New Things
Last week I began working on a new project idea that I am genuinely excited about. I am keeping it under wraps for now but when I can give you details, I promise I will. Here are a few of the things I have been thinking about as I work through understanding the potential for this new venture.
- Is there a market? Will people be interested enough in this venture to buy it. It doesn’t have to appeal to everyone. I just need to know there is a tribe of people who see enormous value in what I am going to offer.
- Does the new project fit with who I am? Will my strengths and temperament work with this type of a project. The greatest dream in the world will not succeed if it requires me to be someone I am not.
- Have I sought counsel from the people who will honestly help me think through the pros and cons of the new venture. This afternoon my friend and business partner Neal Campbell will fly into Atlanta for us to meet and strategize over the next days about this new venture. My wife, Jane and I have spent a few days already brainstorming the potential of this new project. I would not do it without Jane and Neal’s full support.
Life is always about growing, dreaming and being willing to step into uncharted land. It is scary. But all new things that are worthwhile start out a little frightening. The trick is to do your due diligence and then make a decision based on your highest hopes and dreams and not on your fears.
Maybe you have a new project you need to give some serious consideration to. Now’s a good time to begin the process. Don’t put it off. You don’t want to live your life filled with regrets and questions about what might have been. Put together a plan. Look at all the pertinent information you can gather and make a decision to walk boldly into your future. It’s the way big living is done.
When Life Throws You A Curve
The big life does not mean there will never be difficulties and setbacks. It simply means when those things happen a big life person takes a deep breath, dusts himself off and then gets immediately back to the things that define what true big living is all about.
For me, a big part of big living is a commitment to fight for the underdog in every battle. Let me give you a few examples.
I know many of my LGBT friends who are frightened because a new president has been elected who will appoint judges to the Supreme Court who can take their equal rights away if they so choose. My gay friends have fought too long and hard to just have the same rights that I have. Their equality is not on the table for discussion. I will fight for equal rights for my LGBT friends and all people in our country. That is big living.
Before the advent of the Affordable Care Act, I knew hard working people who lost their jobs and insurance when their companies decided to downsize. Because they had preexisting medical conditions, they could not buy insurance from anyone. Thankfully the laws were passed making it illegal to turn down someone for insurance just because they had a preexisting condition. To take that away from people is unkind and does not reflect the goodness of our country. I will fight for people’s rights to buy affordable health care regardless of their health. Fighting for that is big living.
I have many Mexican friends who came here decades ago. They have faithfully worked and contributed to our country. They have bought homes here. They have raised their families here. Their families are some of the best I have ever known. They are humble hard working people who have never ask for anything but a chance to work – and work hard. If they were given a chance to pay a fine and then have a permit to work here until they could become documented they would do it. My dad told me when I was a little boy that if a river separated him from a chance to take care of his family, he would swim the river. He told me to always respect the men and women who came here to provide a better life for their families. I will fight with all that is in me to keep law abiding Mexicans from being rounded up and pulled from their homes, families and friends. To me to fight for my Mexican brothers and sisters is big living.
In Atlanta, I know and am friends with some people who are Muslims. They love our country and are a vital part of the fabric of our nation. They cannot help the fact that ISIS and al–Qaeda both claim they are representative of Islam. I will stand with my Muslim friends when they are attacked unfairly. I would hope no one should judge me because of the craziness of christian groups like the Westboro Baptist Church. We are not the same. I will fight against broad brush attacks on a religion just because a small percentage of evil people do evil things. I will love and embrace Muslims. It’s what big lives do.
I have African American friends who feel their lives have not mattered to many. History shows how easily blacks have been scapegoated for problems in our society. No one can deny they have for most of our nation’s history been treated as less than human. Things are better now but it is naive to think there is not deep racism that still runs through many in our society. Institutional racism is real. So, I will stand with my African American brothers and sisters and fight for them being treated equal in every way. And I will let them know their lives matter. To do less than that would cause my heart to shrink and I want my heart to stay BIG.
Big living isn’t about being rich with money. Big living is about being rich in love. Big living is about standing up for those who are marginalized. Big living is about truly empathizing with others. Someone very wise, who lived a very big life said, we should put ourselves in another’s place and then do for them what we would want them to do for us. I think that’s called the one rule that is golden. It’s what true big living is all about.
Don’t Be Afraid
“Don’t give in to your fears. If you do, you won’t be able to talk to your heart.” Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
I read a few years ago that babies are born with two innate fears. They are afraid of falling and they are afraid of loud noises. All other fears we pick up along the way.
What are you afraid of? As a boy, I remember going out to get the mail after dark and running back into the house with my heart beating so fast because I was afraid.
As a child, lots of things were scary. I was in elementary school in 1968 when Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy were killed. My afternoon television shows were all preempted for the news of the two assassinations. It really scared me. The idea that I would one day die was a thought that made me very fearful.
As an adult, one thing still really petrifies me. I break out in a cold sweat every time I make an online purchase and it arrives with these words on the box…..“Some Assembly Required.”
