Discoverers

I sold pest control for a few summers when I was in college. I spoke with thousands of people. I mostly spoke with them about class-five spider infestations. I loved to find out about people's lives and loved to learn things from them. One house that I got into was a man who was very well-educated and had an AMAZING library. I asked him if I could just look at his books. I started to spot some that I had read and many that I had not. He recognized my love of books and learning and he said: "I'll tell you what, if you want to read great book, read this one..." (and he pulled out a thick black book called The Discoverers. "This book changed the way that I saw everything in life and gave me a completely new set of glasses by which I see the world." I promptly bought the book and years later, I am finally reading it! In the intro I found this:

"Nay the same Solomon the king, although he excelled in the treasure and magnificent buildings, of shipping and navigation, of service and attendance, of renown and the like, yet he maketh no claim to any of those glories, but only the glory of inquisition of truth; for so he saith expressly, 'The glory of God is to conceal a thing, but the glory of the king is to find it out,' as if, according to the innocent play of children, the Divine Majesty took delight to hide His works, to the end to have them found out; and as if kings could not obtain a greater honour than to be God's play-fellows in that game."

- Francis Bacon (The Advancement of Learning, 1605)

I can't seem to get away from reading it. I love it. Every spare moment I try to get a section out of it and I find that when I can't sleep at night, I am lost in its pages.

I will most likely post about it again because most of my posts are because of things that I have been thinking or learning and that floating around in my mind.

This book walks you through the history of human discovery, highlighting the many "coincidences" that preceded them. It is interesting because it is as if providence led humans to discover certain things in the precise moment that God desired.

I believe that God finds pleasure in His children who search and seek to discover the world around them, and in so doing discover Him.

Silver Candlesticks

I was reading about the character - Jean Valjean - from Victor Hugo's classic Les Miserables. There is a story in that book has consistently brought me so much peace. I love it. It is the interaction between Valjean and Bishop Beauvian. He just escaped from 19 years of being in the galleys for having stolen a loaf of bread to feed his mother's starving family. During this whole time his view of himself had changed. In his own mind, he had become a monster, an ex-convict capable of the worst imaginable.

When this bishop takes in Valjean, he treats Valjean with complete respect and absolute trust. So much so that Valjean is confused and even warns the bishop what kind of person he is. Being consumed by a wicked impulse, Valjean "repays" the bishop's kindness by stealing all his silver in his home, (almost). He then absconds before any in the household find what he has done.

Soon after, he is caught by the police and taken back to the bishop. When the two meet, the bishop frankly forgives Valjean and instead of casting him back into prison, he instantly says to him, "You forgot the candlesticks," saying that they were silver too. What an amazing scene. Valjean was once again free. But this time he was even more free than before. And the bishop told him: "Valjean, my brother, you belong no longer to evil but to good..."

This act of forgiveness not only provided a small monetary start to this despicable man's life, but more importantly, a new view of himself. The character of the bishop is, in my opinion, one of the best-depicted types of Jesus Christ that exists in world literature.

I have drawn so much peace from this story. I hope you can too.

Next Year in Jerusalem

Looking out on the Dome of the Rock and the Mount of Olives

Sunrise shot

Looking North

My parents called me and my siblings from Jerusalem last night at 10:30 PM which was 6:30 AM their time. They skyped from the Austrian Hospice where they were staying in the middle of the Old City. It was amazing. I felt like I was there again. It brought back so many memories of everything. I remember the first day we had free time to go explore Jerusalem, I went with a group of fellow-students from the BYU program and we climbed the stairs to the top of the building and looked out over the city from the roof of the building and saw the whole thing for the first time. It was amazing. Last night they took the computer up to the top of the roof and through the modern miracle of technology I saw the same sight I saw over 2 years ago. I longed to be there again. I love my Jerusalem. My hope, as the Jews say at the end of their 3,000 year-old Passover tradition, is that I can spend time there, "Next Year in Jerusalem"!

@ Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs just passed away yesterday at 7:30. This has made me think because I actually looked up to him in some ways. I agreed with his way of thinking in so many ways and I feel like what he has done has truly revolutionized the world. I founded a club at BYU whose purpose was to discuss and implement the ideas and philosophies of men and women who have been remarkable world leaders or those whose work has revolutionized the society and the current and pervasive zeitgeist. We are familiar with names like John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie because they were the ones who revolutionized the world through its industrialization. I believe the world has once again been revolutionized and will continue to be revolutionized by technology. I also believe that it has happened because of the work of a few men with the vision to make the world a better and new place. Steve Jobs has made a huge difference in the world of technology and I think a "better" difference. He said himself that "different has the potential of being much better". I respect him and though I do not own an iPad (though I want one - and you do too if you are honest), I am tempted to buy one just to honor Mr. Jobs.

