 Good evening and welcome to Ignite Sheboygan. This is our first event of 2018. We do have three more events planned for the year, so be sure to check out the dates on the handouts that we have over to my right. We also have sign-up sheets if you'd like to be on our email list or to even sign up to speak at an upcoming Ignite. So what is Ignite? Ignite is a series of fast-paced presentations. Each of our six speakers tonight will have 20 slides that automatically advance every 15 seconds. So their speeches are all five minutes on the head. Why would a 77-year-old grandmother go skydiving? Our first speaker tonight tells how she got interested and then hooked on this extreme sport. She recommends you add it to your bucket list. Please give a warm Ignite welcome to Evelyn Prevenous. My dream began 25 years ago when my son Tony invited the whole family to come along to Amral to watch him do a static parachute jump. And while I was there, I saw this much larger shoot coming down with two people attached. I had never seen anything like that before. I was very intrigued. Well, 12 years later the same son invited us all back to Amral to see him do a tandem skydive. Will we watch them get all suited up? Watch the little plane go up. And when he landed and I saw his face, I decided then and there I was going to do this too. I was ready to take the leap. Well, here I am all ready to go in my suit with Paul. I didn't know what I was getting into. As the little plane slowly climbed up and up to 10,000 feet, I began to have misgivings. Is this a smart thing to do? Is it too late to change my mind? What should I do? Well, here we are at 10,000 feet. And we get hooked up and we're over at the door. And instinctively I wanted to reach out and grab the side of the door when I saw the ground below me so far away and the wind is rushing at me. Well, it's now or never. And before I knew it, we were out of the plane falling, diving at 120 miles an hour. I am yelling as loud as I can. I can't hear my own voice. Freefall only lasts 15 seconds, but it seemed like forever. But then suddenly there's a jerk and the shoot opens and you go from utter terror to complete calm and look, wow, down below there's a 360 degree view of our beautiful world. And down below, everybody's anxiously watching. Is she there? Is that it? I see it. It's right there behind that little cloud. As I came down, I could hear everybody's voice calling my name and Paul tells me to lift my feet and we slide into the ground on our butts like ducks landing on a pond. Well, he quickly unhooked me. Now it's time for high fives and hugs and pictures all around. Skydiving is very addictive. My family and I or many my family members and I have gone numerous times, including my little granddaughter, Katie, who had to wait five years until she was 18 and would be able to do it. Someone once asked me after a jump, what was it like? And I'm high on adrenaline and I blurt it out better than an orgasm. In 2010, I convinced 12 brave seniors from the Senior Activity Center to come along and go skydiving. Wendy Schmidt, the supervisor, even made a video that won an award for the Senior Center. Over the years, I have taken many groups up. And one year, we even included, is this picture going to change? There he is. If we include it, Mayor Terry Van Akron. Skydiving is a lot of fun and I would love to be doing it again, but I'm a little getting too old for it. Paul, my favorite tandem master, tragically died in 2013. I will always miss his expertise and his loving kindness. Paul, you are my hero. And if there's something in your life that you're afraid of, whether it's jumping out of a plane, starting a new job, or maybe a business, or maybe mending a broken relationship, my advice is take the leap. You will never regret it. Wow. Talk about taking a leap. And when I read the introduction, I first thought that Evelyn was 77. She might smack me for this later and I might be talking out of school a little bit, but she jumped seven times since she was 77, so she's in her ninth decade, folks, and she's up here giving an ignite speech. How about another round of applause? Our next speaker believes that when you shift your perspective on life, life shifts its perspective on you. He asks, what perspective do you need to catapult you into paradise? Please welcome Luke Worth. By a show of hands, how many of you have ever felt like there was something outside of you that was controlling your ability to succeed? Oh, come on. All right, now with your hands raised, point to the person next to you that isn't raising their hand and say, you're a lot. We got a few liars in the room, don't we? Don't worry, I lie sometimes too. Circumstances, right? Either we're making them or they're making you. Either you're making waves or you're getting crushed by them. I spent the last 30 years of my life trying to figure out what one thing would allow me to push through circumstance and that one thing was perspective, the proverbial kaleidoscope of life. One turn and everything changes. I'd like to suggest to you that perspective is a vehicle and it'll only take you so far and then you need to upgrade. Just like if I was going to Milwaukee, I'd probably take a car, but if I was going to California, I'd take a plane and if I was going to the moon, I surely wouldn't strap a rocket engine to a car and expect to get there. But sadly, that's what I found myself doing using old perspectives trying to get to new heights. So, how can perspective change your life? Let me paint the picture of how it changed mine through three stories on how I looked at money. My first perspective on money was you have to work hard for money, as my dad would say, and that perspective took me from a job in a production plant making screens at $20,000 a year to a sergeant in the United States Marine Corps making $40,000 a year to a job in corporate America making $60,000 a year and at that point I was the fly at the window flapping his wings, smashing his face off the window expecting to get through and I found myself exhausted and nearly dead. It wasn't until I backed up a few steps that I seen