Many are fearful of the election that is happening tomorrow in our country. Please read this next line and accept it as the truth. Don’t be afraid!
How many times have we sat paralyzed, thinking about scenarios that could happen – but they never happen. Here is my advice to you. Do the best you can do. Vote as an informed citizen. (Please don’t think Facebook qualifies as a good place to be informed.) Then prepare to live your big life on Wednesday just like you have every other day. Ultimately, you can only be responsible for yourself. Leaders and political parties will come and go, but you have to be busy at becoming the best big life you – you can be. And, that will make your life special. Enough people doing it will make our country and world a better place to be.
Holy Cow!
The Chicago Cubs won the World Series on Wednesday night. I had not watched a baseball game this year but I hung on every pitch for this one. The game included great baseball, a rain delay and an extra inning to figure out who would be the champions this year – the Cubs or the Indians. The back story was perfect. The Indians had not won a World Series since 1948 and the Chicago Cubs had not won since 1908. And now the Cubs are champions.
Most people attribute the success of the Cubs to their President of Baseball Operations, Theo Epstein. Epstein had become the youngest General Manager in the history of Major League Baseball when he was hired by the Boston Red Sox in 2002. He was just 28 years old. He won a World Series with the Red Sox in 2004. It was their first championship in 86 years. He became their Executive Vice President in 2006 and Boston won another World Series in 2007. He resigned from the Red Sox and signed on with the Cubs in 2011.
When Epstein began the rebuilding process in Chicago he ask the people of Chicago for patience. It would get worse before it got better. The Cubs fans were patient and it paid off Wednesday night.
Here are a few thoughts about their rebuilding process…
- Some teams put all of their money into high priced free agents. Their hope is these older stars can somehow gel together and win now. Epstein did it differently. He built his team on great pitching and really good young players. The Cubs are a youthful team built to be good for years to come. Most teams don’t have the discipline to be bad until they can become really good. The Cubs worked their plan to perfection.
- Seeing a young team excel is a joyous thing to watch. This youthful energy that surrounds their team creates a really cool synergy. The guys on the team are too young to have become cynical. They encourage one another. They love the game. It feels like watching boys play. It is fun.
It’s wonderful to watch an organization that has been down for a long, long time finally win the prize. It seemed as if almost all of the United States except for the city of Cleveland was rooting for the Cubs. And they did it. They are World Champions. Theo Epstein did it in Boston and he duplicated it in Chicago. I guess it is true the difference in winning and losing always begins with great leadership. Congratulations to the World Series Champions, the Chicago Cubs. As Harry Carey would say when he was the voice of the Cubs….Holy Cow!
Making Friends With Originals
I want to let you in on a secret to living a really big life. Are you ready? If you want to live truly big you must have some really interesting, outside of the box, unusual, eccentric, friends in your life. I am talking about people who are serious characters. In my life I have been fortunate to have some friends who fit that description and I promise you they bring an element of bigness to my life I cannot get anywhere else. Sadly many can’t handle friendship with these weird or different kinds of people. Some prefer their friends to be suave, socially acceptable and easily interchangeable with others. My eccentric friends do not fit into that mold. They are truly originals. Learning to embrace them as friends has been a huge benefit to me.
One of my eccentric outside of the box friends is a man named Dan. He is in his 60’s. He works providing humanitarian aid to some of the most troubled places on the planet. He has been in almost every country in the world. He has been to Russia over 100 times. I have watched him create documents with spy like precision that allowed him to get past security checkpoints where corrupt police wanted to prevent aid workers from entering a country. Dan knows the ins and outs of getting things done on a shoestring better than anyone I have ever known. He knows how to survive in the hardest of places. His ability to deliver goods to hurting people is legend. He is a walking, talking travel guide. He is amazing……and he is weird. Because he is so mission minded he is difficult to understand sometimes. He is an original. He is loud. He can be bull headed. He has made more mistakes in life that most have. But he also has tried and succeeded at bigger things than most can even imagine. He lives the big life every day. He is much more comfortable living in a hut in west Africa than he is being awarded for his humanitarian efforts at a black tie dinner on the island of Cyprus. He is colorful. He has swagger. He loves and serves in a big way. He can’t be compared to anyone else I know.
My life has been deeply enriched because of my friendship with Dan. He has opened my eyes to parts of the world and incredible people I would have never known apart from him. He is eccentric for sure. Yet above all of that, he has been a true friend to me in good times and bad. Don’t be afraid of those who are really different. Friendships with the unusual ones often is exactly what you need to make your life colorful and big.
Understanding Where Others Are Coming From
Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within the other being’s frame of reference.
I believe empathy has become a lost art in our society. Very few people try to actually put themselves in another person’s shoes and try to understand where the person is coming from. I see this in our political discourse and in the discussion of many of the struggles we are experiencing in our society. So many are quick to have an opinion on every topic, that they never stop even for a minute to consider someone else’s perspective. A wise, mature person wants to try to see through the eyes of another, or listen with the ears of another, or feel with the heart of another. That is truly a beautiful virtue and one all of us should aspire to possess.
