My favorite artist of all time came out with a new single yesterday.

It’s A Beautiful Day is awesome, it has an uplifting tune and you think it’s one of those lame happy love songs songs, but when you listen closely to the lyrics, you’ll understand it’s about someone who’s glad a break-up happened.

If it stays true to other Bublé originals, the song is probably for one of his ex-girlfriends.

As you may know, Bublé and his wife are expecting a baby so this song most likely reflects one of Bublé’s past relationships and how he’s glad the person is no longer in his life because now he has a beautiful wife and expecting a baby.

If you are a fan of Michael Bublé, you will absolutely love this song.

His next studio album To Be Loved is slatted to be released in the US on April 23.

Here is the song:

Le’t s be honest, everyone that’s single has asked this question one time or another, even if you act like you’re happy and go-lucky.. Don’t lie to yourself.  (Look, by no means is this a “woe is me” post, it’s the complete opposite so read on.)

Not only that, but you’ve also done everything in your power to change your status from “Single” to “In a relationship with _____”…

And there it is, your power.

Earlier today, I read a post by Jeff Cherr on this very topic and he wrote some great truth in there that I would like to share with you.

This isn’t in your power; you can’t just make someone like you. God has a plan for everything; yes even your relationship status. Maybe there’s a reason why you are single.

That’s the beauty of God, he knows what’s best for you even when you don’t.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. -  Is. 55:9

If you don’t believe in God, then sure, leave this post and go back to trying to fill your needs with whatever will make you happy.  However, if you do believe in God, read further, you’ll probably understand some things that even I didn’t think about before I read the post by Jeff.

Whether you believe it or not, God is for you.

If you are single right now, understand that God has you there because it’s for your best.

It wouldn’t be best for you right now to be with someone. As Jeff Cherry said, maybe He’s refining you and purging you of a sin that needs to be dealt with before you bring someone into your life.

Maybe it’s because He wants you to truly trust Him and build a solid foundation with Him first.

Maybe it’s because He is using you in a mighty way that couldn’t be done if you were married right now.

If you’re single, there’s a reason. Don’t waste your single moments worrying about it just because everyone else is in a relationship or because you have come to a point in your life where you have become desperate to be in a relationship.

I understand this is a hard concept for many to grasp. It’s been a hard concept for myself to grasp but I’ve come to the realization it’s not on my time, but His.

I rather be single right now than be in a meaningless relationship with someone that won’t be anything in my life a year from now.

I’ve seen Facebook statuses going from “Single” to “In a relationship” to “It’s complicated” and back to “Single” in a 72-hour span… That’s not a relationship, that’s a weird fling.

Wouldn’t you rather spend your life perfectly lonely than to make a rushed decision to cure your loneliness and find out you waited all of these years to get it right and then in a moment of ignorance, loneliness, and desperation, you get it wrong because you’re looking to cure a moment’s need with a lifetime commitment? The moment you settle for less than you are worth, you will obtain even less than you settled for.

So for now, I’ll be content with being single. Sure, I joke around about that #ForeverAlone and say I don’t like Valentine’s Day, but here’s a secret, even some people in relationships don’t like Valentine’s Day…

So there you have it, this is my Valentine’s Day post.

Not every single one of you girls out there are dateable, stop acting like every guy that says “hi” to you wants to get inside your pants…

Sometimes, guys just want to have friends that so happen to be girls. Look, I know that my gender has a track record for being complete douches when it comes to the friends thing, but not all of us are they same… (I’m sure you’ve heard that before too).

I honestly don’t see what’s wrong with a guy and a girl being friends.

Sometimes the girl is the one that makes the huge deal over the whole thing. They think if a guy and a girl hang out it automatically means they are on date, well newsflash ladies, unless it’s said prior to the event and the guy pays, it’s not a date.

Ladies, if a guy says something like “Hey, want to hang out tonight or something?”, you don’t have to automatically say “no”. If it’s just hanging out, like bowling, mini-golfing or having food, there should not be anything wrong with that. Be worried if he asks you to “hang out” and asks if you want to see a movie… that’s sketchy territory.

If you just flat out don’t like the guy, then use my band-aide theory, and just straight up tell him you don’t want to hang out because you don’t like him. It will hurt at first, but it will all be okay in the end.

Fellas, stop being dicks. Stop taking advantage of girls who like you as friends. Stop inviting them to “see a movie”. How the hell are you hanging out with her if you’re inside a dark theater for two hours, and can’t talk. That’s not hanging out, that’s a date.

So as I was saying, there’s nothing wrong with hanging out with the opposite sex. Do you agree, or disagree? Let me know below.

In the lat few months, I’ve started to work whole-heartily on my website 90 Minutes Strong. A site fully devoted to soccer from the North American Soccer League, Major League Soccer, and the US Men’s and Women’s National Team.

Don’t worry basketball fans, Crank Up The Heat is still going strong but I felt it was time to devote more time to a sport in which I’ve been getting more and more opportunities to cover.

Also might have a new site in the horizon… Stay tuned.

I love the Heat, I really do. However, since becoming the hottest team in the NBA, they’ve forgotten about me, the guy who was covering them since they were not so hot.

Nevertheless, this is all besides the point.

Reason I’m posting here is simple: Why don’t people respect each other anymore and just be honest with each other?

You know, there used to be a time in which you would be able to be honest with someone and you wouldn’t be judged as a jerk.

However, nowadays people lie to each other in order to “not hurt someone’s feelings”. News flash, lying and then ignoring the person hurts much more than just being up front with the person.

