Monthly Archives: May 2013

Book Recommendation: Me, Too

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MeTooJust finished a delightful book called Me, Too: Extraordinary, Everyday Stories That Connect Us, by Tim Cusack. Tim, a popular motivational speaker, actor, and natural-born raconteur, draws from his lifetime of experiences and observations to create a book that couldn’t be put down — and, in fact, wasn’t. It was devoured in less than 24 hours.These stories are captivating, heartwarming, and humorous — sort of like Paul Harvey meets Chicken Soup For the Soul…with a smidgeon of Garrison Keillor, Jerry Seinfeld, and the Dalai Lama added for good measure.The overarching theme of Me, Too is compassion, and how we’re all connected by the common bond of humanity. So it’s a perfect fit for those who believe in the power of love.

“Why don’t you treat others like you would like others to treat you?” – Willie Harris

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On May 17, 2013, Willie Harris (WH) graciously spent time with The Only Love Project’s Bill Murphy (BM) to discuss his views on love, compassion, and how people can increase both. This is the transcript of their conversation.

BM: Briefly tell us your background. What would you like others to know about you?

Studio_for_print_10WH: Well, such a complicated question. Simplistic but complicated. What would I like people to know about me? I’m a personal trainer. I have roughly around 26, 27 years in the business of exercise physiology. My love for the weight room happened quite accidentally. I was a basketball player and ended up injuring my knee, and the strength and fitness coach pushed me to the weight room. And from there, just the sheer energy that, I used to walk into the weight room, it was like a burst of energy going on in the weight room all the time. It became part of my fabric. It’s quite addictive. So that was my introduction into exercise physiology. What would I like people to know about me? I mean, that’s all a great quarter of my life, but it’s not actually everything about my life. I think as we’re going through our youth, the energetic phase of our lives, we have that sense of invincibility about us and we think that the world pretty much is conquerable, by our own hands. But you know, as you mature the events that happen in your life and the experiences you have teach you the value of just how precious life is. I think I have a pretty well balanced approach to my expectations out of life.

BM: Would you consider yourself a spiritual person?

WH: Very much so. Very much so. I think that man is much more than just body. We are too complex of a creation, too complex of a human being. We live in this very, very complex ecosystem to come to the realization that all of these things came together by chance. We talked about, in the first question, how when we’re young and we see this sense of invincibility with our youth. But as a body, as a person, – and this doesn’t happen pretty much chronologically with years, this happens pretty much with experience – but as you begin to get older and older, I think the mortality part Continue reading →

“Spirituality, just like love, is the human base station” – Doug “Ten” Rose

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Screen Shot 2013-05-08 at 9.18.30 PMThe Only Love Project’s Bill Murphy (BM) conducted this interview with Doug Ten Rose (DTR) via Skype on April 24, 2013. Many thanks to Mr. Rose for his time, wisdom, and delightful sense of humor.

BM: Briefly tell us your background. What would you like others to know about you?

DTR: I was born a poor black child. Oh no, wait. That’s Steve Martin. That’s not me. [laughs] It’s not about me, you know, it’s about the project, and there’s a much bigger picture. But I guess within the context of this, we’re going to have to go into it a little bit. It’s pretty much all described in the Fearless Puppy book [Fearless Puppy On American Road]. Or at least the first 40 or 50 years are. I was born in Brooklyn, New York, grew up in the Coney Island area, and started selling drugs at an early age. Decided when I was in my mid-teens that this was not going to go very far. [laughs]. There was all kinds of stuff to deal with. Besides the obvious, which is that the drugs can kill you, you’ve got the ripoffs, and especially in a big city like New York, you’ve got the mafia wanting to deal on the same corner, so there’s only a short time you can be there, and you have to dodge them. Then of course there are the legal complications and the police. And then of course you’re acting like a jackass because you’re whacked out all the time.

Screen Shot 2013-04-24 at 1.09.41 PMSo anyways, the thing to do it seemed was to get outta there pretty quick, and so I did. Started hitchhiking and it worked out so well that I just kept going. Now of course, part of what’s responsible for that was that era in history. Because in the mid to late ‘60s, every Volkswagon van was a guaranteed ride, people would stop and pick you up, it was a rollin’ party. Since things have changed so much over the past 40 years, I don’t think anybody could do that kind of lifestyle now. It would be intensely more difficult to do. People just aren’t as trusting, they’re not as friendly in a lot of ways, and so it probably wouldn’t work as well now. But at the time we lived more for the love and happiness, and the book Fearless Puppy is about that time.

All the profits from book sales are going to fund Continue reading →