal records of yourself. It is something I have felt over and over that I need to be better at, and that betterment starts now.

There are few things that truly sharpen my saw. Here are my top 10:

1. Writing (About life, about sports, about out of the box dates that I think of, about people, and about religion)

2. Sports (Playing, Attending, Watching, and talking about with someone who knows what they’re talking about) (In that order)

3. Traveling ( With wife, with friends and family, and for business (Tonight I went to downtown Chicago for the first time and didn’t want to leave) )

4. Eating ( Fine Dining, Crappy Dining, Fun Dining.. I love dining)

5. Having Fun ( Do I really need to explain how to have fun? Fun is Fun and their can never be too much of it)

6. Doing things that bring me closer to God (Reading Scriptures, Going to the Temple, Going to Church, Serving People, Praying)

7. Watching awesome TV shows ( Friday Night Lights, 24, Friends, Greys Anatomy, American Idol, Modern Family, Chuck, Sportcenter, The Office)

8. Teaching ( I love to teach. If this business takes off and we sell it in 5-10 years, I would love to go and teach. I get so pumped every time I teach)

9. Exercising ( When I do this, I am so happy. When I don’t, I feel so crappy.)

10. Listening to things ( Podcasts (BS Report, Six Pixels of Seperation), Music, Audio Books, Ted Talks)

 

Now as I sit here in my hotel room at 1:37 AM, I realize that the reason I haven’t felt as successful as I want to feel is because I haven’t done hardly any of that Jack that I listed above.

Tomorrow I will do all 10!

I will wake up and read my scriptures and pray( 6 Check)

I will then go to the hotel gym thing and exercise (9 Check)

I will then go to the Parking Industry Expo thingy and teach people about what we do (8 Check)

Oh and I will have a blast doing it (5 Check)

I will listen to the Six Pixels of Separation that Lee Warnick recommended to me about “the perfect pitch” in preparation for the biggest pitch of my life in DC on Wednesday. (10 Check)

I will then go into the City of Chicago again and find an incredible place to eat thanks to yelp. (3 and 4 Check)

After we get back from the city I will finish watching last weeks episode of Shark Tank ( 7 Check)

And before I go to bed I will turn on sportscenter and catch up on all the days action in sports and write another post while i’m doing it (2 and 1 Check and Check)

 

I believe that If I do that, the Jason Clark saw aka the life of Jason Clark will be sharpened and ready to go and do it again on tuesday.

Hey College Students: You Can… You Should… Start a Business

My grandpa wrote a book a few years back about poetry. The book is called “You can.. You should.. Write Poetry”. I’ve decided I’m going to follow in his footsteps and write a book on my own and while i’m at it, I’m going to copy the title of his book. Thanks grandpa.

Chapter 1: The cold hard facts about life after graduation

I was in a class last semester that I will never forget. I am grateful for this class.. It put a fire in me that hasn’t burned out since. Let me explain:

The teacher got up and asked the class to write down on a paper what they expected to make their first year out of college after they graduate. The only reason he did it was as he said “I’m just curious”.  The teacher left the room and came back five minutes later and then asked the class if we could go around he room and share our answers.

The first kid shocked me “25k” he said with a proud smile. I almost fell off my chair with how proud this person was of his answer. I prayed that he was an outlier…. Nope.. “31k” the next girl said. “35, 30, 28 and finally someone went way above and beyond and said 40.”

I kept thinking to myself, how the heck are people OK with these answer?! I kept looking down at the number I had written on my piece of scratch paper and wondering if I would get stoned for not following the norm of 25-40k answer.

It got to me and I took a deep breath and said “100 thousand”. It was as if I just dissed on someones mom. I felt the class ready to circle around me and start pushing me around for being “crazy”.

This experience put a fire in me. I felt like Tim Tebow with all the doubters. ha.. I am sure grateful for the motivation though.

Chapter 2: The Internship Expedition’s

How 3 internship expeditions were exactly what I needed: I went on my first Internship expedition with BYU-Idaho to Minnesota. It was an amazing experience but as we went to some of the top advertising agencies in the world, I started to get feeling weird about working for a big bad company. In every place we went, there was a feeling of competitiveness and my stomach was just not settled.