If you don’t Ike someone, use the band-aid theory. Just rip it off, it will hurt like hell at first but then it will stop. Don’t slowly peel away the band-aid, that hurts much more.

I guess that’s what I wanted to know.. Leave your thoughts below letting me now what you think.

I’ve waited a few days to even write this letter because I thought the anger and feeling of betrayal I felt would go away, I was wrong.

I don’t think you realize you are the most hated man in South Florida at the moment, maybe you do but couldn’t care less.

How arrogant can you be? As you walked out of your hotel room in Chicago during the Owners Meeting the morning after the trade, you simply looked at the reporters and said “not today boys, if you haven’t figured it out by now I won’t help you figure it out.”

How pathetic was that? Who do you think you are? How dare you treat people the way you do?

Despite winning the 2012 Gold Glove, Mark Buehrle has been shippe to the Toronto Blue Jays

Because of your greed and arrogance, baseball in South Florida has lost.

I’ve seen some of my all-time favorite players leave, not because they wanted to but because you wanted them to. Players like Carlos Delgado, Juan Pierre, Luis Castillo, Gary Sheffield, Josh Beckett, Miguel Cabrera, Cody Ross, and now, Jose Reyes, and Mark Buehrle.

For years, your explanation for getting rid of these players was you had no money and that we would see what you had planned if you got your retractable-roof ballpark. You would use the money you get from increased revenue and invest them on high-profile players.

Well Mr. Loria, you got your $600-million 80-percent-publicly-funded ballpark  and for about seven months you had fooled us into thinking you had changed.

You went out and got three of the best free agents available in Jose Reyes, Heath Bell, and Mark Buehrle. There was hope in Miami once again that we would finally be able to have a baseball team we can relate to. But, as you know the team under-preformed, and the fans were not coming as you had hoped, and so what did you do? You blew up the team… Here’s a list of the player you let go this year alone:

• 3B Hanley Ramirez
• RP Randy Choate
• RP Edward Mujica
• 1B Gaby Sanchez
• SP Anibal Sanchez
• 2B Omar Infante
• RP Heath Bell
• SS Jose Reyes
• SP Josh Johnson
• SP Mark Buehrle
• C John Buck
• CF Emilio Bonifacio

Since July, you have dumped over $236 million in future salaries. How did you do it? Simple. You backloaded their contracts so you didn’t have to pay a large sum of money upfront and you did not offer no-trade clauses.

Mr. Loria, you have butchered your payroll from $118 million to about $30 million in salary commitments in 2013. That’s about a $110 million in profits next year, thanks to your fancy ballpark we are paying for.

Jose Reyes is still owed $96 Million from his 6 year $100 Million deal he signed last winter.

What’s sad about this whole situation is the fact we didn’t see it coming. We were promised change; we had hoped this era of Marlins baseball was going to be different. We have our own park so the excuse of salary-dumping to cut costs wouldn’t work anymore… But you did it anyways.

Mr. Loria, you turned your seven-month-old, $600-million 80-percent-publicly-funded park into a toxic dump where no sane player will choose to play as long as you and the present management has its hands on the throats of the team.

Looking at your past track-record (especially with the Montreal Expos), looks like you gave Miami two plans…

• Plan A: We buy stars, we draw fans and everybody wins.
• Plan B: We back-load contracts, see how many fans we draw, if the crowds aren’t good enough (they weren’t) or the team stinks, we’ll dump you all and to hell with everybody. Now hand over that fat revenue-sharing check.

Gee, I wonder which one you took.

You know how the saying goes, “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me”. This is the last time I will be fooled by you and your people.

David Sampson went on the Dan LeBatard show on Wednesday and pretty much blamed us the fans for why you guys did this. He kept saying that because the Marlins lost 93 games, it was time for a change.

Oh really? If losing 93 games is the reason you did this, why wasn’t there a change in 2007 and 2011 when we lost 91 and 90 games respectively?

You and your regime are oblivious to what the fans want. Yes, winning is great, but we want players we can associate ourselves with. We want players that we can grow up with, people like Alonzo Mourning, Dan Marino and Dwyane Wade who are not only great athletes but are part of the fabric of Miami sports.

I can go on, and on about how betrayed, heartbroken, and hurt I am, but at the end of the day, you don’t give a damn. You’re laughing your way to the bank with all the money you stole from loyal fans like myself who bought jerseys, hats, tickets, and food at your ballpark and shamefully fell for this whole “New Marlins” ponzi scheme.

Mr. Loria, it’s obvious you have no idea what sports is about, you’re an owner who betrayed your fans, deceived your players and has lost credibility for as long as you stay in the game.

Sports is about three things: Loyalty, love and family. Three of the things that I have never seen from the Marlins organization. There is no loyalty to the fanbase or to players, there is no love for the city (just for the money), and unlike the Miami Heat organization that preaches they are all family, your organization preaches the complete opposite, all the players at your clubhouse are complete  strangers.

With all this being said, have fun with your empty stadium that will only attract tourists and fans of the opposite team.

Sincerely,

We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom. We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.

We’ve learned how to make a living, but not a life. We’ve added years to life not life to years. We’ve been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We’ve done larger things, but not better things.

We’ve cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We’ve conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We’ve learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.

These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion; big men and small character; steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce; fancier houses but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom. A time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just hit delete.

Remember, spend some time with your loved ones, because they are not going to be around forever.

Remember to say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe, because that little person soon will grow up and leave your side.

