Monday, March 25, 2024

Fueling Connection

“They asked me where I was and told me to get going, to come and join them.” - Griffin Rosenbaum

Fueling Connection

Griffin asked to meet at Beach BBQ for a dinner meeting. I know what you’re thinking, “What a life! Dinner on the beach!” But, this little joint isn’t anywhere near a beach. We met there anyway and told me of his recent journey.

 “They asked me where I was and told me to get going, to come and join them,” he said, while speaking of his current experience with “Fuel Accelerator.”

Fuel is a 12-week business accelerator, by Startup Junkie, that selects and matches seed & growth-stage technology companies with vital, community mentors. It is an in-person program focusing on operational value training for young companies and the people who create them. Griffin and his company were selected to participate. It is an authentic opportunity to learn about powerful connection. 

Such opportunity often challenges its recipients in unanticipated ways.

“Right after the opening reception I got a message that caused me to rush back home,” as Griffin explained that he arrived home to hard personal news.

“I have to tell you, I was really feeling down and started to feel sorry for myself,” he continued by saying that the call from collogues at Fuel turned his emotions around almost instantly and he spent the few-hours drive back to the group, thinking about its effect on him.

“I’ve been amazed at how generous these people have been to me. They’ve given me a growing understanding of the power of connection and how it is allowing me to become the best version of myself,” Griffin expressed, just before he was kind enough to share more of what he’s recently learned.

He found that as soon as he focused on gratitude, after that pivotal call, his emotions became centered again and he was able to focus on his bright future once more. Now he spends specific time, every morning and night, reflecting on what he’s grateful for. He’s also begun other quotidian practices as well.

His second diurnal exercise is patterned after that same seminal call. He takes the time to reach out to others, just to check in with them. Sometimes it’s through a voice call, other times he sends a text or a message through LinkedIn.

“I just call to make sure others know I’m thinking of them and to see if I can do something to help them. I love that it makes both of us feel connected and important to each other.”

Griffin is also spending more time outside. He makes sure to take time to do something simple, like take a walk, so he can feel more connected to his surroundings. He’s found that doing so recharges his personal reservoir which supports growth of additional connections.

“It’s about connection for me now,” Griffin said, before he fueled our connection, by giving me a hug.

Be sure to watch the latest episode of my show on American Dream TV:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1O6csyUhByBzo_Z50rJcY9w0uAonVelgE/view?usp=sharing

Monday, March 18, 2024

Ice Cream Added

"Everything important is uncertain." – Eliot Peper

Ice Cream Added

The sun was long up. The gym had been open for three hours already. People who are commonly working out at earlier times were long gone. In fact, there was no one there as I walked in. The machines were quiet, unused. It felt eerie and lonely; a feeling that was not to last.

One grandmother walked in. Soon followed by three friends, all dressed in colorful outfits, that would make a chameleon struggle to morph. This color was just part of the gym’s shifted vibe. Perhaps the most notable change was that quiet was immediately banished. 

Such sound was an assault to gym rules. Their chatter was just fine. The rule breaker was the music which was not imprisoned by earbuds. Yet, it was a delightful contrast to the earlier loneliness.  It soon became entertainment.

“My mother is still living alone in her own home,” one of the dancing, bending and talking women said.

And, her astonishing mother, ninety-three-years old, is still breaking rules. 

Not surprisingly, I laughingly thought, “her rule-breaking-daughter had grown from an acorn not far from the tree!”

“I went to visit my mother the other day to check on her,” She continued, after pausing between dance moves and puffing out the words.

As soon as this visiting, dutiful daughter joined her mother in the kitchen, she was delighted to see her mother drinking a healthy smoothie. It was something she had never witnesses before. This unexpected behavior caused the daughter to marvel, because of the ear-to-ear smile spanning her mom’s face; a seeming, invitation to taste.

“This is really good!”

It was so good; the daughter asked her mother what was in it. Mom then revealed her secret to a delicious smoothie.

“Ice cream added! It makes all the difference!”

The exercising ladies chortled about ice cream added. I have to admit that I chuckled quietly to myself, after all I didn’t want these grandmother-fellow-rule-breaking, gym-mates to know of my eavesdropping! I didn’t want the entertainment to end. I loved hearing about grandmother experimentation; that its independent of age and social standing.

