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The Promise Blog
Engagement

Waterford: Return to My High School

  When was the last time you walked the hallways of your high school? I swear those classrooms were bigger, doorways taller, and common spaces intimidatingly more judgmental. It was 25 years ago that I was last able to grace the very classrooms I once sat in, eyes peering out the window, wishing I could be somewhere else, while struggling to make it through another day of focus and study. I attended a private school called Waterford, tuition as great as some universities, and it was a major sacrifice to my parents financially to give me the gift of such education.  I still have no idea how they could afford to send my siblings and I there. It was in these halls where fast friendships were forged, crushes and hopes of romance were dashed, and my aspirations to star in the NBA changed in the blink of an eye upon being discovered by a music teacher who heard me singing in the hall and set my feet on the correct life path. A few weeks ago, Waterford called and asked me to help out with their annual day of giving, where I would take over their Instagram for a day

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December 15, 2022 2 Comments
Business

The Cold Shower Dilemma

Scroll through social media and you will likely run into alpha dudes with their shirts off, bulging muscles, jumping out of a barrel of ice water, shouting at you to wake up at 4 AM every day and be manly enough to do the daily cold plunge. Or maybe that’s just in my algorithm. Yours may be filled with cats singing show tunes, or hot air balloon rides at dawn, or cats singing show tunes in hot air balloons at dusk…because who sings show tunes at dawn? My Instagram feed feels like a commercial for testosterone-roided gorillas, daring me, a scared baby monkey with a bald bottom, to chuck the banana, eat raw liver, and be as brave as them. Sorry Liver King! I ain’t no King, and I can’t eat Liver…but truth was finally revealed recently, so there’s that. However, I’ll be very honest here – I drank the Kool-Aid. A few years ago I subscribed to this manly podcast challenge to do something insane every week. I lasted 2 months. It was 2020.  By March I had had it. My business was falling apart as events dropped right and left, and I didn’t have any way to keep up

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December 5, 2022 7 Comments
Family

Your Sacred Places

    Last week I posted the video above sharing a very special, and even sacred place, for our family. I knew I was taking a risk in doing so. The comments received were all positive and supportive, until the video began to make the rounds. When things get popular online, there is usually a swelling of support at first, and then the angry people, mostly strangers hiding behind keyboards, rear their heads. To respond or not respond always seems to be the question. Want to know what they said? I am not going to share with you what was commented, as it’s not important, and I admit I didn’t give them any energy by responding, but you can go find it if you’re that curious within the feeds of my social media pages. What I am going to share instead is that it began a conversation about what a sacred place is for every person. For some it was the mountains, alone time, or being with family. Thanksgiving has just been celebrated, and now we enter that holiday season of December, when so many faiths, beliefs, and traditions bring our year to a busy, yet conclusive, reflection of our

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November 25, 2022 9 Comments
Coaching

Handing Over The Mic

Friday night was our son’s first high school basketball game, along with all boys basketball teams of every age. Annually they play a team called the Vipers, who have special needs and are incredible and inspiring to watch, as we boo our sons and cheer on this visiting team. It’s quite an experience. They rarely let a dad be the emcee until last night and, if you guessed it was me, you guessed wrong! The team actually doesn’t know that’s the kind of thing I do all the time for events…hahaha! Instead the duties went to my dear friend, Tyson Brooks, who is in sales & marketing, to be The Voice of the night. He finally got the mic to announce his son’s game (which he’s wanted to do for a long time), as his son is one of the stars of our JV/Varsity team. When we arrived it was quickly realized there was not the right equipment to make it happen, as an administrator didn’t arrive to set things up. Racing home, I rifled through bins of equipment, dusted off my old mixer, and grabbed every cable in the house to return to the school just in time to

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November 19, 2022 6 Comments
Family

The Broken Finger Promise: The Legend of Romney Hewlett

  If there was ever a wrong time to break a finger, this was exactly that moment. 2 weeks from his lifelong dream and pursuit of trying out for the high school basketball team as a freshman, my son Romney had just texted to let us know his finger was broken while playing ball at school. We rushed to the doctor who confirmed the bad news with X-rays: Definitely broken left index finger, probably would need surgery, instructed not to play basketball or any sports for at least 2-3 months.         Devastated, we returned home to consider what we should do. Call the high school basketball coach and discuss it with him? Problem is, the high school coach doesn’t know our family, although Romney had been to camps for a few years and done well, this is the largest school in the state, and our son couldn’t risk missing this opportunity to tryout. We decided to go to a sports specialist, who is known for his Signature Move of getting injured kids back on the court quickly. His diagnosis was the same, that it was broken, but wouldn’t need surgery and could heal with time and care.

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November 12, 2022 20 Comments
Coaching

Can Accountants Laugh?

