jeff noel – Page 14 – Disney Creativity and Innovation Keynote Speaker

Ordinary gifts day 1, home

gift of life — Life is a gift…but it is not a dress rehearsal…live like you mean it…

breakthroughs — epiphany… breakthrough… twin sons from different mothers… a gift to the world

Cheryl Noel and Mickey Mouse — Encountered Mickey and Minnie on the route to a Disney gift shop. Talk about a ‘gift’.

Ordinary gifts?

Yes.

What are ordinary gifts from your experience and perspective?

They arrive every single day.

Childlike curiosity, even though nearing 70.

Asking what i’d do “If Disney Ran My Life?”.

Answering, and implementing, what i’d do “If Disney Ran My Life?”.

The desire to prioritize my priorities.

The gift to try to live a life that is an example, not a warning.

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This website is about our HOME. This is the fifth of five daily, differently-themed blog posts about: (1) mind, (2) body, (3) spirit, (4) work, (5) home. To return to Mid Life Celebration, the site about MIND, click here.

The wild places, home

Photo of a bicyclist's shadow at Walt Disney World entrance — During the height of Covid-19’s stay at home order, Florida allowed outside exercise. Bicycling at WDW was perfect, logging 30 miles per day. WDW was a ghost-town. Closed to everyone except crazy locals like me that bicycled through it without seeing any vehicles. It was “wild”.

Why do you love the wild places?

From an early age, nature and all of Pennsylvania’s wild things, bugs, flowers, birds, creek critters, fish – all of it mesmerized me.

Still mesmerized. In my yard. In our community. In our Country. In Glacier, especially, and intimately.

Dan Fogelberg’s song, The Wild Places, entire lyrics:

“I was walking alone through the lofty San Juans
With a heart full of light
And a head full of songs
I was thinking of time
And how much it will cost
To recapture the souls
That we surely have lost

In the cities and towns
There are millions who dream
But the traffic’s so loud
That you can’t hear them scream
There’s a heaven on earth
That so few ever find
Though the map’s in your soul
And the road’s in your mind

So many mountains before us
So many rivers to cross
Where is the wisdom to bring
Back the vision we’ve lost

Can we gaze with wonder of children
Into the deafening night
Has it gotten so dark
That we cannot remember the light?

When you sleep on the ground
With the stars in your face
You can feel the full length
Of the beauty and grace
In the wild places man
Is an unwelcome guest
But it’s here than I’m found
And it’s here I feel blessed”

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Family epiphany, home

Three five year old boys having fun poolside — Charlie, EJ, and Chapin (at EJ’s birthday party at his pool, 2005). What kid isn’t into life for the fun of it all?

Family epiphany?

Yes.

No one lives forever.

Life is a great big mystery contradicted by the big three:

science
dogma
religion

i’m not here for a long time, and i’m ready to be here for a good time, with whatever time remains.

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Put your habits in your Will, home

mini mart signs — While still at Disney Institute, i’d travel to places that were close to the middle of nowhere. Always felt at home there.

Addiction is a useful and a deadly habit.

Addiction is another word for unbreakable habit.

Love and fidelity are useful habits.

Tobacco and alcohol, potentially deadly.

Intentional prioritized priorities are useful.

Unintentional unprioritized priorities are potentially harmful.

And so on and so forth.

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June 1, 2026, home

Mom and son floating in Gulf of Mexico at Sanibel Island — Sanibel Island. Every Summer. Cheryl and i vacationed here for a decade or so before our son was born. Then every year of his life for the next 20 years.

Happy June 1, 2026.

While the Summer Solstice is three weeks away (June 21, 4:54am), Since childhood, i’ve always celebrated Summer’s arrival on June 1st.

Why?

Maybe the most basic, accurate answer is, “it feels instinctual”.

Ps. Why wait three more weeks for the “Summer spirit” to arrive?

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