In his keynote speech at the release of the iPad2, he spoke about why people are loving these new products and why people will continue to love them. He said that people do not love technology in itself. What people love is what the technology enables them to create and be innovative.

And as a tribute to him, I have posted a famous speech he gave at a Stanford University commencement. I think he shares a lot of wisdom from his experience as an influencer and as someone who has learned to live before he died.

Stanford Commencement Speech of Steve Jobs:

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

Beautiful Disaster

No. Not just the 311 song, though it was quite a hit when I was in 9th grade back at Union Middle School. I am talking about my life. And you would think that being laid off from an amazingly growing company like Qualtrics (see Magic Pony entry below) that I would be depressed and my soul harrowed because of losing a job. Well, to be honest, I did shed a tear or two. Twas a good job. And a great experience. However, it has been the best thing that ever could have happened to me! And I actually am not the type of person to just admit that anything has "happened" to me. Because I am the one who likes to know that I am happening to the world! Like the saying goes:

"We must become the CREATORS of our circumstance

***26 year old Billionaire who could have just played video games all day***

and not the CREATURES carried by our circumstance."

***26 year old Hundredaire who is probably really good at Halo or Final Fantasy***

So basically I could have sat back and looked at my life saying "I am a failure and a single, 27 year old college grad with no job who just got laid off". But I will not. Instead I will date the most amazing girl I've ever known, create an iPhone app, start 2 businesses, and get a job working for the most impressive and innovative tech start-up in the valley... (and that is saying something). I would at least argue that it has the most potential as a social deal platform with merchant analytics. And that is exactly what I am doing. The iPhone app is almost done. ASP Media Productions is created. The new website for returned missionaries has been purchased and secured and the book is on the way. I even just partnered with the founder of Parker Planners to integrate this into the website and manual. Icing on the cake: I just ran 10.5 miles yesterday and will be running a 200 mile relay in less than a month! Life is good. Really good. Oh and join Kalood! the company I am working for! You get all kinds of deals! Here is the link: http://kalood.com/GTX

I know this entry may sound a little ostentatious, but I submit to you that many of you are potentially inspired to be loyal your better self when things seem like they have gone awry and to be the Creator of your circumstance instead of the creature carried by it.

Okay go do it!

Oh and PS - watch this speech, it will change your life (Art Williams another Billionaire influencer):

What's the difference between the "$50,000 a year" person and the "$500,000 a year" person? Watch the video.

The Secret to Life-Long Love?

What is the secret to life-long love? Well, there isn't just one, and I don't believe it is a secret. In a recent visit to an art exhibit I found many paintings that caused me and every one who passed by to stop and stare in wonder, lured in by the accents, foundations and shades of all colors upon the canvas.

I truly believe the key to a lasting relationship is not a single ingredient but an entire tapestry. And you, as the observers in a gallery containing depictions of real, life-long love, will find that the anchoring pigment of this masterpiece is sacrifice. Sacrifice to God and sacrifice for your spouse. Added to this are the foundational colors of trust and time. You will also see deeply rooted within the painting, the crucial element of friendship. The tapestry is also beautifully framed within a solid structure called commitment. And scattered throughout this magnificent piece of work are flares of romance, dancing about, and catching the attention of the observer.

And when you or any passerby sees this amazing portrayal of love in the gallery of life, it will spur within you the desire not only to strengthen your love for your spouse, but your love for all those who fall within your circle of influence.

This is life-long love.

Vote For my Video here:

http://loveishere.com/partners/videos/2/thesecretoflifelonglove.html

The Great High Priest of Good things to Come.

I really like this little Mormon Message for the new year.

