Two kids, two dogs, two jobs – time is precious. And so is our marriage. To keep it strong, my wife and I need techniques that are simple enough to do every day and powerful enough to reach our twenty-second anniversary! In our newest episode, we share one of our favorites: The Compliment Habit. It’s our best app yet and it’s free (on iOS). It took six years to figure it all out and I can share it with you in twelve minutes.
The line was already standing room only, when I opened the door to the car rental agency. It was Monday morning, the last day of my vacation, and I was stuck behind a mob who’s car had either broke down or been in a wreck.
All for this bloody quest! But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s go back 2 days, to where it began.
My son and I were sitting on a ski-lift, high above the beautiful slopes of the Brighton ski-resort in Salt Lake City. Next to my son was Mike. With his spikey hair and upbeat smile, Mike was a surf-wise, Californian. My son adored him and called him, uncle, which is fine, cause in a way, he reminds me of my brother, whom I dearly miss.
And as we rode the lift up the mountains, Mike and my son began to talk about our trip from years before. “Do you remember the Chocolate Waffles?” But, I wasn’t really listening. I was busy craning my neck, camera in hand, trying to capture the beauty of the mountains below us. I got some good ones – see for yourself!
When I finally turned back around, I was surprised to learn that Mike and my son had reached a decision. Which is how the Quest for Chocolate Waffles began.
Of course, not even my son could remember where the waffles were from. When we found them last time, it had been by blind luck. All we knew was that somewhere in Utah, there was a tiny shack, just big enough for one-man and 4 waffle irons! Fortunately, the Chocolate Waffles were something of an internet phenom, so 20 seconds later, cell-phone in hand, Mike and Google had found our destination.
Unfortunately, it was in a resort called, The Canyons and we had no way to get there! We had spent the last 3 days hoofing it on the bus, and The Canyons was way outside the city. But, a quest is a quest – and it demands action! So, the next morning, I got up early, went downstairs to the lobby, and asked for some help finding a rental car. The kind man behind the desk just smiled politely, and asked “Do you know what day it is?” … I responded with a blank stare. “Sir, it’s Sunday.” Still half-asleep, I replied with a raised eyebrow. Finally, the man spoke slowly and carefully, “It’s Easter Sunday. You’re in Utah.”
I don’t know how this quest fell upon my shoulders. After all, it was my son and his surfing ‘uncle’ that dreamed it up. But, it was my responsibility now. And like Schwarzenegger, in that goofy Christmas movie, Jingle All The Way, I would not fail. “I’ll be back,” I said.
The next morning was our final day. My last chance! So, I was dressed and ready, standing in the lobby, long before the others were even out of bed. I called the rental agency, and the man on the phone told me, ‘Sir, I can’t help you right now. It’s Monday after Easter. We’re busy. Call back around noon.’
I can’t wait ‘til noon. It’ll be too late! So once again, I turned to the kind gentleman for help. “Go stand there in person,” he advised. So, he dropped me off and, that’s how I found myself standing in the long-line of would-be renters on the last day of my vacation.
Standing there, I couldn’t help but eavesdrop. Listening to the woes of the others, was humbling. Many of these people had been in wrecks, or their car had broken down at the worst possible moment. One lady, had a bus-load of kids, and a broken down mini-van.
But, as I watched, the man behind the counter handled each of their frustrations, customer after customer. Always calm, and always smiling. So, I just waited patiently. And, when it was my turn, I asked him how he did it. He explained, simply, “Monday’s are always like this. Nothing to do but smile.” And a few signatures later, he put me in a set of wheels and sent me on my way.
I hurried back to the hotel, and everyone piled in. In moments, we were on our way, headed to the Canyons. Before I knew it, we were standing in the parking lot, looking up at the towering mountains. The quest was nearly complete! I began to relax.
From the back of the car, I hear my son ask, ‘Where’s my ski’s? They’re not back here.’ Naturally, they weren’t in the car, because it’s impossible for something to be in 2 places at the same time. And right now, his ski’s were sitting right where I had left them, in the hotel lobby!
A few obscenities later and we were walking into the local ski shop, renting ski’s for my son. And, so, that is how we arrived, at five minutes to noon, at the top of the mountain. And once there, it was easy to set aside my cares! Warm spring air rushed by and the warmth made the snow luciously soft! The slopes was awesome, the mountain was vast, and there were waffles in my future. Delicious!
When it began to rain, a few minutes later, I was not bothered. We got on the lift, bundled our jackets and squished closer together. We looked miserable on that ski-lift and we just laughed anyway.
