“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.