I then had the opportunity to go to my home of Salt Lake. This internship was also very eye opening. Going from each business to the next, I just didn’t feel like doing an unpaid internship after I graduated. The one company that did it for me however was Franklin Covey. As we sat in there conference room and watched videos on there company, I told myself that I would someday go around from business to business and consult them just as Frankin Covey does. I was able to talk to the recruiter and got a very good feeling about someday working with or for Franklin Covey. A few weeks later I was able to meet Robert Whitman, who is the CEO of Franklin Covey, and talk to him about what it took to be a consultant. The road was not easy and was all about experience.

It hit me, If I start a successful business, I could have the credibility to help fellow entrepreneurs on what they need to do to get from A to B and then B to Z.

That was my new goal. I am sure grateful for that expedition.
My last internship expedition was in New York City. What an amazing trip that was. I was able to go to my personal disneyland aka ESPN headquarters in Bristol. While in New York I met a kid named Shane Snow, a fellow BYU-Idaho graduate and a graduate of the columbia school of journalism. I was able to stand in line with him waiting for our burgers at a park. Just hearing him talk about his experiences in starting his own business gave me such a good feeling. He seemed so happy and he seemed like he was completely in control of his life. His company Contently is doing amazing things and I just had a great feeling that we would be  next.

Chapter 3: The Youtube Video that opened my mind and changed my life

I was sitting in the back of my communications 399 class. I would always walk in and sit next to my friend Jay Harris. On this particular day Jay was in a rather chipper mood. He couldn’t stop laughing to himself. Midway into the class I finally leaned over to him and asked why he was so happy.

He then showed me the following Video that forever changed my life.

He showed it to me without telling me what was so funny about it. I got done and thought. That is by far the dumbest more boring video I have ever seen.
He then began to explain why he was laughing. He went on to tell me that him and a couple of his friends were bored for april fools the day before and that they decided they were going to play an april fools joke on someone and get them 100k hits on a random boring video.

I thought that was about the most random april fools joke I have ever heard but It was just his sense of humor and I said “Coool” sarcastically…

Then he taught me a lesson that I had learned from Seth Godin a few years earlier.

He then asked me to guess how many views I thought they had gotten. I said 500. He then opened up the youtube window and showed me they were at 150,000 views!

The lesson Jay taught me that day was that Seth Godin wasn’t lying about his theory on tribes in the world.

Jay had found a tribe of people who have the same sense of humor.  He and his friends lead those people and started an incredible snowball.

I left the class that day realizing that ANYTHING was possible. I began thinking more about the concept of tribes and I started basing my thoughts of starting a business on tribes that had no leader.

Chapter 4: The Article and The Book

The Article:

I was introduced to Nate Bendall on July 4th 2009 through one of my best friends Brian Green. The tree of us became best friends before we even left his house to go watch fireworks. That friendship continued and Nate Bendall has now become one of my very best friends I have ever had.

One thing that I love about Nate Bendall is his drive for being successful. We began finding our conversations after a year switch to starting a business. In January of 2011 he called me and told me he had found an amazing article that I had to read. The article was entitled “25 millionaires under 25.” He then  kept saying, “If they can do it.. We can do it!”

We both decided that day that there was NO reason we couldn’t be millionaires before we were 25. That article just added to my fire. Every time  I thought about starting my own business I felt good not scared or nervous. I truly believe heavenly father’s plan for me is and always has been to start a business.

The Book:

I had a marketing teacher in High School that loved Seth Godin. He was one of my mentors and I thought “If he loves him, I’m sure I will too”. That thought has never been so true.

My favorite Seth Godin book as you can tell from my previous post on this blog is Tribes.

This book taught exactly what Jay Showed me with his youtube video april fools joke. There are billions of people in the world. In those billions of people there are a million tribes.Each of those tribes range from anywhere from 10 people to a million people who share the same thought or passion about a certain topic or thing.

