There are a lot of things one might expect to see, to do, and to learn at a comic con. Largely I believed they were about comics, horror, super heroes, sci-fi, or the human capacity to endure having their toes stepped on and torso bumped into in a crowd.

I expected to see super heros, anti-heroes, super villans, really scantily clad women, men in spandex, comic takes on characters long loved, and characters I’ve never dreamt or heard of. I also expected to find comics, videos, toys, clothes, posters, accessories, and so much more in the way of merchandise. I even expected I would purchase some of it. And I did. I saw it all and I even got cute little caricatures of my daughter and I and a she-hulk t-shirt.

But there was more. Something I didn’t anticipate.

I didn’t expect that both my daughter and I would walk out of there with a life lesson.

After our initial wander around the place to get the lay of the land and a read through the schedule to make sure we could make it to our photo ops (yes… we did) and a couple of must do panels we wandered over to a Q&A session with the one and only Arthur Fonzarelli. Yes, the Fonz. And yes I know his real name. And yes I know the impressive list of credits he has built up over the years as a writer, director, producer, and children’s author. I didn’t know he’d written a book on Fly Fishing but other than that I was well aware that Henry Winkler had made an amazing career for himself out of his leather jacket. What I didn’t realize was that the man is a philosopher. Sitting through the 45 minute session he delivered so much inspiration and so many pearls of wisdom that we walked out of his session feeling like we’d been to a particularly effective intensive self help session.

The piece that struck home, the advice that very well might change how we deal with self doubt and negativity in our home?

“Never put a period on the end of a negative thought.”

He followed it up with a big laugh. He punctuated it with silliness. The crowd ate it up. But it wasn’t silly, and it’s how I think I’d like to deal with things.