Life Unmoving?

“If one can learn from criticism and use it as a path toward success, life’s schooling becomes more pleasant.”

Life Unmoving?

I was tossing and turning seemingly, all night.  Forever!  After forever, the morning’s glowing-light acted as a cue for me to climb out of my bed, even though the increasing light felt like sandpaper raking my eyes.  When I should have been sleeping, I’d been reflecting on a criticism from the evening before.  And, in the dawn, I felt compelled to craft a message, right now!  So, my fingers felt their way across the glass-like keyboard, after walking toward my bedroom chair, crawling at first. Moments after beginning, my digits picked up speed, trying their best to travel at the speed of thought.

“One if the greatest challenges I have in my business is to change, personally.”  I wrote.  “My business coach tells me that if I blame ‘the market’ for a slowness of business, I should look around and see if there are others who are doing well. Are they writing contracts?  If they are, then it’s up to me to adjust myself so I can get the desired results.”

Of course, business wasn’t the real question at hand.  But, I was seeking common ground, a passageway to reach deeper into the personal realm.  I needed to channel my inner teacher.  I was trying to be like my friend Steve Maranville, who says, “I’m a teacher in search of a class room.”

Today, I had unwittingly received a classroom.  So, I felt an obligation, a personal responsibility to teach.  And, when I masquerade as a teacher, I take the charge seriously.  So, I continued tapping on the glass.

Now I was at the hard part, offering personal advice!  I wanted to be sure to get this right!

“So, perhaps you could shift your thinking from a perception of being ‘yelled at,’ to one of accepting the feedback, so you can correct your path and move quickly toward success.  After all, we all learn as we go.”

I struggled here, as I am still a work in process when it comes to maintaining an enabling attitude.  Here goes!

“Attitude is the great differentiator. If one can learn from criticism and use it as a path toward success, life’s schooling becomes more pleasant. This is a life-time skill that will pay huge dividends and will separate you from others, from those simply staying stagnant, because they aren’t listening to what others are offering them for personal growth. In this regard, I constantly have to ask myself, is this my ego talking?  Or, do I want to keep getting better and better?”

I’d been tossing and turning seemingly, all night.  Forever!  After forever, the morning’s glowing-light acted as a cue for me to climb out of my bed, even though the increasing light felt like sandpaper raking my eyes.  Now, I was no longer sleeping, I’d been reflecting on a conversation and battle within myself from the evening before to now.  And, in the dawn, I had crafted a message.  The one I needed to hear right now! 

My fingers had found their way across one of my glass-like keyboards, after walking toward my bedroom chair, crawling at first. Yet, moments after beginning, my digits picked up speed, trying their best to travel at the speed of thought.

Now I was finished internalizing what my teachers had offered me.  For the moment!

Life unmoving?  Never!  I want to keep getting better and better!  It’s the same choice for every one of us.

Hope this helps!

Remagine

“We’re getting ready to update our kitchen and it’s so much fun!” Lennika Wright

Remagine

Five of us were sitting at Good Wood in celebration.  We had many things to be grateful for, friendship, shelter, good jobs, and I could go on.  Our time together was going along pretty much, just as planned.  As our fête continued through food and conversation, my friends stimulated pattern of changed thinking.

“We’re getting ready to update our kitchen and it’s so much fun!”  Lennika said to our group.

“We got a new refrigerator and we’ll be getting new countertops soon!”  Tawny commented as a follow-on.

“We’ve been in our home for about a year and there are so many things we want to do.  But, there are so many decisions!”  Lennika continued.

I looked at the two younger couples at the table with me.   Just being with them seemed to channel unfound inspiration as I listened to their hopes and dreams.

“They’re revealing a list of missing treasures!”  I thought to myself.

Many of us have the tendency to go through such lists of unfound treasures as if not having obtained them yet leaves a large hole within.  And, that’s not what we were celebrating on this particular Friday evening.  We were really talking about the nature of Anticipatory Change.

Lennika, Tawny, John and Adam were writing a script of the evolutionary character of Anticipatory Change

“Sometimes I just sit and start at my kitchen, hoping to figure out what I want to do!”  Lennika disclosed.  “Sometimes I feel silly about it!”

“You know,” I said, “I recently updated the bunkroom in my house.  I’d been doing the same type of staring for twenty-two years!  I couldn’t quite see a solution for how to build new top-bunk access through the closet without losing hanging rod for clothes.  Then, one day, the solution hit me, as if, right in the face.  I could simply move the rod’s position ninety-degrees!  Not only would it solve a potential clash with new stairs, it would also increase the hanging space, in the closet, by about thirty percent! After I figured it out, it was like moment of, Duh!

