“The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.”

Mitch Albom

This time last week, I was already settled in to my room at the Rio in Las Vegas. I was trying to wind down, anticipating a busy schedule ahead at #NMX 2013 and  BusinessNext Social, held in conjunction with NMX.  It’s like Comic-Con (especially with Chris Hardwick making an appearance)  for people who are into “new media” which includes, blogging, podcasting,web-tv and video creators as well as social media. A huge thank you to Rick Calvert, Dave Cynkin, and everyone else involved with making NMX 2013 a success!

San Diego Rock n Roll Half Marathon Gear

For the last three seasons, I’ve trained for a marathon and two half-marathons with Team in Training. We raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in exchange for the training. Losing my mom-in law to Leukemia in 2009 was the catalyst.

Over the years we’ve formed long-lasting relationships and solidified existing ones. It’s been an amazing journey of love, laughter, grieving, healing, and growing.

Have you ever had an experience that words just can’t adequately describe? That sums up the last few days for me. It was the face to face portion of our Having It All Challenge. We were finally able to meet the people that we’ve spent the last five and a half months with on our community boards and phone calls. Some of them are people that we’ve bared our soul to, others are energetic like-minded people willing to share their successes and challenges and cheer us on in our journey. Most are people that up until now, we have only seen as a snapshot on a personal profile. These last few days, those faces, hopes and dreams have meshed together for an unforgettable event that has surely led to lasting relationships and a lifetime of lessons.

One of the scariest things about joining the challenge was the thought of “putting myself out there”. I am a very private person by nature, yet I would soon be sharing my innermost desires with complete strangers and now here I am blogging to the world about my experience. Why?

To back up for a bit, in general my life is pretty awesome. I’ve been married for fourteen years now to my best friend and biggest supporter. We have two fantastic kids. We live in warm sunny California, and own our own home. I love my job, and have an employer I consider a friend and mentor who is supportive of my quest.