Costco Connection - March 2007

Remembering Richard Carlson:
Live like your
heart is in it!

Regular Connection freelancer Diana Jordan volunteered this remembrance of her friend (and friend of Costco and The Connection) Richard Carlson, who died suddenly of a pulmonary embolism on December 13, 2006.

THE HEART-STOPPING telephone call I receive late on a Friday night in December from Richard Carlson’s wife makes no sense at all to me. She tells me, “Richard’s energy was just too big for his body.”

Earlier that week, I was struggling with the meaning of life, and Richard Carlson, the bestselling author of the Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff series, popped into my head. So— stepping over the line from professional friendship into intensely personal—I called him.

How does he live, I wanted to know. How does he handle uncertainty, setbacks, pain?

Richard’s voice was warm and cheerful, as usual. I asked, “So what is life all about— karma, God, destiny?”

And Richard told me that we are gifted in ways that support our destiny, and we do have

control over our lives. “Bad” things happen—but it is our response that matters, how we handle our emotions. We go to great places in life, not by making huge corrections, but by implementing tiny changes in our course as a pilot would.

The next day this 45-year-old man who looked and acted 10 years younger, who was still madly in love with his wife and still entranced by his two teenage daughters, got on a plane to New York to promote his newest book, Don’t Get Scrooged, and died of a heart attack.

Richard Carlson

TIM BURMAN

When Kris Carlson calls, she says she misses her soul mate. “He is still with us,” she says.

I miss my friend who walked his talk. Who gave me every nuance of every moment. That’s the meaning of life. Richard Carlson truly lived like his heart was in it.

—Diana Jordan

SMILE.

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