2011 is here!!! Twenty Eleven. Oh-Eleven. Two thousand Eleven. Last night at the strike of 12:00, me and my friend Chantel decided to do snow angels in our short sleeved shirts. We listened as the crowd in the apartment above us was chanting 10, 9, 8, 7.... and when we heard everyone scream we dove into the snow backwards and started flapping in the snow! Wonderful frigidity to welcome the new year in! Wish I had a picture of it! In part because my angel was bigger than Chantel's dinky angel, and partly because the snow that stuck to my back when I got up out of the snow was formed into a perfect heart. A good omen for 2011. :)

This year is going to be a great one. I have often looked back on many things in my life. As one year has now come to an end and the next has started, I often look back on some of the amazing experiences that I have had and I wonder: "could it EVER be better than that?" Specifically, I think of the time that I had in my beautiful and surreal Holy Land, the reason I started this blog in the first place. I think of how perfect everything seemed while I was there. I remember waking myself up laughing because I was so incredibly at peace in that place. I remember experiencing ancient Egypt, seeing the mummy of Ramses II (who shook hands with Moses), venturing up the guts of the greatest pyramid in Giza near Cairo, flaunting down the Nile on a fallucca and discovering temple symbolism on the walls of the Temple of Karnac, in Luxor. Then climbing to the top of Mount Sinai to watch the sun come up as we sang and bore testimony. Snorkeling in the Red Sea and floating in the Dead Sea. Then returning to the Golden City of Jerusalem and feeling that it was my home after being away. Hearing the call to prayer every time the sun would drop below the horizon was as magical as watching the sun rise and sparkle off the golden Dome of the Rock. Discovering Jerusalem everyday for 3 months. Living on the Mount of Olives. Making friends with Monks who let me flip through original Gregorian Chant books made 400 years before Jefferson even thought about writing the Declaration of Independence. Singing in ancient churches and sitting to ponder and write in places I only imagined before being there. Places like Gethsemane and the Garden tomb where the most important events of all history took place. Singing and dancing at the Western Wall of the temple mount with machine-gun-clad Jewish boys as if we had known each other our whole lives, singing their songs and feeling the same joy they feel as they welcome in the Sabbath - only wishing that the American Christian or even the Utah Mormon would be able to celebrate the Sabbath in the same way. Finally, living only a rocks-throw away from the shores of the Sea of Galilee and swimming where Jesus walked. Seeing the waves and the sunsets and the fishermen and having sacred alone time early in the mornings sitting with my feet in the sand where Jesus likely sat and pondered. I did many other things, just as amazing and "once in a lifetime".


How could life ever get better than this kind of experience? How could I ever have a greater experience or year? What could EVER top this? I don't know, but I DO believe that 2011 (twenty-eleven) will be the greatest year yet lived by Andrew Scot Proctor. I say this with confidence for two reasons:

1. I have made some amazing goals and planned some amazing events for this year. I have done this based off of Joseph B. Wirthlin's quote: "Determine where you are and what you need to do to be the kind of person you want to be. Create inspiring, noble and righteous goals that fire your imagination and create excitement in your heart. And then keep your eye on them. Work consistently toward achieving them."

2. Jesus Christ is the "Great High Priest of Good things to Come" and I KNOW that if I trust the Savior, He will make my life greater and Better than I have ever imagined. If I turn my life over to Him, He will make a lot more out of my life than I ever could. So I am trying to shape my year with this in mind.

I end with the words of Jeffrey Holland from his talk Remember Lot's Wife:

"So, as a new year starts and we try to benefit from a proper view of what has gone before, I plead with you not to dwell on days now gone, nor to yearn vainly for yesterdays, however good those yesterdays may have been. The past is to be learned from but not lived in. We look back to claim the embers from glowing experiences but not the ashes. And when we have learned what we need to learn and have brought with us the best that we have experienced, then we look ahead, we remember that faith is always pointed toward the future. Faith always has to do with blessings and truths and events that will yet be efficacious in our lives....Faith is for the future. Faith builds on the past but never longs to stay there. Faith trusts that God has great things in store for each of us and that Christ truly is the “high priest of good things to come.”

I love this. I long for the good things to come and I have faith that they are just around the corner. The Lord Himself has promised us this if we just keep pushing**: "Verily I say unto you, that great things await you." (D&C 45:62).

**This story is such an amazing one. Joseph Smith was in the midst of receiving an amazing revelation about the second coming. Right in the middle the vision stopped and the Lord told Joseph that he had to translate the entire New Testament before anything else could be given. And that he would be prepared for things to come as he did so. This was a huge undertaking! Imagine translating the whole New Testament before being able to receive any more revelation. But because of his obedience to this commandment, he was prepared to receive even greater revelations. Specifically, the "great thing" that awaited Joseph was the revelation of the 3 degrees of glory. The entire section 76 of the Doctrine and Covenants. This makes me want to find out what my "translations" are so that I can do them and find my own personal D&C 76.