Chapter One
It Starts with Attraction
When I was a child, I viewed my parents as my heroes and teachers-the be-all and end-all when it came to anything about how life worked. Their lessons were absolute truths. However, as I got older, my perspective started to change. I guess that's part of the whole adolescent rebellious phase. I relied on their teachings less and less, feeling overly confident about life. It was around this time that my grandma would start calling me "Mr. I Know."
During junior year, my friends started talking about their futures. They discussed the colleges they planned to visit, the majors they were interested in, and what their postgraduation plans were. These conversations got me thinking: Where was I going to go to school? What was I going to do with my life? They seemed to have had it all figured out, and I didn't even know where to begin. I was lost.
Realizing I was more "Mr. Know Nothing," than "Mr. I Know," I had to turn to the only people who might be able to help me think about my future: my parents. This was going to be tough. Not only did we never speak about this topic, but I knew that they had had a completely different vantage point when they were in my shoes. They didn't have a choice where they wanted to study. They went to the universities near their families in South America, which had a completely different school system than the United States. How was I supposed to take their advice when they didn't have the slightest clue on navigating the American university system? How were we supposed to even start talking about my future, when my view was completely different from theirs?
Attraction
My parents taught me key lessons that would be far superior to the advice I thought I needed about college. They taught me the principles that would become my guiding tools to figure out all my life's questions.
My mother taught me the importance of working incredibly hard to develop and maintain connections with friends, colleagues, and clients. As a travel agent, she helped people get from A to B, serving executives of global companies who traveled across three continents. Her clients loved her not only for her guidance on how to travel efficiently but for her ability to suggest restaurants, hotels, and must-see attractions that would greatly enrich their trips. Her constant focus on public relations is what enabled her to bring our family around the world. I attributed our ability to travel to the connections she created with her clients. Take care of your network was a value taught to me early on.
My father taught me a very different set of skills. He taught me about personal transformation through dreaming and visualization. As an architect, my dad conceives ideas, drafts floorplans and sketches, and then actually builds them. Although not interested in architecture, I was fascinated to learn how to imagine and manifest my own wishes. These lessons began on a rainy Sunday afternoon when I was sixteen years old.
"Hey, do you want to watch this movie?" my father asked me.
"Sure, what is it about?"
The movie was titled The Secret and was based on the best-selling book by Rhonda Byrne. It was about creating a dream life using a secret power.
For the next hour and a half, we listened to a diverse group of entrepreneurs, doctors, spiritual leaders, quantum physicists, and philosophers describe their interpretation of the secret to creating abundant health, wealth, and success within our lives.
What they were describing is known as the Law of Attraction and can be summarized as "thoughts become things." The idea is that the images and pictures that enter the mind eventually become reality. For me, the movie was an introduction to the importance of how maintaining a positive mindset and a focus on your desires can contribute to creating a life of your choosing. I remember thinking: maybe this will help me figure out what the hell I am going to do with my life.
As a teenager, I hadn't lived through the circumstances discussed in the movie. I had no idea what balancing the responsibilities of careers, relationships, family, personal health, finances, etc., was like. What I did take away was that you have the power to create a life filled with your hopes and dreams, no matter how intricate they are. That really excited me.
While the whole concept of the Law of Attraction was a bit over my head at the time, one tool I felt that I could immediately start using was a vision board. Creating a vision board, as the movie explains, is the process of curating a set of images, photographs, and phrases describing or illustrating your desires and placing them onto a board. By routinely looking at the board, you generate images of these desires in your mind. The things on your mind become the things in your life. Thoughts become things.
So, I began cutting pictures out from magazines to complete my art project. When I finished, I hung the masterpiece above the desk in my room. Every night after finishing my homework, I would stare at the pictures, feeling as if those images had become a part of my reality. This "lite" version had the following: a logo of the University of Florida, one of the schools I wanted to go to; a photo of my family, representing my desire to always be surrounded by loved ones; a check made out for $25,000, the sum of money required to pay for my university studies; and lastly, a picture of me at the Jewish Community Center (or JCC), representing my desire to one day have the same sense of community that I had been blessed with while growing up.
Despite my newly formed ideas about the universe providing whatever ideas I put in my mind, I knew that things weren't just going to appear. If I wanted something, I had to go out and get it myself. The universe would meet me somewhere in the middle-or maybe, like 70 percent of the way there.
How did I come to pick these specific things for my vision board? I could have cut out pictures of "fancy toys" like a sports car, a million-dollar check, or even a yacht. But there would not have been any substance behind these wishes. Rather, I chose representations of the feelings from my favorite memories of my youth that I desired for my future. I wanted to become independent and contribute to my community.
Educating the Community
The JCC was central to my childhood. It was the gathering place for most of the people I knew while growing up. There, I built a tight-knit group of friends playing on various sports teams and volunteering within the youth leadership program. To paint a better picture of what a JCC is, think of a YMCA, a local church, a summer camp, a theater, or your local gym. The JCC was kind of a combination of all of these. After years as a participant in various programs, I shifted to becoming a creator of the community experience at "the J."
Having attended an elementary and middle school next door to the J, it was easy for me to get involved. When I went to high school, I was miles away from the center and had to find transportation to get there every day for basketball practice. Since both my parents worked, and I didn't have friends heading in that direction after school, I would bike five miles every day to get there. My desire to become independent from others to get around town extended to my wish to buy a car one day. Since my parents told me that I would have to pay for it, I needed to find a job and make money. Although the universe didn't give me a winning lottery ticket, it did show me an opportunity to make money once I had placed that intention in my mind.
One day, I was at the J a few hours before my team's basketball practice. When I bumped into the head coach of the children's basketball program, who was also my new coach, he asked me, "Hey, can you help me teach one of the youth classes today?" I thought about it for a moment. Sure, why not? Entering the gym and looking onto the court, I saw the little monsters-I mean children-running all over the place, screaming at the top of their lungs. Oh Lord, I thought. Taking a deep breath, I grabbed the extra whistle he had and stepped onto the court. Fede offered me a job to come back and help him out. I guess he believed in me. Early proof of this mysterious secret-for me, at least.
And with that began my four-year stint as an after-school basketball coach. Managing groups of fifty-plus children was no easy feat. At first, it felt incredibly difficult since they had so much energy and could barely pay attention. I also had no idea what I was doing. Class after class, I asked Federico how I could do a better job. He gave me two key pieces of advice. 1) Focus on keeping a positive attitude despite the kids' hyperactivity, and 2) use that same high energy and mirror their behavior during instruction. I implemented his tips and eventually figured out how to instruct them on the fundamentals of the game.
Over the years, I started teaching older children, shifting from individual skills like dribbling and shooting to team-based concepts like passing and moving without the ball. While the biweekly paycheck financially rewarded my efforts, I gained tremendous fulfillment from educating others on concepts that would contribute to their success. Realizing how rewarding this was, I sought out other ways where I could make an impact. Fortunately, the JCC had another opportunity for me.
On the weekends, I volunteered with a youth leadership initiative...