One of the keys to living a life filled with successful Anticipatory Change is to grasp the centralistic nature of time in the process.  Once a person can marry passage of time with desired change, one can completely give up a feeling of loss, missing treasure, in favor of excitement. Or, the thrill of the chase.  I call it a feeling of “Remagine.”

Lennika Wright, Tawny Vanduzer, Adam Clayton, John Wright and were sitting at a dinner table in a complete state of Remagine.  We had many things to look forward to, friendship, shelter, good jobs, and reimaging our lives. I could go on.  Our time together was going along pretty much, just as planned.  As our fête continued through conversation, my friends stimulated changed thinking that allowed all of us to cherish a new found feeling of Remagine!

Could living a life focused on anticipatory change give you a feeling of Remagine?

Living Outside a Post Card

“I walked out the back door to see my husband sitting on the porch bench asleep, with his boot in hand.  He was so tired that he had fallen asleep while putting his boots on.” – Nancy Long

Living Outside a Post Card

I could feel the slight vibration of my car’s steering wheel in my hand as I drove west on Utah Highway 199 though Rush Valley.  It was approaching dusk and the light was perfect!  I think it’s what a photographer would call the golden hour.  Farmsteads were on my left and right.  The Stansbury Mountains and Johnson Pass, also known as Fisher Pass, were straight ahead.  It looked just like a post card!

The pass I was about to enter is named for Carl Fisher, who grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana.  Carl quit school when he was twelve years old!  His first job, out of school, was in a grocery store.  That’s when he discovered he was an entrepreneur.  After a few short years in the grocery business, he opened a bicycle shop and then a car dealership.  In 1904, he began the Prest-O-Light company and by 1913 he sold Prest-O-Light for Nine Million Dollars.  While owning Prest-O-Light he imagined the idea of building an automobile testing ground and race track.  And, in Augusts of 1909, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway held its first race.  But, accidents and the deaths of six people, in this first race, caused the race to be cancelled.  The crushed stone and tar track pavement was determined to be too dangerous for racing.  And undaunted, Mr. Fisher paved the track with 3.2 million bricks, so the first five-hundred-mile race, called the International Sweepstakes, took place on the thirtieth of May, 1911, thereafter.  This annual event has been known as the Indianapolis 500 ever since.  But, it is his next venture, the building of the first transcontinental highway, the Lincoln Highway, I was thinking about on my drive through and over Fisher Pass.  While the beautiful drive allowed me to marvel, I knew that life here was much more than the simple post card offered to me now.

Not too many months prior to this drive I was sitting with Nancy Long in her cozy ranch house near the mouth of Fisher Pass.  She was telling me stories and of how she had been tirelessly working to preserve another history of the area, its ranching history.

“I walked out the back door to see my husband sitting on the porch bench asleep, with his boot in hand.  He was so tired that he had fallen asleep while putting his boots on!”  Nancy said to me as she described how hard they had worked on their ranch in their younger years.

Her words, remembered by me now, seemed to create a direct connection between me, Carl Fisher and the ranchers who had literally paved the road, I was currently enjoying, with their blood, sweat, tears and dreams.

“They all lived life outside of this post card!”  I said out loud to them and the canyon, as I started down the west side of the pass, toward Terra, though I was the only one who could hear the verbalized sentiment, as I drove forward.

I could feel the slight vibration of our history as I continued west down Utah Highway 199.  It was approaching dusk and the light was perfect!  I think it’s what a photographer would call golden light.  The Farmsteads were now behind me.  The Stansbury Mountains and Johnson Pass, also known as Fisher Pass, were about to be in my rearview mirror as well.  It had all looked just like a post card!

Yet, I knew that life here offered much more than the attractive photograph just presented to me.  This very land embodies priceless, individual hopes and dreams, toil and triumph, and even defeat.

You see, Carl Fisher was completely bankrupt by 1932.  Caused, as one of his greatest business ventures, the development of Miami Beach, was defeated by nature itself.  And, this tireless and resourceful businessman died seven years later.  I reverenced him, through memory, as I crested his namesake mountain pass, and the fading rays of the sun illuminated my way and mind, while delivering an important message.

Living life outside, beyond, a post card view allows a person to understand the true majesty of life through shared experience.  When you and I take the time to build deep relationships with others so we can share their individual stories, triumphs and challenges, our lives will never be bankrupt!