You Never Know Who is Watching

People have asked me frequently what my book is about. Most people assume that it's a book about Harry Kalas...you know, a biography. Actually that is exactly what it is not. The title comes from chapter two where I relate the story of the Phillies winning the 2008 World Series and how that affected my life. People asked me what is my "elevator pitch"? That is the thing you would say to someone that completely relates the entire message of the book in about 1 minute. I tell them it's "Chicken Soup for the Soul" meets "Invincible". It's a story of a guy who hit hard times, chose the hardest road in order to do the right thing, and what he learned along the way. That was me...I lost my career, my home, my whole life and wound up living in my car for six months in order to remain in my daughter's life.
The real lesson that weaves it's way through almost every page is "You never know who is watching and who you will effect...so live your life well." Do what you do with enthusiasm and with your whole heart because you don't know how it is effecting someone you might never meet. Harry Kalas didn't go to the broadcast booth the afternoon of October 29, 2008 thinking: "I need to really be on my game tonight because there is some poor guy in Nashville who is living in his car and he will hear me tonight and be changed forever". Harry had no way of knowing that. He just did it like he'd always done it, but that was so special, so marvelous, that it freed me from the two year run of failure that I'd been experiencing and made me have some hope again.
When I met R.J. last weekend I didn't go to Baltimore knowing he'd be there. And in a place as cavernous as the Baltimore Civic Center it was a long shot that he'd ever have found my booth in the first place. But he did, and we spent those 30 minutes or so, remembering, relishing and connecting and we have each made a friend for life. Because you never know...
I think back over the course of my life to people who had great effect on me without ever knowing it...many without ever having met me. Men like Brian Piccolo, the NFL running back whose life was tragically cut short by cancer. I saw "Brian's Song" as a boy and at age twelve received a copy of his biography and decided right then, at that tender age, that this was a remarkable man and I wanted to try to be like him and live as he lived. Or Harold Alexander, whose children I grew up with and who was an unassuming, no limelight businessman but who set the example of a dad that I still try to emulate. Or Russ Staats my favorite baseball coach, or My college hockey coach, Gary Habermas, who exhibited grace and strength in a difficult time. Or my pastor and his wife who have taken the darkest time of grief and pain and made it something great that has helped thousands and will touch millions.
There are more. But the point is that these are people who just do what they do. They don't try to be heroic, they learned that just living well in this world is heroism enough. The real heroism is found in living an example that someone else can see, grasp, and use to rebuild their life with.
No matter what you do for a living...really live. Someone is watching...someone you might never meet, as I never met Harry Kalas. But you will touch them no less.