Secret Service Strangeness

So the head of the Secret Service testified that Obama has faced no more threats than the last two presidents. I assume he means per day, at this point in all their presidencies. Not, for instance, that in his first year he's received as many as they did in their entire terms. I'm nervous about the way people mess with the language, and find this VERY difficult to believe based on the violent rhetoric, and America's history in general. However, I would be delighted to believe it, if it were true, and would love for someone to point me toward a more thorough investigation of these numbers. Thanks.

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Coaching has been an adventure for me. Having done it in various forms for decades, deciding to make this an actual part of my income stream changes the game in some fascinating ways. So far, the issue I see most of is lack of clarity: people don't really know what they want. After that it is a sense of having trouble staying on track. That's an easy one, and one the coaching paradigm is designed for.

I'm working with Scott Sonnon as he prepares for a major grappling and MMA competition in Vegas next year. For a man with this level of discipline, focus, and overall accomplishment, my real task will be seeing that his dogs are all pulling in the same direction, that he doesn't waste energy on non-productive activities, and that he doesn't allow vampires to drain his energy. Oh...and that he is taking sufficient recovery time. The human race might be broadly divided into two camps--those who push too hard, and those who don't push hard enough. Champions tend to be in...well, you know which group they're in.

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Today, I'll be back into the new Dream Park book, working on a chapter suggested by H.G. Well's LITTLE WARS books on table-top gaming. Had a REALLY good meeting last week, some folks who want to turn D.P. into a movie. Well, I've heard THAT before, but on some level have always believed it would happen one day. We'll see.

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"The Hero's Journey" is the current title of the " human adulthood for men" course I'm putting together. Almost ready to start taping. It's designed as a month-long program, twenty lessons five days a week with homework on the weekened. The material is extremely dense, so I've had to organize it six ways to Sunday, making sure that everything references everything else. Tomorrow, I may make the first 1/2 hour recording. I'll be talking about it more later, but so far it looks fabulous. God, I wish I could have gotten my hands on this forty years ago!

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Oh...back to Dream Park. There is a scene that is tricky...involving multiple characters, a game within a game, a moral lesson..and all under time pressure. I believe I know how to handle it, and want to spend the day today roughing it out, and then smoothing it over as much as I can.

The trick is that this is someone's scene. This is the time for one of the characters to break out and move to the next level of their personal arc. I think I know who it is, too...an older lady named Maud Abernathy, playing the game as a psychic. She has been something of a downer for much of the book, sniping at her husband and then breaking down under pressure. But this would be an opportunity for her to shine, and I want to let her do it. Every character should have one moment, one time, when they are standing up and showing their stuff.

I think of it in a very similar fashion when I'm writing scripts. I want to create a scene that will have the actor saying "hey! I can play the hell out of this!" and trusting them to bring their skill and heart to the role. Trusting the actor. Or in this instance, trusting the character. Remembering that from the character's point of view, the entire story is about her. The entire world revolves around her. If I remember that, every