Marc Accetta’s thoughts on another New York Yankee Parade!

As I fly out of New York City on the day after game six of the 2009 World Series that saw the New York Yankees win their 27^th World Series Championship, I am amazed at how much the game of baseball reflects on the game of life.  Many are amazed at peoples’ preoccupation with professional sports, and I understand why, but I think that in the era of Reality TV, the ultimate Reality show is that of professional sports.

Think of all the plots and subplots that were on stage in this year’s World Series.  Start with the Yankees buying up two or three of the best players in the game again this of season, which their fans love, and most fans hate.  ESPN did a poll today asking if you loved the Yankees or hated them and only three northeast states voted to love them.  I have been a loyal Oakland A’s fan since 1967 (dating myself again) and when the Yankees pay more for one CC Sabathia than our entire payroll, it gets frustrating.  Sabathia signed a seven-year, $161 million contract with the New York Yankees. It is the largest contract for a pitcher in MLB history.  And this is just one small story line.

Then spring training begins and A Rod (Alex Rodriguez) is exposed as a player who took steroids earlier in his illustrious career.  Then in a less than forthcoming press conference, that left people much, more sour on him than if he had just flat out admitted his use of the substances in question.  Then he gets off to a sluggish start to the season, which really upsets the very demanding Yankee fans since he normally thrives in the regular season before he shrinks in the post season.  Then he moves from his recent divorce and well publicized (now defunct) relationship with Madonna to his newest tryst with actress Kate Hudson.   If that is not enough, he actually plays his best post-season ever leading up to the World Series (which he played OK in) actually endearing many of his past critics to him.

Then there is George Steinbrenner who is the Yankees long time aging owner who has passed on managing control of the team to his sons (Hank and Hal).  The Steinbrenner’s are some of the most colorful and frequently quoted people in all of sports.  He moved the team from their decades of history and traditional Yankee Stadium to the New and drastically improved Yankee Stadium right across the street.  The prices on the seats at the new stadium and all the incidentals that go with attending a game dwarfed all the pricing of other major league teams including their cross town rival New York Mets who also moved into an amazing new stadium in 2009.  The outrageous prices were another of the seasons long hot topics.

Then there was high priced free agents CC Sabathia and Mark Teixeira who were trying to hold up to the pressures of playing in New York.  Then there were the four elder statesmen of the Yankees, Derek Jeter (my hands down favorite player), Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada, and Andy Pettitte.  They were all Yankees back when they won their last championship in 2000.  And Johnny Damon became only the second player to win the championship with the Yankees and the Red Sox.

Then there were the Phillies trying to be the first team from the National League to repeat as champions since the Cincinnati Reds of the 1970’s.  Their fiery leader Jimmy Rollins had made a bold prediction before the series that the Phillies would win it in six games, which set off quite a media frenzy. 

Then there was all time great Pedro Martinez getting a chance to come back and spoil the Yankees title hopes as a new member of the Phillies.  There was their best player, Ryan Howard having a terrible slump in the series.  Then there was Chase Utley hitting 5 homeruns in the series and tying the mark for homeruns that the great Reggie Jackson set in his remarkable 1977 performance.

And on and on and on…..So you see, there is more drama in this show than is Survivor and The Apprentice and all the other Reality Shows combined….and while many of those shows are staged, pro sports is not.  As the Wide World of Sports used to say in their opening for their long running show, “It’s the thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat.”

When I was a child, I had an unusual zeal for baseball.  Playing it nonstop every moment that I could…Throwing a ball against our house to practice fielding ground balls (which I realized later was not too good for property values)…Watching every pitch of game after game from pro to high school to Little League…Collecting baseball cards….Playing the Strat-O-Matic baseball board game….Being a volunteer bat boy for the local semi-pro team….I just could not get enough.

I was also the kid who memorized every players number and statistics.  Not just the great ones, pretty much all of them.  I had a true love of the game.  While my devotion to sports was unusual, the bottom line is despite fans being pretty much disgusted with the commercialization of pro sports, we still watch it.  I have long since lost my zealous devotion to America’s past time, but the real human drama of it and all pro sports is what keep me tuning in.  It’s all there.  The privileged vs. the underdog; people excelling or crumbling under intense pressure; People’s passion pushing them beyond their ability; Personality conflicts….There are so many life lessons to learn from all sports.  So maybe you now know why you keep tuning in….or better yet why you should keep tuning in.  Baseball and pro sports, like many other things we enjoy, are not perfect, but they sure are a great part of life in these United States.