It reminded me of what my friend, author and entrepreneur Eliot Peper said about taking risks:

"If you know something's going to work, it's not worth working on. It requires no courage. It requires no faith. It requires no skin in the game. Whether you're a spy or a teacher or a spouse or a painter or an abuela or an astronaut or a monk or a barista or a board-game designer, the bits that matter are the bits you make matter by putting yourself on the line for them. The unknown is the foundry where you forge your chips. Everything important is uncertain. Sitting with the discomfort of that uncertainty is the hard part, the wedge that can move the world."

And, sometimes ice cream needs to be added!

Watch my latest American Dream TV Segment

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fQmn4Fhlr7ftMqEjb64VFw1eCCK-YAZx/view?usp=drive_link

Monday, March 11, 2024

Mending Invisibility

“I thought I was invisible to everyone.” - Daniel Madewell

Mending Invisibility

Daniel reacted as I extended my hand and twisted around & behind some other friends in an effort to shake his hand. Our little group of friends was beginning to scatter to the wind, like evening stardust flittering through a door toward home. We had spent the evening together, sharing food and socializing. Now, it was time to end our camaraderie and retire for the night.

“Good to see you,” I said as I shook Daniel’s hand, which seemingly acted as a lever to spark his smile.

“I thought I was invisible to everyone,” my friend Daniel Madewell said, as his eyes ignited.

“I thought I was invisible,” I said to myself, while turning to leave. Mystification accompanied my leave, suddenly entering my consciousness, dominating all tracks of my thinking. And, I was instantly, contemporaneously walking in the main concourse of Grand Central Terminal, where I witnessed its myriad of destination-tracks merge into one single super-track; a spellbound train of thought, centered on individual invisibility.

Perhaps the reason Daniel’s statement captivated me so, was that we were both surrounded by a gaggle of friends in common moment. You and I have long known that a feeling of invisibility can happen to a person, even when surrounded by other people. But, the revelation that a person can be subjected to such feelings of loneliness, while socializing with and in the company of friends seems to be a defining antithesis. A contrast for which I, for one, am incapable of comprehending.

But every one of us can grasp the powerful significance of proffered invisible mending acts. Which revealed effect is a gratified smile as genuinely offered by its recipient, personified as Daniel. Such an offering is generally viewed as small and insignificant. Yet, its affect yields an effect of incomparable significance, which is only fully realized by its recipient and it can change lives instantly. This change can be produced visibly or even invisibly.

This past week was also Rich Reuling’s fiftieth wedding anniversary as well as his birthday. And, while it was not my birthday or anniversary, it was a very busy day. It was a day so busy that I almost didn’t assume a moment to telephone Rich, to offer him heartfelt birthday and anniversary well-wishes. Yet, Daniel’s smile was still etched in my heart, so I took a moment and called Rich.

This call was not a video call, yet I could hear and feel Rich’s beaming smile as he said, “Thanks so much for thinking of me!” Then he went on to excitedly tell me of his plans to take a special road trip during the coming week with his bride of five decades. I didn’t see him on the call, but I can promise you, even though we were more than eighteen-hundred-miles apart, Rich did not feel invisible!

How will you mend someone’s invisibility today?

Watch my latest American Dream TV Segment

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fQmn4Fhlr7ftMqEjb64VFw1eCCK-YAZx/view?usp=drive_link

Monday, March 4, 2024

Jeremiah's Path of Possibility


“Those guys showed me a path toward a much larger life and they walked that trail with me until I became more than I dreamed possible.” – Jeremiah Johnson

Jeremiah’s Path of Possibility

I’ll never forget the morning I met the large, well-built, at ease with himself, Jeremiah Johnson.  It was a cool, crisp, not too cold morning when we met at the glass doors of a small office building, at nearly the same time. I tugged on the door. It was locked.

“You must be Lynn,” Jeremiah said in an open, gregarious manner.

The friend who had invited us hadn’t arrived yet. So, we stood there talking, getting to know each other, as we waited for his arrival.

Our initial meeting went so well that, toward the end of our friend-led agenda, Jeremiah invited me to come with him for short drive, skirting the edge of the Ozark Plateau until we reached a beautiful, hardwood covered, lake side retreat about a half hour into the time-forgotten Ozark Mountains. Where his generationally stewarded homestead, with flourishing strawberries, apple trees and native blackberries thrive.

“I thought this was the whole world when I was a child,” he explained as we walked the ground where his grandparents had taught him about their centuries-perpetuated lifestyle. “Then I got a scholarship to a college of arts in Denver. That was a mind-boggling experience for me!”

It was unimaginable, because the sights, sounds and people were otherworldly for a young man from a very different place. And, while he succeeded in school, the tug of his home continued to grasp his heart until he graduated and came back home. But home wasn’t the same for him, because he had changed. He had acquired a taste for views of a broader world.

