The "revolution" in Revolution Consulting

Many people ask me why I chose the name Revolution Consulting for the business name of my work. This is the closest explanation I've found "out there" that matches up with what's going on "in here":

"Personal transformation can and does have global effects. As we go, so goes the world, for the world is inside us. The revolution that will save the world is ultimately an internal and deeply personal one."

My spirit is engaged in the lifelong struggle with my mind and its ego to overthrow their tyrannical rule over my life choices and experience. It seeks freedom and reunion with all that I Know, but forgot. In the midst of the battle - with its feelings of pain, sounds of hate, and smell of death - I have never felt more alive and in love with the world.

Dream come true

I've dreamed for many years of a time when I could live a life that involved visiting and hanging out in cool places, meeting fun and interesting people, having real conversations about what's really going on with us and the world, helping each other stay true to ourselves while taking on life's toughest challenges, and all of it being fully integrated with, and actually made possible by, a healthy, loving family life. The last two days in Austin, visiting with B., K., and S., while Anne's sister from Austin was visiting her and Jake at our home with her 1-year-old baby girl, was a pure and joyful real-world experience of this dream. Thanks to all 7 of you for populating this wonderful episode of the dream.

The perfect start to a perfect day

My wife, Anne, is not a morning person, which makes the following all the more magnificent. After waking, showering, dressing, and packing for a quick overnight trip to Austin, I crawled into bed at about 7:30, where my wife and child were enjoying a morning snuggle. Both had fallen back to sleep, and I so wanted to join them. Knowing I couldn't, but totally caught up in the appreciation of the moment, I grabbed Anne's hand and stroked it gently as tears welled up in my eyes. Anne opened her eyes to see the tears rolling down my cheeks, and I chuckled and said, " I don't know why, but I feel kind of weepy this morning." With the most startling clarity, gentleness, and warmth, she said, "I know why, because you're aware of the profound, amazing life you lead." And she smiled with delight, kissed me goodbye, and drifted back to sleep, fully aware that she had captured that moment perfectly, served me perfectly, and sent me off with a smile in my heart. I am so thankful to her and to God for that blissful start to a perfect day.

Listen for and to your inner voice.

"It is then that you will hear a voice within yourself. It was there all the time, but you never listened before. Faintly it will speak to you at first, but it will grow louder and clearer the more you take heed of its message until one day it thunders inside you, and you follow it, and you will have come home.

-- Rusty Berkus

"If we could read the secret history of our enemies (or our 'boogeymen,' the people who we let scare us) we would find in each man's life a sorrow and a suffering enough to disarm all hostility."

-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

This voice that Rusty refers to will often direct you straight into the fire of your worst fears, or into the face of your scariest demons, and when you go, kicking or screaming if you must, you will learn what Henry refers to, that our fear is of fear itself, that it comes purely from our ignorance and our obsession with security, which is an empty illusion. When we give up our resitance to our inner voice, we set ourselves and others free, and we return home.

Choosing the only drama that makes a difference

"When we ask for God's help in the middle of life's confusing messes, He doesn't get rid of all of our life's drama. He just gets rid of the cheap stuff, like everything we make up about the external world and other people and their mischief. There is no higher drama than true internal personal growth. Nothing could be more genuinely dramatic than boys becoming real men and girls becoming real women."

-- A Course in Miracles

It seems that the last 24 hours have generated numerous calls on this theme, people asking me to support them in staying focused on their own internal growth rather than the intoxicating array of external dramas that seem so readily available to take them off their own hook. I first want to say that my hat's off to all of you who either called on or are committed to this choice. I admire your courage and resolve so much, and I am here for you 100%, because the quality of my life depends on it. It is so seductive to turn to the highly addictive "hallucinogenic" of blaming others or the outside world for our difficulties, and so confronting and difficult to stay in the real work - the work that makes a difference - staying alert and fully committed to being the responsible adults we say we are.

Integrity's role in our energy supply

Our actions in any moment tend to spring from one of two sources: 1) our emotions, which in many cases are fear-based and often trigger fear in others, or 2) our commitments, which tend to be love-based and invite the same from others. When our fears are left hidden and unspoken, they control us and eliminate our choice of action. We feel as if we had no choice but to act as we did. When both our commitments and fears are out in the open and spoken freely, choice remains present. From this place of choice, and with our support community readily available, we can help each other choose effectively by reminding each other of our higher commitments, while respecting both our individual and shared humanity. We find much greater strength and stamina available to act in the most effective way when our personal integrity - being who we say we are and doing what we said we'd do - is intact. When we drop out of integrity, our energy is dramatically depleted, and we find it increasingly more difficult to recover ourselves. It's kind of like our physical fitness - it takes a significant amount of time and energy to become physically fit, and yet the drop-off from not taking care of ourselves can be alarmingly steep and fast.

Don't wait until you're diagnosed as dying to really live.

"So many people walk around living meaningless lives. They seem half-asleep, even when they're busy doing things they think are important. This is because they're chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives your life meaning and purpose."


-- Morrie Schwartz, in "Tuesdays with Morrie" by Mitch Albom

You don't have to wait until you're diagnosed as dying to appreciate Morrie's wisdom. Instead, let's realize that we're all dying, in a sense, right now. What better wake-up call could we possibly get to inspire us to get to work on our lives' celebrations and devotions. Let's realize right now, while there's plenty we can still do about it, that the only regret we will ever have is not doing enough appreciating and celebrating of life, love, and magic. Here's one more vivid reminder from another great book, "Boy's Life," by Robert McCammon, gifted to me by my good friend, T.C.:

"See, this is my opinion: we all start out knowing magic. We are born with whirlwinds, forest fires, and comets inside us. We are born able to sing to birds and read the clouds and see our destiny in grains of sand. But then we get the magic educated right out of our souls. We get it churched out, spanked out, washed out, and combed out. We get put on the straight and narrow and told to be responsible. Told to act our age. Told to grow up, for God's sake. And you know why you were told that? Because the people doing the telling were afraid of our wildness and youth, and because the magic we knew so well made them feel ashamed and sad for what they'd allowed to wither inside themselves. ... The truth of life is that every year we get farther away from the essence that is born within us. We get shouldered with burdens, some of them good, some of them not so good. Things happen to us. Loved ones die. People get sick or get in wrecks and get crippled. People lose their way, or we lose our way, for one reason or another. It's not hard to do, in this world of crazy mazes. Life itself does its best to take that memory of magic away from us. Until you learn to steal it back."

Steal back the magic!