The challenge from Seth Godin was to go find an unload tribe and lead them. He then promised that tribe leaders are the most successful people in this world.

Chapter 5: Finding a Tribe

One of my favorite questions to ask people is “Have you had a bad experience ever?”. I have probably asked that a hundred times and not one person has said no.

When Nate called about his frustrations about parking at Utah State my eyes went big. I knew right then and there that Nate had found a really pissed off tribe with a few crappy leaders and in most cases no leader.

When Nate said  “We need to start a business to help the parking situation.” I was ALL IN!

Chapter 6: Applying Advice

There are three pieces of advice about starting a business that stuck with me through the years.

The first was from a Brother Johnson, an EFY Director while I was working one week. He was a man who had started and sold many businesses. He was one of my heroes from the moment he started talking. At one of the counselor meetings he gave us this advice. “If you want to start a successful business remember this… It doesn’t matter what idea you have, your business will either fail or succeed because of the people who are on your team.” He then taught us for the next week how important board of directors are. He said each one of us should have our own personal board of directors and if we plan on starting a business and we want to succeed, we better put together the best board of directors possible.

The second advice was from a great family friend. His name is Mike Knepp. For one of my classes I had to interview someone about life and business. It was my sophomore year and I was driving back to frigid Rexburg from Utah. I remember I called him and we talked for a good 30 minutes. In 30 minutes the only thing he stressed was the importance of networking. He told me that we are 5 people away from knowing everyone in the world. He said you will succeed if you are a good networker. (Remember this paragraph for the next chapter)

The third piece of advice was from Seth Godin about leading a tribe as I talked about above. Find a tribe and lead them, and you will succeed. Its that easy.

Chapter 7: Making a List and Checking it Twice

When parqo, which originally was called pin parking.com, took first place at the Utah State Idea Pitch competition things started to get serious. There were some amazing people that helped parqo along the way. If it weren’t for amazing people like Tyler Toolsen and Skyler Jenks I don’t think parqo would be where it is today. There expertise in connecting with people(Tyler), and just doing whatever it takes to get answers and get things done(skyler) are what built the base for parqo. I look forward to doing business with both of these men down the road.

Parqo got to the point where it could only move forward with money. The parqo team decided to go out and start looking for people to invest.

Mike Knepps about Networking had never been ringing so true. For two weeks we went around and started feeling it out with people about investing in parqo. Two weeks and we had 35,000, which was not bad, but we knew we would need more.

We went another week and got denied a couple more times. I decided it was time to eat some humble pie and contact everyone I knew who even had a dollar.

One night I stayed up until 3 in the morning writing a list, on one of those yellow notebooks, of people who might potentially donate. I put them in tiers of people who I would contact first and then go from there. I spent 3 days putting together a letter explaining our situation and seeing if anyone would loan us or invest.

I got done with the letter and was planning on sending it to 78 people from my network that night.

I was driving home from Rexburg to Idaho Falls when I was reminded of the talk I had with Mike Knepp a few years back about networking. He was actually at the top of one of my tiers on my paper.

I hate asking for money but I knew this would be a great investment for anyone who took the risk on us.

I called Mike and told him that I needed a Janitor for my company. 20 minutes later, Mike made a few calls and parqo was completely funded!

Networking, Networking, Networking!

Chapter 8: The book that saved our company 100k dollars

From the time parqo won the Utah State competition until we got our funding, we had been spending all of our time trying to find the right person to develop our website.

With winning, parqo was given 3000 dollars worth of law work from a man named Rick Bigelow. Rick dealt with website start ups often and had a developer that he told us would do an amazing job at our website and application. They wanted 25,000 and 3% equity. This developer had help build netflix and an incredible resume.

We were uneducated and thought they were overcharging. We continued to shop.

We then were approached by an investment company who developed websites and had a lot of muscle they were offering us. The only problem. They wanted 35k and anywhere from 25% equity

Two months went by and we were going back and forth on terms. We decided that they were the one for us and that there price would be worth it. We said yes and then they called back as they were making our contract for work and said that they had miss quoted us and that it would be 85k dollars and 8-15 percent equity. WHAT!?!

