[Music]
my mom is awesome she’s five 771 and she
was born in Panama came to this country
in 1956 and once she showed me a
document that was her sponsorship from
her from at that time her aunt who said
on this document that my mom and my
grandmother would not be a burden to
society and that they would be able to
contribute to America because they had
$300 and a typewriter and the will to
give to this culture in our society she
worked very hard her whole life she was
she did she had been a social worker
after raising us and had to master’s
degrees and worked in emergency rooms
she worked with transplants and she
worked with domestic violence victims
and for those that didn’t survive she
worked with their families she gave her
life to help other people and to say
that she is my hero would be one of the
greatest understatements she has always
been an inspiration to me so one of the
things that she always taught me was
that one of the there were two lessons
and and one of them was that no matter
how difficult a problem is if we break
that problem into small pieces that we
can resolve whatever that issue is and
when we’re going through some of these
long difficult challenges if we focus on
the right here now we can get
overwhelmed and to remember that this
too shall pass no matter how difficult
it seems we are in the midst of
something that it’ll be okay so I want
to share a couple stories that
illuminate how those lessons helped me
and hopefully they’ll help you
the first story begins in 2005 and in
2005 a good friend of mine drago’s was
getting married and my gift to him
was a flight in a small airplane and so
I sat in the backseat while he flew with
an instructor and we flew around San
Diego and it was an incredible
experience sitting in the back of that
plane looking out over the earth and
feeling this different perspective of
being above everything so we came back
and I told my mom that I was super
excited and she said are you sure you
want to become a pilot are you sure
they’re kind of dangerous and of course
you know it’s what we all hear on the
news whenever there’s a small plane
crash
it’s what’s totally sensationalized
never mind that we see car crashes on
the Fonda TV all the time and that
doesn’t dissuade us from getting into
our cars but she asked me are you sure
and I said yes and she said well you
should go do that so I did I started
learning to fly and one of the first
lessons that came to me that reminded me
of that lesson that my mom shared with
me early on was about was was about
keeping safe so when you fly there are a
lot of things that you have to be paying
attention to and there are sometimes
things that can go wrong when you spy a
small airplane one of those is a spin so
a spin
is a maneuver that if it’s not performed
properly can be fatal the idea is if a
plane goes up loses its ability to hold
itself in the sky and can spin down and
if you don’t know how to get out of a
spin it usually doesn’t end well so I
decided to tell my instructor I want to
learn how to spin this airplane which he
said are you sure you want to do that
and I said yeah I do
just in case it happens I want to be a
safe pilot so we decided well let’s go
get a small plane so when you learn to
fly you rent planes and there’s a whole
number of different planes you can rent
from these flying clubs and so we picked
a Cessna 150 which is a very small plane
that’s got two seats and it’s it’s
really good for getting in and out of
spins so if you’re gonna try this you
want to make sure you do this in the
plane that’s gonna have a good chance of
getting out of it
so this Cessna 150 it was built in 1968
almost 40 years old at the time and you
can imagine what a plane that’s 40 years
old is like it’s not quite as good as
brand-new being a little over 40 myself
I can attest to that so we take this
plane and we pull it out so you have to
you take the tow bar and you attach it
to the front wheel and you pull the
plane out and we get in and is the first
time I’d been in this little plane and
the floor was coming up a little bit the
dashboard didn’t sit quite right there
were some holes from pieces that weren’t
there anymore and the doors didn’t close
quite right and the seat belt is this
tiny little lap belt and it’s got a
little rusty clasp on it and as I sit
down and I think okay well this is let’s
hope this goes well
and Aaron my flight instructors sitting
next to me and he says yeah don’t worry
I’ve flown this plane before it’ll be
fine so we take off and we head towards
El Capitan reservoir out in East San
Diego County and it’s it’s definitely
one of those warm summer days and and if
you’ve ever been in a small plane near
the near the earth when it’s warm
there’s a little bit of turbulence so
we’re flying out kind of getting bounced
around a little bit and we get over El
Capitan reservoir and we start to climb
so we climb up to 5,000 feet and the way
this works is the plane starts to climb
and at a certain point the engine just
can’t hold the plane up anymore and just
like when you’re in a car you get used
to the sounds and the feeling of driving
the same thing happens when you fly you
get used to the sound of the engine the
sound of the wind blowing past the the
plane and as you climb you notice things
are changing so as as we lit as we start
to get closer to the top it starts to
get quieter and I can hear the engine
really starting to struggle because it
can’t hold us up anymore and then it
reaches that critical point at the very
