Time Flow - Part Two: The Rhythm of Greatness

Plant, Cultivate, Harvest

What we do, what we don’t do, when we do, when we don’t do, how we do, how we don’t do, why we do, why we don’t do, what we think, what we don’t think, how we see, how we fail to see, our daily rhythms transform us over time, in our minds, actions, and hearts. 

Our daily rhythm determines who we are and who we are becoming.  Despite technological advances in a rapidly changing world, the human rhythm remains the same, deeply embedded in our existence for thousands of years: plant, cultivate, harvest. Many people in our instant-gratification-culture want to skip to the harvest, but planting and cultivating prepare one for the harvest.  "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few."[i]  It's the work that makes the harvest plentiful.  It's the rhythm of life that creates the symphony.

·      Plant:  The Shift and a vibrant Vision of my Calling.

·      Cultivate: A plan designed with daily desire, determination, and discipline, acting daily on that plan.

·      Harvest: The manifestation of my Greatness and my Calling in my life and transforming or blessing the lives of others.

Here’s the thing, if I want to grow weeds in my garden, I don’t have to do anything, right?  They’re going to come up regardless.  

But if I want to grow flowers and plants, those tomatoes for my salsa this summer, I am going to have to do some things!  I am going to have to plant the plants, water them, pull the weeds, protect the plants from pests and certain types of weather and let time do its work.  Over time, with some tending to the garden, tomatoes will grow, and I will reap some killer salsa!  Our minds, heck, our lives are gardens!  If we don’t tend to them intentionally, time marches forward and we get weeds.  We must tend our minds, hearts, and bodies and, in turn, our lives!

When we make The Shift and express our Calling, we plant a new perspective in our minds, just as the gardener plants the seed in fertile soil.  The gardener waters the ground, ensures the sprout gets sunlight, spreads fertilizer, and pulls weeds threatening to destroy the sprout.  Likewise, we practice activities based on The Shift, helping our Dream take root and blossom, and we weed out any ideas, practices, people, and stories not serving The Shift and our Dream.

Over time the plant the gardener has nurtured produces fruit, and he harvests, tasting the fruit of his labor.  The gardener shares the abundance of his harvest with others.  Likewise, over time our Dream comes to fruition, and we taste our success.  Our Dream serves others, and they are blessed by our labor. Like the gardener, when it comes to our Dream, we plant, cultivate, and harvest.

Time-Lapse Photography

And this leads me to time-lapse photography (OK, I know it’s a stretch, but go with me.).  It is really cool to watch time-lapse photography.  Maybe you have seen some with, say, a flower, the seasons, or the transformation of a caterpillar to butterfly.  Whatever you have seen, here’s the thing about it that I find so fascinating.  You see an entire cycle of growth with a flower or you see the entire change of seasons in just a few short seconds or minutes.

But here’s the kicker:  If you were an observant person (who never slept of course!), you could see the same exact thing without a camera or fast-motion.  What happens in time-lapse photography is happening in real-time first!  It’s just that the change is so seemingly subtle, we never really notice.  We take the transformation of the seasons for granted.  We don’t see the clouds change throughout the day.  We don’t see the flower grow and blossom throughout the week.

All of a sudden, or so it seems, one day it’s cold and snowing!  We didn’t notice the chill in the air of the morning the past two months.  We didn’t think about how the daylight hours were diminishing.  Nope.  Just boom!  It’s winter!

Now, like me, you might be saying, “I don’t have time to sit around and look at trees change in the season!  Who does?”  Well, a time-lapse photographer does evidently!  But the way time works in the world and my view of how time works is very different it seems. Let’s just be honest, it seems like nature is so slow!  And isn’t that the rub?  We take for granted the constant, powerful changes in the world because it seems to be moving so slowly.

But here’s the thing.  Time-lapse photography always shows me just how incredibly active creation is.  I think what I really need to do is view my daily life through the eyes of a time-lapse photographer.  The seemingly insignificant things I do every day add up over time, until huge changes have taken place in my life?  I realize the rhythm of my life and the rhythm of the world, while seeming very different, are actually one, so I continue to live my rhythm with patient, time-lapse eyes, pointed toward the prize, my Greatness and my Dream.  I plant, cultivate, and wait for harvest.

