A single link that will...

change your life...

My roommate is a a sparky, somewhat petite redhead by the name of Caronlann, I met in San Diego a few years back. I was asked to attend and briefly speak to a group attending a workshop lead by Kevin Hall, the author that wrote Aspire. Carolann was one of the many people I exchanged contact information with who attended the workshop.

Carolann, had a business opportunity present itself to her in Oregon, where I reside. She called, asking me to keep an eye out for an apartment or house that she could rent, describing the particulars she was looking for. After some conversation, I told her she could stay at my place until she received her first paycheck, thinking this would allow her time to become familiar with the area and find appropriate housing.

To be honest, I was a bit nervous about the proposition. I'm a bit OCD. I keep my abode very neat and orginised, and pretty much the way I like it. I'm the guy who's shirts are all on the same kind and color of hangers, hanging in the closet 1" apart, starting with black on the right and gradually making it to my whites, which are on the left. The prospect of having someone living with me that might be messy freaked me out a little. Did I mention I've been married three times?

Carolann shows up at my house in a little yellow VW, pretty much crammed to the gills with belongings. I secretly thought to my self, two weeks, I can put up with anything for two weeks. It's just going to be two weeks. Carolann moves in and we get acquainted pretty quickly. We kind of had to as I live in a one room studio, with no real kitchen to speak of (a hot plate, a toaster oven and a microwave), and her bed is across the room from mine.

Carolann began to demonstrate some personality traits I wasn't really used to. She cleaned, she did laundry, she changed the sheets on both beds every week... she was neat, organized and she cooks awesome, fricking healthy food! The two week period I allowed for came and went... a little over a year later, we still share the same little apartment.

As I mentioned above, Carolann is a sparky little thing. We tend to get into deep conversations about all kinds of life categories, some things we agree on and somethings we don't. We talk, spar, cut and parry, albeit in a lighthearted manor with no malice intended. I tend to be a bit pragmatic and she has more of an idealistic bent, and we're both pretty suborn.

One of our many conversations evolved around the latest challenge on my plate. I went broke and have to start over in life. We were discussing what things will look like moving forward, and the conversation turned to money. I told my roommate that this time around, it wasn't about money for me, or at least I didn't want it to be. I shared with her that I wanted my life to mean something, I wanted to help people... a lot of them. "Carolann, I want to help like a million people improve their lives and get out of this ridiculous matrix we've create for ourselves" I remarked. The conversation eventually ended and I ran into town for the day.

I came back home around 7:00 to find that Carolann had taken chalk and a Sharpy, and wrote "you will help 1,000,000 people" all over the house. It was on the mirrors, the windows, the walls... it was under the toilet seat lid for craps sake. Her thinking was that if I just got it in my head, thought about it all the time, if that goal was ever in front of me, I would ultimately bring it to fruition, almost as if by magic. We aren't really on the same page there, yet somewhere in the back of my mind, there was somewhat of a familiarity. I was reminded of "Think and Grow Rich" a book I'd read when I was 18 years old. I pondered.

This morning I woke early, as my email is getting backed up and I wanted to get on top of it before my day started. One of my emails was from Carolann. The only thing it contained was this link.

...Rico