top and it starts to fall at that very
moment as the as the plane starts to
fall it falls towards my side and the
weight of Aaron’s shoulder on
and my weight against the door pops the
door open so you can imagine a little
bit of panic sets in my instinct is as
I’m looking down 5,000 feet and seeing
this little rusty clasp holding me in
place is to grab Aaron’s leg something
he’ll never let me live down and
rightfully so but in retrospect as he
did everything that he was supposed to
do push the nose forward opposite rudder
the plane comes out of the spin comes
out of the dive comes out and we’re just
fine but as I looked over at him in the
midst of all this pay up chaos and panic
happening in my brain he was absolutely
calm because he knew what had to be done
he had the training and he had the right
mindset he knew that you do one thing
after another in the proper order and
everything will be okay and I realized
that even in small things that happen
very quickly like that that my mom’s
lesson really applied my next story
begins in 1999 in 1999 I was playing
hockey for my university and we were
playing in a summer league with a couple
of guys I skated with and there was a
member of the opposing team who took
exception as sometimes happens in an ice
fortunately cooler heads prevailed and a
fight did not actually break out but as
will happen in many male relationships
we became very close friends after
so so we we stayed friends for many
years and he’s the accountant and at the
time I was at the very early stages
little bit soon after that I moved to
San Diego to start my business and I was
in the very early stages of running my
business and we had some ups and downs
and then in 2011 I asked if he would
come by or move out from New Mexico and
come to San Diego to help me start my
business and help help me manage the
finances as I needed somebody that I
could trust somebody that could help me
start the business and keep it going and
so he came out and helped me real aunch
my business under its current brand and
we went through a lot of ups and downs
and in 2016 we were confronted with a
very difficult challenge we had we are
acquiring another company there was a
lot of complicated paperwork involved
and so we were going through this change
from one accounting firm to another and
the new accounting firm said we really
need to make sure that we audit all your
books and most of us have been through
an audit to know that it’s not a lot of
fun to do that so my friend was helping
me go through that whole process and we
at one point when we were dealing with
the mountain of paperwork he invited me
into our war room the office and we sat
down and we were we were gonna go over
the latest issue of the day and as I
walked in and I sat down I looked at him
and something was wrong and I didn’t
know what it was but I could tell
something was deeply disturbing him and
it was at that moment that I could tell
that something big was going to happen
one of those moments that we remember
and it was at that moment when I looked
at him and he said Lars I have something
to tell you I’ve been taking money from
the company so you can imagine the
difficulty that that that that creates I
felt like someone had stabbed me in the
heart it was very difficult at that
moment I was overwhelmed with emotion
sadness betrayal but a calm came over me
when I remembered what my
taught me in spite of all of that
overwhelming feeling I knew that if I
solved this problem one step at a time
that I would be okay so I did I asked
him to leave
found a forensic accountant hired
another accountant rebalanced the books
everything was fine he paid back what he
took and we’ve moved on but in the midst
of all of that because it was a
six-month process there were those times
when I felt that I was never going to
get through it that I was emotionally so
distraught the chaos did it left behind
was going to beat us but then I thought
back to what my mom taught me what she
always said that no matter how difficult
back sitting next to my mom I was
sitting on the bed next to her my
sisters are with me and I looked to her
and I know that these are the last
breaths of her life and as I hold her
hand I don’t know if she knows that I’m
there she’d been diagnosed with acute
myeloid leukemia the doctors gave her
six months to live and is often the case
with people who are diagnosed with
terminal illness they overestimate the
amount of time that somebody has left it
had been six weeks and she was in my
home I was fortunate enough that I could
take care of her and nurse her through
her transition through the end of her
life I had the support of friends and
family and everyone was there but as I
sat and I look at her and I see who she
is I see the inspiration I see the the
lessons that she shared with me
I remember that these lessons that I
remember the stories that she tells me
or how I continue her legacy we all have
people in our lives who have given us
stories
who have shared lessons with us and how
we take those lessons and stories and
share them with others is how we create
a legacy for those who have left us this
community is built on the history of
those who have loved us and cared for us
I encourage you to take some time today
and think about the stories and lessons
that have been given to you from those
who have left your life and carry their
legacy forward and make your future and everyone else’s future brighter
my mom is awesome she’s five 771 and she