there was an open door right here and I didn't have to force myself through the window. And that came to me through perspective two, which was money comes to me easily and effortlessly. This is through a man named Danny Belcher. I met on a business trip down in Georgia. Danny said to me, he said, Luke have you been on a beach somewhere and you could just look up in the distance and you just knew that something was working for you. Something was making you money. I said Danny I don't know what you're smoking do give me some of that and Danny said well watch the movie The Secret from Rhonda Byrne and so I did that over and over and the premise behind it was my present reality was a mere reflection of my thoughts and that brought me to perspective two which was money comes to me easily and effortlessly and with that I went from $60,000 to over $100,000 a year. I was a big shot and you know what it was great because I was working with some awesome people in corporate America. I had a really cool boss, Kristen Morehouse, you still rock and but eventually went to my head and I decided to start my own business and about four months into it I found myself sicker than I've ever been, broker than I've ever been, scraping lead based paint off the side of houses in Milwaukee to make a living and I knew it was bad because my daughter said to me those were the bad times dad and when your daughter tells you that you know it was bad and you know that really changed my perspective on life. I remember leaving the job site in Milwaukee one day and I pulled up to the gas station. I had you know looked in the mirror and I seen a broken man. I had paint in my hair, ripped up shirt, ripped up jeans, a crappy old F-250 that barely even ran and I looked at myself in the mirror and I was like Luke, you were the guy four months ago that you probably looked down on and that allowed me to see through new eyes and that brought me to perspective three which was money is important but people really mattered and before that I was like the kid at Christmas opening up the first present and before the wrapping paper was off I was on to the next not even paying any attention to the first present and you know I was able to back up off that window and I was able to realize all the great things that I had. I had an awesome wife she's right back there and she is gorgeous and I had two amazing children that weren't getting any attention but once I realized I had these things that's the first time in my life that I felt successful and what I'd like to say to you is maybe you're that fly right now and you smash your face off that window a few times but maybe you just need to back up a few steps to realize that when you change your perspective on life, life changes its perspective on you. Thank you. Thank you Luke. Our next speaker will share how the thought process that guides our intelligence is far more important than all the intelligence we possess. Please welcome Jose Gonzalez. Success is not defined by the width of your knowledge but by the depth of your conviction. In 2013 I graduated college to be honest this was one of the best days of my life not simply because it was a stepping stone to my future achievements but because it took me five years to get a two-year degree. You see during the process of this achievement I lost my mother to cancer and I also served a two-year term in a federal prison. So you can't imagine how it felt like for me to walk that line. I truly believe my adversity was over. I started working as a land surveyor for the oil industry. In my interview I was promised 20 plus years of employment. Two years later I was let go. The industry suffered a crisis and almost half a million people lost their jobs. I felt betrayed, confused and very uncertain about my future. To be honest I could almost visualize that prison guard point his finger and say get back in yourself. It was then I realized that I had been keeping the keys to my life's dreams in someone else's pocket. You see I grew up believing that everything happens for a reason and it was there I discovered that I was that reason. So if my dreams were meant to be it was completely up to me and at that moment an entrepreneur was born. So after shaking off my self-doubt I decided I would step out from under the umbrella and raise my head towards the sky. I started to study successful people and what I discovered was that three out of four consider themselves entrepreneurs and make up 20 percent of American workers and account for two out of three self-made millionaires. Entrepreneurs strongly value independence, self-reliance and financial freedom. They have similar characteristics such as willpower, patience, perseverance and faith. Entrepreneurs are not afraid to fail. They don't see failure as being fatal and their courage allows them to push torx success. You see in the Marine Corp what they teach their helicopter pilots to do when their engines quit is they're supposed to push the nose forward but unfortunately their emotions kick in and they pull back because they want to climb. They want more altitude. They want to feel secure again. So what kills most pilots is that split second decision where instead of pushing the nose forward they pull back and the reason why they teach them to push the nose forward is because that's the only way they could pick up speed again and gain momentum but if they pull back unfortunately they lose momentum and they fall faster and what happens to most of us in life is when life hits us in the face we don't push forward we pull back. You see it was time to miss fortune failure and defeat that I discovered what I was made of. It takes courage for me to step out of my comfort zone but it is ultimately my faith that helps me follow through because faith is not the absence of fear but rather the judgment that something else is more important. To me entrepreneurship is not just about business and money it's about my life and who I become in the process it's about my own personal growth and my contribution to my family my friends and humanity. A lot of us lose sight of who we are because we try to