Remember to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn’t cost a cent.

Remember to say “I love you” to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you.

Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that person will not be there again.

Give time to love, give time to speak, and give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind.

This was originally written by Dr. Bob Morehead, but has been altered slightly while bouncing around on the internet since 1998

What is it that has the party of some of the greatest presidents The United States ever had in such a slump? Is it arrogance, refusal to change, or the refusal to admit some of their views are so to the right that not even some members of their own party agree with them anymore?

According to CNN, 60% of voters (ages 18-29), 55% of women, and 71% of the Latino voters all voted for the President in the 2012 election. If you are a member of the Republican party right now, these numbers should scare you deeply for the simple reason that if you never get these votes, the Democratic party will be in power at the white house for a very long time.

Look, I’m not saying for the republicans to cast aside their views and morals. All I’m saying is they need to rethink some things and get some new blood in that party.

The problem here is simple, really. Back in the day, America had morals, we knew abortion was wrong because you are killing a baby, we knew marriage was between a man and a woman; we knew God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.

But times have changed, like it or not.

Look, I’m not saying the Republican Party has to be pro-choice, and believe in gay marriage. But, maybe they should be pro-life except in the case of incest, rape and health of the mother.

They should be against gay marriage, but should be for a domestic partnership in which both partners are protected by law so in the case of one of them dying, the other isn’t screwed over.

Another stumbling block for the Republican Party has been the whole “Illegal immigration” issue.

They believe all illegals need to leave America, even if you came here as a 2 year old baby. They believe America is full of Americans… but, unless if you are a Native American, we are all immigrants in this nation.

Republicans pride themselves in being “The Party of Lincoln” well; I hope they know Lincoln freed the slaves. Republicans speak of how Ronald Reagan was the greatest president in the history of The United States, well I hope they know that Reagan granted all illegal immigrants amnesty. 

Former President George W. Bush tried to pass a bill that would help illegal immigrants but his party quickly shot it down.

Why doesn’t the Republican Party support a bill like the DREAM Act, a bill that would grant the children of the illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship? A bill that states if you were brought to the United States before the age of 15 by your parents, who were illegal, you should not be punished for their wrongs. A bill that would not give these illegal immigrants citizenship, but would rather make these illegal immigrants earn their citizenship though going to school or serving in the Armed Forces of The United States of America.

Republicans are considered cold because of basically these three points. They should work on it.

We all need to understand this nation is growing, diversifying and getting stronger. The Republican Party has some great leadership that is still behind the scenes of people like John McCain, Mitt Romney and others. Great leaders like Marco Rubio, and Jeb Bush should be the future of the party.

As Governor of Florida, Bush was popular among Cubans (winning 80 percent of the Cuban vote in 2002) and popular among non-Cuban Hispanics (56 percent in 2002, equaling the 56 percent he won statewide). Also in his re-election in 2002, Bush surprised critics by winning the white female vote in the swing-voting battleground of Central Florida’s I-4 corridor.

Rubio on the other hand would be to America in 2016 what Obama was in 2008. A young, fresh-faced minority. Rubio’s parents were Cubans who had immigrated to the United States in 1956 and were naturalized as U.S. citizens in 1975.

Rubio was elected at the age of 28 to the Florida House of Representatives, representing Miami in Florida’s 111th House District. He defeated Democrat Anastasia M. Garcia 72%-28% in a January 2000 special election.

In November 2000, he won re-election unopposed. In 2002, he won re-election to a second full term unopposed. In 2004, he won re-election to a third full term with 66% of the vote. In 2006, he won re-election to a fourth full term unopposed.

On May 5, 2009, Rubio announced on his website that he planned to run for the United States Senate seat. Then, On November 2, 2010, Rubio won the general election with 48.9 percent of the vote, former Florida Governor, Charlie Crist received 29.7% as a member of the independent party, and Democrat Kendrick Meek won 20.1% of the votes.

Are we seeing a new breed of Republicans on the horizon? Will Marco Rubio be to the Republican Party what Barack Obama was to the Democratic Party? I Firmly believe so. The Republicans need someone like Rubio to lead them back into the White House.

To me, a  Rubio/Bush ticket would seem the most logical answer for the Republicans in the 2016 election. They would get the Latino vote since both Rubio and Bush are loved by them, the women vote, and of course the youth vote. Young people will be able to relate to the young, charismatic, and well-spoken Marco Rubio.

But, none of this will matter if the Republican Party don’t rethink their strong conservative viewpoints on social issues, which as we know, will be crucial moving forward.

I got this as a “Letters to the Editor” this week and I thought it was fantastic…

Dear Editor:
I attended at a political rally for the Romney campaign recently and I bought my first Romney campaign bumper sticker. It actually says Romney Believe in America and even though I support Governor Romney, I am afraid to place it on my car.
Thinking that I was being a bit too paranoid, I asked some other Romney supporters and they agreed with me; displaying a Romney bumper sticker was just too dangerous.
Maybe this is the reason why I have seen so few Romney bumper stickers displayed, not only in this hotly contested swing state where I live, but also in other swing states where I have recently traveled.
Which leads me to the question: “What has happened to our nation when voters are afraid to display their political preferences with something as traditional as a bumper sticker?”
Personally, I am concerned that my car will be “keyed” along the sides or some other damage inflicted on the vehicle.
What a sad commentary this is about political discourse in 2012.

What do you think? Has something like this happened to you?

Leave your comments below.

