Writing in a Closet

It is difficult to find uninterrupted time to write. I write a lot and it is really important to me to be able to crank out material when I am facing a deadline (real or self-imposed). A single, 2 minute interruption can steal 10-20 minutes of quality writing time as it takes a while to regain your thoughts.

My wife doesn't seem to have this problem as bad as I do. She seems to be able to mentally shift gears and carry on two conversations at the same time, but I just can't do it. She says it's a female thing. That their brains are wired differently than a man's brain. Maybe so, but she doesn't write as much as I do.

So, in order for me to be able to really finish a writing project in a timely manner, I have to be able to write where the phone, e-mail, and family aren't able to interrupt. If you are a writer, I cannot stress how important it is not to allow interruptions. Writers argue about the best time of day to write, about the benefits of pen and paper vs. computer keyboard, and about grammar and spelling, but the one thing all prolific writers seem to agree on is the need for uninterrupted time in order to produce.

So, I created a "secret" chamber in my library. In another post I wrote about and showed a picture of how we converted a bed room into a library with floor to ceiling book shelves on every wall. The closet in this room was used to store boxes of other books, which I moved to the guest room. The library closet was cleaned out (sort of) and a makeshift desk was made. In here I can take my lap top, set up, and know that I am insulated from distraction.

I don't use it very often, but when I do, it is amazing how much I can get done.

I sometimes feel a little bit "Harry Potter-ish" locked away in the closet, but it works for getting stuff written.

--Julian Franklin

P.S. The book leaning against the dictionary and Thesaurus on the desk in the photo is a copy of my newest book "Kid Control: Behavior Management for Children's Entertainers". You can check out a little bit about the book at www.JulianFranklin.com/kidcontrol.htm

My Personal Library

If you've ever seen one of my library reading programs, you know that I push reading as one of the ways to change your life. I don't just talk the talk, I am a very avid reader, consuming 60-90 printed books each year, several hundred hours of audio books, and subscriptions to almost 20 magazines.

I'm also pretty fickle about what gets to stay in my library. There are books that I start but never finish because they are too boring or overly simplistic. There are books that I read and enjoy, but know that I will never read again, nor will I ever recommend them to anyone else. These books don't make it into my library. When I'm finished with these books, I pass them on, usually to my local library as a donation.

But about 60-70% of the books I buy each year get to stick around in my personal collection. It actually spans several rooms. I keep 2-3 books in my car at all times. I try to arrive at all my assembly programs at least an hour early and this usually results in time that can be spent reading. If I'm ever found waiting (to get my oil changed for example) I know I have a choice of reading materials.

If the weather is foul and I can't ride my bike the 5 miles to the gym in the morning then I will drive. This way I get to read while I ride a stationary bike at the gym. I will admit to having been so engrossed in a book that I drove to the gym just to ride the stationary bike so that I could read and ride at the same time. I do not apologize.

I'm also usually reading 2-3 different books that I keep by my bedside. I read for 30-60 minutes before going to sleep each night, although I have gone to bed too tired to read on more than one occasion.

As you might imagine, I have a pretty large personal library. We've dedicated an entire room in our home as a library. It didn't come with built-in bookshelves, so we had them installed. We also have bookshelves in almost every room of our house. The guest room (hardly usable from all the stuff being stored there) has more books than most people probably own, but our library is really my little nirvana.

We have floor to ceiling bookshelves on almost every wall in the room. The closet is set up as my writing area (I'll post on that later) and we still didn't have enough room for everything so we bought a shelving unit that sticks out into the middle of the room from one wall.

--Julian Franklin

P.S. In the top right corner of the picture you can see a single shelf filled with stacks of copies of a single book. That book is one of mine, "Kid Control: Behavior Management for Children's Entertainers". You can read about it at www.JulianFranklin.com/kidcontrol.htm

REAL Magic Part 4: Space Travel

Landing on the moon...

Okay, imagine planning a 500 mile trip on a map and calculating the entire trip down to the meter, every turn, every stop, every lane change, every change in direction, every acceleration and deceleration, and then climbing into your car and allowing a computer with the sophistication of about 1% of your Game Cube or Xbox to do all the driving based on your pre-programed instructions.

To make matters worse, imagine that you cannot use the brakes. Also imagine that your destination is moving at all times and you have to aim at an area where you estimate your destination will be when you arrive at that same spot.

