Living at 30kFT: Insights for Post College America

By James N. Kinney

Living at 30kFt gives audiences a comedic and pragmatic approach to career success and life after college. Author James N. Kinney weaves together business strategy, holistic living and pop culture into key takeaways that give the reader easy to follow tips for effective living.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Nov 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483541266

Book preview

Consciousness

Part I

JFK to LAX American Airlines Fight #4. It was back in my songwriting days, and I remember looking out the window. Mountains, perfectly designed with their valleys and peaks, looked back at me. Rivers wound through those mountains and led to oceans; things were planned with purpose. Within communities, I saw streets laid down, designed, and structured for journeys and destinations. I sat back in my seat, enjoyed the view, and began jotting down some lyrics.

They came easily. An entire song almost sang itself. A certain peace was powering the mind, and the more it was powered, the more powerfully it focused. After some time working like this, and after glancing out the window intermittently, appreciating the design and structure out there, I suddenly felt it: The structure in here. My internal structure aligned.

As a musician, it was not unfamiliar—when strings on an instrument vibrate, their harmonics sometimes sync, and when they do, the most pure tone sounds. There is no vibrato, and the note seems to resonate with sheer clarity. A trained ear can hear it. At that moment, I heard it, and it became crystal clear to me that, while on the ground, I was always distracted severely in a severely distracted world. In the air, all I had to do was sit and write lyrics, to think about my life without noise or distraction.

There I was, flying without stress between places where I was living with stress— New York and Los Angeles. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? A few hours on a plane might cause someone distress, but upon arrival, upon returning to the normalcy of a satisfying career and home, the stress should abate, the routine of a life well lived should take over and comfort. But there, above the clouds, I was fast crashing into the realization that we have created a different world, one humans want to fly away from just to get some peace: stress, anxiety, smog, traffic, noise, and the expense of the places we inhabit daily don’t exist at a distance of 30,000 feet.

30,000 Feet (or 30kFt as I call it) is a quick, digital read. I considered writing a War-and-Peace-sized story, but because of our over-active lives, reading time is at a premium these days for most people. For this reason, 30kFt is a short and sweet guide, a quick, effective, entertaining, and, I hope, funny repository of things learned and ultimately shared to enhance your journey.

Winners have the ability to step back from the canvas of their lives like an artist gaining perspective. They make their lives a work of art—an individual masterpiece.

-Denis Waitley

The manager has a short-range view; the leader has a long-range perspective.

-Warren G. Bennis

A little perspective, like a little humor, goes a long way.

-Allen Klein

When you’re in the muck, you can only see muck.

-David Cronenberg

Humans are not built to stare at screens for 12 hours a day, and I had learned that the hard way. A few years ago, I was diagnosed with a rare eye disease called Central Serious Retinopathy or CSR. This is a stress-induced eye disease found in male, type-A personalities between the ages of 30 and 50. After seeing three doctors, I found a retina specialist named Dr. John J. Khadem. A super cool, six-foot-something gentleman, Dr. K is one of those doctors whose passion for helping people is grand; he is truly magnanimous. I asked him how my eye problem happened. He said, James, don’t worry about making so much money. You need to de-stress. You need to keep your mind at peace. He then presented the statistics: 90% of these patients are type-A personalities, but they manage to heal themselves—others need surgery or lose their eyesight.

Wow, I thought. They made a disease just for me. I thought again. I had made it— I had literally been making myself sick. I knew right then that I had to make a change.

At the time of that diagnosis, the concept for this e-read began percolating, but the catalyst for creating it came when I was full-up-and-running two companies at once; one in New York City and one in Los Angeles (Kinney Group Events and Kinney Group Creative). I had begun to feel a great need to tell my story, to help the post-college workforce navigate the mirage and misinterpretation of the American Dream. Facebook, Twitter, and my radio show were not enough. I felt the need to put fingers to keyboard.

I was engaged at the time as well. Happy, or so I thought. I could speak from the position of experience because I