define ourselves by what we do rather than why we do it and in the process we lose the most essential elements of our self-actualization which is passion and fulfillment. The other day I walked into the south side of Walmart and as I was leaving I walked into the eye clinic and I overheard the doctor say oh I hope no one tries to pull anything stupid today and that was being directed at me by the way and that made me realize that you could always pay for school but you can never buy class. Anyways my point is as we walk through the valleys of life it is important that we remember the summit to give us hope and when we merge the summit we must remember the valleys to keep us humble. Thank you all for coming have a good night. If it's your first time at an Ignite event now you've got a taste of what it's all about we're going to take a short break here to allow you to refill your beverages grab some pizza but first I'd like to recognize all of our committee members just in case any of you have questions about Ignite or you want to sign up for a future event you can talk to any of us again I'm Ryan Thiel the committee chair we've got Nia Yang who does all of our social media Nia if you could raise your hand or stand up so people can see you. Carolyn Lee Carolyn Jose Gonzalez who you all just saw up here Charlie Krebs and Leah Uletowski is one of our newest committee members she's also the she's not here this evening but she's the editor of the Shiboygan Press so that name might sound familiar to you but she helps get us in some of the printed media as well because we always are looking for new folks to come in and share their stories so during the break please sign up on our email contact list which is over to the right we oh sorry I skipped James that's why I have notes but I didn't follow him James Owen who is also our host this evening here a perennial host at Three Sheeps like to thank James and Grand Folly for allowing us to have our events here at Three Sheeps and we do have a donation bucket as well we are all volunteers last year I think we raised a total of about 80 dollars we just use that money to try to spread the ignite message make sure that people are aware that we exist here so once in a while we boost some Facebook posts things like that our goal for 2018 is to double that fundraise amount we're going for 160 so if you got a five on you throw it in the bucket we would appreciate it again thank you to Casey and Erica Sipiorski for sponsoring the pizzas tonight Casey and Erica so we'll take a 10 minute break and finish up with our last three stories I would be remiss if we did not give a shout out to Scott and also our cameraman Richard from WSCS Shiboygan you can go on the WSCS Shiboygan.com website and see all of our past ignite presentations presentations they come here and record all these out of their own good will so thank you to WSCS when life has you in a stronghold there are two options become a victim or become a victor our next speaker shares his life story and how your mindset controls your destination please welcome Bo Wilson I bet a lot of you like to drink well my parents did too growing up my mom she'd be gone for a week at a time she'd come home for three days sleep and then she'd be on again as far as my dad goes he was a working man so he'd work five days a week and then on the weekend when I was at his house well that was his time to let loose as well growing up my sister was a big part of my life she'd make sure that our homework was done you know food was on the table we were ready for school on time for school and you know there was footprints all around me and I could have took taken any of them but you know I had the mindset and I knew that wasn't me I was gonna take a different step and make my own way I graduated high school and all throughout my schools I was always really close to the guidance counselors just being is how my family you know and in 2008 my mom actually went to prison for her fifth DUI and I was luckily enough to have my aunt and uncle to take me in as a guardian so I graduated high school and I started working at festival foods for you know one two years and I was in frozen dairy and you know knowing from my guidance counselors that that wasn't the career I was gonna you know just accept or you know make my way into a festival foods management um so from there I uh actually had a friend and he's like oh let's go to Tennessee and I was like you know all right we just graduated let's go so I became a parking valet master I was parking Corvettes Porsches Ferrari you know it was really cool good money I'll tell you that um but then I missed my family I missed friends I moved back home I started that architectural forest products um making all types of wood things and uh you know wearing safety glasses breathing and all this dust and snotting all this gunk that wasn't for me you know I knew that that was not so I went back to school or I went to school you know um and I started that festival part time and I had a friend come up to me and he's like oh I've been trying to get a hold of you I was like oh yeah uh I'm starting up this business he says uh Neil Verrithforth Energy Bank LED lighting or Energy Bank Inc and uh that's an LED lighting company um it was awesome to be able to you know the first LED lights that they made I was actually the only employee there um we brought an engineer on and it's just awesome to be a part of the first lights that we made and uh so I started the manufacturing at LED I was in production just you know and I knew that there was room to improve to you know uh make a career out of something that I wanted to do well while I was there I noticed you know the sales guys oh they were dressing nice you know looking good and that's what I wanted to be so um you know I started tailoring my ways and I I'm now in sales for LED and I love it you know my partner over there Luke Werth um we we have an office right next to Neil the CEO and sometimes we'll find ourselves in his office and this ideal just come up and before you know the engineer's like oh I can I can bend this and add these holes here