To make it more interesting, imagine that your tires have no friction on the road and the gravitational pull of nearby objects can pull you off course. Even the gravity of your destination will pull you off course, and you have to calculate for all of this and program it into your travel plans in advance.

That's basically what NASA did when they sent men to the moon. Only they also had to deal with breaking free of the Earth's gravity, dealing with radioactive particles, tiny asteroids, and bring not only all their own food, water, and fuel, but also their own oxygen and heat. Then they had to develop a way to communicate across vast distances.

In today's world of technology and regular space launching, we take it for granted, but when we made that first journey, it was nothing short of real magic.

This is the last of four articles on my thoughts on "Real Magic", but you can expect that I will occasionally add another one. Just like I do for my "Kids Say Funny Things". If you are just tuning into my Blog, then the first three articles in this series follow. You can expect to either get some insight into what a magician considers to be "real magic" or you will leave realizing how easily amused and impressed I can be.

--Julian Franklin
Educational Entertainment Specialist
www.JulianFranklin.com

P.S. In my last post I wrote about base 2 exponents and base 10 exponents. After re-reading my post I was reminded of a funny (to certain types of people) joke:

"There are only 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand binary numbering systems and those who don't."

REAL Magic Part 3: Mathematics

I am constantly enamored by the amazing power of mathematics. The measure of things can be far more amazing than the magic tricks I use to entertain and educate in elementary school assembly programs and library reading programs.

I once read an article that suggested that there were more combinations for a shuffled deck of cards than there are atoms in The Milky Way galaxy. And if you shuffle cards face up to face down, there are more combinations than there are atoms in the known universe.

That seems impossible, and my quest to find the truth (by first determining the number of combinations of a shuffled deck of cards and then trying to estimate the number of atoms in our planet, solar system, and ultimately the known universe) lead me to the creation of a program for middle school and high school students called Math-A-Magic. You can read about the program at www.Math-A-Magic.com (don't forget the hyphens around the "A").

The power in math that really seems magical is the concept of exponents. Normally scientists and mathematicians use "base 10" exponents, but there are others. You can amaze yourself with simple base-2 exponents. When you double something you are dealing with base-2. Here's an example of the power of base-2.

Fold a piece of paper in half. Fold it in half again. Do it a third time, then a fourth and a fifth. You won't be able to fold that piece of paper in half eight times. It becomes too thick. But what if you could?

Q: What if you could double the thickness of a sheet of paper, say 50 times. How thick would it be?

A: It would stretch from the surface of the Earth, to the surface of the Sun. Don't believe me? Do the math. Measure a stack of 100 sheets of paper and divide by 100 to get the thickness of a single sheet. Get a calculator and enter 1X2. Then X2. Then X2. Keep doing this until you've entered "X 2" 50 times. This is how many thicknesses your imaginary stack would be. Multiply it times your measurement for a thickness of paper and then convert that into miles or kilometers.

Pretty cool, huh?

--Julian Franklin

P.S. The average distance from the surface of the Earth to the surface of the Sun is about 93,000,000 miles (about 150,000,000 kilometers)

REAL Magic Part 2: GPS

This is sort of a culmination of two other topics that I consider to be "magical": space exploration and mathematics. I'll go into each of those individually, but for now, let's focus on this amazing technology that, when explained, seems more fanciful than just saying it's magic.

When I'm doing school assembly programs that promote reading or teach science, I often use magic tricks to illustrate a point or to capture audience attention. Every now and then a child will call out what they imagine to be a plausible solution. My favorites are when they attribute me with powers far beyond anything magical. If I make something vanish, they won't even suggest it is up my sleeve (which it isn't anyway) but instead might yell out "All you did was push a button and the table made it turn invisible!"

As ridiculous as it seems, the real workings of GPS (Global Positioning System) seem equally impossible and ludicrous. The truth is there are satellites circling the globe and constantly sending time signals out. These signals are received by handheld units on the surface of the Earth and based on how long it took the signal to travel through space, the unit can calculate (down to less than a meter) where you are on the surface of the Earth.

That's pretty tightly calibrated time keeping equipment. I mean, how long does it take a signal to travel a meter or two? Imagine a clock that can measure it and then triangulate your position.

That's amazing. Almost like…magic.

REAL Magic Part 1: Thermos

This is the first of at least four articles that I want to share on the real magic in the world.

