small

Sometimes being a hero to the smallest person is better than being a hero to a thousand "big" people.

MQ

Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.
Helen Keller

Life is not easy. There are times you can lose track of the bigger picture: who you are, what you stand for, what you believe in. When the earth shifts, it's easy to lose your balance. We all have moments like these, moments where we feel a bit foreign, even to ourselves. In such times it's often critical to have a good friend or family member who will not judge, but merely remind you of the value you bring to this world, of the unique something that you add to it.

It often troubles me to think that there are people out there who do not have this social fabric to keep their hearts warm when it gets cold outside. Because regardless of whether or not they have this recognition, it does not change the fact that we all add that little something extra to the world. Recognized or not, the beacon of humanity still loses something when one of it's lights grows dim, or falls out.

MQ, you called me to tell me you were considering suicide. I know only a small part of how difficult things have been for you, I see a great deal more in your face. I hope you feel better after chatting today. And however unlikely, I hope that, some day, you stumble upon this tiny, unknown blog post of mine. I hope you see what a difference you have made in just one person's life. If nothing else, I want you to know how my life might turn out without you in it, if I tried to do what you do. Just consider ten small things...

1. I would not be witness to the incredible pride of workmanship you demonstrate every day.
2. I would have no idea what's it's like to have more brothers than the population of China.
   
3. I would smash more innocent fingers under the face of my hammer.
4. I would curse at more things I don't understand how to fix, but try to anyway.
5. I would scare off considerably more children with the kind of frustrated expressions that comes from me breaking the very things I am trying to repair.
6. I would have no one to steal interior design ideas from.
   
7. I would have no one to translate what an increasing number of these applicants are try to say to me.
   
8. I would do all the work myself and have less time to spend with close family and friends.
9. I would be so busy doing what I don't enjoy, I might miss out discovering what I really do.
10. I would have no one who appreciates the value of Boston Market after a long day on the job.

There are countless things you do, that I and countless others, will never comprehend. Skills and abilities that are a mystery to everyone but you. They are your gift. You can keep your gift to yourself or share it with the world. Your choice. I hope some day you understand this. If you can have this great an impact on someone at your lowest point, how great an impact can you have on this world at your best?

Just find it, friend.

irony 1

There's something terribly ironic about calling the phone company and getting a busy signal.

Reframe

Two things,

1. The impossible is often seductive.
2. We cannot be great at everything.

In life, each of us encounter difficult circumstances that we let become monsters within our mind. They start small and grow big. They are often the result of our ego or pride getting in the way of our reality. We know we cannot be great at everything, yet we push on ahead anyway.

On the other hand, there is something terribly seductive about tackling the impossible. It is not enough to be simply difficult. The impossible is something different. It tests our limits. It pushes us beyond our comfort zone. In hindsight we often see that the process of tackling the impossible was the true reward.

How do we resolve this?

The answer, of course, is simple. Steven Covey calls it thinking win-win. Others simply say, give enough other people what they want and you can have anything you want.

The reality is that some things other people can do much better than I. If that's the case, perhaps my very difficult thing is difficult for other people too. Perhaps this a very good thing. For in difficult, lies opportunity. So perhaps this very difficult thing could make another person very successful in his/her own right - if he/she could solve the need. Perhaps that is worth my time to pursue. Because, perhaps, by first helping someone else, I am also free myself up to do other things I am good at, better, and more often.

This is more than just between me and you. Our perspectives define our reality. Now, more than ever, we live in a world increasingly connected. There is no better time to collaborate with others to solve local and global issues. In this age, I believe we need to encourage greater creativity in our choices. We need more and better solutions to challenges that arise. We need not take the easy path and fall back on defaults.

In challenge... in difficulty... in the impossible... lie infinite opportunities.

Question. Reframe. Resolve.

The Mind of Clear Light

I just finished reading The Art of Happiness. The Art is a book detailing a Western psychiatrist's interviews and meetings with the Dalai Lama, with the intent of presenting principles of Buddhism and the Dalai Lama's perspective in a format understandable to the Western reader. The book discusses unique perspectives on education, intelligence, anger, and purpose. It is a terrific read.

One of the more fascinating Buddhist concepts discussed in this book is that of the mind of clear light. As quoted from the Dalai Lama himself,

The essential nature of mind is pure. It is based on the belief that the underlying basic subtle consciousness is untainted by negative emotions. It's nature is pure. A state that is referred to as the mind of clear light. That nature of mind is also known as buddha nature. So since negative emotions is not an intrinsic part of buddha nature it is possible to eliminate them and purify the mind.

I believe the Buddhist concepts of inherent mental purity can be both refreshing and enlightening (no pun intended). It has caused me to reflect a great deal upon our Western psychological/medical tradition, the media's inundation of our lives with negative imagery, and the broader concepts of punishment, personal development, and workplace/social order.

