I tell wonder-filled stories about hope and healing
If you haven’t seen the documentary 20 Feet from Stardom about the history of backup singers, you must. Their stories of passion, music, persistence, and dedication will make you cry, laugh, and reflect on your own life and talents. Here’s the best thing I learned from it: you must shine your own light on your talent. You can’t wait for nor expect someone else to do it.
I’m in the midst of reading Dr. Michio Kaku‘s new book, The Future of the Mind. He explains that our actual vision is largely imagined. Our optic nerve should always create a large dark spot in our field of vision. It doesn’t because our mind actually compensates for it and fills in the details. Our mind guesses what’s there in that space that the eyes can’t actually see. We are imagining every moment of our waking lives. We are using our creativity without even realizing it. That’s how deeply embedded our sense of creativity is in our minds, in our very being. We invent the world around us.
You will be presented with an opportunity and a choice: do you jump at the chance or let it pass you by? I’ve found that this is the most consistent circumstance that arises in my life. Do I hesitate and turn back or do I dive in and start pedaling like hell? And why? Hesitating and debating has never brought me much of anything I wanted. I’m happiest in action. It’s when I’m most alive, free, and grateful. In action, I am my very best me.
Circumstances can be joyous or heartbreaking, happy or devastating. Whether or not an experience is fortunate or unfortunate is largely a matter of my perspective and choice.
I was trying to solve a few challenges over the weekend. My brother-in-law suggested we go to the Met at night before they close. He wanted to sketch a few statues so I took myself for a walk in the Eastern art section. As soon as I started to walk, completely alone with my thoughts, the answers to those challenges started to bubble up to the surface. I was reminded again that walking shakes my thoughts free. I have to walk to think and see clearly. It helps me make sense of all of the jumbled pieces of a situation and then I’m able to better see how well they fit together in a different configuration than the one I’ve been trying to construct. That’s all it takes – 20 minutes and the open road. Simple tools. Powerful results.
In all of the ups and downs of my life, I’ve found this one thing to always be true: fortune smiles on me when I smile first. What I manifest internally, comes to fruition externally. When something isn’t going right for me, I don’t bother feeling badly for myself and searching for answers externally. I close my eyes and look in. The answer is always there and then I am able to make the changes I need to make to have the life I want. They aren’t always easy changes, though they are always possible.
Now that the first quarter of 2014 is winding down, I am reflecting on and re-assessing my business plan for the year. I’ve found that it’s helpful to ask myself these questions and write out the answers to translate into action plans:
1.) What do I really want to do?
2.) What do I have that can help me do that?
3.) What do I need that will help me do that?
4.) How can I get what I need?
5.) How will I know when I’ve been successful?
I realize I have some heavy lifting and changing to do to answer these questions honestly and craft a road I’m proud to build and travel. It’s exciting to see it laid out in writing. It keeps me focused and persistent, the two attributes I find I need in spades these days. Do you regularly reflect on and reassess where you are on your projects, professional and personal? What questions are most helpful for you?
The past is a wonderful place to learn but I don’t recommend making it your home. It’s fun to remember, to be nostalgic, to pay tribute to what we’ve lived through – the good and the bad. However, we have to live it going forward. We have to take everything we learned in our past and carry it forward so that we make better, more informed choices today. We’ve got to learn to keep what serves us well and let go of everything else. In this way we can honor the past without repeating it or being hampered by it.
Let’s try this experiment: every day for a week, starting today, begin your morning by looking in the mirror and saying “Good morning, beautiful.” Say it and mean it. I’ll check in with you next Saturday and see how those three simple words affected your week. Are you game?
I don’t ever feel like I’m lacking anything, though that doesn’t prevent me from working hard to achieve something more. This duality is possible, just as it’s possible to be at peace internally when there is much disruption in our external world. We stand on the edge of effort and ease, fully immersed in both. It’s one of the most amazing aspects of being human – to embrace all that we are, all at once.