Lil’ Wayne has probably destroyed music as we know it with songs about getting high, sleeping with every girl in world, and drinking your life away because “you only live once”.

When you’re younger you think that the music of your generation is the greatest thing to hit the radio waves, but after further consideration, I have come to the conclusion that my generation has by far the worst music I’ve ever listened to.

Look, not all rap is bad, but the majority of artists (can you even call them that?) are nothing but a thug from the street that samples great music from the past and puts it in their own crappy music.

Artists like B.O.B, and Lupe Fiasco at least have meaning behind their lyrics whereas artists like Lil’ Wayne, Tyga, and others have probably destroyed music.

Sure, Wayne has a good song here and there… but for me, the only good one I can think of is How To Love.

Drake is a tricky one. He has so much emotion in his music, but then he comes out with a song like HYFR and The Motto and it just makes me scratch my head.

There used to be a time in which music meant something, it had meaning, had a story behind the lyrics. Some still go by this, but for the most part, music is now used as a way to call out someone, degrade women, talk about smoking weed, sleeping with as many women as you can. (As I said before, there are exceptions to this rule but the most of the “hits” today are all about that)

Maybe I’m just old-fashioned and enjoy a good original song that someone wrote to their girlfriend or something like that.

Michael Bublé is the ultimate baller. All his hit songs are written for a girlfriend he had at that time.

For example, Michael Bublé is the ultimate baller. All his hit songs are written for a girlfriend he had at that time.

When Bublé was engaged to long-time girlfriend Debbie Timuss, he co-wrote the hit single “Home” for Timuss when he was away in Italy. When their engagement ended in November 2005, the breakup inspired Bublé to co-write the hit original song “Lost”.

The hit original song “Everything” was written by Bublé to his then-girlfriend Emily Blunt.

When Bublé became engaged to girlfriend Luisana Lopilato in November 2009, he co-wrote the hit single “Haven’t Met You Yet” for Lopilato.

Another example is Adele and her song “Someone Like You” which is about her broken relationship, and lyrically it speaks of Adele coming to terms with it.

Still don’t believe me? Well, here are a few lyrics from our “amazing” artists:

“Drop it to the floor
Make that a** shake
Woah make the ground move, that’s an a** quake
Built a house up on that a**, that’s an ass state
Roll my weed on it, that’s an a** tray
Say Ye, say Ye, don’t we do this err’ day-day?
I work them long nights, long nights to get a pay day
Finally got paid, now I need shade and a vacay
And n***** still hatin’, so much hate I need an AK
Now we out in Paris, yeah I’m Perrierin’
White girls politicin’ that’s that Sarah Palin
Gettin’ high, Californicatin’
I give her that D, cause that’s where I was born and raised in”

- Mercy by Kanye West

“So what we get drunk?
So what we smoke weed?
We’re just having fun
We don’t care who sees
So what we go out?
That’s how it’s supposed to be
Living young and wild and free”

- Young, Wild, and Free by Wiz Khalifa

“Now she want a photo
You already know though
You only live once: that’s the motto n**** YOLO
We bout it every day, every day, every day
Like we sittin’ on the bench, n**** we don’t really play
Every day, every day, f*** what anybody say
Can’t see ‘em ’cause the money in the way
Real n**** what’s up?”

- The Motto by Drake (feat. Lil Wayne)

Those are just a few… Now, when you look as some lyrics from some actual musicians you’ll realize “wow, how can I possible like this music?”

“Some day, when I’m awfully low,
When the world is cold,
I will feel a glow just thinking of you
And the way you look tonight.”

- The Way You Look Tonight by Frank Sinatra

“I might have to wait, I’ll never give up
I guess it’s half timing and the other half’s luck
Wherever you are, whenever it’s right
You’ll come outta nowhere and into my life

And I know that we can be so amazing
And baby your love is gonna change me
And now I can see every possibility

Somehow I know that it’ll all turn out
You’ll make me work so we can work to work it out
And promise you kid I’ll give so much more than I get
I just haven’t met you yet”

- Haven’t Met You Yet by Michael Bublé

“I heard that you’re settled down
That you found a girl and you’re married now.
I heard that your dreams came true.
Guess she gave you things I didn’t give to you.

Old friend, why are you so shy?
Ain’t like you to hold back or hide from the light.

I hate to turn up out of the blue uninvited
But I couldn’t stay away, I couldn’t fight it.
I had hoped you’d see my face and that you’d be reminded
That for me it isn’t over.”

- Someone Like You by Adele

I am a strong believer that “we are what we listen to”.

If all you listen to is junk like Lil’ Wayne, and Kayne West you’ll start to actually act like the music. You’ll be disrespectful towards women, you’ll only party and smoke all the time because, according to Drake, You Only Live Once.

I think this is why the divorce rate is up, why people aren’t committing to eachother, why there is unfaithful spouses, and so much hate in this world.

This generation is all about the now, they want pleasure the fastest way possible, they can’t stay with one person for more than 2 months because they’ll be bored and want something new (Like artists, there are exceptions to all of this).

The music we listen to truly affects our daily lives, I wasn’t a believer in this a few months ago but now I completely get it.

If you are reading and still are thinking “Wow Pedro it’s 2012, bro. We aren’t losers like back then. Our music is the best.”

Just remember this, it might be cool right now, but would you really let your children listen to the music you listen to? You would like to let your daughter listen to music that says all she’s good for is sex? Do you really want to let you son grow up thinking women are an object that is only good for sex and then you leave them?

Dear generation, please move past this music we listen to. This doesn’t help anyone, it just hurts us all in the long run.