  Have you heard this one? How do you tell the difference between an introverted accountant and an extroverted accountant?   The extrovert looks at your shoes.  That joke has maybe been told to me about 457,682 times after gigs with accountants. Few things strike fear in the heart of a performer like hearing, “We need you to come perform and make us laugh during lunch, because we have had a tough year and are a group of accountants.” Yay.  Sounds like fun!  I’ll just go over here and jump in a pool of piranhas! While we’re at it, want to throw a few calculators at me while I’m on stage? Years ago I actually turned down accountant events, they had just been too demoralizing, regardless of the check always clearing. I also turned down any event suggesting I perform at lunch, since half the room has their back turned to you, and they have forks in their hands with food in their mouths. People would choke from laughing. Ambulances were summoned and it was my fault. Those settings make for the direst of comedy engagement situations. Maybe only second to a room full of….Accountants!   But over the past decade I have had

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October 25, 2022 2 Comments
Business

Favorite Events

They say you’re not supposed to have a favorite kid. It might even be risky naming a favorite place to eat if you’re a food critic! But what about Favorite Events when you’re a Speaker & Performer? Truth is, we usually just discuss the nightmare events among peers, such as the time I couldn’t get paid until a year later in the back of a dimly lit room with a stack of $20’s, $50’s and $100’s, or the one where the lights and sound cut out because someone didn’t pay the hotel conference room bill, or worse yet, that one time in Vegas where I had to follow dancing poodles on Christmas Eve (these are all true stories my friend). Lately, I have had many favorites! I think every event I’ve had since I’ve been able to stand upright in the past few months have become favorites, essentially landmarks in my own progression to feeling better after my leg injury and mostly grateful for everything! In the past 3 months I’ve spoken to over 10,000 educators. That’s a favorite. I recently posted about speaking at a youth detention center – another favorite. And then there was an event last week

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October 25, 2022 2 Comments
Family

Home Screen Promise Photo

What is the photo on your lock or home screen of your phone? I recently changed mine out to a photo from our wedding day over 21 years ago. Why does this matter to me? It reminds me of The Promise I made to this beautiful, happy, vibrant young woman who took a serious chance on an unproven, weird looking, silly guy and dreamer, and our hope for what the future would become. I also love this photo because I can jump with agility and joyfully, now I have my former “tops are made out of rubber, bottoms are made out of springs” Tigger-effect that’s made up my life’s energy to work back to after all I’ve experienced this past few months. Remembering Promises can be one of the hardest aspects of life we struggle with, those commitments made in relationships, and accidentally forgotten. But when it comes to the person you love, have bet your life on, and they have bet on you, The Promise cannot be put on a shelf to glance at when convenient nor on occasion, it must be front and center, even if your love is alive and strong. We must have that Promise in

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October 13, 2022 No Comments
Engagement

7 Speeches in 2 Days on 1 Leg

  Last month, right in the thick of my injury still less than 2 months old, surgery pains shooting through my body, in a hinge brace, I had the challenge of an injured speaker’s lifetime: 7 Speeches in 2 Days on 1 Leg We traveled to Panaca, NV, considered proudly by locals to be “the middle of nowhere” and they aren’t joking. Tumbleweeds don’t even stop there, they just keep on rolling in search of something else. This quick trip was a batch of schools covering nearly 100 miles, parent nights, and one most unique event I didn’t expect would be one of my favorites of all-time: Speaking to youth in a detention center in an attempt to inspire them. We arrived early, along a dusty desert road, and were rushed in through the back door, as the boys and girls had been seated for a while longer than anticipated, and usually aren’t in the same room together, so all of the adults were experiencing high anxiety. Stumbling in, wearing my “Straight Outta Knee Surgery” T-shirt, donning shorts that revealed my new scar, in a hinge brace that limited all movement, I was quickly introduced to a room of 40

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October 13, 2022 16 Comments
Announcements

The SHOW is Back!

“We don’t want a Speaker for our holiday party, we want someone to make us laugh, do entertainment, no business talk…just fun!”  Loud and clear, this client wanted what we call in showbiz “The Show”. Oddly, I said yes, and we booked the date for December. When I say, “oddly”, perhaps you don’t know what that means! Well, it has been a few years since I have accepted what I deem as “Show Dates”. Doing “The Show” has physically and emotionally beaten me up since 2000, almost permanently damaging my vocal cords by 2012. I have done (maybe) 1 special show per year in the past half decade. But over the last 2.5 months, as I’ve stared at a ceiling fan in my bedroom and considered my life’s work, while dealing with a debilitating injury, I have made a few new choices that have big changes coming in my life and career. Doing my Show again is one of those. Since 2016 I have essentially turned away every single show request in favor of only SPEECH opportunities. It has been a harsh rebrand, as many former clients wanted the “Make Us Laugh ONLY Jason”, vs. the “Make Us Think, Leave

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September 30, 2022 26 Comments

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