Fundamentally the book's philosophy does not negate the importance of ensuring basic mental and physical health. This much is given. The difference is upon the singular focus of our Western psychology tradition, of a diagnostic vocabulary and therapeutic analysis centered upon that which we do not want - the illness, the disorder, the affliction. Psychology and medicine are often focused on this fixing of illness, diagnosis of mental disorder, and returning of the individual to a predefined state of sanity. And then what? Clearly, there is value in understanding one's weaknesses. This can be a necessary first step. But, to spend an entirety of a life focused on the resolution of inherent weaknesses?

We need a new vocabulary.

I believe that which we focus upon expands. I believe thought, as predecessor to action, defines our life. As such, consciousness of thought, awareness of the fundamental connection between mind and reality, is fundamental to a life uncompromised. I believe it is a sad irony of our society when an element of this consciousness, the ability to understand the impact of thought upon action, must be introduced to Western pop-culture through a movie/book called The Secret. Right or wrong, how is conscious direction of our thought such a secret in the first place?

The vast majority of people in this world are not broken. We are not inherently flawed. In fact, perhaps the problem is not the individual at all, but the very paradigms we use in Western culture to define ourselves. What if the focus of our workplace/diagnosis/media on what is wrong or missing in our skills/mind/society/world is the true thief of our finest human potential?

The ultimate creative capacity of the brain may be, for all practical purposes, infinite.
-George Leonard

Unchallengeable

"The power of thought is the only thing over which you have complete unchallenged and unchallengeable control. Controlled by the power of will. In giving human being control over but one thing, the Creator must have chosen the most important of all things."

Napoleon Hill

Remember

Time

mediocrity

Mediocrity sucks. Yet sometimes it just creeps in on you. Between broad goals/dreams and present reality lies a grey area where our true potential is often lost. We sacrifice battles here because they seems so trivial. Forgetting that so many big victories were built on the back of many smaller battles.

I do not want to live a life unclaimed.
Regret is the harshest reward.

Harmony

Call it genetic
but I love Celtic music.

This weekend caught a glimpse of a young sister quartet called Give Way. You don't have to be a fan of the fiddle to appreciate these amazing sisters. They're simply awe-inspiring.

Discovering new music is like learning a new language.
It may seem foreign at first, but once you get down to it
You wonder how you went with out it so long.

Check out their music when you get a chance.

You won't be disappointed.

mission

A recent Tesla Motors - Hyatt Hotels partnership really irks me.

Tesla maybe chasing high-market now,
but it's ultimatum is mass change.

The lack of electric car charging infrastructure is a lie built an anti-consumer model of what a "refueling station" needs to be. We already know most gas stations stay alive by gouging us on Slim Jims, not Ultra 94.

So rather than putting in three custom-fab Tesla charging stations in a global network of 753 Hyatt hotels... why not consider how to make just 1% of the 120,000,000 homes in America the new "gas station mini-merchants?"

How hard is it to run a publicly-acessible electric outlet to your mailbox? Toss in a gov subsidized RFID payment system. Kick back 1% to the homeowner. Imagine.

Given Tesla's high-profile financiers (PayPal co-founder Elon Musk, Google co-founders Brin and Page, and former eBay Pres Jeff Skoll) I find it hard to believe the democratization of electric car charging has not already come up.

C'mon guys, the missing link, the recharging network is already here.

If you can't charge 4 wheels off the same 240V uberplug that sucks 75lbs of water out of my laundry in 60 minutes then perhaps you're in the wrong business sector.

It's not about brand synergy.
It's about brand mission.

naked

everyone in the world should ride a motorcycle
just once
or more

a motorcycle has something a car can never
a feeling of perpetual risk
of complete exposure.

no steel frames
no windshield
no safety belt

just you
and speed
naked

SyncD

I want a phone that is not a phone.

I want access to all people I meet
places I'm going
things I'm doing
with me at all times.

I do not want to "sync-up."
I do not want to "dial-up."
I do not want to worry about
whether the appointment I set on my phone
makes it over to my computer
properly.

The year is 2007.
We've had calendars for nearly 3000 years.
We've had PDAs for well over a decade.
How many more decades must go by
before technology catches up with our lives?

Defaultment

Life is a series of magnificent dichotomies. Ignore them and we risk missing out of the some best-kept lessons of our own experiences.

We need a healthier appreciation for the overcoming of great challenges. Life's too precious a journey to live it giving in. Dare not default. Such experiences, cloaked behind grit teeth and frustration are the true bishops of our finest hours.

The path not taken is opportunity in the making.

In the greatest of challenge. Lies the greatest of growth.

retail

In a world of Amazon.com, the entire concept of retail confuses me:

• Pay More.
• Work Harder.
• Take Longer.