and then you know Neil will say oh that'll be you know let's do this and then before you know it we're all on the same parallel thinking about this idea that we just dreamed up and it's there the next day or two days we're actually touching it and talking about it it's just crazy and that feeling is something that you know if you're not feeling that feeling find that because it's awesome I can't even explain it I have goosebumps right now just talking about it um it's a feeling that you everybody should feel and you know sometimes you got to ask yourself the hard question what I'm doing right now is that what I want to be doing should I just accept it um is what I'm doing going to get me to where I want to be you know um and you just got to ask yourself that hard question make a change sometimes you know if you're going to the bars on the weekends or house parties is that going to benefit you it's not it's not and you know your habits what you're doing hang on with people that you want to you know maybe see yourself as or grow into you know tailor yourself and that feeling is that I feel when I'm working with you know Neil and I see just take a take a step and take that you know leap of unsure and find reach for a better mindset thank you thank you bow it's not easy to get up here and be vulnerable but that's what he did and it's a great testimony to overcoming your circumstances to making a positive change in your life what young boy doesn't dream of being an astronaut the next best thing for our next speaker was being an astronaut trainer with nasa now he continues the mission as executive director of spaceport shabuigan please welcome brian ewinson excellent well I'd like to talk to you this evening about hopes and dreams a lot of times folks have great dreams and some people view it as you have not actually achieved them well I'm going to tell you that even though I did not achieve my end goal I had the next best deal as I actually got to work with my heroes growing up I was a space geek which which young man or woman basically decided that hey I wanted to be an astronaut when I grew up well I was lucky enough growing up in Canada to be in a place where we didn't actually have astronauts my twin brother and I on a family trip to the Kennedy Space Center decided at four years old we were going to work in the aerospace industry I ended up moving from Montreal Canada down to the United States working at nasa's johnson space center as an astronaut trainer working with my heroes had the opportunity to train over 70 different astronauts from 16 different nations working in the space program I was able to teach the astronauts rendezvous and proximity operations when you think that math doesn't apply in high school it applies in the real world I was also certified in training the astronauts to use the Canadian robotic systems the robot arm we have on both the shuttle and space station without Canada's arm strength that billion dollar space station would not actually exist I ended off my career at nasa working in environmental control systems on spacesuits had the opportunity to do a space walk in the world's largest deepest swimming pool a neutral buoyancy lab at the johnson space center working with my heroes was something that I say I can't believe I got paid to do I should have been paying them the opportunity to have that chance I was able to design develop and fly experiments on eight different shuttle flights working with a billion dollars of government assets when I arrived at the space center you have the opportunity having a bad day to wake up walk over from your desk go over and touch a billion dollar spacecraft I still can't believe I had the opportunity to do so when we get into the orbiter processing facility having a bad day you could literally and figuratively go over and kick the tires on a spaceship on many occasions we did do that when we had challenging situations but working for nasa comes a lot of history walking through the doors of mission control for the first time the weight of history was on my shoulders but knowing in that room that we have to make decisions that in essence can have the ultimate consequence the space shuttle had 2.3 million movable parts that had to operate at 99 reliability we were the people that made the decisions that decided whether those folks would live or die we didn't launch the shuttle using technology such as solid rocket boosters it was the hearts minds hands and souls of the 43,000 people at nasa that lift that vehicle into the sky now working as a narrow space educator I have the opportunity to travel across the united states canada even into europe and beyond through skype to present to about 100,000 people a year what it is to be a part of the space program not everyone's going to be an astronaut less than one percent of nasa is an astronaut but I am one of the 43,000 people at nasa and our contractors that if I don't do my job those folks don't make it back to earth and january is a very very tough month for us at nasa all three of our accidents in the manned space program happened over a 37 year period during a one week between january 27th and february 1st tomorrow will be 15 years since I was at the kennedy space center launching a crew into space of space shuttle columbia's last flight I had trained that crew for five years I was with their families at the launch and we wished them good luck unfortunately that crew did not make it back to earth safely and a lot of people say was nasa negligent did we make mistakes would it help to send a nasa person to jail for negligence in that accident absolutely not I am one of the 43,000 people that wakes up or goes to bed every night asking myself did I make the small incremental mistake that killed my friends having the opportunity to work in the space program is something that I will never ever forget it was not just being a part of history but having the opportunity to make history and that all started with a dream at four years old and I can say I am incredibly proud to have been a part of our nation's space program wow what a great story and right here in our