The New York Yankees celebrate after winning Game 6 of the World Series against the Philadelphia Phillies Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2009, in New York. (AP/Elise Amendola)

Winds of Change

Human beings are an unusual bunch.  The one thing in life that will never change is, that things are constantly changing…..yet humans cannot seem to wrap their minds around the fact that change is natural and inevitable.  

Change affects us all in many ways. The changes in the world economy have had a profound impact on many in the last year.  Changes with the environment have an effect on everyone as well.  One of the most difficult forms of change is when your child (who you still refer to as your baby…..bad idea….will discuss the power of words in a future blog) starts attending a new school.  Whether it is elementary school, middle school, high school or college, graduating to the next step is often tougher for the parents than the students themselves.

My wife and I recently had to deal with this phenomenon when our oldest daughter started High School.  It was quite a step for her…..and us.   Many parents have the hardest time letting their children blaze their own paths.  We know that they are naïve to the ways of the world.  We know that their path will be littered with some people that will try to take advantage of them.  As a parent/protector, it is very had to let go.

My good friends experienced the same thing with their son who started Kindergarten this week.  Different situation and setting, but definitely the same emotions.  It is hard to accept that you will not be their only influence in their lives any longer.  They will have teachers and friends who will now matter more than you do in some situations.

Ironically, I also have a good friend who just dropped their oldest son off at a major university to begin their college career.  She said that that was the toughest to bear of all, since you are no longer living with them on a day to day basis any more.  That is when it sinks in that, although they will always be your child, they have truly moved out and they will never actually going to be a child again.

One bit of advice that I can share with all parents is that we must understand that our job as a parent is to raise our children to leave us.  That is the ultimate graduation.  Talk about bitter-sweet!   It is a tough way to look at it, but it is the healthiest way to look at it as well. We are not doing ourselves or our children a favor by creating someone who is co-dependent on us.  It is our job to create an independent soul that can think and act for themselves.  We need to let go and let them peruse their own dreams…even though we may not understand or agree with them.  We need to let them skin their knees in the real world.  We simply need to let them have the freedom to learn from their own experiences that we demanded from our own parents when the time was right.

There are many books that help us deal with change, but the one that stands out to me is, Who Moved My Cheese, by Dr. Ken Blanchard.  It is the story about a couple of mice and their quest to find cheese once they discover that it is not in the place that they had always known it to be, Simple, yet a highly effective story. 

As a matter of fact, I assigned my youngest (10 yr old) daughter to read it this summer, and she totally grasped the main message.  That’s my kind of book, something that a ten year old can understand.

Change is inevitable.  Don’t try to avoid or deny it, but rather embrace it.   God obviously did not intend us to get too comfortable, so learn to roll with the changes in your life.  Be flexible and open to new situations and you will definitely live a happier and more relaxed life.

A View From The Edge!!!

Well, it’s the weekend following, A View From the Edge, and I’m finally getting caught up on my sleep.  My main man, Monico Perez and I had been working 15+ hour days for several weeks leading up to the show.  We were actually editing the entire new CD series entitled Drive Time University AND preparing for The View.

This is the first year that the crowd was too big for a conventional theater, so we had to make the move to an arena.  We had a great experience at the Special Events Center in Garland (Dallas) Texas.  My lighting director really stepped up in a big way to help us make the move from a theater to an arena.  She brought and old colleague from Fellowship Church, Mike Walker, to run the production.  Mike is amazingly talented and helped us with a variety of special effects we had never used like making it snow in the arena, fly me on and off stage a few times and much more.  We went all out with special effects and our sets, which have always been the responsibility of my good friend Richard Montez from Cornerstone Ministries.  Richard literally travels all over the world doing productions for Christian Churches.  We have been the only secular show he has done for quite some time.  He out did himself as usual. 

We had many additional crack members of our crew that made the weekend a tremendous success lead by the indispensible Frank Peebles. 

We started the show at 7:30 Friday night and hit the ground running.  The crowd was definitely shocked to see the opening character fly out of the stage to end the first skit.  That set the stage for the best View we have ever done.  We had over 2500 people in attendance at the event, and we have been inundated with emails, text messages and calls to assure us it was just that; an overwhelming success!

Saturday featured a character with a class of students, never seen before.  WV staff member Ric stole the show when, because of bad behavior, he was banished to sit time out, and subsequently fell asleep in the most odd position you could imagine.  The crowd laughed and laughed, but also learned one of the best lessons of the weekend.  We ended Saturday night about 10pm on an electric high note that was just felt throughout the arena. 