Even though, for almost four years I've written a regular monthly column for The Linking Ring (which is a trade journal for professional magicians and members of The International Brotherhood of Magicians), there are some things that I find even more magical than floating ladies, vanishing cars, or birds that magically appear from paper streamers and then turn into live rabbits. I do educational school assembly programs during the school year and summer reading programs during the summer. I use a lot of magic in my shows, but here I'm tipping "the real work".

I'm going to share with you what I think REAL magic looks like:

Quite possibly the most amazing thing I've ever really experienced is a Thermos (tm). Most of you are probably thinking, "He needs to get out more".

For a point of reference, I should mention that for two years I lived on a 27 foot sailboat. Click the link if you want to read more about the boat, but be cautioned, there is a picture of me without a shirt on. You've been warned.

I mention this because when you are at sea, it can be very rough. Even mundane things become difficult. Cooking on a stove top falls somewhere between a very risky juggling performance, and a Kevorkian act of desperate hunger. So, when you find the time to heat things up, it is nice to heat everything up all at once. So my boat was filled with Themoses. I used them for EVERYTHING.

You can heat water and 12 hours later it will still scald you. 24 hours later it is still too warm to drink fast. Coffee in a Thermos made 24 hours before has to be sipped. That is pretty amazing, to me.

We would boil water and then pour it on ingredients in a wide-mouth Thermos. It would keep at about the boiling point for a few hours afterwards, cooking the ingredients with no additional fuel. Conservation at it's best.

You can boil water, pour it in a Thermos, put it in your freezer, and take it out 12 hours later freezing your fingers on the outside of the Thermos and then burn your tongue on the still hot water inside. That is amazing.

That is magic!

--Julian Franklin

P.S. Okay, it's not really magic. It's really just science. There is a vacuum between the inner shell and the outer shell of the Thermos bottle. There is nothing in a vacuum (that's the definition of "vacuum" as opposed to "a thing that sucks dirt out of your carpet" which is what my mom always told me). So, there are no atoms to transfer the heat from inside the Thermos to the outside.

Still, pretty cool, huh?

Booking 12 Months in Advance

Before the summer season even starts, I begin getting phone calls and e-mails from librarians trying to get a specific date on my 2007 schedule. By the end of the summer, my schedule for next summer will be mostly filled. I will have at least a few dates booked in 2008 by the time the summer ends. I normally have at least one or two that book 24 months out. And every day of the summer I usually book another show or two for next year.

So it wasn't too strange when I got an e-mail the other day from a librarian who needed a program for mid-June on a Wednesday. I checked my calendar for 2007 and realized that the dates and times she needed were already gone. So I asked how flexible she was on the time and dates she was requesting, because those dates in 2007 were gone, but there were other times available, otherwise she would need to consider 2008.

WOW! I had no idea she was asking about THIS YEAR! I told her I would love to help her, but unless you are either very lucky, or very flexible, you better have your date on the books before the previous summer ends. If you aren't on 10-12 months in advance it is hard to find a Tues., Wed., or Thur. time slot open.

Mondays and Fridays are not too bad. And evening programs are usually easy to accomodate. But Wednesday mornings at the beginning of the summer--Fahgedabodit! (as they say on "The Soprano's")

My regular clients have learned that they don't even need to know what the theme is. They know I'm going to tie it in, they know the program will promote reading, they know it will be fun, funny, and magical, and they know that they will get rave reviews from their patrons for bringing me in again. So they confidently book me and let me worry about the rest.

If you are curious about the show I'll be doing next year, stay tuned to this blog and I'll write about it in a few days.

Reading: The Sport of Champions

I should have told you in my last post about the premise of my motivational reading program for this summer. Since the theme in Texas is "Reading: The Sport of Champions" I wrote a library reading program that talks about sports, but also emphasizes reading. After all, reading is exercise for your brain!

The premise of my show is Aesop's telling of the "The Tortoise and the Hare". In my production I get to interview both of the racers after the tragic event and also discuss their upcoming re-match. The interviews are hilarious with lots of jokes and puns just for adults (nothing "blue" in my shows, EVER, just references that usually fly over the heads of those younger than 14 or so).



I also mention famous athletes like Lou Gehrig, "The Iron Horse" of baseball who beat team mate Babe Ruth for MVP two years NOT because Lou was the fastest, or the best hitter, or the best catcher, or the best fielder, or the best runner. Lou wasn't the best at ANYTHING! Oh, he was good. I'm not saying the man wasn't good. Lou was a GREAT ball player, but he wasn't the best.