“I decided to move to the gulf shores on the beach in Texas,” he recounted. “It was a new, magical place and I loved it and its people; who wrapped me in their arms and made me one of them.”

That’s where a group of police officers befriended him, changing his view of what possible was.

“Those guys showed me a path toward a much larger life and they walked that trail with me until I became more than I dreamed possible,” Jeremiah explained. “I became a police officer, a part of a larger fraternity.”

Even though he is retired from law enforcement, he hasn’t withdrawn from public service nor his connection to his family’s stewarded farmstead. He came back to his beginning place, not long ago, to care for his aging parents, as well as to walk the path of unimaginable possibilities with special needs children as their teacher and mentor.

After all, Jeremiah has walked an inspiring path of unimagined possibilities with giving personal guides his entire life.

“I tell my students and family that we’re stewards of life. We walk together with others, who have experience on paths we haven’t yet discovered, right up to the time we become giving-trail-guides ourselves.”

Watch my latest American Dream TV Segment

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fQmn4Fhlr7ftMqEjb64VFw1eCCK-YAZx/view?usp=drive_link

Monday, February 26, 2024

Quieting Waves

“If you don’t become the ocean you’ll be seasick every day.” – Leonard Cohen

Quieting Waves

He, Isaiah Cowherd, had been watching his friend from a distance for quite some time. He’d sensed a change in her, but couldn’t put his finger on what that change was. Then, one day he thought he saw her, one gas-pump aisle away.

He felt awkward for sure, so he found himself shifting his gaze. Soon, his fluctuating look became an almost constant stare. So, he reprimanded himself.

“I’m being creepy!” 

That’s when the woman he was staring at waved at him. She had recognized him and he felt relieved, as he walked over to say hello and apologize for staring.

“I wasn’t sure it was you,” he started.

He looked into her eyes earnestly as he spoke, so she’d know he was speaking from his heart. And, that’s when he recognized the difference in her! She had lost her smile.

“You’ve lost your smile,” he said. “Is everything alright?”

A wispy emotion flittered across her face as she replied.

“I’ll be okay,” she said unconvincingly, as if a shallow response would disguise the tsunami surely lurking below that artificially surfaced affirmation.

He knew there was something much bigger, too much to be held, in the small vessel to which she had assigned it. So, over the coming days and weeks he stood as if in a ship’s crow’s nest, on watch. 

A crow's nest is a structure in the upper part of the main mast of a ship, used as a lookout. Its position ensures the widest field of view, for lookouts, to spot approaching hazards. Using this metaphorical approach, Isaiah could continue to watch over his friend from a distance. Then, he watched, pondered and hoped to discover a way to help his friend find personal confidence and happiness again.

As he implemented this oceanic-based strategy, he remembered a particularly poignant line from Leonard Cohen’s poem, “Good Advice From Someone Like Me.” 

“If you don’t become the ocean you’ll be seasick every day.” 

This one line of inspiration, from Leonard Cohen’s artistic prose, allowed him to identify and chart a course he knew would lead him toward effectively helping his friend. 

Isaiah’s personal take on this mind-expanding stanza?

“If you expand and become a large enough container, the little ripples that are so easy to complain about, that affect you, won’t bother you anymore,”

From that point on, he worked to put himself in his friend’s shoes. He did the mental and emotional work to begin to see the world, as if through her eyes. To see his friend’s challenges and absorb them. Later, he would say that this practice turned out to be a “personal exercise of expansion,” increasing the size of his own ocean, until it was large enough to soften the waves decomposing the periphery of a good friend’s self-assurance. 

“Because,” he explained, “If I focus on my troubles alone, I’m living alone. But, if I’m helping with hers, we’re succeeding together.”

Watch my latest American Dream TV Segment

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fQmn4Fhlr7ftMqEjb64VFw1eCCK-YAZx/view?usp=drive_link

Monday, February 19, 2024

Average of the Five

"I'm a firm believer that you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with, so I surrounded myself with people who are goal-oriented, who are always doing more." – Archie Swensen

Average of The Five

My daughter Annie and her husband Hector were visiting us for the Christmas and New Year’s holiday. They had driven from their home in Columbus, Ohio. It’s a long drive and they were tired when they arrived.

“We saw a fox down the street,” They said excitedly. “It was just lying, relaxing, on the grass, on the front lawn in one of your neighbor’s yards.”