Sunday featured various characters that were new to the WorldVentures Reps, featuring The French Chef, Forest Gump and Batman.  The President of WorldVentures led an unbelievable auction to raise funds for Big Brother Big Sister.  Local BBBS CEO, Charles Pierson watched in awe as the top leaders in WV helped raise over $60,000 which was matched by WorldVentures for a total of over $120,000 !!!  We also had about 50 people volunteer to become Big Brothers or Sisters themselves.  What an amazing success!

Robert Oblon also awarded the first annual Kim Eaton (Hero) Award to the inspiring WV leader Byron Schragg.  Byron and his family qualified for the free lunch plan when he joined WV and didn’t even have a car.  He and his wife Susan are now run one of the most successful distributorships in the whole company.  Kim Eaton passed away earlier this year and had over 1000 people at her memorial service.  She was a true inspiration, and Byron was a most deserving inaugural winner of her award.  Byron and Susan were very emotional when they were honored and gave a very heartfelt acceptance speech.

WorldVentures also presented one of the lucky View attendees with a Brand New Mercedes sedan.  Everyone who was in attendance had a chance to go home with the car.  We drew 10 people’s names out of a hopper on the stage and had the 10 people pick a key and see which one started the Mercedes.  The winner turned the victorious key shortly after midnight.

The show culminated with George Washington visiting the country that he is the father of, to give a State of the Union address to the WV crowd.  It was a very patriotic moment.  We ended the character with a moving video set to the Star Spangled Banner and then followed that up with a live performance by local singing phenomenon, Rob Johnson, singing Proud to be an American.  By the time he concluded the song, the arena was literally vibrating with a sense of patriotism and honor!

I finished the show by singing a song of my own, with the help of my good friend and professional musician, Eddie Head.  We played a song that pretty much summed up the message of the entire 30 hour weekend, Live Like You Were Dying, by Tim McGraw.  I urged the crowd to take that challenge for the next 12 months, in memory of Kim Eaton, and to live their own lives in a way that they have never experienced.

As I said the accolades have been streaming in ever since.  It is such an honor for my wife Kelly and I to serve the amazing reps in WorldVentures.  We have never felt so welcome and at home in our lives.  WE offer a sincere thank you to Mike and Wayne for giving us a chance to be a part of such an amazing family.  We also thank Dan Stammen and Robert Oblon who make the entire experience worth doing everyday, and finally to the hard working WV reps who paid the price to be there both literally and figuratively.  What an amazing group of champions.

We will be putting a form on www.wvview.com very soon to have you name your three favorite characters if you attended the event.  As I said in the beginning of the blog, I am finally getting back to normal and am already looking forward to teeing it up all over again in 2009!

 

What a Weekend

Wow,

Just got back from a record breaking, fun filled weekend in Vegas.  We did an Acceleration Workshop for WorldVentures at The Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino.  We had our largest Acceleration to date with close to 1,600 people in attendance!

We started off the trip on Thursday night with some gambling and taking in the midnight show of The Dark Night.  (The latest installment of the Batman movies)  What a movie !!!  It was not just the best Superhero movie of the year, it was arguably the best movie of the year, period ! 

Heath Ledger was truly amazing.  He played a truly twisted  Joker.  He NEEDS to win the Oscar!  I am a Batman fan way back to the old 60’s TV series.  It has always been my favorite.  I actually had dinner as a child with Adam West (the original TV Batman)  I have enjoyed the past movies to some degree, but the last two have been head and shoulders above the rest.  Christian Bale plays the role perfectly.  The writing/ acting/ editing, etc was all amazing.  The fastest 2 and a half hours of my life.  Definitely not for little kids though.  I could see it having an R rating.

The actual training was excellent.  We had so many people expressing their appreciation for our trainers, Dave Watson, Troy Brown and Jefferson Santos.  They all were fantastic.  WorldVentures is about to hit some very serious momentum.  A company like this comes around once every couple of decades!

Our next event is in Minneapolis on August 15-17.  The leaders there are also looking to bring in another record crowd.  The resturant at the top of THE Hotel at Mandalay Bay, miX was incredible.  The view, the decor, and especially the food.  Make sure you go there the next time you are in Vegas.

The tables did not treat us too well, but we had enough common sense to leave them rather quickly.  Monico and Robert and Wayne all took a helicopter ride over the grand canyon on Monday.  It was too early for my liking, but they obviously gave it rave reviews. 

That’s all for now. Just lovin life!