How is that I spend as much time waiting at a checkout line as I do getting on an airplane? If TSA can search my entire body, bags, and 2 weeks worth of clothing in under 5 minutes, why can't my local grocery store check me out in less than 10?

We're talking turkeys versus explosive powder here.

Was there ever a time when this made sense?

1. Push a wheeled basket through dozens of aisles largely irrelevant to what you came to purchase.
2. Move items from shelf to basket. The more you buy, the harder it gets.
   
3. Get in line. The more you buy, the longer you wait to pay.
4. Let me reiterate that: buy more, wait more.
   
5. Pull everything out again.
   
6. Have every item scanned in front of 1/2 dozen other people.
   
7. Pick a product the store forgot to label.
   
8. Have your life announced over a loudspeaker.
   
9. Wait longer.
   
10. Place every bagged item back into your basket.
    
11. Push to car.
    
12. Take groceries out of carriage again.
    
13. Place into car.
    
14. Drive home.
    
15. Take out of car.
16. Carry inside.
17. Take out of bags.
    
18. Place back into shelves... just like the ones you pulled the products off of at the store.
    

Hmm...

Lens

My favorite pair on shades are the polarized kind. Driving to work the blue lens in the sunlight makes trees look green, the sky bluer, and everything much brighter and colorful than normal.

Plus I don't squint.

Pretty cool how all it takes to get a new view on the world is to change the lens you're looking through.

Evolution

Life is a series of moments. Some we forget in an instant. Some stick with us for a lifetime.

A month ago I witnessed a dying man living a life fuller than most of us could ever dream. This weekend I saw the body of a man in one place and the essence of his being everywhere else. They say that, "when the heart weeps for what it has lost, the spirit laughs for what it has found." The great spiritual leaders talk of a life somewhere else after death. What I saw this weekend tells me that immortality starts right here and now. To become an original worth copying. To begin in one form, to evolve into another; in stories, in memories, in laughter, in lessons taught for generations to come. To become part of the fabric of a collective unconscious. What man would ask more from life than this?

Albert Einstein once wrote,

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.

Like you said Uncle Frank, "there is only one way."

Mistakes

Got mistakes? Get more. A great reminder...

1. You will learn lessons.
2. There are no mistakes - only lessons.
3. A lesson is repeated until it is learned.
4. If you don't learn the easy lessons, they get harder.
5. You'll know you've learned a lesson when your actions change.

Failing Forward by John Maxwell

Happy Birthday Brother

Miss you.

Snow

There is nothing quite like the first snow of the year...

Even if Father Frost takes until January 19th to exhale.

2 roads

Two roads diverged, two approaches apart.

Education could learn a thing or two from religion.

In the process of educating people in a faith, religion infuses singing, ceremony, symbolism, ambiance, and candles. Structures to house this process call our eyes upwards with ceilings as high as mountains. Ten minutes of sermon and you're up and singing again. Sit down, then stand up again. Benches so hard no way you're dozing off. People sit together. Lights drop. Candlels flicker. Voices sing notes familiar. Echoing bells send people along their way into a cold, frosty New England night...

The last time I sang a song in a academia? Learning the alphabet. Candles in class? Negative, fire hazard. Ceilings? Keep'em low to maximize space. Walls? Try 30 year old pastel cement blocks. Stained-glass windows? Who needs windows at all? Lighting? How about we stick to eye-straining fluorescents to save a buck, ok?

Two questions...

1) How did we allow ourselves to build prisons for our children and cathedrals for our gods?

2) Since when has inspiration of our minds been any less vital than the exultation of our souls?

Centuries into the process of institutionalizing education and we're still believing that we can inspire youth with chalk and brick? Command and control?

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood...

Currency

What is the distinction between spending time thinking up ways to Save Money versus spending time thinking up ways to Build Wealth?

Consider this... time is of the highest currency. It has no exchange rate. No conversion. It moves forward only. We live it, we love it, or look back one day wondering if we lost it. Knowing this, what we spend our time thinking about is the highest form of currency exchange possible. It precedes all else.

Saving Money is the way many of us with Depression-era parents were brought up. It focuses on building budgets, reducing desires, investing for 3.125% returns. Dialogue centers around dollars. It's easy to forget how paper, cloth, and a bit of green dye are little more than someone else's creation, someone else's idea. A carrot on a stick is also an idea, an idea that provides the currency needed to keep race horses running in circles time and time again.

The problem, of course, is that money is just an idea. As such, Saving Money escapes the larger truth: if money is just an idea, then an idea is money. Think. How much time do you spend investing in your ideas versus someone else's? How many years would you spend chasing the carrot versus growing the circle?

Building Wealth goes much further than Saving Money. One is proactive, one is reactive. One individual, one universal. One runs in circles, one expands the circle itself.

What market are you in?