Self Actualized Presence

“Bless my Dad in whatever he does.”

-      A friend’s son

Self Actualized Presence

One of my friends is an exceptional entrepreneur.  He’s still young, but he was very young when he sold his first company.  Since he was young and had a family, he had a young family and was in the perfect situation.  He had lots of money and lots of time to spend with his family!

He had plenty of time because after he sold his company he no longer needed to work for money to provide for his family.  Since he didn’t need to go out to interact with other people every day; he became casual in many aspects of his life.  He dressed in a sloppy manner and began to grow an un-kept beard.  My friend lived in this new pattern day after day until something happened to teach him an important lesson.  He is a religious man and was having a prayer with his family one morning when his son, praying carefully for God to bless each member of his family, said:

“Bless my sister so she can do well on her math test.  Bless my brother so he can win his basketball game.  Bless my Dad in whatever he does.”

Those spoken words, “whatever he does,” helped my friend see that in the eyes of his children he no longer did anything they could comprehend; in the view of his children, he was doing nothing.

“They didn’t understand what I did with my days.” He told me.  “They were going out each day to face their futures.  They went to school, they competed in sports, and they took lessons.  They were initiating action each day in the present while simultaneously facing their future and looking to the past.  The change in my life was so incongruous with our past together that they were worried about me.  They couldn’t understand what I was doing!  The truth is that I didn’t understand what I was doing either.”

My friend’s son had taught him “The Principle of Combining Belief and Action” without knowing it.  But, my friend knew it, that’s how he built a successful company.  So he changed from a person who was simply being acted upon back to a person who acted.  It’s what separates intelligent beings from all other forms in the universe.  In fact, we learn and grow most effectively by exercising our will with belief.  Both learning and growth require mental and physical exertion, not just passive reception or entertainment. 

The learning and growth I’m describing reaches far beyond simple cognitive comprehension and mere gathering of facts or the recall of information.  The type of learning and growth I’m referring to allows a person to leave a common life behind.  It sets the ordinary aside by converting ones action, past and future into one self actualized presence.

My friend took this principle to heart again.  He set inaction aside and has developed a new company.  He has surrounded himself with others who are acting in common belief, that they can take their technology and combine it with needed change to create products and services that will change millions of other lives. 

Perhaps most importantly he has changed his own life and is again living in a pattern that his kids, and all of us, can understand, follow and embrace.