Now, I had never seen such a thing in my own neighborhood. So, I was skeptical to say the least. Okay, I was more than skeptical. I thought they were suffering from the results of a long trip.

“They’re just tired,” I thought to myself. “It’s more likely a dog they mistook for a fox. After all, our own Harry Pupper, the cute little devil, minus the tie, could be easily mistaken for a fox under the right circumstances.”


So, I brushed off their claim as “highly unlikely.”

Now, since the beginning of dead-on-winter, I’ve been proven to be foolish for such a ridiculous assumption. Because, the same Annie and Hector announced fox has indeed become a recognized citizen of our neighborhood. I see him participating in neighborhood life often.

I saw him lounging on a neighbor’s front grass just the other day. He was soaking in the sun, looking very comfortable indeed. A couple of days later I saw him watching a group of teenagers play basketball together. The fox enjoyed the game, while relaxing on the grass, courtside. I even saw him walking down the middle of the road, aside a neighbor’s slowly-paced car, communing together in a friendly, neighborly way.

That fox is our neighbor! He seems to have settled in and has been accepted as a resident of spectacle and beauty. And, like all neighbors, I’m sure he has his detractors. Never-the-less, he is comfortable in the neighborhood and seems to be living, well, a rather un-foxlike life.

I’ve been noodling this seemingly un-foxlike-neighbor for a while now and made, perhaps, an interesting observation, based on a comment from recent summiteer of Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, East Africa, after an eight-day climbing journey, Archie Swensen.

"I'm a firm believer that you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with, so I surrounded myself with people who are goal-oriented, who are always doing more."

Has neighborhood fox become the average of the five neighbors he spends his time with? A relaxed yard lounger. A lover of friendly basketball play. A chatter with neighbors on the street. I can’t wait to discover his other two favored pursuits.

Makes me wonder who I’m becoming as a result of my own surrounding five.

Sorry for doubting you Annie and Hector!

Monday, February 12, 2024

Enduring Hard Things

“We all endure hard things.” – Steve Nolte

Enduring Hard Things

“We all endure hard things,” Steve said as he looked earnestly across the table. “It means you’re heading toward something better.” 

Steve calls this process of enduring hard things, “Purposeful Sacrifice.”

“There is purpose in sacrifice,” Steve explains. “It is a refinement process.”

It’s likely that no one understanding the refining process better than Steve Nolte.

Steve is an imaginative knife maker who is driven by an incredible passion for self-expression through his work. His creations are often noted for their unique style, elegance, and technique. As a result, his pieces often sell for thousands of dollars. He has developed a beautiful style that blends steel, stone, bone and wood into one-of-a-kind creations. His use of vibrant colors and strong lines make his work stand out among other knife makers, due to his innovative handle designs. He spends hours and hours refining the steel that he’s molding to become a knife blade under his editing, skilled eye.

Yet, the interesting thing about Steve, as an artist, is that his experience in life has been the gateway to his impressive refinement skills. He applies those honed skills beyond his art of knife crafting, because he first developed such skills to build his own character.

“We endure hard things; accidents, illness, all kinds of suffering. The key to maintaining happiness through it all is to recognize hard things as a refinement process,” Steve clarifies.

When we adopt this point of view, when this happens, we have the internal strength, steel, to continue on. Once a person knows that all crushing suffering or darkness endured is part of a birthing process, they begin to understand refinement. It’s all part of a natural process of becoming better, something more than we otherwise would be.

Steve is an all or nothing guy, so his passion for knife making puts him in his shop anytime he can get there. And, after a year or so of working entirely on his own he met RW Wilson, an old-time, more experienced knife maker. Steve credits RW with really teaching him about the most powerful aspects of the refinement process, related to knife making. 

“RW has been my mentor and has helped me more than I can thank him for. I also have had opportunities to work with other knife makers that have had a great impact on me. Brad Vice from Alabama Damascus continues to give me pointers and furnishes me with steel.”

These craftsmen, and his own life experience, have taught Steve that irritation often precedes instruction. And, it was this recognition that resonated with Steve as he developed his master skills as a knife maker.

“It’s true for crafting steel and it is also true for crafting individual character.” Steve instils.

Enduring hard things will allow us to become something of beauty and strength if we’ll allow it to. It is one of the most powerful aspects of refining character.

“We all endure hard things,” Steve teaches, as a master craftsman of knives and life. “It means you’re heading toward something better.”


Watch the latest segment of my television show on American Dream TV.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1pxSGTePKXi1QKkw1IRVrIcFJqKVpEfky?usp=drive_link