Expanding The Zone

I would like to apologize for the long time between posts.  The end of the rugby season and a new project that wrapped up yesterday took up vast amounts of my time. 

 My new project that wrapped up yesterday excites me because it is a new forum for me to share my ideas.  Yesterday I had the privilege to speak to an undergrad class at the Integrated Marketing Communications program at the Medill School, Northwestern University.

 I had the great privilege to earn my masters degree from the same program in 2005.

 In my talk I obviously spoke quite a bit about marketing, but I tried to also talk about life.

 Here were the ground rules for our conversation:

 1. Have some fun 

2. At some point I am going to mess up (and contrary to popular belief that’s okay)

3.  Life is not about perfection; life is about growth

4. Take away what you want and dispose of the rest

 These points are chrisrathje.com regulars and I don’t think I need to expound on them in this post, but I am proud of these points and I hope the students learned something yesterday because I really enjoyed working with them and they allowed me to realize something.

 A large part of my conversation was a part called the Evanston Lessons.  Evanston is a city directly north of Chicago where a large part of the Northwestern campus is located.

 On one slide I talked about my four favorite movies during the 15 months I lived in Evanston.  I enjoy movies so much and for some reason these four just spoke to me.

 At some point either on chrisrathje.com or Soup Fork: The Book, I will share exactly what I shared with the class, however for now I would like to focus on how I felt.

 I was happy, excited and flat out pumped about my conversation with the students, but by the time I was discussing Elizabethtown, my favorite movie and the impact it had on my life  I was in the zone.  A force much greater then myself had taken over and the address of my mind was the zone in all directions.

 It is the exact same feeling I have when I have not realized four hours have gone by sitting in front of my desktop.

 Thank you Wildcats for helping me to expand my zone, please remember there is nothing special about me whatsoever.  I just follow the joy that is planted in my heart.  Following my joy has allowed me to expand my zone and following your joy can help anyone discover his or her zone or expand it.

 All students of life please remember to love your life and your path.  Barriers are sure to come, but no matter what hardship might come follow the joy.  Don’t worry about the big world.  Just worry about your zone, raise it to new heights and expand it when the time is right.

 Life is far from perfect, but it is beautiful!  :)  I know I am sloppy sometimes and I know I am stupid sometimes, but I’m going to keep eating life’s soup one forkful at a time!

 God bless everyone, thanks for reading

Chris