Matt Helt | SecretPenguin Blog

It’s about 6:30 am on this fine Saturday in early May. I went to bed three and a half hours ago after attending the first ever Big Omaha. So why the hell am I up now? Pretty simple: I am so inspired by what I saw here in Omaha the last two days that I can’t sleep. Seriously. The first thing that came to my mind when my eyes opened was what am I going to do to keep this excitement going. Sleep was impossible after that. I then decided that sleep was lame and came up with an acronym for it: Simply Living Everyone Elses Possibilities. If you sleep while your competition is working, they will beat you. If you sleep because you’re uninspired, you will have to live out other people’s dreams, not your own.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I still think sleep is a good thing and I plan to engage in a lot of it while I’m on this planet (I love naps). But I now understand why really successful people don’t sleep very much. It’s because they are so inspired during their waking life that there’s no need to dream about. There is so much to get done - sleep just gets in the way it.

So what has me so jazzed right now? Alright, you ready for this? YOU. Yep, YOU. Why? Because I met so many of YOU the last two days and YOU set me on fire (I’ll stop with the obnoxious capitalization now). I am so blown away by all the great people I met that I can do nothing but think about how I want to work with all of you. You are a thought leader. You are a part of the creative class. You are working with tech to make really cool shit. Best of all, I can connect with any of you almost instantaneously. Pretty freaking rad I think.

So how awesome was Big Omaha? Unreal. That’s all I can say. Absolutely 100% lived up to the hype and maybe even exceeded it. I think it will be a few days before we get a good sense of the impact, but I have a feeling those of us that were there will look back at this event and point to it as the time when everything started to change for the better. We saw the power of an idea yesterday. Jeff Slobotski (@jjsnyc) and Dusty Davidson (@dustyd) took an idea and made it real. Because they were committed to that idea we all benefited. This is the movement which will captivate us for many years to come. If we learned one thing from yesterday it’s that passion drives innovation, not the pursuit of wealth. Wealth is a by-product of that passion. If you reverse that and have wealth as your motivation, chances are you will be miserable. Live your passion each and every day and you will have no other option than becoming a success. And no, having a big ass bank account doesn’t mean you are a success. That’s not the measurement anymore. That’s the greed culture’s measurement. Our measurement, the how-do-I-help culture’s measurement, is how many people have benefited from me waking up today? How many people are better off because I jumped out of bed and immediately started to think of how my passion will help them? Do that each and every day and you will have no choice but to be a success.

Great to meet all of you yesterday! Thanks to Jeff and Dusty for taking a risk and against all odds managed to pull off an amazing conference. Thanks to all the amazing speakers for sharing your passion with us. It was truly some the coolest shit I’ve ever heard. That round-table was insane. I think I’m glad Matt Mullenweg didn’t show up (no offense, Matt) (who am I kidding, Matt is not going to read this). Great way to turn a negative situation into a positive.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention a few people who inspire me on a daily basis. First of all my wife, Janie, is my biggest inspiration. Tomorrow is Mother’s Day and she truly earns that day every year. She is an absolutely remarkable person who doesn’t have any quit in her. Against all odds, she makes things happen, does the bulk of the parenting, works two or three jobs simutaneously, mows the lawn, teaches our youth, and puts up with me. I am so blessed to have a life partner like her.

Dave Nelson (@SecretPenguin), my business partner here at SecretPenguin, never ceases to inspire me. His creative genius blows my mind. Best of all, he’s the most humble guy you will ever meet. Seriously. Ego is not in his vocabulary. Because he is the way he is, I work hard because I want him to succeed. I am very passionate about doing everything I can do to make Dave’s life better. Not just for him, but for his wife, Sara, as well. She’s been supporting his passion, so I hope to make that pay off for her.

Cody Peterson (@codypeterson), our art director, is amazingly talented. He comes up with the coolest shit. I wish I had one ounce of his creative genius. His committment to producing quality work is so inspirational. I can’t wait to see what this guy comes up with over the next five years.

The Roadtwip crew - Kurt Daradics (@kurtyd), Jolie O’Dell (@jolieodell) and Jonathon Dingman (@dingman) - you guys rock. You put together a project on a short timeframe and are making amazing things happen. Congrats on your success and I know there’s more to come. Follow the second half of their adventures at Roadtwip.

My new friend, Espree Devora (@espreedevora), who is incredibly passionate about what she does at ZexSports.com. Her energy is contagious and I want to bask in her glow for a very long time.

My best friend, Brian Wetjen (@wetchman), is as good a friend as a guy could have. I’m incredibly inspired by what he’s accomplished as a business owner. Not only is he my friend, but a mentor as well. He never hesitates to share his knowledge with me.

Okay, this post is way too long. If you made it to this point, thank you for taking the time to read this. I look forward to collaborating with you to make this world a better place for eveyone. Now go get some sleep. You’re going to need some rest. Changing the world tends to be a little exhausting.

Tags: Big Omaha

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 9th, 2009 at 3:27 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.