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[i] Matthew 9:37, Luke 10:2

Chapter 14: The Three R’s of Self-Destruction

Time Flow - Part One: One Billion Heartbeats

One Billion Heartbeats

One billion heartbeats.  This is a lifetime.  Not just for humans.  The life span of humans, amphibians, birds, fish, mammals, and reptiles, when counted in heartbeats is one billion on average.  Humans live sixty-five years on average, hamsters three years, and Arctic whales one hundred fifty years.  The hamster can have a heart rate of up to four hundred fifty beats per minute, the whale as little as ten beats per minute, thus explaining the difference in the number of years they live, but the number of heartbeats in a lifetime on average is about one billion.

            

            When we exercise, our heart rate increases so we “use up” more heartbeats, thus shortening our life span.  However, when we exercise regularly over time, our resting heart rate slows, and we “save up” heartbeats.  Each year exercising three to four times per week costs us one entire week of heartbeats, but our improved fitness adds about thirteen weeks to our life expectancy.  That means we gain a year (fifty-two weeks) of life about every four years of consistent exercise three to four times per week.  We see desire, determination, and discipline over time (exercise three to four times per week) leads to The Greatness Revolution in Fitness.

            

             The Swiss-born Max Kleiber, a professor and researcher at U.C. Davis, developed these ideas from his research.  He called it the Kleiber Ratio (of course!).  The Kleiber Ratio is based on the metabolic rates of various animals.  A hamster’s metabolism is much faster than an Arctic whales, but on average the number of heartbeats over a lifetime remains the same: one billion.

Some scientists speculate that different sentient life forms experience time differently because of this phenomenon.  A fly, which only lives about twenty-four hours, seems to move rapidly when we brush it away.  To us the fly’s movement seems rapid because our metabolic rate and our heart rate is slower than the fly’s.  But to the fly does the hand coming at it seem to be moving much more slowly because the fly has such a high metabolic rate?  If Kleiber is correct, then time flows differently for each life even though on average all life forms live the same amount based on heartbeats: one billion on average.  Perhaps each life has a unique rhythm, and each must live that rhythm.

Time Flow

Now, I don’t want to go all Harry Chapin on you and talk about Cat’s in the Cradle. . .but I am going to.  Chapin sings As I hung up the phone it occurred to me, my boy was just like me.  In Chapin’s classic song a father realizes his habit of being too busy with the cares of the world keeps him away from an intimate relationship with his own son.  He realizes this towards the end of his life when his son tells his father over the phone that he is too busy to give his father any time because of all the cares of the world in the son’s life.  With the last, slowing notes of the song we understand what really matters.

It is so easy to say, “Relationships are the most important things in life.”  It’s easy to say, “You can’t take it with you!” But if you’re like me, it’s often tough to give time to family and friends because of all the other concerns of life on one’s plate.  How I see my life and the time I have every day determines whether I am spending my life truly living and loving, fostering what really matters to me, or whether I am spending my life dealing with all kinds of stuff that feels shallow and unfulfilling.  And this begins with my view of time.

Time flow differs from time management just as being productive differs from being busy.  Doing things won’t create success; doing the right things strategically, efficiently and with proper timing creates success.  Having a full calendar does not guarantee success.  Having a calendar with rhythm brings success.  Thinking time flow versus time management requires The Shift.

In the Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu writes, “The highest good is like water.  Water gives life to the ten thousand things and yet does not compete with them.  It flows in places that the mass of people detest and therefore is it close to the Way.”[i]  Elsewhere Lao Tzu writes, “Be still like a mountain and flow like a river.”

     

      

The Masking Tape and Rhythm

            One day in class, I was directing an activity with my students.  I can’t remember the topic.  I was holding a roll of masking tape in my hand, and I was sitting on a student desk in the front row of the class facing the students.  The roll of masking tape accidently slipped out of my hand, fell to the floor, and rolled all the way down the aisle to the back of the room near my teaching desk.  I watched it slowly roll to the back and finally fall over, twirling faster and faster until it lay flat on the ground.