Enjoy

———————————————————————————–

Thoughts of a Sports Attorney
Miami Hilton, 1 AM

Sports Management International began as a small company. I was hired by Jack Scully in 1981, I was fresh out of college, I didn’t even watch much sports. But a young man came to me, and his name was Bill Apodaca. He asked me to look at a contract he’d acquired to play football for the Atlanta Falcons. Before long I was overseeing the business of another member of the Falcons, and two baseball players. The nuances and the small miracles of professional sports would soon hook me — there was something simple and perfect about the way a stadium felt. The way vou felt when a player you’d helped and represented made his stand in front of 54,000 people. And I remember the conversation Mr. Scully and I had by an elevator, standing next to one of those sand-filled ashtray posts, right before he hired me as one of the first agents in this company. “You and I are blessed, he said, “we do something that we love.”It’s 1 AM and this might be the bad pizza I had earlier talking, but I believe I have something to say. Or rather, I have something to say that I believe in. My father once said, “Get the bad news over with first. You be the one to say the tough stuff.” Well, here goes. There is a cruel wind blowing through our business. We all feel it, and if we don’t, perhaps we’ve forgotten how to feel. But here is the truth. We are less ourselves than we were when we started this organization.

Tonight, I find those words guiding me back to an important place, and an important truth. I care very much about the fact that I have learned to care less. Now our company is one of the top three in this business, and we represent over a thousand athletes. Over sixty agents work at our huge new office, and I still haven’t met all of you. The business of sports has never been bigger, or tougher, or more written about. And we are at the forefront. But I wonder tonight, as we leave our 13th annual conference… we’ve talked a lot and partied a lot over the last three days, but I dare say that not one of us, our diet Pepsis and sheaf of papers in hand, have said what we really think.

It is beyond the easy arguments waged against sports, and our business on the editorial pages of the New York Times. It is beyond the huge salaries, the endorsements all our clients now want because “I’m a better actor than Michael Jordan.” Beyond the globalization and merchandization of the games. It’s more subtle than the baseball strike, more about loyalty than the Colts moving to Indiana, the Rams going to St. Louis, or the Cleveland Browns moving to… someplace. I’m talking about something they don’t write about. I’m talking about something we don’t talk about.

We are losing our battle with all that is personal and real about our business. Every day I can look at a list of phone calls only partially returned. Driving home, I think of what was not accomplished, instead of what was accomplished. The gnawing feeling continues. That families are sitting waiting for a call from us, waiting to hear the word on a contract, or a General Manager’s thoughts on an upcoming season. We are pushing numbers around, doing our best, but is there any real satisfaction in success without pride? Is there any real satisfaction in a success that exists only when we push the messiness of real human contact from our lives and minds? When we learn not to care enough about the very guy we promised the world to, just to get him to sign. Or to let it bother us that a hockey player’s son is worried about his dad getting that fifth concussion.

There is a good bet that I will erase all of this from my laptop, and you will never read it. But if you are reading it, and you’re reading it right now, it is only because I was unable to stop. I was unable to forget the quiet questions in the hallways, when some of you, usually the younger agents, or interns, asked me on the side: “How do you keep all these lives, all these clients, separated in your mind?”

Chances are, I didn’t say much. I might have told you “it’s easy” or “you’re not working hard enough.” Chances are, I said something that you expected, maybe even wanted to hear. But it wasn’t the truth, and it wasn’t what I felt. And if you ever wondered about the drawbacks of being quiet about important things, talk to yourself in the mirror some time, say the truth. Yell the truth to yourself, when no one is listening. See how good it feels?

My father worked for the United Way for 38 years. We lived in San Diego for many years, before I left to move up the coast to Los Angeles. One of the things my father said was: “Every time you allow a problem in your life, you are actually at a point of transformation. Crisis is a powerful point of transformation.” (Never mind that he sat at the same chair for 38 years, and when he retired said only that he’d wished he’d asked for a more comfortable place to sit.)

We are now at a point of transformation with this company. But this is not something to fear, it is something to celebrate. Because I come to you tonight, looking out at the dark Miami skyline, not only with a challenge. I come to you with answers too.

But first let us define our position.

Right now we are a breaking point with our client list. We are not so huge that we must hire more agents, and not so small that we have not experienced huge success. We are at a point of nuetrality. We are all, right now, nuetral. Nuetral, as in not black or white. Not bad or good. Even. Nuetral.

Even in my own life, after 35 years, I feel that I have never done that one thing, that noble thing that defines a life. Even writing this Mission Statement is odd for me. I am used to flying below the radar, enjoying my life and friends. But I have not been truly tested. I have not gone to India to explore my life, as my brother has. I have not been in a major car accident, or fathered a child. I have not created a life, nor have I killed anyone. I am nuetral. I haven’t started a war and I haven’t stopped a war. I have broken even with my life. I have a nice home, a nice car, a fiancee who makes my heart race. But I have not taken that step, or risk, that makes the air I have breathed for 35 years worthwhile. I once had a yellow couch. I got rid of it because it was nuetral. My life is now like that yellow couch.

And yet, as I sit here in the wonderful Miami Hilton, I have never been so happy to be alive. I have said “later” to most anything that required true sacrifice. Later I will spend a weekend reading real books, not just magazines. Later I will visit my grandmother who is 100 and unable to really know the difference. Later I will visit the clients whose careers are over, but of course I promised to stay in touch. Later later later later. It is too easy to say “later” because we all believe our work to be too important to stop, minute to minute, for something that might interfere with the restless and relentless pursuit of forward motion. Of greater success. Make no mistake, I am a huge fan of success. But tonight, I propose a better kind of success. I could be wrong, but if you keep reading and I keep writing, we might get there together.