You know? I’m from the east coast, and we didn’t have mountains like these. The mountains of Utah were mammoths compared to the foothills of the Shanandoah Valley. Out here, even the fastest lifts took almost 10 minutes to get to the top. And, they didn’t just go up. Sometimes, they’d weave sideways across the mountain, in and out of the valleys. And even through the rain, it was impossible not to appreciate the beauty of it all.
I remember, we came out into this one valley and the mountain opened up below us. I could way up this steep, steep slope. It was huge! And, as I looked up, I noticed something odd. Up ahead, where the mountain was steepest, I saw a line cutting straight across the mountain, like an arrow. Below the line was rain, cold and wet, and above the line …
“That’s snow!” “It’s snow!” “Snow!” we cried at once. Later, I learned it was called a Snow Line, caused by the drastic temperature changes of the steep mountains. But, at that moment, it was magic, pure and simple. The snow fell heavy and thick. My cares forgotten, I shouted for joy, “WOOOHOOOOO!”
“Look dad! I’m covered!” In the few minutes it took to reach the top, we were covered head to toe, in fluffy, perfect, Utah snow. When we rode off the lift, we were greeted by the most beautiful sound in the world – the soft grumbling of fresh snow beneath our boards.
Later that afternoon, we worked our way across the mountain, to find that little shack, so we could complete our quest. We ordered up, waited patiently, and cheered as we received our reward. We dove greedily into those Chocolate Waffles; sugar coated goodness with melted Bavarian chocolate, that oozed between our fingers. And as we sat there, we joked – if our quest had been a commercial, it might have gone:
We had completed our quest and claimed our reward! The waffles were more delicious than we remembered. And even so, years from now, what I will treasure most is not the waffles, but the journey itself. A journey that started with a simple plan, hatched by my son and his stand-in uncle. A journey that led me to a man who smiled in spite of everything. A journey that enabled me to witness the wonder of mother nature’s snow-line miracle. Memories I will savor the rest of my life. Priceless.
Sometimes my wife surprises me. Like, last year, when my friend from California told me he was going to be really busy, “I won’t have time to work on the art for a while.” We were just weeks away from finishing The Gratitude Habit, when our artist backed out. Months of effort had gone into the stories and the software, but it didn’t work without art.
So, I considered finding a local artist – maybe at one of those 2-year art schools. Or maybe I could hire someone from DeviantArt. I mean, clip-art would be fine, we didn’t need Picasso.
So, as I sat in my closet, rocking back-and-forth, chewing my fingers off, my wife walked up behind me and put her hand on my shoulder. She surprised me by saying, “I’ll do it.”
Perplexed, I said, “What? You … I didn’t know you could draw.”
“I can’t!”, she replied, “But we can’t wait forever and we can’t afford an artist. I’ll do it.”
In 21 years, I’d never seen my wife draw; not even a doodle! But, she’d always been a good student: meticulous and persistent. I began to get excited.
And, she dove right in; head first! Each day, she’d draw several new images. It was slow of course. But, we found some help in books like, Understanding Comics, and after a week or so, she found her rhythm. She created art, like this:
She was doing it! Sure, it wasn’t Picasso, but it conveyed the message: Gigi was taking his briefcase to the office. It was a small success and it motivated her to keep going. Course, we needed dozens and dozens of images, but, it was a start.
And remember my friend from California? Well, he didn’t have time to draw for us, but he gave my wife lots of good advice, like “Always use reference art. Find an image on the internet and use it as a guide.” That was a huge breakthrough for her. With her iPad in one hand, and her pen in the other, her images began to look like this:
A drastic improvement. And, good enough to ship! 5-weeks later, after much blood, sweat, and tears, we shipped The Gratitude Habit! My wife had done it!
But, her journey wasn’t over yet. Cause the ink was barely dry, when we started work on Episode 2! This time around, Gigi had stories from his marriage. We needed images of people – lots of them.
I remember when I was growing up, I wasn’t that great a student. Often times, in class, I used to doodle on my notebook. Of course, I only did the simple stuff: lightning bolts and swirlies. You can’t mess up a swirlie. But, humans were an entirely different subject! Eyeballs and lips and hair? Windows of the soul? Impossible!
And nothing has changed since I was a kid. People are hard to draw. Whether it’s me, or my wife. Her early images looked like this:
Proportions were the hardest. They infuriated my wife; almost to tears sometimes. She tried a lot of styles and struggled to find one she could get right. But, she kept at it, and eventually, we settled for this herpy-derpy couple when we shipped Good Sex, Great Marriage.