At that moment the Tao principle, “Be still like a mountain and flow like a river” came to my mind.  I decided to practice the principle.  As students continued to work, I fixed my eyes and mind on the roll of masking tape.  Sitting in the front of the room on the desk, I began to meditate on a phrase: “Return to me.”  I did not know how the tape would return to me.  I only knew I was going to be still like a mountain and let my mind flow like a river.  I saw the masking tape in my hand.  I meditated upon this a little less than a minute or so as students were working individually at their desks.

Suddenly, a student in one of the desks near me, stood up, walked to the back of the room, picked up the masking tape, walked with it to the front of the room and handed me the tape.  I had not moved.  I had not asked the student or any student to do anything.  I simply meditated on the tape, thinking, “Return to me,” and I saw it I my hand.

            If I had gone and picked up the tape on my own, I would have accomplished the task more quickly, but I would have exerted more effort.  Instead, I simply fixed my mind on the objective and let it come to me.

I know it is a silly illustration, but it raises the idea that everything has its timing, its rhythm, including us with our one billion heartbeats on this earth.

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[i] Tzu, Lao.  Tao Te Ching.  Chapter 8.

C.A.R., The Vehicle to Your Dream - Part Four: R is for Reflection

R. Is for Reflection

            Reflection in western society is scarce, but successful people use reflection to connect desire, determination, and discipline to their Dreams.

            Just as we look in the mirror and prepare for our day, those who reflect assess what actions and practices they need to implement.  Reflection is pausing, listening, learning, and adjusting.  When we reflect we ask:

·      How did my day go?

·      What did I do today that went well?

·      What did I do today that didn't go well?

·      What served me today for my calling?

·      What adjustments can I make to practice the disciplines that will move me toward my calling?

·      What struggles did I have and was I determined enough?

·      What might I adjust when I face the same struggle tomorrow?

·      Did I listen to my head, gut, and find a compromise in my heart?

·      What will I keep doing?

·      What will I stop doing?

·      What will I add to my activity?

·      Am I still walking in my Greatness and on the path to my calling?

            

              Daily assessment is vital to making connections.  Reflection helps us associate the proper emotional responses to events occurring in our lives.  Reflection empowers us to live each moment to its fullest, to appreciate what each time and place has to offer, to be grateful for the adventure of living our calling daily, and to enjoy the journey.

Driving the C.A.R.

            Connection, Association, and Reflection, if we don’t practice these consciously, we will practice them unconsciously.  And until you make the unconscious conscious it will rule your life, and you will call it fate.[i]  The question is, will I take control of the C.A.R. and drive it in the direction I desire, toward my calling, or will I remain a passenger, letting my subconscious determine the road I travel?  If you don’t know your direction, any road will take you there.[ii]  And any vehicle will serve!

Those who walk in their Greatness and live their calling daily take the wheel and drive the C.A.R.  They connect every moment.  They associate the proper emotional response to events along the highway.  They associate with like-minded, positive, proactive drivers headed in the same direction.  They reflect on what they have learned and how they will adjust.  Then, they move on down the road, applying the lessons to the next mile, enjoying the journey as they grow nearer their destination: Greatness.

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[i] Carl Jung.

[ii] For more information on Keith Kochner and Mentorship Mastery visit http://mentorfish.com.

Chapter 13: Time Flow

C.A.R., The Vehicle to Your Dream - Part Three: Associating with Excellent People

Associating with Excellent People

You are the combined average

of the five people you associate with most –

including the way you walk, talk, act, think and dress.

Your income, your accomplishments,

even your values and philosophy will reflect them.[i]

     -Jeff Olson, The Slight Edge

Ever been crab fishing?  Anyone who has will tell you if you only have one crab in the bucket, you need a lid.  If you have two or more, you can leave the lid off.  Why?  Because if there is only one crab it will try to climb out of the bucket, but once you have several crabs in the bucket, they will continually pull each other down, and, as a result, by the end of the day, you are ready for a crab feast!