He just tried harder, and longer, and more consistently than anyone else in history either before or since.

Lou Gehrig had perfect attendance every year he was in school. He also had perfect attendance at every baseball game. He never missed a game. Not when he was sick, not with a sprained ankle, not with broken bones in his hand. He showed up every single day.

Like the tortoise.

What a great pair of role models: The Tortoise and Lou Gehrig.

First Show of This Summer

I just finished my first performance of "Reading: Sport of Champions". It went well. Everyone in attendance seemed to like it and I had several people tell me that I am their favorite performer each year. Of course that is nice and I like to hear it. But...

I'm never really happy with my first ten performances. I can rehearse at the house, walk through the script, and even do dress rehearsals, but nothing really shakes a show out like doing it in front of a live audience. A REAL audience (no offense to my patient wife and daughter who lovingly watch my practice and rehearse far too many times).

I think the most frustrating part for me is that I know how good it is going to be by the end of the summer, but I simply don't know how to get there. I know that things will be revealed as I perform. Jokes will come to me, suddenly it will hit me that some prop should be placed on the other side of the stage from where I've been putting it. A new costume idea will hit me. All these things and more will no doubt come up, but I have to perform patiently and wait for them to be revealed.

Don't get me wrong, the show is good as it is. It is funny, it promotes reading, and it has some very strong tie ins with the theme. It will get even better, though. I am looking forward to watching it develop.

In some ways, it's like a child. You know they are going to grow, develop and change. But no matter how much you try to speed up or slow down the process, it will happen at it's own time.

School is Out! Now things get BUSY...

May is always such a busy month for me. First of all, I stay pretty busy doing end-of-the-year reward parties and lots of programs to remind kids to read over the summer.

Then, like last night and the night before, I do events for High Schools. They host these all-night events with games, contests, music, food (oh-my-gosh the food...) and entertainment. So I get hired to come in and do a straight magic show. I don't get to do that much anymore since most of my stuff is all about motivating children, promoting reading, and educating kids about Texas History, Math, Science, Geography, and other such things.

As if this weren't enough, I am also supposed to be rehearsing a new show that I write from scratch each year and be ready to perform it in a few days. This is the show for my summer reading club. The theme this year is "Reading: Sport of Champions". I have been behind in this. I just got my posters in yesterday and I have to start performing the show on Tuesday. That gives me 3 days to rehearse.

I have to GO!

Kids Say Funny Things

I perform a school assembly program about Texas History. Like all my shows it is a library show, a reading show. It promotes reading among children through the use of puppets, magic, stories, and engaging dialog.

Anyway, during one part of the show I ask the kids about the state tree, state bird, and the state mammals. Texas has three state mammals. FYI: The Longhorn, the Armadillo, and the Mexican Freetail Bat.

Anyway, I'm at this school and I ask the kids about the state mammals. One kid raises his hand, I call on him and he says "Longhorn". I congratulate him and tell him he is correct. The Large State Mammal of Texas is the Longhorn.

I then see another hand go up.

"Do you know the medium sized state mammal?" I ask.

"Aggie!" the kid yells with supreme confidence.

You gotta love kids!

Who Performs for a Professional Performer?

My daughter turned four today. She wanted a magician and quite frankly, Dad wasn't going to cut the muster. I have no problem admitting that there is really nothing that is too good for my daughter and we probably go overboard when it comes to her. Birthdays are really a good excuse for us to spend frivolously without guilt.

The best part is, that you can get top notch entertainment without paying a fortune. Don't get me wrong, it isn't cheap, by any means, but when a kid's party comes around once a year, I don't mind investing a few hundred dollars to create a memory that will last for the rest of her life.

So I called my good friend Trixie. Trixie Bond does about 400 birthday parties every year. She does more birthday parties in a month than most people will host in the course of their entire life. Trixie KNOWS how to put on a birthday party show that captivates kids, has adults choking back tears of sentiment, and has everyone rolling on the ground with laughter.

Yes, she's actually a competitor of mine. But she's such an amazing performer I have to sing her praises. When she puts smiles of excitement like this on my daughter's face I can't imagine a better investment of an afternoon. No wonder Trixie has been featured on the cover of magazines, and been invited to perform at the White House for two years in a row. If Trixie is good enough for the President of the United States, then she's probably good enough for my daughter.

