“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

"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

“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

“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