It’s the same way with people.  We may find ourselves around crabby people who have given up on their Dreams and will do all they can to drag others down, keeping others from achieving their Dreams as well.  But in the end, those crabs are going to be building someone else’s feast instead of rising above the bucket of life and fulfilling their own.  We don’t have to be a crab.  We don’t have to enter the bucket.  How?

Your why.  What do you want?  Whatever it is you want, find people who have achieved what you want and form relationships with them.  The more time we spend with people, the more we tend to look and behave like them.  Associate with positive, responsible, reflective, empowered and empowering people with vision.  Dissociate from negative, irresponsible, blaming, entitled and enabling people without vision.  This may be the most difficult and painful part of walking in our Greatness, especially if we love these “crabby” people. 

Henry Ford said, “My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.”  The more time we spend associating with negative people, the more likely we will write stories that do not serve us.  At first, it may not be evident, but over time those negative stories will manifest, growing more toxic in our lives.  What we focus on will grow.

There is a difference between a negative friend and a challenging friend.  Friends who challenge us to grow by speaking the sometimes-painful truth or asking the tough questions are challenging relationships.  Friends who simply look to drag you down, leaving you feeling empty and defeated are negative relationships.

Remember, “as iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.”[ii]  The more time we spend with positive people, the sharper we become, writing stories that serve us.  At first, it may not be evident, but over time those positive stories will manifest and bring positive results from the positive, proactive practices in our lives, moving us toward our Dreams, growing our Greatness, creating The Greatness Revolution.

Dissociating While Practicing Compassion

Dissociating with negative people does not mean ignoring, withholding or being cruel.  We can still give negative people time, but perhaps instead of an hour, we give ten minutes.  Often, we can sense when our encounters with these people begin to head down a road of negativity.  When that moment arises, we bring our time to a close and move on.  We still practice compassion.

            Adversity is not a reason to dissociate with others. Sometimes, friends or family experience a difficult season in life.  Many responsible, positive, reflective, and empowered people struggle, and they want to grow in their Greatness.

However, others, no matter how blessed, see a half-empty glass, what’s wrong with every situation, and do not want to get better.  They have resigned themselves to a life of quiet desperation.  They choose to wallow in the The Spinning Rainbow Wheel of Death (without the rainbow, of course).  Even the Great Physician asked the paralyzed man by the pool, “Do you want to get well?”  Unless we answer, “Yes!” to that question, there’s not much anyone can do.  As Henry Ford once said, “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right!”

With people who wallow in what’s wrong, unfair, and impossible, sometimes we have to compassionately let them go the way they choose.  No person has the power to heal another person all on his own, period.  A Buddhist proverb reads, “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”  A person must want to be healed, must want to get better, and must want to be transformed in his Greatness.

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[i] Olson, Jeff.  The Slight Edge: Turning Simple Disciplines into Massive Success.  Success Books, 2011.  Print.

[ii] Proverbs 27:17.  The Old Testament.

Excellence vs. Perfection: Dante, The Greeks, and Men Without Chests!

Excellence

Many people tend to equate perfection with excellence.  Perfection is defined as “freedom from fault or defect; flawlessness.”  Excellence is defined as “a virtue, transcendence, or eminence.”

Perfection is so much easier to understand, mostly because all of us know we don’t possess it. When it comes to imperfection, we’re all in the same boat. But what, exactly, is excellence?

Excellence finds its roots in virtue (another word for truth), in transcendence (meaning to go beyond, to exceed, to surpass), and eminence (meaning high repute).  Excellence relates to a person’s moral compass, not whether he or she lives perfectly.  Excellence is about being whole.

The Ancient Greek View of Humanity[i]

The ancient Greeks believed humanity consisted of three components.  The first part was cerebral man.  This was the mind of man, the logical, thinking element of humanity.  The second was visceral man.  This was the gut of man, the animal nature of humanity, or instincts.  By cerebral man, humanity is spirit.  By visceral man, humanity is animal.  But the third element of man, according to the Greeks, made humanity unique.  This third element was the place of grace (or love); it was the compromising element between humanity’s logical and animal nature.  It was the place where emotions rested, emotions taking the middle ground between a purely logical and a purely animal existence.  This was the heart of man.

