• Hi, I’m Brad Abare

  I'm a make-it-happen guy working with big idea people. I design teams and orchestrate strategy so that great ideas I believe in get done.
  
  I am Jamaica's husband, Foursquare's comm director, Personality's founder, and a catalyst for CFCC.
  
  
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I love history. If Jamaica and I subscribed to cable or satellite, I’m sure I’d watch the History Channel way too much. I love reading biographies of dead people. I have a man crush on David McCullough, and loved his book about John Adams. I enjoy sitting with people over 70 and listening to their stories. Their perspective. Their passion. Their forgotten dreams. Their regrets. Their grandkids.

I’ve kept a journal off and on ever since I was a kid. I wish I was more consistent. You’d think my love for history would motivate me enough to capture the present, but it doesn’t work that way. So Jamaica and I are trying a couple things to capture what’s happening in our lives on an ongoing basis.

Video Journal: We’ve identified a handful of questions we will answer every year in front of a video camera. We’ll do our recording individually, in front of a plain backdrop, with a tightly cropped shot. The idea is to capture answers to the same questions for what will hopefully be decades to come. In 20, 30, and 40 years I think it will be interesting to watch the progression of our answers, age, and everything else that comes with this time-lapse like approach.

Listography: Although Jamaica and I will continue with irregular journaling, we’re starting to compile lists of memories. We’re using Lisa Nola’s Listography to get us started. It’s a little book packed with blank pages, organized around categories like places you’ve lived, biggest fears and best friends. The idea is to create lists that span back to childhood. In the process, I’ve found myself adding commentary next to items which creates a nice narrative. In my opinion, keeping lists is much less intimidating than blank journal pages that scream for emotional commentary and unconfessed secrets.

Time will tell if we can stay disciplined enough to continue capturing our story. If and/or when we have children, we’ll want to include them in the chronicling festivities too. Although this whole thing feels a little self-centered, at the core is a desire to recall, to remember and to remind. There is something significant about looking back. A professor in college used the analogy of rowing. When you row, you’re seated looking the opposite direction of where you’re headed. Although you’re looking back, you’re moving forward. You’ve got to row into the future while rowing out of the past.

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