We were sick but we still felt that they were the ones… That is until we read “The Lean Start up”

This book saved our turkeys. Just as I said in my book review a few posts earlier, The lean start up is all about giving the public a MVP (Minimum Viable Product).  Then let your consumer tell you what he or she likes and then you can change it at that point. The author kept reiterating how to many companies give the public the biggest and baddest thing from the get go and spend way too much money and time on it and half the time the public only likes 10 percent of it.

It was general conference weekend and Nate called and said that we needed to practice what the lean start up said and go with Rick Bigelow’s guy named Wiley.
I could not have agreed any faster. I have no doubt that the Lord had his hand in this.

The lean start up saved us a lot of money! We could not be happier with our developer Wiley. He has been the most enjoyable person to work with and he is coming up with something amazing for a lot less that this investment company would have done.

Chapter 9: Building an extremely competitive team

I love basketball. My favorite weekend of the year is all star weekend. I love seeing the best of the best join forces and be an “all star team”.

In the back of my mind I have always been thinking about my personal all star team which is the same things as a personal board of directors. I have envisioned who would be our starting point guard and who would be our go to guy for the big plays.

When Mike and My Dad said they would fund the whole thing, we were sure they were going to take 70 percent and call it a day. That was not the case.

Instead they came up with the most brilliant plan in my opinion. They wanted to each take less as long as we put together a good team to be our our board to help lead this thing.

This was one of my favorite parts of the project. Both Nate and I wrote down a list of about 20 individuals who we thought would be awesome to sit on our board. We then talked about each and every one of them as if we were the GM’s for the parqo team. (By the way, my dream in life is too own the jazz and be an Owner/GM.. SO this was VERY fun for me).

After about a week of sending out letters of interest we decided on a few individuals to help this thing get off the ground.

We of course already had our  6 10 finance and economics guy to play Center aka Nate Bendall, the brain child behind this whole thing.

We then decided to of course to put Mike Knepp in at power forward. Mike is a General Contractor by trade but has done just about everything from Cleaning up Hurricane Katrina with My Dad to leading the nations biggest solar project plant. This is our go to shooter if we need something big to happen. He only thinks big. If it were his choice he would shoot half court shots the whole game.

We then decided to put in the point guard, My Dad. Talk about a leader. He makes John Stockton look like nothing. He currently is the Director of Sales for Utah but has done just about everything, like mike, before this job. I have never met anyone who does not like my dad.

We then landed the following all stars to serve as role players.

Lee Warnick- The former Dean of the College of School and Communications at BYU Idaho. Former Journalist at Deseret news and Author of a few books. He has been my personal mentor these past few months and I couldn’t be happier that he accepted the invitation. He is also the most incredible networker I know.

Tim Barney- He is the former COO of Energy Solutions. He was one of Nate’s Mentors on one of his business expedition. From what I hear, this guy knows business and will be a key leader on our team.

Wylie Thomas- In my opinion the best developer in Utah. Former project manager at Access 41 in Salt Lake. He was a key developer for Netflix and has done many other incredible things. There is not a more humble teammate than this guy. He does his work and doesn’t complain.

Shane Wood- Partner at Squire & Company, which is a top five accounting firm in Utah. He is my Dad’s cousin and has always been so easy to get along with. He knows money and thats what we need.

Vince Hazen- COO at LoneStar Logos & Signs in Austin Texas. He is an attorney and from what I hear he use to be an F-16 fighter pilot I think. My Dad and Mike can’t stop saying great things about him. I am excited to meet him!

Garrett Gee- Founder of the Scan app QR code app, which is the number 1 QR code app on the iPhone. There aren’t many guys cooler than this guy and we are thrilled to have landed him for his advice in starting a web based company.

Ladies and Gentlemen.. Thats your parqo all stars for you. When the competition comes, which it will, I feel very secure that we will have the upper hand because of the team we have put together.

Chapter 10: Enjoying the Roller Coaster Ride

This chapter will be one the constantly changes. I was told from the beginning that there will be some days that are amazing and some that you will wonder why you are doing this. That has never been more true.