Definitely no Picasso. And that’s about the time she found, ‘Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain‘. And soon after that, we put together a holiday episode, ‘Christmas Gratitude‘. We put it together quite quickly, and my wife drew images like this!
Compared to her earlier briefcases? Just … WOW! Each new episode, she’d jump back in and practice, practice, practice.
Of course, Christmas trees are easier than people. And as I write this, we’re neck deep into episode 4: ‘The Compliment Habit’. This time, Gigi tells stories that involve people! Lots of people.
But my wife is not afraid. She’s tackling people head on (pun intended). I think she is surprising herself. She is certainly surprising me. I guess all this practice is paying off, because she is discovering a style of her own. A simple sort of elegance that conveys emotion.
For Episode 4, we need to show the two of us at dinner, happily in love. Last night, she drew this:
My wife took a risk! She offered to do what she had never done before, knowing full well it would be seen by everyone! But, she practiced, deliberately, for thirty minutes a day. She persisted through failures and frustration. And in just ten months, she’s gone from “I can’t draw”, to … a professional artist, who’s work is seen by tens of thousands of people.
Deliberate practice is rarely this easy to see. The evolution is right there, for all to see! My wife couldn’t draw. Now she can.
Do you remember Roger Ebert? He’s that jovial father figure from the Siskel and Ebert movie critic show. I must have watched a gazillion of his reviews. But sometimes, Mr Ebert talks about stuff other than movies. For instance, a few years ago, he wrote an article called, ‘Video Games Can Never Be Art.’
It was a pretty bold piece, but I admire Mr Ebert a lot, so to be honest, I never really gave it much thought. Until recently, when I had an experience that I will never forget.
It all started while I was browsing the internet. I came across an article about a game I had recently played. The designer of the game was talking about one of the features he had added to his game. Apparently, he had done something new and unique with his non-player characters (NPC) – you know, those animated figures in a game – the ones that are not controlled by you.
Well, that’s when I realized, I had missed this feature entirely! I had played the game, beginning to end, and never even realized there was something deeper going on!
So, that night, I went home, and fired up the game. Only this time, I played it differently. As soon as I could, I ran up to the first NPC I could find and then … I began to talk to it! Well, talk is a bit of a stretch. There were no words involved, just chirps, and jumps, and twirls.
And you know what? The NPC began to talk back! It turns out, it wasn’t a NON-player character after all! It was a PLAYER character – another physical human being – somewhere in the world. And, he was communicating back to me!
I called out to my son, and he sat down and watched me play as I chirped and jumped, trying to get that other character to follow me around. And, surprisingly, the other character did the same. When he got too far away, I sang loudly, asking him to wait, and sometimes, I chirped quickly, when I wanted to show him something. One time, he showed me a secret, and I thanked him by dancing in swirls around his head, and another time, we just barely escaped from danger, and we sang in celebration.
By now, my son and wife and daughter were all watching me play, engrossed in what was happening. And, pretty soon, I realized that we were approaching the end of the game. And, that’s when a sadness overcame me. I had grown fond of this stranger. Somehow, with neither words, nor language, he had become my friend. He had guided me through danger and we had both danced for joy.
And soon, this person would be gone and I would never see them again. And, as we approached the final moments of the game, we both began to hesitate. He slowed, and I slowed, and we began to communicate furiously. We sang goodbye and danced and danced and danced. Until, at last, with nothing else to say, we walked slowly, side-by-side, into the end.
And, as the credits rolled, I realized, I was sad and I was joyous, both. And, when I set down the controller, I was surprised at how much emotion this simple game had evoked. Playing it again, going deeper into the mechanics, had helped me discovered a bit of joy and wonder about my fellow man, a stranger I will never see again. And for a long time afterwards, my son, my wife, my daughter, and I, well, we talked about it.
To be sure, my story is a small one, a simple experience I had while playing a game with my family. But, now, I can’t help but believe that perhaps Mr Ebert was a bit hasty with his words. For on that night, I played a video game that took me on an emotional Journey – it caused me to reflect upon the meaning of life. And that qualifies as Art to me.
Last week, we were stuck. The ideas were solid, but the words were not. Everything changed this weekend – we had a breakthrough!
This morning, I feel great! The Compliment Habit is taking shape! Soon, we’ll be cracking open a can of ‘Almost There’.