Now of course we all know that we possess the job of the decade. Last year, when a poll of college students was taken, our occupation, Sports Agent or Sports Attorney ranked number two to Rock Star. But rock stars, like sports stars, have a limited time in the spotlight. Nobody likes an old lineman or a bald rock star. But sports representation can give you a career into your 80′s, like the original sports agent Dicky Fox, who died on his way to a Chicago Bulls playoff game in 1993. He died gloriously, right by the B gates, a happy man who had actually written a book called A Happy Life. Taken by a heart attack, he left a loving wife and family, and a home next door to his first client. And we won’t talk about the two guys who stole his playoff tickets, right out of his pocket as he lay on the cool floor of the ‘O Hare airport. They were yanked from Dicky’s seats in the first quarter, and two guards kept the seats empty in tribute to him.

A Happy Life.

And to those young agents who never met him, Dicky Fox always said the same thing when asked for his secret. “The secret to this job,” he said, “is personal relationships.”

We are agents. To some, that brings with it the image of a Slickster. A Huckster. Someone profiting off the efforts of others. For many of those we’ve met or observed, that is what we are. I know an agent operating in this very state who regularly gets the phone numbers of college athletes by calling school offices and posing as a tutor who has lost their student’s contact number. He is often successful in acquiring athletes, but none for very long. Privately, an agent can be a father, a friend, an inspiring force in the life of a young man or woman. We are sometimes as important as priests or poets, but until we dedicate ourselves to worthier goals than getting a illegal phone number, we are poets of emptiness.

Somehow all this has been bubbling up inside me. A man is the sum total of his experiences. And it is now that I am interested in shaping the experiences to come. What is the future of what we do? Give me a goal, and I will achieve it. That has been my secret design for most of my life. Perhaps you are the same. We’re all goal-oriented, so I hereby present a goal.

How can we do something surprising, and memorable with our lives? How can we turn this job, in small but important ways, into a better representation of ourselves? Most of us would easily say that we are our jobs. That’s obvious from the late hours we all keep. So then, it is bigger than work, isn’t it? It is about us.

How do we wish to define our lives? So that when we are sixty, or seventy, or eighty and we’re sinking down onto that cool floor of ’0 Hare airport, with playoff tickets in our pockets, perhaps we too can know that we led A Happy Life? Is it important to be a Person and not just a slave to the commerce of Professional Sport? Do we want to be Remembered?

Or do we just want to be the guy who sold the guy who sold shoes that came with the little pump?

Recently I was asked by the son of a client, in so many words, “what do you stand for?” I was lost for an answer. At 14, I wasn’t lost for that answer. At 18, I wasn’t lost for an answer. At 35, I was blown away that I had no answer. I could only look at the fade of a 12 year-old boy, concerned about his dad, needing my help, just looking at me for the answer I didn’t have.

The look on that kid’s face is a part of me now. And the feeling I had, and have now, is pushing me forward, writing this Mission Statement.

My dad was one of the good guys. He studied at West Point, went to Korea in the conflict there. Later, he left a glittering life in the military to move to California, because my mother did not take well to the army life. My father never complained about it. He was prone to tell his war stories, but never in a beery “you gotta listen to me” way. He was graceful and he was funny, and he didn’t complain. For the late part of the sixties and the early seventies, even while doing volunteer work for United Way, as I previously described, he was an operator of Telephone Answering Services. He had two of these businesses. Long rooms filled with telephone operators who cooly answered your phone for you when you were away from home.

“Can I take a message?”

Almost as soon as he began this business, the first automatic telephone answering machine was introduced onto the market. Our conversations at the table were often about the future, and whether the world would accept these new machines.

“I just can’t talk to one,” said my mother.

“Neither can I,” said my older brother. “Nobody wants to talk to a machine.”

“They’ll never last,” said my dad. “People only like to talk to people.”

Within three years, mechanical answering machines were everywhere. The whole idea of a human answering your phone while you were away was no longer important. People were talking with machines, regularly and familiarly. Making funny phone messages, personalizing the machine of forward motion that had arrived in their homes. There was no way back. The machine was a part of life, but only when everyone learned to personalize it.

The same thing is true of sports. Sports may never be the Pute and simple thing that older men pine for. That ball park in the corn fields of Field of Dreams is, of course, a fantasy that lives in the mind. Sports is a huge operation, always was, but now that fact is no longer a secret that lives in the luxury boxes of ownership. The secret is out of the bag. Way, way out. Everyone knows that Sports is a machine. The Endorsement is now in danger of overshadowing the game. The commercials are often more interesting than the telecast. Money sits on the bench, right alongside the players. The players know, the owners always knew, the fans know. The machine has moved into our homes.

The question is, how do we personalize that machine? It is a question we must now ask ourselves at S.M.I.

I propose that, like the world embraced those telephone answering devices, we talk to the machines. We deal with the future that is already here. It isn’t even the future, it is now, so let us talk to the Machine and see what it says to us.

Let’s bring soul and character to what is already there.

