A nice reminder of "Who I Am"

"If every man and woman were to take the meaning of their life and pursue it passionately, they would alter the social landscape overnight. In fact, that's how lasting revolutions are made - not by the raised arm of the masses, not by the military seizure of power, not by the political coup d'état, but by individuals asserting who they are one at a time."

-- Richard Bode

I had the distinct pleasure of recommending one of my favorite books of all time yesterday - first you have to row a little boat, by Richard Bode - and what I got back in return was one of my all-time favorite quotes, which also just happened to be part of my initial reasoning for calling what I do "Revolution" Consulting. What a nice little reminder. It made me feel deeply connected to my life's purpose and passion.

A tribute to freedom

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

-- Benjamin Franklin

I spent a wonderful day yesterday with a new client/friend, S.M., sitting outside overlooking a golf course, with God punctuating our most meaningful conversation topics with lightning, thunder, and torrential downpours. It was a very intense emotional experience. This young man is at a crucial juncture in his life - that place where a man stares in the face of the choice between liberty and safety, and it seems impossibly difficult to choose from the heart. During the day he mentioned that he loves deep ideological and political discussions, and that he was a huge Ben Franklin fan. I thought to myself, what better person to build the message around on this Fourth of July.

So, this one's for you, S.M., as you wrestle with your "choice," remembering that, as the Oracle says to Neo in the second Matrix movie, "You didn't come here to make the choice, you've already made it. You're here to try to understand why you made it." And, as for your plan's "impossibility," and that sick feeling you had when you started to really get the magnitude and beauty of your vision, I have included this quote on the cover page of your plan, just to get your juices flowing:


"When God is about to do something great, He starts with a great difficulty.
When He is about to do something truly magnificent, He starts with an impossibility."

-- Armin Gesswein

Happy Fourth of July, everyone!

The courage to "rouse your spirit up"

"'Tis hard for man to rouse his spirit up--
It is the human creative agony,
Though but to hold the heart an empty cup,
Or tighten on the team the rigid rein.
Many will rather lie among the slain
Than creep through narrow ways the light to gain--
Than wake the will, and be born bitterly.


But he who would be born again indeed,
Must wake his soul unnumbered times a day,
And urge himself to life with holy greed;
Now open his bosom to the Wind's free play;
And now, with patience forceful, hard, lie still,
Submit and ready to the making will,
Athirst and empty, for God's breath to fill."

-- George MacDonald,
(from the poem, "Diary of an Old Soul")

I met with several people yesterday who have courageously chosen a life of selfless service as their "creative agony," and it can sometimes be frighteningly exhausting work. This small piece of a powerhouse poem is offered in tribute to these brave, committed people who must "wake their souls unnumbered times a day." There is a natural tendency for us to take our work way too seriously, and to carry around the burden of our mission's drama, such that our work actually diminishes our capacity to do it, when God is really inviting us to give of our fruit like the apple tree, such that the more we give, the healthier we get, and the more there is to give. As I write this I am reminded of Merlin's words in Robert Fisher's great book, The Knight in Rusty Armor, which I just recommended to one such dedicated person of service. Yes, that's you, G.B.

"Here's where we can learn from the apple tree. It grows to become handsome and fully mature, bearing fine fruit which it gives freely to all. The more apples people pick," said Merlin, "the more the tree grows and the more beautiful it becomes. This tree is doing exactly what apple trees are meant to do - fulfilling its potential to the benefit of all. It can be the same with people when they have ambition from the heart."

"Ambition from the heart" - accepting and choosing our God-assigned path and the gifts we've been given - is dramatically different than the mind or ego's "need" to look good or satisfy other people's expectations. So, let's ease up on ourselves, knowing that God uses all of us, exactly as we are, and through knowing this we can make the process of learning to "do good" a joyful game, rather than painful drudgery.

Don't fool yourself.

"The essential things in life are the enduring elements in character - integrity, faith, righteousness, selflessness, compassion, love; and out of these all good things proceed. ... Food, clothing, money, and things are dead effects; there is in them no life, no power except that which we invest with them. They are without vice and virtue, and can neither bless nor harm. Even the body which men believe to be themselves, to which they pander, and which they long to keep, must very shortly be yielded up to the dust. But the higher elements of character are life itself; and to practice these, to trust them, and to live entirely in them, constitutes a preview of the Kingdom of Heaven. The man who says, 'I will first of all earn a competency and secure a good position in life, and will then give my mind to those higher things,' does not understand them to be higher, for if he did, it would not be possible for him to neglect them. He believes the material outgrowth of life to be the higher, and therefore he seeks them first. He believes money, clothing, and position to be of vast and essential importance, righteousness and truth to be at best secondary; for a man always sacrifices that which he believes to be lesser to that which he believes to be greater. Immediately after a man realizes that righteousness is of more importance than the getting of food and clothing, he ceases to strive after the latter, and begins to live for the former. It is here where we find the dividing line between the two kingdoms - Hell and Heaven."