This is not easy. It is much more convenient to loudly espouse what you think is right based on your experiences. Our society would be so much better if we paused and said, “I want to try to see this through the lens of the person with a different view.” Living like this is not weakness but rather enormous strength.
Big living is not being sure of your rightness in every situation. True big living comes when you listen. You might be surprised what you can learn. The great actor Meryl Streep summed it up well when she said, “The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy.”
Minor Adjustments Needed
Look left, look right then look left again. It works. It makes sense. It saves lives. It is true … if you live where people drive on the right side of the road. However, if you are in England where they drive on the left side of the road, if you look left, right, then left you might step right in front of a speeding car. How do I know this? Because I was in England last week and I had a few close calls.
In England, you have to do it differently. They even have signs on the curbs in some places reminding foreigners to, “Look Right.” The picture below is my wife Jane doing what we did often, looking left out of habit instead of looking right to avoid getting hit.
Why am I writing about this?
I think sometimes the life lessons we have learned need to be modified a bit to fit our current situation. The principles are totally fine. The problem is if you are locked in with no room to adapt you might be set up for failure. We have to learn to contextualize the lessons because if we don’t, it can prove fatal to us.
Part of the secret to living a big life is to take the great principles we were taught to live by and adjust them to fit into our 21st century world.
Sometimes small adjustments can mean the difference between crossing the road safely or becoming a hood ornament on a car. 🙂
A Step Back Might Make The Difference
Today’s guest blogger is one of my best friends, Jeff Chandler. Jeff is a teacher, counselor and Life Coach to people who want to live their absolute best life. He teaches about spiritual, emotional and relational health and healing. Jeff also serves as the Lead Pastor of The Village Church, an interdenominational Christian fellowship in Atlanta.
I remember years ago sitting and watching with amazement the athletes competing in the high jump event at the summer Olympics. Their ability to leap so high and clear an unstable bar intrigued me. As I watched I began to notice something slightly different about one of the athletes who kept jumping a few inches higher than his competitors. Each jumper began with a bounce except him; he began with a step back. It was then I realized a profound truth. There will be times in life when our highest jump or greatest risk will require a step back. At first it will appear as a set back, but what we find is, it was the necessary step to give us the momentum to accomplish our goal. So as you seek to live the big life don’t be discouraged by what appears to be a step in the wrong direction. It actually might be the one thing needed to take your greatest leap towards the gold!
What Do You See?
Take a close look at this little planted twig in the picture at the top of this blog. I put a key beside it for perspective. It is really unimpressive. It looks pretty pathetic. From all things you can presently see its future is not very bright or substantial.Now for the rest of the story…..Recently our friend’s daughter and husband toured across the United States in their camper. They saw many amazing things on their trip, but nothing impressed them more than the giant sequoia trees they discovered in California. These massive trees are the largest living organisms on the earth. With a height of 286 feet or more, a circumference of 113 feet or more, an estimated bole volume of up to 52,500 cubic feet, and an estimated age of 1800–2700 years, the giant sequoia is among the tallest, widest and longest -lived of all organisms on Earth. And, it began exactly like the twig in my picture. That my friend, is a baby sequoia tree.So, if you are feeling a little puny today, take heart. Growing to one’s full potential is not done overnight. Learn this today.Greatness is inside of you. It is there. You must believe it and then cooperate with the maturity process at work inside of you. It is coming. You are growing. You are formidable. You are amazing. You are just like the mighty sequoia. You are one of the true wonders of the world. You were born for greatness. Go live it now.
Aren’t You Afraid?
We are traveling through Europe as I write these blogs and one of the most frequent questions I am getting these days is, “Aren’t you afraid?” I think the reason behind this question is the terrorist attacks we have seen in France and England over the last years on television.
There are some countries I would not travel to right now. The Sudan, especially the Darfur region, is not a place where I would feel safe. Algeria, Yemen, Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia are all off the table for me right now. But just because a tragedy takes place in a country does not mean that the country is no longer safe. There are over two million people who live in Paris. The terrorist attack in November of 2015 killed 130 victims. That is tragic. But it does not mean Paris is unsafe. I think our 24 hour news cycle and the replaying of events over and over again tends to make us more fearful. I think some people are left feeling that the only safe place they can truly be is in their own bed with the covers over their head. That is not a big life way to live.
When we are out of the country we do the same things we do when we are in Atlanta. We keep our eyes open. We remember not everyone has good intentions. We stay aware always of people who pick pockets. We don’t walk through sketchy parts of town alone. That is all. We know that bad things happen from time to time. They happen in our hometown and they happen in world cities. We know something bad could happen to us while we are traveling but it also could happen to us while we are at home. Bad stuff happening is not our focus. We have to sometimes say no to fear so we can live the big life we feel moved to live. We don’t take foolish risks, but we also don’t let an attitude of misinformed fear shut us down. I hope you can learn to do the same thing. Don’t let fear keep you from traveling and seeing some of the beautiful places this world has waiting just for you.