I propose that we recreate everything that we’re currently about. Right now we’re at the top of our game. Traditionally people do one thing at this point in their success. They try like hell to maintain what they did to get there. Their personal and intense road to success, their original inspiration (which is at the heart of every success) is now lost in the pursuit to keep the money machine smoothly rolling forward. Delivering crisp green sheets of greater and greater amounts of fortune. But there is a problem with this stage in the success game. In so doing this maintain-success cycle, they forget the original glimmer of passion that got them there.

And historically, no one successful ever pauses to think that they might tumble like everyone before them who forgot. The whole success cycle dooms the very thing that causes the success in the first place — it puts shutters on the windows of reality. It makes us all forget that monetary success comes from something very pure. It comes from a desire to do well, to make life better, not just to do well with financial regularity.

It is not easy to hide a winning formula. Take a successful t.v. show. The following season, you see twenty others just like it. Same goes for our company. Sports Management International was, of the first great success stories of our business. But the great ones all do one thing at the time of their greatest success. They change the game. They make it harder for themselves. They raise the bar. They work not just harder, but they work smarter. That is why the great athletes, politicians, musicians, philosophers all got stronger instead of more weary. We must do the same. And for those wondering when I will propose an answer to these many questions, I must ask you simply to hold on. Because it’s coming.

I have just poured a pot of coffee. Maybe I’m crazy, maybe it’s just tonight, but I really do think I’m onto something here. And, as I said earlier, if you’re reading this, it means that I didn’t conquer this statement with my own fears of rejection. If if you knew me, and many of you do, you know that “rejection” and “fear” are not words I say easily. But this is more than a Mission Statement. This is not the equivalent of one of those magnetic “poetry kits,” you know the ones you buy at a stationery store, a mess of words so you can assemble funny poems on your refrigerator door. This is from my heart. This is a love letter to a business I truly love.

I’m back. just checked the messages at home, and sure enough one of them was a man I will call Client X. Client X was watching ESPN and he saw Athlete Y talking about the many many millions he has in contracts both in football, baseball and product representation. We have all been on the receiving end of a message like the one I just picked up on my answering machine.

“Why aren’t I making what Athlete Y makes,” said my client. And the truth is obvious to everyone but Client X. Athlete Y is a superstar, and is more talented. But to tell this to Client X would be asking him to become Ex-Client X.

And so begins the game of flattery, of lip service, of doing everything possible to soothe and stroke. It is part of our lives, and part of our jobs. The game of agenting. The tapdance. Not only will Client X be a tapdance, but there will be a tapdance involved in explaining why I didn’t return the call and begin the tapdance earlier. I know it is a tapdance, and so does he. I have seventy-two clients, and over sixty of them are full-time tapdances. I sign ten or twelve new ones a year. As many of you know, it is going in the wrong direction.

But as I sit here in the darkness of this hotel I room, the answer to the future is rather obvious. If the tapdancing becomes less constant, less furious, less necessary, what will the result be? The result will be more honesty, more focus, fewer clients, but eventually the revenues will be the same. Because the new day of honesty will create a machine more personalized, more truthful, and the client that wasn’t bullshitted this year, has a greater chance of greatness next year.

And now we get to the answer that Dicky Fox knew years ago. The answer is fewer clients. Less dancing. More truth. We must crack open the tightly clenched fist of commerce and give a little back for the greater good. Eventually revenues will be the same, and that goodness will be infectious. We will have taken our number oneness and turned it into something greater. And eventually smaller will become bigger, in every way, and especially in our hearts.

Forget the dance.

Focus.

Learn who these people are. That is the stuff of your relationship. That is what will matter. It is inevitable, at our current size, to keep many athletes from leaving anyway. People always respond best to personal attention, it is the simplest and easiest truth to forget.

Love the job. Be the job.

The phone calls will still come in at 2 AM, but on the other end of that phone at 2 AM will be someone deserving of your time, and you will be honored to share their time. And that will be what the road to greatness feels like. A little rocky at first. But think how good it will feel to wake up in the morning and know that when the phone rings, it is not Client X demanding the tapdance. It will be Client K, whose life we know and share in.

Let us be honest with ourselves.

Let us be honest with them.

Forget the dance.

Focus.

I propose this as the very heart of the Mission Statement that is flying across my screen. I am not a writer but I can’t stop from writing this. It is something pure, from the deepest part of me. It has to be right, and as one of the Senior Agents at this company, I ask to be heard. And if I am wrong, then grab me by the collar and tell me why you disagree. And I will happily talk with you because we are talking about something that matters.

Down below on the Promenade, I see a young girl skating in the night. The simple beauty with which she cascades across the smooth cement, the intelligence with which she uses this path that is crowded with shoppers and businessmen in the daytime. At night, it is hers. She owns it. I feel the same pride of ownership, owning this world that allows me to type this message to you. And perhaps save the future of this company. It is a great feeling, not just that wretched desire to survive, to outswim the huge wave that may drill me into the sand below the water, but to seize this time. To set the agenda. To say what I feel.

I feel so good about not erasing this Mission Statement. There is so little that we are able to create in this business.

Most of the time, we are creating nothing. We are shoving digits around. But to address the growing pains of our business, and to create a new way of looking at what we do… because these growing pains could easily be dying pains. But we are meant to live at this company. Our work actually does have an effect on people. In a cynical world, we make people happy. We let them know that one athlete can make a difference.

The same can be said of one company.

I propose also that we step up our concerns to build in non-profit areas of our contracts. It is something that we often talk about, sitting in those athletes’ living rooms, but often we let these factors slip away. How often have we advised clients to move to Florida, this very state, where taxes are lenient? Let us use the same sharp thinking not just to set up Charity Golf tournaments, but to help build schools in the communities where many of our finest athletes first found the inspiration to helped them onto greatness.