What the Dante!

Dante Alighieri’s Inferno[ii] establishes a view of hell we might find odd today.  Dante based his entire work in large measure on Aristotle, the Greek philosopher.  The Greek view of humanity figures prominently in Dante’s taxonomy of hell.

We might assume murderers would inhabit the deepest part of hell, but Dante places murderers somewhere in the center of hell.  He places those who succumbed to sins of passion, like adultery or gluttony, in the upper levels of hell.  Why?  Because these were sins of passion, of visceral man, of the gut, of humanity’s animal nature.  Dante places the sins of malice and fraud in the very lowest levels of hell.  Why?  Because these were sins of cold, calculated, premeditated thought, of cerebral man, of the mind of humanity.

In Dante’s view, those in hell were out of balance.  They weren’t whole.  They failed to listen to their heads and their guts, and find a compromise in their hearts.  It’s easy to see why Dante would place a glutton or adulterer in hell.  We get the idea of letting your selfish proclivities overtake you, ending up in ruin, but we may not understand in our modern era the dangers of listening solely to intellect, for intellect alone fails to take into account the deepest of values: love, compassion, and mercy.           

            Instead, what we find in our world today are what C.S. Lewis called men without chests.[iii]  According to the ancients, the two greatest teachers are pain and love, and often those two great teachers accompany each other.  And where do these two great teachers reside?  In the heart.

We all probably know someone who has escaped from pain through such things as alcohol, drugs, sex, and entertainment, things of visceral man.  We understand that idea.  But perhaps an even more insidious way to avoid the pain of the heart is the escape of cerebral man, the intellect, which detaches any emotion to whatever causes our pain.  This occurs far more often than we may be aware.  Why?  Because intellectualizing a problem allows us to believe this illusion: We have conquered the problem causing us pain. We are in control of the pain and the problem.

We build a fortress around our hearts, using escape and control.  We escape to our gut, using alcohol, drugs, sex, or entertainment (the list goes on and on), or we avoid our emotions by running to our heads, trying to control the pain of our hearts.  Either way, when we face obstacles, struggles, or painful moments, many of us either run to the gut or the head to escape the heart, winding up imbalanced, unhealthy, and un-whole.  We are literally broken in pieces.  Not being whole is our form of personal disconnection.

Like the caterpillar we must struggle to become great.  We must embrace our struggles and pain.  We must go through, feel, and learn from them.   If we don’t, we end up paralyzed by them, stuck in a moment we cannot escape.  Any struggle we face where we do not listen to our hearts will continue to haunt us.  All the alcohol in the world will not drown the issue.  All the intellectual analysis in the world will not control the issue.

Only through listening to and embracing the heart, experiencing the mental anguish, crying the physical tears, receiving the lesson of the moment, and going through the struggle will we emerge transformed and whole.  We must go through it to grow through it. We come to a full understanding that escape and control bring paralysis, and what we resist will persist.

When the Greeks said follow your heart, they did not mean, do whatever you feel like!  I’m ok.  You’re ok.  The Greeks meant find a compromise between your head and your gut.  Don’t let one rule the other.  Let them dance with one another to the music of the heart.  Only in this way can you be one, a whole person, a person of excellence.

Ice Cream

            It had been a particularly hard year of teaching.  On my way home from school I was feeling sorry for myself.  I decided to stop off at the local supermarket and pick up a gallon of ice cream, not the cheap, generic knock off stuff.  No!  The expensive, soft and smooth, absolute-perfection ice cream:  Chocolate Chunk Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream!  Oh yah!  A little touch of heaven!

            I purchased the ice cream, arrived home, put the ice cream in the freezer and greeted my wife and kids.  Later that evening after dinner together, I was ready to drown my sorry teaching life in absolute delight.  I headed for the fridge, opened up the freezer, and proceeded to dole out a huge, I mean huge, bowl of Chocolate Chunk Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream.

