What is your Passion Level?

Most Great Strides campaigns have long-since wrapped up for the greater Cystic Fibrosis community and with that, a lot of passion is being re-funneled back into the daily cycle of actually dealing with this disease. Once all of the fun is over, it's back to chest PT, countless enzymes, medicines, flu vaccinations, and the like. Kind of takes the fun out of the process, if you ask me!

My passion level for fundraising drops considerably around this time of year. I have, in the past, spent this time kind of dreaming about next year when passion is high, and ignoring the issue almost altogether when it wanes. It's a reality for me that I'm not always proud of.

It's almost impossible to keep passion at 100% at all times. I can't even do it for Christ, who I cannot see, much less raising money for the fight against cystic fibrosis, something I can see (at least through news reports). Still, I hope to raise the base level of my passion over time to where it doesn't spike so high during Great Strides and ebb so low the rest of the year.

One way I'm doing that is by running the Carlsbad Half Marathon. Another way to overcome it is to be involved in the overall process. Our regional CFF, for example, doesn't get the chance to let their passion levels drain. Once Great Strides is over, they move immediately to the annual gala, and then to the Golf tournament, and then to the Stair climb. It's an amazing process that takes a team of people to manage. My part in the process isn't big at all. We donated a flag that flew from my ship during a recent deployment to the foundation that will be auctioned off in a little over a week. I'll discuss that more soon.

The simple fact is that I want to keep moving forward with the fight against cystic fibrosis. It's what Team Sam is…it's what we do...it defines the team as a unit, although our faith defines us as individuals (certainly in the case of Alicia and myself).

So it is with little surprise that you learn that one of the things we are doing in this off season is developing Team Sam a little more. We'll be making many improvements over the next several weeks to allow us to move quicker, make better decisions, and make a bigger impact…all the while working on that overall passion level at the same time.

So stay tuned and spread the word!