A new state of mind

I have been a little apprehensive over creating this blog. I think blogs should express the true feeling and unconditional opinion of the writer on topics that he/she is interested in. To be a good blog writer means to take on a little risk and back it up. Or you can write anonymously and that seems a little uncool. I think people should be able to say what they feel, be honest, no holds barred, let her rip. I have spent my entire life holding back on a lot of self expression in order to position myself as a candidate for some sort of employment or postured position for one thing or the other. I feel a little apprehensive starting a blog that could compromise my true ability to conform. That is just friggin stupid isn't it?


The brain issue
I have had to conform, like most of us, in order to succeed within in the system. Pretty normal stuff really. Early on it was because I was a less-than-stellar academic achiever. Just couldn't get school. My skill has been my ability to use my perspective on things to spin things my way. I remember stuff. I have always been good at categorizing my thoughts into groups, logical vignettes that I can call on for an intuitive decision making process. I can box up, label, and recall things based on life's experiences-- interesting and meaningful events of the past to be used in the present. I learn by the act of doing things, OJT, not through lecture. As I get older, I am able to read more and consume much more information, important to improving my vision quest. My writing has gotten better do to the Help of Lindenwood University's communications department. But my closet is quite full of references to some pretty scary experiences and decision making of the past, some decisions good, others not so good at all. I am competitive and challenge those who say I can't do something, by setting out to do just that. I was a late bloomer intellectually, I was busy living up so somebody else's standard or pre-conceived notion.

Acknowledgment
Success didn't come until I got my head out of my ass and started being who I really wanted to be and telling people exactly what I had in mind. I use the term "work shopping" a lot, along with other buzzwords and cliche's used for my internal categorizing method. Ferment, incubate, audience, framework to name a few others, are part of my daily dialog. Just ask my Administrative Assistant, Davida. She mutters the words on cue now quite nicely. I use people to help me find my way, like an open book, I am a work in progress thanks to friends, co-workers family and those special people whom I respect. I am not innovative, rather emulative of my hero's accomplishments, and I have plenty.

Pfoodman, the company
Six years ago, I named our company Pfoodman, an early career prototype concept of a food management company from long ago. After about a million people told me that there is "just something" to the name and its meaning, I had it trade (service) marked with plans to license it to third party marketing companies later. We have a management company/entity and a consulting company/entity as part of our multi-spoke wheel of products and services that make up The Pfoodman Holdings Group. The plan is to use the brand equity from our successful management company to introduce consumer products, professional services, distribution services and other endeavors through strategic partnerships someday. Right now we stay on track and continue to figure out what we do well and keep doing it--part of our plan to change the world, to build audiences for the brand, the recognition and validation process. Uh, big picture stuff here. Lots more on this later.

Long story short on the Pfoodman thing, after a successful battle for control over the original company, I started a website, pfoodman.com. It was basically the open book on who I was and all that our company aspired to become. I didn't have anything too awful interesting to write about. Life had taken a bit of a toll on me thus far. I had been in the bar and restaurant business for 18 years. I sucked when it came to presenting an image or personality that anyone would find all that interesting. I was a smoker, loved to indulge in all sorts of unhealthy activities. I wound up the hospital after a night out with some buds. So I took on the task of re-inventing myself through a health and fitness overhaul which later and thankfully has turned in to obsession for high speed and youthful activity--that which became a new understanding on life in general.

Cyber media manipulation
Anyone can gain status by creatively introducing significant material to the web over time. Bike race stuff and results from different competitions and editorials got the ball rolling for me. There are online forums, editorial news articles and other media issues that search spiders catch when making their collections. This has been going on for years now. Years ago I took a literature class as part of my "education for the sake of education". I began workshopping my poetry on Everpoet.com in order to receive some critical feedback on my newly aquired skill. While I was unaware of it at the time, all of my workshopped poetry was made attainable by searching Pfoodman on any search engine. I suppose I am "outed" on the poetry thing. So be it. I did get published once or twice, in some magazine in California. Check must still be in the mail.

Eventually, through the magic of Google and Yahoo, some of my achievements in sport and business made their way to the web. It is modern day Guerrilla Marketing. It is indeed possible to creatively manipulate and point a finger of character on a subject if you do it right, on the web. I was able to pave my own way to cyberockstarsupernova status. It is cool to tell others to simply "Google me" in order to get a summery of my personal character. This has taken some time to amass a significant amount of material, but it is there and anyone can do it. I get pages of search criteria on any search engine for both my name and for Pfoodman.


Storytelling and performance
Pfoodman.com now is very importantly my company website and it is filled with all the materials of success and all of the marketing things needed so our prospective client base will drool over that which is different and innovative, that which attracts and retains employees, clients, financing and validation of our ability to perform as a business. We perform well, because we have to, so the system works for us. But it is understandably marketing and, while I stand behind my achievements and integrity and the incredible achievements of my staff, it is important to understand that there is reality at the essence of all storytelling. I am sure not everyone sees things the way I see it. Bottom line is, we rock as a company because our staff chooses to rock. I motivate them to be their best and provide a solid leg for them to stand on, it is my job. They know I am not perfect and most will tell me to shut up if they have had enough. I like it that way. I have learned a lot from my staff and realize that it has been at the expense of many things and in some cases at the expense of other people. The reality of my perspective, the complicated process of motivation and the energy that is required to stay on track has not come without a price. And that is business. It has not always been pretty, and life is still no bowl of cherries, but there is humor, lots of it, if things get real. That is what this blog is about.

Affirmation
So, I guess I will admit now that I am kind of a hippie in a yuppie cranium evidenced by the soy I eat, the soul patch that I refuse to get rid of, the "no worries" mantra/chanting I meditate to in the morning, not to mention the poetry that I lock myself into from time to time. I play music now because I can, and require my kid to play too. Art to me is a voodoo 29er or my surly 29er singlespeed. Right on? I have been conforming all these years and hiding my true identity in the basement surrounded by deep intellectual "isms". Things are set to change.

I feel now is the time to expose myself as unconventional in all regards, not just in business, because I am not really sure what the hell I am doing really anyway. I make no bones about it from this point forward. I have been white picket fencing for 25 years and recently asked myself, "How did it happen, is this who I've aspired to be?" Now the hippie wants to talk and the yuppie is steady falling in to the abyss of preconceived notion, the white picket fencing relevant to the posturing and the conformity necessary to achieve. "What a long strange trip it's been".

Or not.

Be real in the end, that's what matters.

So enjoy my blog, I will try and combine my love for sport and fitness with the outdoors, motivation, entrepreneurship, music, poetry, and that which is a little off centered and need of dialog. Check back often.