Creative Think: Personal Highlights of the '00s

Roger von Oech

The '00s are at an end. On a personal level, I can say the '00s were a good decade. I spent most of my fifties there (I aged from 51 to 61). I had some wonderful experiences, met some interesting people, and created a few things along the way.

Here are some of my personal highlights from the '00s:

• I Imagined that a Rhombic Triacontahedron could be broken into 30 pyramids. This idea became the Ball of Whacks. I patented it, went to China to manufacture it, and created a company (with Stuart Kaplan, Creative Whack) to market and distribute it. Subsequent products are the X-Ball and Y-Ball, and more on the way.

• I Turned my life-long interest in the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus into a book, (Expect the Unexpected, 2001, Simon & Schuster) and a card deck (Innovative Whack Pack, US Games 2004).

• The favorite places that I've visited just before sunrise were: Angkor Wat (Cambodia), Karnak Temple (Egypt), Machu Picchu (Peru) Erg Chebbi Sand Dunes (Sahara Desert, Morocco), Temple of Concord (Agrigento, Sicily), Cappadocia faeries (Turkey), and Varanasi (on the Ganges River, shown below).

• Hachette (Grand Central Publishers) came out with the 25th Anniversary edition of A Whack on the Side of the Head. (Life sales: approximately two million in 18 languages. Not bad for what was originally a self-published book.) 2008

• Attended the Taormina (Sicily) and the Berlin Film Festivals.

• During the decade, I swam over 10,150,000 yards or 5,767 miles (9,300 kilometers), or just under a "quarter of the way around the world." (Swimming's a great way to get away from things.)

• Competed in the 2006 FINA World Masters Swimming Championships. Took a 6th, 8th, and 17th place in events in the 55-59 age group. Favorite swim: 800 free.

• Continued to do my Creative Think seminars for business, but at a much saner pace than the 80s and 90s. Favorite sessions were in South America: Colombia (shown below), Venezuela, and Argentina.

• Turned the Creative Whack Pack card deck into an iPhone app (with Phil Dhingra). In April, 2009, the Creative Whack Pack App spent two weeks at the top of the AppStore charts as the #1 seller in the Business category.

• Put a Ball of Whacks on the Moscow grave of former Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev, who 48 years earlier told the West: "We will bury you." I had the last laugh.

• Went with my then-21 year son Alex to a place I had no desire to go when I was 21: Vietnam (2006).

• Celebrated my 60th birthday on the Mekong River in Laos, 2008 (shown below in a Hmong hut).

• Other travels included: Burma, Thailand, Russia, India, Canada, Britain, Italy, Japan, France, and Germany.

• Saw my kids graduate from college (Athena: Stanford '03, Alex: USC '07) and move on in life.

• Another enriching ten years with wife and life-partner, Wendy (2000-2009). [Shown at Perito Moreno glacier in Patagonia]

This was a fun exercise! You might try it yourself.

I wish you a good start in the "Teens"!

Comments

Oh my Roger, that's a whole lot of swimming! I love to swim but, around here all we have are mud holes. And it hasn't rained here since October of last year :-(

Yea...you can pretty much guess that we live out in the boonies. We drive about 35 miles every once in a while and spend nights in a hotel just to go swimming. We live about 85 miles from the coast but we don't like salt water. Good luck

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