I’m sure glad I have always loved roller coasters. Going into this from the beginning with the mindset that it will be a roller coaster has prepared me to handle the ups and downs with a positive attitude.

Chapter 11: Learning has never been more enjoyable

I feel so passionate about this chapter!

For the first 3 years of my schooling experience I wanted to drop out. It was so hard for me to connect with the majority of my classes. Parqo happened and learning changed for me.

Instead of Class and just going to class to get a degree for an unknown job, I began going to classes and applying everything I learned to parqo. I never knew school could be this enjoyable. I go to class every and feel like a sponge. I truly believe if every student had their own business, this same experience would happen for them!

Chapter 12: My Advice

I wrote down a top ten for a presentation I gave to a class. I decided to copy and past it for this.

•1. Figure out who you would love to work with(Who is on your Board of Directors?)

•2. Start talking to those people about tribes that do not have a leader

•3. Decide on an idea and move forward. Reality will kill your dream if it sucks

•4. Go to the store and buy a humble pie

•5. Write down a list of your network to contact for start up money

•6. Read Lean Start Up- Be Lean! Never stop getting peoples input.. They are the ones that matter!

•7. Eat a piece of your humble pie

•8. Get excited for school/life to be enjoyable and Use all the resources that you can at BYU-Idaho

•9.  Without your Wife’s Support.. You are toast

•10. Read Jacob 2 and Helamen 12 every week (Book of Mormon)

In conclusion I know I would not have been able to have as good as experience starting a business had I not been at BYU-Idaho. I was able to get incredible help from professors and students that I could have never gotten anywhere else.

So when all is said and done You Can.. You Should.. Start a Business! or if that doesn’t hit your heart strings Start a business or die.

Book Review: Tribes by Seth Godin

Seth Godin is probably my favorite Author. Actually… Seth Godin is my favorite Author on this planet.

I read Tribes a few years ago and decided that I was going to lead a tribe with the big hairy goal of leading multiple tribes.

If you have ever wanted to start your own business and are struggling with an idea, watch the video above.

This book gets a 9.8 star rating from me.

 

 

November Book Review: The Lean Start Up

Its simple: If you have an idea, spend as little building that idea out as possible. Once you have your minimum viable product or as Eric Reis put it, your MVP, give it the market and see what they say.
If they love all of it, congratulations, you are not normal. If they love most of it, then change the stuff they don’t love about it.

 

You will save yourself so much money by doing it this way. Don’t believe me… Let me give you a personal example:

 

We came up with our idea for a website and application. We started shopping around and found a few people that could develop this for us. One company, who in our opinion at the time was the Cadillac of developing, said they could do it for 85 thousand dollars! We knew they would make an incredible website that would blow this world away.  We wanted to go down this route so bad. Who doesn’t want a Cadillac for heavens sakes?
We almost signed the contract until we remembered what the lean start up had told us. Don’t overspend until you get your product out to your consumers first.
We almost overspent. We dodged a bullet.

 

There was another developer who said he would do it for 18,000 dollars and have it to us in half the time they would. In our opinion, which wasn’t credible whatsoever, this guy was the DI developer. He wasn’t the flashy new clothes but he would get the job done.

 

The lean start up is all about giving people a D.I. product first, then once you know more, take your D.I clothes  to the amazing sewer lady and tell her exactly what you (and the person that cares most about your clothes) want and she will do just that and you will save yourself 60 thousand dollars!

 

Here is the cool part about our D.I. Developer, we didn’t know this but he is actually a really chill Cadillac developer and also is the most amazing sewer guy ever.
We lucked out.. Not everyone will, but if everyone goes into there idea with the MVP idea, you will succeed.

 

The lean start up says to give your decision making to the people that are going to use your product… DUH…

 

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who has even thought about starting any sort of business. It will motivate you and give you the hope that anyone and their dog can start a business at a low price and come out with high profits!

Legend of the Week: Christopher Clark

 

I know I put him as last weeks legend but I still feel I did not highlight this kid enough.