-- James Allen

I have had numerous conversations lately with people who have expressed that they will be ready to take on their important personal growth work, or character development, or spiritual development (take your pick of terms) once they have their financial security in place, using Maslow's "Hierarchy of Needs" as a rationalization, and then - much to their surprise when their "spiritual integrity meter" starts going off as they struggle with the compromises they find themselves making to accomplish this - they wonder why they're feeling such extreme levels of anxiety. Well, as I've learned in very painful fashion, the truth doesn't wait for us to get it. It just is. And we get it when we do, and the lesson plan goes on, and the tests keep coming, whether we're ready or not. One thing Ralph Waldo Emerson reminded us, and this is so easy to forget in the everyday stress of life as we choose our "survival strategies," is that, "You cannot do wrong (and this includes turning a blind eye to what you know) without suffering wrong." I offer this up in loving contribution to my dear friend, A.P., who has been studying these humbling lessons on the "pathway to Heaven" at home, and who is now searching for the courage to apply this same understanding at work, where we often feel that our "manhood" is at stake. Fact is, it is, but not in the way we might initially think.

The genius of children

"Children are geniuses at raising the bar for themselves, clearing it, and then setting it one notch higher. Working with children raises the bar for me, and for everyone else whose lives they touch. They inspire us to dig deeper for the strength to do what feels hardest, what's scariest. And to do that, we have to once again become young at heart. ... Much has been written about how important it is for adults to be good role models in modeling effective behavior for children. What I've discovered again and again is that children are models of courage and character for adults, if we only pay attention to them. ... People tend to think of children as weak and vulnerable, as fragile little people. In my experience, they're giants. They have immense and open hearts. Their minds can expand to encompass any reality. Their bodies and souls are amazingly resilient. And their spirits can soar in the face of enormous physical and psychic pain. What we often mistake for fragility in children is their openness to experience everything. I believe it's this quality of openness - of heart, mind, and spirit - that makes children so resilient in the face of life-threatening illnesses, or any other obstacle in their path."

-- Dr. Fred Epstein, in his book, "if I get to five," a tribute to the hidden strengths of childhood and the unstoppable life force that dwells within each of us

This book, my current read, is leaving me sobbing on just about every other page. It is both tragic and uplifting. And this is because it is reminding me once again of what life is truly meant to be - a full-out, passionate adventure, in the face of all that the world can bring. And children so understand this and live this way. I will be especially observant this morning with my little boy - my little coach, Jake - as he teaches me this important lesson for the thousandth time or so. It's a lesson so worth repeating every day. And yes, C.G., this one's for K.

Patience and the illusion called time

"There is time for everything."

-- Thomas Edison

"There is absolutely no reason for being rushed along with the rush. Everybody should be free to go slow."

-- Robert Frost

"There are hundreds of tasks we feel we must accomplish in the day, but if we do not take them one at a time and let them pass through the day slowly and evenly, as do the grains of sand passing through the narrow neck of the hourglass, then we are bound to break our own physical and mental structure."

-- Ted Bergernine

Have you ever visited a Thomas Edison home/museum, either the one in New Jersey or Florida? When you visit one of these places and walk around the grounds - taking in the gardens, the laboratories, the libraries, the inventions - the most powerful feeling you are left with is "How did he do it all?". How did this man pack more than a dozen lifetimes into just one? Where did he find the time to accomplish all that he did? And at the same time live a peaceful life filled with family, friends, and lots of quality leisure time? Well, the truth is that Thomas Edison understood and mastered both Ted's distinction about "physical and mental structures," as well as Frost's about feeling "free to go slow," and he gave himself completely, yet calmly, to every single task - one at a time - whether it was his endless experiments, his homes, his gardening, his inventions, his love of conversation with family and friends, his reading, and there was more than enough time for all of it. What an amazing role model for effective, efficient "time management" through the subtle art of "being present" to each moment.

I especially love his famous line that goes, "Don't tell me I've failed; I've just found 10,000 ways that don't work." With that, I can always remember, especially in the midst of my own hardship and turmoil over my own failings, that I haven't failed; I'm just sorting through all those things that don't work on my way to great discovery. So, this morning as I was sitting here praying, "God, please help me regain my sense of calm and peacefulness as we enter the home stretch before our new baby comes.", I flipped the page of one of my desk calendars, and these words appeared to further reinforce today's theme:

"How are we to be patient with our partner's, our children's, our friends', and our neighbors' faults if we are impatient in dealing with our own? They who are fretted by their own failings will not correct them. All profitable correction comes from a calm and peaceful mind."

-- St. Francis de Sales

Celebrating an "unleashed" life

“The world uses common sense and reasonableness and ridicule to frighten us - to stop us from pursuing the ends that love dictates so that we may be intimidated into following the alternatives that the world has developed: war, hatred, bigotry, greed, lust. Our faith in God brings us the knowledge that as we live to bring God’s love back to the world, if the world ridicules us or knocks us down, it doesn't really matter. Love isn't tamable. Love isn't always polite. Love is rarely reasonable. As I have always said: ‘There's a certain WILDNESS in God’s mercy!’.”


-- Rev. James Crawford

Every once in a while, I will use a quote in someone's Life Plan that I will really relate to personally. This was one of those times. Thanks for that rich experience, L.D.