I looked at my wife across the counter who was staring with wonder at the bowl I had just overfilled and asked, “Would you like some?”  She said, “No thank you.”  I put the ice cream away and walked to the couch to sit down and flip on the TV, remote at the ready and ice cream in hand.  It was going to be a grand escape from the struggle, pain, and obstacles of, well, the school year!

            I ate that ice cream with absolute delight.  By the time I had finished the bowl, I was alone on the couch.  My wife and kids had gone upstairs.  I looked at the bowl, the empty bowl.  The bowl begging me to lick it clean.  I heard visceral man say, You know you want more. Go on . . . go get another bowl.  You deserve it.  It’s been a rough year.  You know you want it.  Then I heard cerebral man: Don’t do it.  You’ve already had too much.  If you eat more you will regret it tomorrow, if you know what I mean!  It’s not going to feel good tomorrow.

            I slowly got up, crept over to the kitchen, opened the freezer door and doled out another giant bowl of Chocolate Chunk Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream.  I sat back down, ignoring cerebral man’s advice, holding hands with visceral man while I downed a second bowl of deliciousness.

And once again, the voices were back.  More?  Visceral man:  Go ahead!  Why not!  Cerebral man: “You seriously must stop!  You will be a disaster tomorrow!  What to do?

            I scraped out the last of the ice cream from the container from the fridge into my bowl, threw the ice cream container away, and sat back down on the couch.  One gallon gone!

Then, the real fear began.  I heard footsteps on the stairs.

            I knew it was my wife coming back downstairs.  I stared at the television screen, remote in hand, pretending to be watching, but all the time praying, Please, please, please don’t go to the freezer!

I heard her footsteps on the hardwood floors of our house that led to the kitchen.  I heard her footfalls stop.  There was a pause and I prayed, Please don’t open the freezer door!

I heard the freezer door open.  There was another pause and I prayed, Please don’t look for the ice cream.

From behind me I heard, “Hey, Honey, where’s that ice cream?”  Sheepishly and as matter-of-factly as I could I said, “Oh . . . umm . . . I thought you said you didn’t want any.”

            I had been caught!  I had listened to my gut, and I had been caught!  Cerebral man said logically you should not eat all that ice cream because it is not good for you and you will regret it when all that lactose and chemicals get into you, but visceral man won out, and I lived to regret that decision the next day, if you know what I mean!

            I had not listened to my heart. I did not compromise.  I was out of balance.  I was not a whole person in that moment because I ignored cerebral man and failed to listen to my heart.

When mind (cerebral), body (visceral), and heart (soul) all work together to find what will serve all of me best, then I experience wholeness.  Then, I practice excellence.  I may not be flawless.  I may not be perfect.  But if I unite my head and my gut in the heart I practice excellence.

Celebrating Excellence

When we do listen to our head, our gut, and finally find a compromise in our heart we must celebrate those moments.  When we experience a moment of excellence, we must celebrate our success with an appropriate emotional response.  Celebrate when you accomplish something in your Greatness, and let go of negative emotions attached to failures.

Successful people define failure as an outcome that differs from what they thought would happen.  Through process and protocols, Thomas Edison discovered ten thousand ways to not make a light bulb, but those ten thousand ways taught Edison how to make the ten thousandth and first way matter.  I am certain Edison celebrated the ten thousandth and first way.  And he got there by letting go of the negative emotions of the previous ten-thousand ways!

            

            Neuroscience tells us memory is six parts emotion and one part information.  This explains why childhood memories filled with sensations and feelings remain vivid and reading a dry, laborious textbook doesn’t stay with us.  If we hang on to the negative emotions of events and downplay the positive emotions of successful events, association will not serve us.  We must let go of the negative emotions, remember the lesson, and celebrate excellence, moving towards our callings.

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[i] C.S. Lewis spends extensive time discussing the Greek view of humanity in “Chapter 2 Men Without Chests” in The Abolition of Man.  Lewis, C.S.  The Abolition of Man.  Harper One, 2009. Print.

[ii] Alighieri, Dante.  Inferno. Trans.  John Ciardi.  Signet Classics, 2009. Print.

[iii] Lewis, C.S.  The Abolition of Man.  Harper One, 2009. Print.