I am still in shock at what happened yesterday at his farewell talk. I watched this kid, my little brother, get up for 25 minutes and have an entire audience captivated by his depth.

This is the same little brother who chased after me with a golf club because I laughed at him once.

Holy smokes this kid blew his talk out of the water.

I am going to miss this guy for the next two years and this is why:

I am going to miss having someone to just call and say “dude..” and then talk sports for the next hour without even a hesitation.

I am going to miss going bowling whenever we were together. (I’m sure he’s not going to miss losing every time)

I am going to miss not having someone to play Fifa Soccer 2012 on the PS3

I am going to miss having this 6 6′ kid who has a lights out shot, on my two on two team against my friends.

I am going to miss having him in my fantasy football league

I am going to miss not having someone to pound an entire meal at any time of the day regardless of when we last ate.

I am going to miss having someone to throw the ball around the house with and almost breaking the lamps every time.

I am going to miss the games we create not the spot and play them for two hours until we perfect them.

I am going to miss someone who loves buffalo wild wings and snake bite and good food for that matter as much as I do.

I am going to miss watching sports all day after church or all day on saturday with this guy.

I am going miss you bud.
You’re a freakin legend Christopher. Tear it up out there. Don’t get caught selling the drugs in Monterrey and remember my only mission advice. Do not listen to the soundtrack “The Best two Years” more than once a year… Trust me.

 

There will be a spot in our fantasy league for your 4-5 team when you get home. Keep being a legend son.

 

 

And I’m Feeeeling Goooooood…

Some songs just describe life better than others.
Todays Song is Feeling good by Michael Buble and its describing the way I feel better than any other song I can think of.

Why I’m feeling good:

1. My little brother, who leaves on his mission to Monterrey Mexico next week, is spending a few last days with me in Idaho Falls. He is this weeks legend of the week, no questions asked. You don’t meet many people who are as awesome as he is. I hate to say it but I’m pretty sure he is sibling in my family’s favorite sibling. He is just so cool to be around and he loves sports. That combination is hard to beat!  Its not very often that I meet someone who loves sports as much as me, but Christopher is one of those people. He just rocks! Thats all! I’m sure he will be a legend a few more times throughout his mission and you’ll see why.

2. I beat the legend of the week in Fifa 12 this morning and I beat him 5 out of 5 in bowling(205 cough.. not bad!).

3. We are going to see two movies in two days. Tonight we are going to see Tower Heist with Jan, and tomorrow we are going to see Real Steel.. without Jan. 🙂

4. I took an accounting test today and got 50%! I know for most that would be the biggest disappointment in the world but I have done the math and have realized that if I get an average of a 60% on my last two tests, I am going to pass my Accounting class from death with flying C minus colors.

5. Did I mention that I am finally starting to believe that I am actually going to graduate this semester?

6. My little sister was the captain of the 5A state volleyball champion Davis Darts! I am so proud of her. She is the absolute coolest baby sister anyone could ever ask for. She is going to marry a Rich man someday, I’m sure of it.

7. I have been planning my company’s board of director meeting in Park City and just got an email from the group and corporate hotel guy about the rooms are going to stay in. As he put it. “I went to bat for you”, which I think means he hit a home run, but i’m not quite sure. He did get us the upgraded one bedroom suites at the silver king in Park City, which is so NIIIICCCE! Oh he also through in the executive  conference room for free! What a DUDE!   Our board of directors are about to be blown away by what my business partner, Nate Bendall, and I are planning!(Thank you Steve Jobs and your biography for the great ideas).

8. My feeling on the NBA lockout is beginning to gain a little bit of light. I don’t know what it is, but I think they are going get something figured out within the next little bit. I don’t have a lot to back that up other than a feeling… A good feeling that is.. (get it, good feeling… feeling good)

9. I love BYU-Idaho. I took my brother up to class with me today and I was reminded again why I love this school so much. It is unlike any place in the world. I am going to miss it dearly.. actually let me rephrase that.. I am going to miss BYU-Idaho dearly minus the accounting class from HE double hockey sticks!

