ABOUT JEFF

When I was 18 and training for the Olympics I met a man named John Burton who would change the course of my life. He was a true Renaissance man. The right person for me at the right time.

Not only had he been a WWI correspondent, a poet, an actor, and an Emmy Award winning filmmaker, he had developed a unique style of glassblowing. Through a synchronistic chain of events he chose me to be his protege.

Aside from being my mentor he became like a father to me in many ways. He would read me poetry and we’d listen to classical music. I would work in his orchid garden while he shared the work of the great philosophers—expanding my mind and my world.

He revealed the other side of me—the heart and soul of me.

One day I was having an especially rough day—feeling overwhelmed by the circumstances of coming from this dysfunctional welfare family, and under immense pressure—I felt like I didn’t know where to turn for direction.

John turned to me and said, “If you want a helping hand you have one at each arm”, and walked out of the room. He cared enough about me not intervene and rob me of the opportunity to figure it out on my own.

He taught me the power of creative expression. What it was to be in flow. To find the infinite possibility of the present moment.

I learned how to take something normally rigid yet fragile and shape it into a thing of grace and beauty.

That glasswork ended up in some of the finest galleries in New York City.

The Olympics is easy compared to raising a daughter.

I have always stood subservient to possibility. Receptive to embracing a higher calling because I trust with every ounce of conviction that the better option is the next one coming.

In this case, at the age of 58, it was our daughter, Kin. She was 10 and born into the gritty streets and social jungle of Colombia.

The sheer effort and commitment required to make the Olympics doesn’t hold a candle to what it takes to raise a daughter.

Kin calls my wife and me to a higher game