If you live anywhere in The Greater Houston Area, give her a call at (281) 242-3020.

Wrapping Up Another Workshop

This year I tried something new.

For several years I've written a monthly column in one of the trade journals for professional performers (The Linking Ring) and I've gotten a lot of requests from performers who knew how to perform, but didn't really understand how I was able to create a viable business out of what I love doing.

So I put together a four-day workshop. For four days these people come into my home. They see first hand how my business is run. The get to learn all the ins and outs of every aspect of what I do. And this last group has pushed me hard.

I start as early in the morning as they want to start and we go until they are too tired to continue. They arrive here before sunup and I have coffee going. We eat breakfast here while I start answering any questions they have from the night before. We keep going all day, stopping to eat, but continuing to talk, practice, and work throughout the meal. Then they leave, sometimes as late as 11 pm, only to start again the next morning at 7 am or earlier!

It has been an amazing experience.

Everyone who has come so far has already asked when I'm doing it again. They all want to do it again next year. I've already been thinking about ways that we can improve it, getting more information in, more networking opportunities, and such. But we'll see.

It's not cheap to attend. But everyone who has come said they got enough the first day to make it worth more than the entire fee ($1,997.00)

I don't know if I'll do it again. It's pretty hard on me. But it is a real charge to get the phone calls and e-mails from graduates who go home and in just a few weeks double or triple their business. I love knowing that I am able to help people do what they love and successfully improve the lives of children at the same time.

I have to get to bed now. These lunatics are coming back over here in just a few hours....

Petey the Opossum's New Clothes

Well, here he is. This is Petey the Oppossum. He's got on his All-Star baseball jersey, his cool matching baseball cap, a new pair of shoes, and his reading glasses.

I LOVE the glasses. They add so much character. I am very excited about working them into the show as well. I'm not sure how yet, but it will be interesting to see how it develops.

He also has a new get up for his participation in "Go Wild". Go Wild is the show I do on Science and the Scientific Process. He's got a vest like mine and a pith helmet. It looks good.

Lastly, he had to have a Hawaiian style shirt with a pair of sunglasses so he can try out for next year's presentation: "Set Sail".

We'll see how he does. Of course, I'll keep you posted.

By the way. If you haven't visited Petey's Web Site, you might want to do that. He shares a site with my other puppets and some live animals. The URL is www.DavidHopperfield.com

Mall Shopping for My "Sport of Champions" Puppets

I visit the mall once per year. In late November or Early December we'll go to the mall as a family and get pictures with Santa. Other than that, I won't step foot on Mall property. I don't like fighting crowds. I don't like extravagant prices, and I don't like most of the stuff they sell in malls.

But I went today. There is a store called "Build-a-Bear". The concept is that you buy an empty rag shell of a doll and then you stuff it yourself, toss in a tiny cloth heart, wash it off in an "air shower" and then buy clothes for the thing. It's a pretty cool concept. You get a birth certificate and everything.

Anyway, last Christmas I walked past the store and went inside. I saw all these amazing outfits and accessories in sizes that would fit my puppets. I fell in love. I thought "I'll visit the mall for this stuff".

And so I did.

It is amazing, too. Stuff is pretty cheap. You can get a pair of sunglasses for your doll or puppet for $4.00. A complete outfit is just $10. I went a little crazy. I brought my daughter (of course) and she helped me shop. We spent just over $70 on stuff, but you can't hardly buy a pair of jeans in the mall for $70 and I got a LOT of cool clothes for my actors.

The show I just finished creating is called "Reading: Sport of Champions". Ultimately it will become an educational assembly program on mathematics, that of course stresses the importance of reading.

In the meantime I had to get the guys decked out in new costumes. Of course, I found a bunch of stuff that I could add to some of my other programs as well. I'll try and shoot some pictures of the puppets with their new duds. I got reading glasses, baseball caps, a karate gi, plus a lot more stuff.

I love this store!

My Rat is Having a Birthday!

My rat is having a birthday.

Well, he's really just a puppet. So I don't know how much you can really celebrate a birthday, or even how or why anyone would.

Okay, here's the real story. I do a lot of puppet and ventriloquism in my presentations. The kids really love the puppets. They write them fan mail. I'm not kidding.