10. I got the macbook air last week and I love it! Like seriously, It is my new favorite thing in the world!

11. I have the greatest friends in the world. I am going to explain this more this week in a post that should be out on thursday.

12. I won my fantasy football game this week which puts me in second place if one guy loses tonight. 6-3 baby. Bring on the money!

13. My wife is so rad. There is no other way to describe her in this moment other than RAD!

I could keep going but I think ended with my rad wife is a good call.

I love america

Jason

I Believe… In Being Uncomfortable

I believe in being uncomfortable. In the world in which we live, I have noticed that everyone has a box. I’m not talking about the boxes that TV’s and refrigerators come in, rather the boxes we as humans put ourselves into to feel comfortable. I believe that by staying in this person box, eternal progression or our “personal progress” moves about as fast as a snail. The happiest people I have ever met are those who have jumped outside of these personal boxes of doom. They are people who are not scared of the word change, they are people have dared to be different. and they are people who do not worry about what others think of them. You see, I believe that life is too short to be “comfortable”.

Peter Mcwilliam said “Be willing to be uncomfortable, Be comfortable being comfortable. It may get tough but it’s a small price to pay for living a dream.”

I believe that on the pursut to find happiness the secret to living the dream lies in that quote. To reach our happiest state we must be willing to be uncomfortable.

I have found out for myself that in our lives the best thing for our personal progression is change. The word change often sends cold chills down people’s spines, but I have come to find out that change is the first step in jumping outside of that box in which we put ourselves into. Change in course takes us outside of our box, which then of course makes us happier. In other words, change equals happiness.

As a young boy I was forced to leave the people I loved and move from Utah to Texas. After a week in Texas, I was three times happier than I had ever been in Utah. That same change occurred as I was forced to move from Texas back to Utah. I can remember being so upset but once again after being a total of one week in Utah, I was ten times happier than I had been in Texas. When the opportunity was given to me to move in the middle of my senior year from Utah to Idaho and this time it was my decision, I looked back on the history of my previous moving experiences and noticed that my happiness only increased with every move. This time the decision was totally in my hands and, believe it or not, I took that leap of faith and made the biggest change of my entire life. People thought I was crazy but what they didn’t know is that the first three uncomfortable weeks up in Idaho were the best weeks of my life. I was able to find out who I was as a person and who I wanted to become. That year and a half in Idaho was the best year and a half of my life at that point. I learned what the word stretch really meant. I learned life lessons that in turn helped me as I made another life change: This time it was moving to a foreign country for the space of two years. Talk about being uncomfortable. Try speaking a language that you feel your mouth isn’t capable of speaking.Try living with someone who didn’t speak your language and didn’t understand your cultural background and wondered why you did things the way you did. It was during those four uncomfortable months with that German who didn’t understand me, when I grew most as a person. An experience happened while in this life changing land that forever changed me.

As a teenage boy I got in the habit of always saying the following words in my prayers. “Please help me become a better person.” I remember saying those words over and over without putting much thought into it but when I now look back I have realized that every one of those pleas to God were answered. You see, when we pray for something we often think that God will just zap into us what we are praying for. If one prays for patience, God does not just send down a stork with a box full of patient pills, rather he gives us experiences and opportunities where we as humans must learn the lesson of patience. Sometimes he sends people to teach us these things. Sometimes he gives us trials; however, I have come to find out that although the trails and experiences are usually uncomfortable, I am always a better person for them in the end and in turn I am so much happier! With the plea to become a better person, I have realized that every one of those prayers were answered through a life “changing” experience. While in that foreign land, I can once again remember praying to become a better person. The prayer was answered in a way that I would have never expected. It was a very uncomfortable answer or in other words a very uncomfortable experience/opportunity. Having never had any health problems in my life, God knew that the one thing that would stretch me as a human being would be to give me something that would test my patience, my faith, diligence, and my physical health. I was diagnosed with two very bad knees, and I was forced to leave the land I had grown to love and go receive two very serious knee operations. The doctors said I would be down for four to six months. I remember telling myself that it was time to be uncomfortable and cut that prognosis in half. It was in those three long months that I was completely outside of my box doing all that I could to gain the physical and mental strength to get back to the people I loved and to once again continue my service in their behalf. Never have I had to go through so much pain. Never was my patience so tested. Never in my life have I wanted to quit so many times. But never in my life did I grow more to become a better person than I did in those three uncomfortable months. And I state again… Change = happiness

