Born For More Than This....

I'm not sure where or how this message will find you, but I'm kinda hoping it will find you feeling a bit like a caterpillar - knowing somehow that you were born for something more than this, not feeling too comfortable in your skin, knowing only that this place at which you find yourself  is not the end of your story, not the end of your world. Feeling somehow that there is in you a butterfly yet to be released.... from the discomfort and darkness of your current cocoon.

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." So said Henry David Thoreau. I can't help but thinking that this could not be more true now, than in the 1850s when the words were first scripted. Today, amidst the noise of phenomenal business and economic success across the modern world, thousands of men and women lead lives of disguised desperation...lost in oblivion - wanting to make a difference, longing to chase their dreams, craving a new and different experience, but instead are chained to their fears, slaves to the expectations of others...locked in the cocoon of their own limiting beliefs...never becoming the butterfly they were born to be....never blessing the earth with their beauty and grace.

May I remind you that you were born for something more than this? This common existence, this emptiness. You were created to influence, inspire and impact. You were gifted to carry out work that only you can. You were empowered to do tasks that were hand-picked for you. How dare you, in the face of this knowledge, choose a life of abeyance, of neglect and indifference? How can you be content to simply get through each day instead of intentionally getting something from each day? Why have you not hitched yourself to a star? Why have you not found the right cause, availed yourself of the right technologies, got together with the right people? Why are you content, like the caterpillar, to walk the damp dark earth, when like the butterfly you can sit atop the blossoming trees and traverse the wide expanse of blue skies? Why?

I implore you, "let others lead small lives, but not you." Let others be content to live and die with "their music still in them". But you...I hope you dance, I hope you place your hand upon your chest and feel the throb of purpose....I hope you look yourself in the mirror and realize that you were born 'for such a time as this.' And I hope the caterpillar becomes a butterfly......and soars.

Learn Your way to the Top

Genius, so said Thomas Edison, is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration....and related to that, the contemporary version - success is twenty percent inspiration and eighty percent perspiration. The implication of all this is that only hard work guarantees us the results we desire. Now who am I to argue to time-proven principles? Who am I to attempt to discredit or discount words born of experience? I wouldn't be so foolish as to attempt to.

Nonetheless both time and experience have taught me that perspiration bears good fruit only as it is tempered with learning. Thomas Edison himself (hard as it is to believe) is said to have made ten thousand failed attempts to invent the light bulb before he eventually 'happened upon' the solution. No......in fact there was no serendipity about his discovery. At the end of it all he is said to have boldly declared "I have not failed, I have just found ten thousand ways that don't work." In other words, he learned his way to the top. Every failed attempt was a learning opportunity - an eye opener that took him closer to the eventual solution. Obviously he would have had to have been intentional about grasping the lessons in order to have advanced his chances of success.

Still, (and we may not see eye-to-eye on this) I believe the greatest growth opportunities come to us through direct learning. Jim Rohn (to date the biggest human influence upon my life) is known to have said..." life puts some of the more valuable things on the high shelf so that you can't get to them until you qualify. If you want the things on the high shelf, you must stand on the books you read. With every book you read, you get to stand a little higher." Words bring light. With enlightenment comes increased capacity, and ultimately increased value.

But ultimately, whether it happens directly or indirectly, our pathway to the top of whatever field we choose must be marked by learning. The results we seek, cannot come alone by perspiration. Perspiration should, in fact, come at the back-end of learning. We call that applied knowledge. Indeed, 'better than knowledge is applied knowledge.'  It's the difference between working smarter and working harder. It's about looking for the lessons, taking them and introducing them into new, untried scenarios. It's about becoming thought leaders, satisfying curiosity and driving innovation. It's coming to understand that 'sometimes we win and sometimes we learn'.... for always there are more lessons in failure than there are in success. It's about approaching life as a student.... on your way to  mastery - learning your way to the top!