So I decided to get a business card for one of my puppets. Then he had to have his own web site. Rather than let it get out of control as I added more puppets, I simply put them all on the same web page. When I did I included basic "facts" about each of them, including their birthdates. I tried to be creative with this.

For example, the rabbit's birthdate is February 29. Just think about that for a while.

The Dragon's birthdate is April 1, because dragons...well, they don't exist, so all the "data" is sort of a joke.

Anyway, you get the idea. Livingston, the rat puppet, is really the star of the show, so we share the same birthday.

Check out the web site so you can see all the puppets, and find out some facts about them.

http://DavidHopperfield.com (that's my magic bunny rabbit's name)

My Daughter is in Love and She's Only FOUR!

My daughter is in love. She's not quite four yet.

Of course, she's not in love in the romantic way. She's in love like three and four year olds get. Awe struck. Like me when I got to see Rita Pearlman from "Cheers" yesterday at a book signing. I'm thinking "There she is. In the same room I am. She seems so normal."

She was probably NOT thinking the same thing about me.


So here's my daughter. And she's sitting right next to none other than herself, THE big, bad wolf. That's right, the same one from all the childhood fairy tales. Only, this one is nice. I know. My daughter talked about her all night last night...

"Daddy, pretend you're the nice wolf-girl and I'm in the woods and I'm lost."

Only, she doesn't say "wolf", she says "wuf". Or maybe it's "woof". Either way, I won't hear the end of the "Nice Wuf-Girl" for some time.

In case you were wondering. My daughter came with me to a trade show I was working and got to meet some of the other vendors. The Wolf-Girl is actually Christina from Storybook Theatre of Texas. They do school assembly programs like I do. I also got to hang out with author/singer/songwriter/musician Lucas Miller, the singing Zoologist (Lucas presents VERY funny and educational music in a really cool way), Trixie Bond (world famous magician who has performed at hundreds of amazing venues, including The Magic Castle and even the White House for the past two years), and Joe McDermott (a hilarious singer/songwriter from Austin who can get a group of kids singing the silliest songs you've ever heard). Don't buy his CD though unless you want to be caught singing his hypnotic tunes all day with words like "Don't drop a brick on your foot, it will hurt. It will make you hop around in the dirt."

And to think, we all get paid to do this stuff!

Kids Say Funny Things

If you spend enough time around kids you get to hear some really funny things. As a school show presenter who does library author visits, motivational assembly programs, and reading reward programs in schools and libraries all over the country, I see my fair share of kids.

Just by way of record, my schedule is posted on-line and you can see that I stay pretty busy. That's a topic for another post, because right now I want to tell you something funny my own daughter said.

First of all, you have to understand that my wife and I are fairly active, kind of "outdoors-y" people. We like to camp, my wife wears almost no make-up and when I'm not performing we tend to wear very comfortable clothes. My daughter on the other hand is feminine through-and-through. She ONLY wears dresses and skirts and has refused to cut her hair since the day she was born! She's almost four now and her hair is down to her tail bone.

Anyway, one day I was crawling around on my hands and knees and she was riding on my back like a horse when I got going too fast (as dad's tend to do) and she fell off. Well, mom yells, but this girl is as tough as nails. I tell my wife "Don't worry, she's tough as nails" then I tell Madeleine "Go tell momma you're tough as nails".

So Madeleine walks over to her mother, and calmly extends her pretty, pink-painted finger tips, wiggles them and says "Don't worrry momma, I'm tough as nails!"

THAT is my daughter!

This is Why I do What I Do

This is why I do what I do.

My bachelor's degree is in Business. My masters coursework is in Education. And all my life I've been a performer.

I've written more than a dozen books, all non-fiction, most on the business end of show business. I write a monthly column in two different trade journals for performing artists, as well as writing my own monthly e-newsletter on business topics for service providers (you can sign up for free at www.JulianSpeaks.com).

But I wanted this forum to be something different. I wanted this forum to be about me as a person. I wanted to share a little bit about the guy you see on stage, when he is NOT on stage. I promise to go slowly; I don't want to reveal all my warts at once. And I'll try to focus on the side of my life that is really interesting and beautiful, the reasons why I push for success in my business as hard as I do. I'll share a little bit with you about what motivates and inspires me.

I'll start with this: It's a picture of the playhouse we just finished putting together for my soon-to-be-four-year-old daughter, Madeleine. She's CRAZY about the play house, as you might imagine if you know children. She's an amazing girl.