was born in Panama came to this country
in 1956 and once she showed me a
document that was her sponsorship from
her from at that time her aunt who said
on this document that my mom and my
grandmother would not be a burden to
society and that they would be able to
contribute to America because they had
$300 and a typewriter and the will to
give to this culture in our society she
worked very hard her whole life she was
she did she had been a social worker
after raising us and had to master’s
degrees and worked in emergency rooms
she worked with transplants and she
worked with domestic violence victims
and for those that didn’t survive she
worked with their families she gave her
life to help other people and to say
that she is my hero would be one of the
greatest understatements she has always
been an inspiration to me so one of the
things that she always taught me was
that one of the there were two lessons
and and one of them was that no matter
how difficult a problem is if we break
that problem into small pieces that we
can resolve whatever that issue is and
when we’re going through some of these
long difficult challenges if we focus on
the right here now we can get
overwhelmed and to remember that this
too shall pass no matter how difficult
it seems we are in the midst of
something that it’ll be okay so I want
to share a couple stories that
illuminate how those lessons helped me
and hopefully they’ll help you
the first story begins in 2005 and in
2005 a good friend of mine drago’s was
getting married and my gift to him
was a flight in a small airplane and so
I sat in the backseat while he flew with
an instructor and we flew around San
Diego and it was an incredible
experience sitting in the back of that
plane looking out over the earth and
feeling this different perspective of
being above everything so we came back
and I told my mom that I was super
excited and she said are you sure you
want to become a pilot are you sure
they’re kind of dangerous and of course
you know it’s what we all hear on the
news whenever there’s a small plane
crash
it’s what’s totally sensationalized
never mind that we see car crashes on
the Fonda TV all the time and that
doesn’t dissuade us from getting into
our cars but she asked me are you sure
and I said yes and she said well you
should go do that so I did I started
learning to fly and one of the first
lessons that came to me that reminded me
of that lesson that my mom shared with
me early on was about was was about
keeping safe so when you fly there are a
lot of things that you have to be paying
attention to and there are sometimes
things that can go wrong when you spy a
small airplane one of those is a spin so
a spin
is a maneuver that if it’s not performed
properly can be fatal the idea is if a
plane goes up loses its ability to hold
itself in the sky and can spin down and
if you don’t know how to get out of a
spin it usually doesn’t end well so I
decided to tell my instructor I want to
learn how to spin this airplane which he
said are you sure you want to do that
and I said yeah I do
just in case it happens I want to be a
safe pilot so we decided well let’s go
get a small plane so when you learn to
fly you rent planes and there’s a whole
number of different planes you can rent
from these flying clubs and so we picked
a Cessna 150 which is a very small plane
that’s got two seats and it’s it’s
really good for getting in and out of
spins so if you’re gonna try this you
want to make sure you do this in the
plane that’s gonna have a good chance of
getting out of it
so this Cessna 150 it was built in 1968
almost 40 years old at the time and you
can imagine what a plane that’s 40 years
old is like it’s not quite as good as
brand-new being a little over 40 myself
I can attest to that so we take this
plane and we pull it out so you have to
you take the tow bar and you attach it
to the front wheel and you pull the
plane out and we get in and is the first
time I’d been in this little plane and
the floor was coming up a little bit the
dashboard didn’t sit quite right there
were some holes from pieces that weren’t
there anymore and the doors didn’t close
quite right and the seat belt is this
tiny little lap belt and it’s got a
little rusty clasp on it and as I sit
down and I think okay well this is let’s
hope this goes well
and Aaron my flight instructors sitting
next to me and he says yeah don’t worry
I’ve flown this plane before it’ll be
fine so we take off and we head towards
El Capitan reservoir out in East San
Diego County and it’s it’s definitely
one of those warm summer days and and if
you’ve ever been in a small plane near
the near the earth when it’s warm
there’s a little bit of turbulence so
we’re flying out kind of getting bounced
around a little bit and we get over El
Capitan reservoir and we start to climb
so we climb up to 5,000 feet and the way
this works is the plane starts to climb
and at a certain point the engine just
can’t hold the plane up anymore and just
like when you’re in a car you get used
to the sounds and the feeling of driving
the same thing happens when you fly you
get used to the sound of the engine the
sound of the wind blowing past the the
plane and as you climb you notice things
are changing so as as we lit as we start
to get closer to the top it starts to
get quieter and I can hear the engine
really starting to struggle because it
can’t hold us up anymore and then it
reaches that critical point at the very