In her 8^th grade year of school, Amanda Clark could be described as most people as the shyest girl in the school. At the end of her 8^th grade year she learned she would be moving locations with her family. It was at that moment when she made a choice. She knew that no one in her soon to be new school had a clue who she was. She had the choice to be different and she did just that. 4 years later she graduated at the top of her class with such honors as top debater in all of utah, National runner up in the biggest service project award as well as sterling scholar. With tears in her eyes… my sister Amanda told me that “Daring to be different” was the best choice I ever made. I made a choice that took seconds to make and my life changed forever. Cecil Beaton a great English scholar once said… “Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary.” I urge you all to dare to be different.. It took my sister out of her box and she is now one of the most successful people I know today!

As a human race, I believe one of our biggest hold backs, or things that keep us in our boxes are worrying to much what people think about us. We stay in our box because in our box, we only let people in who think good of us. These people include family members and very choice friends. As we grow older and attempt to step our toe out of the box into new waters we sometimes realize that people are judgmental and that it hurts to be thought of as something you know you aren’t. We worry and worry and don’t let things go but when it comes down to it, we will never grow at the pace we need if we are constantly worrying about what others think of us. Mother teresa put It perfect by saying…

People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered;

Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;

Be kind anyway.

If you are successful you will win some false friends and true enemies;

Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;

Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;

Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;

Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;

Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;

Give the world the best you’ve got anyway

You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God;

It was never between you and them anyway.

n Mother Teresa

I believe that God answers prayers and he does it in a way where we are forced to be stretched or to be uncomfortable. By accepting change with a smile, by daring to be different, and by not worrying what others think of us, our lives will change and we will be constantly be on cloud nine. When we are willing to jump outside that personal box of ours, we will grow and we will be so much happier for it. We are on this earth to be happy. We are on this earth to be uncomfortable. I believe in being uncomfortable!

Jason Clark

Audible

Ok.. So I didn’t accomplish the october 50. I realized about half way through that there was no possible way that I would get 100,000 views. I had fun doing it though… With that said..
Lifesplaybook is going to change a little bit. I had a conversation with my wife a week ago. She asked me what I was trying to accomplish through lifesplaybook. It really made me think(something I don’t often do). I realized that this playbook was too big and too broad. So I am changing things up a bit. As I have been thinking over the past couple weeks I have decided to make this more of an online journal for my future kiddos and there kiddos. I still want to highlight “legends”, or people that made an impact in my life. I also still want to post about date ideas I have come up with. I also want to write down my travel experiences and give my personal review on each place I go.

When looking back at the stats today, I realized the most popular post was about the top 10 movies. That made me excited because I love movies and from the looks of it, people who read this(all 3 people(my mom, jan, and my grandma)) like movies as well. I am going to continue to blog about movies and TV shows that I love and why.

I also want to write about sports. I know I haven’t done much of that in these first couple months but I know that will most likely change.

 

After reading this far you are probably thinking, what is going to change. Well to be honest, I don’t fully know myself, but I do know that it is going to be in more of a journal form.
My dream is, that when my kids are to the point that they can read, they can get on this thing and read about their dear old dad. I know my dad is an incredible journal writer and I sometimes wish the things he wrote were more easily accessible. I can’t wait to pick up his journals someday and reflect on the amazing times our family has had.

I would love your feedback. If you think this is a stupid idea and I should stick to the format I have set up this past month, then maybe I will. I do think that you will enjoy this new lifesplaybook more. If not, im sorry and maybe i’ll do another site in the future that you may like more.
All is well
Jason

Legend of the Week: Steve Jobs

This made me want to be a better person. This also helped me realize that there is no reason I can’t be successful. I hope it does the same for you.