own neighborhood of sheboygan who would have known that's what I like about ignite it just brings the community together a little bit more through the sharing of these awesome stories we did have a few last minute cancellations for this event due to extenuating circumstances so one of our very own committee members decided to pinch hit this evening we have a little bit of this white stuff going on outside again that's making it look like winter should in these parts and it might be getting you ready for the upcoming winter Olympics our final speaker is an avid enthusiast of the Olympics and tonight he explains why they mean so much to him please welcome Charlie Krebs for as long as I can remember I have been addicted to the Olympics so I'm getting very excited this time of year in 25 days the world will pause the snow will fly our hearts will soar and the games will begin they started in ancient Greece about 776 bce but at that time they didn't know they were bce they timed everything by olympiads which were four-year pieces of time there were two games at that point there was wrestling and running and so because of Greece that's where the Olympic flame starts every year at the base of the acropolis thousands of volunteers run it across continents so it can arrive just in time for the opening ceremony the first thing on the first night is the parade of athletes and they march into the stadium they're all different colors they're carrying different flags but that night they are all brothers and sisters the olympic flag enters the stadium it's risen but the crowning achievement of the opening ceremony is the lighting of the cauldron there are two times the cauldron was lit that I will never forget one of them the runner entered the stadium and there didn't appear to be a cauldron she walks over and she stands in a pool of water and puts the torch down to the water and apparently lights it on fire and what we didn't realize is the cauldron was submerged below the water and rose above her head up the side of the stadium the other one was when this gentleman right here took a bow and a flaming arrow and launched it a hundred feet in the air and it went into the cauldron and the cauldron burst into flames it took place right here this is Lillehammer Norway and the stadium where it's at was built to look like an upside down fishing boat so many of the stadium where they have these olympics are pretty incredible this picture right here is of the first modern olympics the olympics as we know it ended the original olympics ended about 400 a d and 1500 years went by and that's when the modern olympics began the winter olympics were begun in 1924 in the french alps and every year they used to they used to be just a few months after the summer olympics and in 1994 they moved it so there were olympics every couple of years my connection to the olympics has to do with skiing my brother tom taught me to ski when i was in middle school and i took to it like white on rice all of my friends skied i was in every ski club i could get my hands on and it was one of the highlights of my of my life i had a theater professor who was a ski instructor and he taught us something that was new coming out and that was freestyle ballet skiing and this picture right here is of a move called a royal christie and we tried to do all of that when we were in college i then got into ski racing and had the time of my life i got addicted to slalom skiing and in the year that it turned from 1999 to 2000 i went on a ski trip to the up and raced three times while i was there first day i got a bronze second day i got a silver and the third day i got my first gold medal and i was flying down the hill and i used the verb fly to to break through and that's when i got that gold medal so for something it's as simple as going up a hill and coming back down there are a lot there's a lot of drama there are a lot of stories involved in the winter olympics and the summer olympics as well and one of the greatest stories that i can remember was about a speed skater from milwaukee named dan jansen in 1998 he was racing and he was all set to win medal after medal after medal in the morning of his first race his sister jane passed away and as hard as he tried he vowed he would win the race for her but he fell in both of his races and then four years later he came back to the olympics but it seemed like the jinx just had too much of a grip on him and he won no medals that year at the next olympics what happened was that he was he was in better shape than he had been and he was going around he was coming to the last turn and he slipped but he stayed on his feet and he broke a world record and when he took his victory lap he had his daughter on his in his arm and he named his daughter jane but the crowning achievement the Shangri-La of olympic moments had to have been a hockey game in lake placid new york with the us versus the ussr they were an olympic and hockey dynasty and we were a hodgepodge of college athletes and but that our team had something that their team didn't and that was heart and when they won that game i swear the entire country lifted about two feet off the ground and so in the 50 years that i've been addicted to the olympics one thing that i have learned is that the olympics are not about medals they're about the human spirit they're about 17 days in february when we come together in one place and burn one light go usa that concludes all of our speakers for this night this ignite evening but the event's not over i encourage you grab another beer have another slice of pizza and please sign up on our contact list be sure to like us on facebook if you just look up ignite shabuigan that's the best way to keep in touch with what's going on with ignite we create events for all of these things that will be happening our next one is on monday april 16th so please either sign up on the email list like us on facebook or you can email ignite shabuigan at gmail.com again thank you to wscs for coming out to record all of our speeches and thanks to three sheeps for hosting please grab another beer and tip your bartenders