top and it starts to fall at that very
moment as the as the plane starts to
fall it falls towards my side and the
weight of Aaron’s shoulder on
and my weight against the door pops the
door open so you can imagine a little
bit of panic sets in my instinct is as
I’m looking down 5,000 feet and seeing
this little rusty clasp holding me in
place is to grab Aaron’s leg something
he’ll never let me live down and
rightfully so but in retrospect as he
did everything that he was supposed to
do push the nose forward opposite rudder
the plane comes out of the spin comes
out of the dive comes out and we’re just
fine but as I looked over at him in the
midst of all this pay up chaos and panic
happening in my brain he was absolutely
calm because he knew what had to be done
he had the training and he had the right
mindset he knew that you do one thing
after another in the proper order and
everything will be okay and I realized
that even in small things that happen
very quickly like that that my mom’s
lesson really applied my next story
begins in 1999 in 1999 I was playing
hockey for my university and we were
playing in a summer league with a couple
of guys I skated with and there was a
member of the opposing team who took
exception as sometimes happens in an ice
fortunately cooler heads prevailed and a
fight did not actually break out but as
will happen in many male relationships
we became very close friends after
so so we we stayed friends for many
years and he’s the accountant and at the
time I was at the very early stages
little bit soon after that I moved to
San Diego to start my business and I was
in the very early stages of running my
business and we had some ups and downs
and then in 2011 I asked if he would
come by or move out from New Mexico and
come to San Diego to help me start my
business and help help me manage the
finances as I needed somebody that I
could trust somebody that could help me
start the business and keep it going and
so he came out and helped me real aunch
my business under its current brand and
we went through a lot of ups and downs
and in 2016 we were confronted with a
very difficult challenge we had we are
acquiring another company there was a
lot of complicated paperwork involved
and so we were going through this change
from one accounting firm to another and
the new accounting firm said we really
need to make sure that we audit all your
books and most of us have been through
an audit to know that it’s not a lot of
fun to do that so my friend was helping
me go through that whole process and we
at one point when we were dealing with
the mountain of paperwork he invited me
into our war room the office and we sat
down and we were we were gonna go over
the latest issue of the day and as I
walked in and I sat down I looked at him
and something was wrong and I didn’t
know what it was but I could tell
something was deeply disturbing him and
it was at that moment that I could tell
that something big was going to happen
one of those moments that we remember
and it was at that moment when I looked
at him and he said Lars I have something
to tell you I’ve been taking money from
the company so you can imagine the
difficulty that that that that creates I
felt like someone had stabbed me in the
heart it was very difficult at that
moment I was overwhelmed with emotion
sadness betrayal but a calm came over me
when I remembered what my
taught me in spite of all of that
overwhelming feeling I knew that if I
solved this problem one step at a time
that I would be okay so I did I asked
him to leave
found a forensic accountant hired
another accountant rebalanced the books
everything was fine he paid back what he
took and we’ve moved on but in the midst
of all of that because it was a
six-month process there were those times
when I felt that I was never going to
get through it that I was emotionally so
distraught the chaos did it left behind
was going to beat us but then I thought
back to what my mom taught me what she
always said that no matter how difficult
back sitting next to my mom I was
sitting on the bed next to her my
sisters are with me and I looked to her
and I know that these are the last
breaths of her life and as I hold her
hand I don’t know if she knows that I’m
there she’d been diagnosed with acute
myeloid leukemia the doctors gave her
six months to live and is often the case
with people who are diagnosed with
terminal illness they overestimate the
amount of time that somebody has left it
had been six weeks and she was in my
home I was fortunate enough that I could
take care of her and nurse her through
her transition through the end of her
life I had the support of friends and
family and everyone was there but as I
sat and I look at her and I see who she
is I see the inspiration I see the the
lessons that she shared with me
I remember that these lessons that I
remember the stories that she tells me
or how I continue her legacy we all have
people in our lives who have given us
stories
who have shared lessons with us and how
we take those lessons and stories and
share them with others is how we create
a legacy for those who have left us this
community is built on the history of
those who have loved us and cared for us
I encourage you to take some time today
and think about the stories and lessons
that have been given to you from those
who have left your life and carry their
legacy forward and make your future and everyone else’s future brighter
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