It is important to tweak the greater concerns of our athletes as well. Because the ability to forget social causes happens easily, in the night. Suddenly the desire to survive obscures the quest to give back to a community. If we don’t exercise the muscle of charity, one day it is dead. It doesn’t respond, it’s just a fiber in your body that serves no purpose. And the next thing that happens is the lack of depth that comes with financial prosperity. How many rich people have said this in our presence: “I thought I would feel better when I was rich, but I don’t.”

That happens when we don’t listen to the loud sound of the quiet voice inside. Life, I believe, is not a country club where we forget the difficulties and anxieties. Life is the duty of confronting all of that within ourselves. I am the most successful male in my family, but I am hardly the happiest. My brother works for Nasa, helping grow blue-green algae that will one day feed the world. He was originally targeted as the “successful” one in my family. But he gave up early, for a quieter kind of success. He was once tortured, now he is quietly making the world a better place. He learned earlier what I am just now starting to wake up to. He sleeps well at night. And he doesn’t worry about being too preoccupied or too busy to get the dance right. He dances for something greater.

You can e-mail the President, you can get sushi in a supermarket in the middle of the desert, you don’t even have to read a book anymore, you can buy a tape where it is read out-loud. But where is the simple truth about how to live a quality life? I hope that I have not overstepped my boundaries by writing this to you. This is an attempt to reach out, and say loudly the things that have been festering within. And once you begin to speak these things, it’s hard to stop.

I have decided to tell you about Mimee. A few days ago I got a phone call from a friend. Mimee Senadetta had died. I barely knew her, she was the girlfriend of a friend. They broke up in the middle 80′s, but Mimee and I had the attraction of two people who might have been together, had circumstances been different. We lost touch. And now she is gone, dead from a car accident, and I find myself thinking about what I could have done while she lived.

Last Christmas I felt the tingle of a thought — call her. I delayed calling, now it is too late. I think that tingle, the small voice inside, is always the voice of what is right. And how much sound and fury exists in our life determines how we easy it is to listen.

I miss you, Mimee. You and I both know. We had something that was never followed up on. I wish you well on your journey.

I have never been a writer, but I can see how this great lost art will never truly die. Putting words to paper is a sacred thing. It’s more than a phone conversation, it is a document. It is something you are putting on paper. The relationship between a phone call and a letter is the difference between a magazine and a phone book. One you leave on a plane, the other you save.

I am too excited to sleep. I want this Mission Statement to last to the light of day. Outside, a passing car plays a snatch of an old Pink Floyd album. “Money…

I am wondering what that exact moment is when we truly, truly love our jobs. Is it during the day, or at the end of the day, or is it years later looking back on all we accomplished? I think perhaps truly loving something is the ability to love it at that moment. It is an elusive ability, something I have never been able to quite accomplish. I must go home, and take my experiences like a squirrel, and consider them, before I can truly enjoy them. I must work on this. The daily journey is everything. Being able to enjoy enjoyment while it is happening. I might erase this part.

Why do I feel more alive for having written all of this? Some of you are younger than me, some of you are older than me. Right now I have one foot in each of your worlds. I am thinking about marriage, and the future, but I’m old enough to have a past that I (hopefully) have learned from. In another hour or so, a USA Today will plop at the door, phone calls will come in, and provide a whole new set of distractions to keep me from the central issue, the issue that we have discussed all this week, in various ways and in various forums, but have we really discussed it?

I have now written far too much on the subject of our future, the future of this business. But the beauty of this proposal, I think, is that it is only a slight adjustment, an adjustment in our minds. An adjustment in attitude. An adjustment to point where we can discuss the things that really matter to us, and our many clients. This coming holiday season, that time when we all know we must work harder to let our clients know what we’re doing for them, that difficult time when big decisions are made and agents are often fired, let us really reach out. Let us celebrate the clients that have meant more to us because of this small adjustment.

Let us work less hard to sign the clients that we know won’t matter in the long run, and work twice as hard to keep the ones who will. I believe in these words, and while they may not yet be true for you, they are true for me. And I ask that you read this with that in mind. I am dictating not what I want us to be, but what I wish us to be. There is a difference. You can only get there if I have written this correctly, and if you are inspired. I am reaching out to you, personally. I choose to be passionate again. I choose to reclaim everything that was once exciting about this job. I wonder if this might just be the best idea I’ve ever had. I hope you understand. In the words of Martin Luther King, whose suit I suggest you all visit before they move it from its display in the Atlanta airport: “A life is not worth living until you have something to die for.”

A life is not worth living if you are sleepwalking through it. Because that is what feels like death. That is what causes athletes to, out of despair, get drunk and wrap their cars around a pole. Or lash out at someone they love. Or that is what might have caused Mimee to careen into another car in an oncoming lane of traffic. It is the feeling of sleepwalking. Of others living life around you, keeping their fists tightly wound around whatever dollars they can muster, caring little more than nothing about those around you. We cannot sleepwalk. We cannot just survive, anything goes. We can take control of our lives, we can quit sleepwalking, we can say — right now, these are our lives, it is time to start living it. It is time to not second guess, to move forward, to make mistakes if we have to, but to do it with a greater good in mind.

Let us start a revolution. Let us start a revolution that is not just about basketball shoes, or official licensed merchandise. I am prepared to die for something. I am prepared to live for our cause. The cause is caring about each other. The secret to this job is personal relationships.