The F Word

I’m a geek. I know that comes as no surprise to many of you out there, but here I am, stepping up to the plate and admitting it. And as an added bonus, this column should provide absolute proof, for those who still need convincing. I thought I’d give everyone a little ammunition for the next time we chat.

As anyone reading this knows, my business partners and I recently opened a new Sheffield’s. A restaurant with a decidedly un-Sheffield’s like vibe; polished wood, fancy light fixtures, big deal menu. It’s not what I wanted but it’s what I was given to work with and, looking on the bright side, it a beautiful space and the food rocks. The only problem is we don’t have customers. Or not enough anyway, not to sustain the overhead built into the system.

My partner, the architect, is freaking. He calls me and asks if we can write checks that he already knows we can’t and then I have to sit and listen to long silences while he sighs over the phone. It doesn’t really help but he’s worried. So am I.

Now, verging onto a seemingly unrelated tangent, I’ll also tell you that I like to walk. Not a stroll around the block but hiking kind of walks. Miles and miles. City or country it doesn’t matter, I just like to walk. I’ve always liked to spend time by myself and walking is perfect for that; slogging through those dark nights of the soul. I love walking; what I don’t like is to drive, but the new Sheffield’s is a hard eight and a half city miles from the original and there’s no alternative. So I’ve tried to mentally reach the same place in the car as I used to find on meandering, solitary treks. It’s difficult, especially when I’m waving my driving finger out the window at some idiot, but that’s beside the point. I’m attempting to find the good in the situation, the silver lining.

The way I’ve tried to reconcile the two exercises – walking and driving – is to listen to self-help tapes while I’m in the car (see I told you I was a geek). Specifically Tony Robbins. I had some of his old CD’s stored in the bottom of a closet, and so I dug them out, and then I looked him up on line and ordered the whole program. The deluxe set with updates sent right to my mailbox every month. Hey, the way I look at it, whatever works, whatever keeps me sane, is fair game. Besides, for the last twenty years I’ve looked almost exclusively to alcohol to change my reality and that’s getting old. I needed something original, or at least original to me.

The thing is; Tony’s good. I climb out of that car feeling like I can take on the world. And I’ve cut WAY back on drinking, I’m getting back into shape, I’m honing my focus. I’m not going to climb out of this hole by sinking into the bottle.

One thing that Mr. Robbins stresses is that he’s not teaching anything new. He draws on everything from Jesus to Confucius to Norman Vincent Peal. It’s all about changing the way you look at the world, the way your mind makes associations; new associations equal new patterns of behavior and, bingo, new you. He addresses that area where quantum physics meets Alan Watts meets mysticism. There is a lot of good in most of the great philosophical constructs if you can wade through the road apples.

Some critics argue that Tony Robbins and his ilk are just religion dressed up in new clothes. Well, I grew up Baptist and, let me tell you, those people are nuts. Going to a Bible thumper church as a kid was enough to sour me on religion for the next thirty odd years. But listening to Tony Robbins is a different kind of affirmation. Look, any thinking man has to have problems with the whole world was created in seven days, original sin, Jonah and the Whale line of crap, but there are a lot of seeds of truth in there. That’s what Tony preaches – although he hates it when people call what he does preaching; get the value from whatever source you choose, find the truth in the metaphor.

One of the all time big deal chestnuts of most religious thought is faith. You know, the whole if you have but the faith of a grain of mustard you can move Manhattan kind of idea. It takes a whole lot of grains to open a restaurant. But that’s what it is, right? Faith. Call it self-confidence, chutzpah, determination – if I didn’t truly believe that I could make this new venture work, I never would have started. Now the reality of the situation may very well be different, the jury’s still out, but still in light of all our difficulties, I have faith. I have to. Thanks, Tony.

Being a writer requires the same act of will, of committed belief. If I didn’t really think that I could make it, somehow, as an author, I wouldn’t be sitting here, I wouldn’t have slogged my way through Columbia College, I wouldn’t have taken on the projects I’m working on. I somehow or the other have come to the conclusion that I can make that part of my life work despite the odds. I’ve convinced myself of it. If that’s not a leap of faith I don’t know what is.

So I’m going to drive back out to River Grove and work the restaurant tonight, and I’ll probably listen to another of Tony Robbin’s CD’s on the way. I’m going to work my tail off and the tide is going to turn. You can bet on it. I’m still alive in the restaurant business after two start ups and twenty years in Chicago and I’m not going down now. But still and all, I’ve got to have faith in the process, in the idea that if I put myself out there and do the best I can the breaks will come my way.

When I was a kid, going to that little Baptist church out in the country, those good folk put a lot of emphasis on prayer. I thought it was a lot of hooey. But I think that that was just because the presentation was so unpolished and dated. If they’d been a bit more sophisticated, I might have bought more of what they were selling. And while my present entreaties to the omniscient powers that be may be likened to prayer, I am more of a subscriber to the whole God-helps-those-who-help-themselves, line of thought. Prayer, mantra or affirmation, it’s a matter of semantics. Still in all I truly believe that there’s some substance to the soft soap. You can’t do anything if you don’t believe in what you’re doing. In my book, that’s faith.

So I’m writing my books and running my restaurants and I’m going to keep on writing and running them until I win or something runs me into the ground. Even a geek can do it. All it takes is a little leap of faith.

— Ric Hess, Sep 17, 01:47 PM

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