Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.

ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER

Have you ever met a real genius? They are incredibly few and far between. 

Many of them do not even realize they are a genius. They clearly know they are very smart, but usually it ends there.

In contrast, there are those who are self-proclaimed geniuses and they are (almost without exception) far from the mark, and more likely malignant narcissists. 

Deepak Chopra says, “This is the nature of genius, to be able to grasp the knowable even when no one else recognizes that it is present.”

The deeper I studied da Vinci, the more clear it was to me from his own notes that he clearly did not think he was a genius. He had a a healthy ego and thought very highly of himself, but his doubt that he could know and understand everything leaves me believing that even he did not see these qualities in himself. And yet, he is one of the only humans in history to test as genius in all 7 measurable metrics.

As life evolves, those of us who are working to invent the future, stand upon the shoulders of the giants who came before us, so that we may have a better glimpse of what could potentially lay ahead. 

In the path to climb upon their shoulders and assimilate information and experiences that they have amassed before us, we are treated to a connected dots experience of watching how they did it. It appears very linear and obvious (after the fact), yet with a genius like Edison, we get a greater glimpse of what it took…. In response to a question about his missteps, Edison once said, “I have not failed 10,000 times—I’ve successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work.”

Steve Jobs explained  his attempts to get Atari and HP interested in his and Steve Wozniak’s personal computer this way, “So we went to Atari and said, ‘Hey, we’ve got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we’ll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we’ll come work for you.’ And they said, ‘No.’ So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, ‘Hey, we don’t need you. You haven’t got through college yet.'” 

When Bell telephone was struggling to get started, its owners offered all their rights to Western Union for $100,000. The offer was disdainfully rejected with the pronouncement, “What use could this company make of an electrical toy.”

Fred Smith, the founder of Federal Express, received a “C” on his college paper detailing his idea for a reliable overnight delivery service. His professor at Yale told him, “Well, Fred, the concept is interesting and well formed, but in order to earn better than a “C” grade, your ideas also have to be feasible.

Genius is such a rare find on this planet, but it is omnipresent and most of them do not even see it in themselves. 

Happy Sunday!

The opinion of 10,000 men is of no value if none of them knows anything about the subject.

MARCUS AURELIUS

Do I care what you think?

In most cases I do.

BUT….

Without research, if you choose to espouse on a topic of which you know nothing and of which you have done zero research, why is your opinion important?

Well, it might be that your life experience gives you cause or reason to have a valid and unique perspective on the topic.

Or perhaps, your artistic perspective casts the topic in an entirely new and creative light.

Or perhaps, because you know absolutely nothing about the topic, your virgin mind space on the subject makes you uniquely qualified to make an unbiased comment.

BUT…. What if your only source of information is so completely non-factual, and you are so entirely brainwashed by their propaganda as to make almost anything that you say, irrelevant?

At that point, does your opinion carry any weight in my world?

In actuality, it has to. Not because what you are saying is relevant, but because there are enough people like you who are all living in a massive delusion and collectively, your voting power can bring down our entire democracy.

Marcus Aurelius was a very compelling leader. I find many of his quotations highly relevant even today. That said, he was not up against cable TV. He had more than his own share of complications and enemies to face in battle, but the massive brainwashing that we are up against today is an entirely different type of foe to be countered.

Happy Saturday!

The problem in our country isn’t with books being banned, but with people no longer reading. You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.

RAY BRADBURY

Cultures of control abhor the prospect of free thought. The necessity to dominate the mindset of a population is the very top priority of a society whose dictatorial, authoritarian regime must ascribe.

In writing Fahrenheit 451, in 1953, Ray Bradbury created a dystopian vision of a future America in which all books are burned by “firemen.” While potentially shocking to some, it was really just a recap of older chapters in history such as the Bonfire of the Vanities in Florence, in which supporters of the Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola collected and burned thousands of objects such as cosmetics, art, and books in the public square of Florence, Italy. The focus of this destruction was on objects that might tempt one to sin, including vanity items such as mirrors, cosmetics, fine dresses, playing cards, and musical instruments. Other targets included books which Savonarola deemed immoral, manuscripts of secular songs, and artworks, including paintings and sculpture.

In all cases, fictional or real, the need to extinguish free thought remains the topic of concern. If a dominant society is imposing their will upon the people, rather than enabling a true democracy in which the people are able to create a safe haven to disagree publicly and debate the alternate options until such time as one of those options are adopted by a majority, then any outspoken opposition to that dominant society must be silenced, lest it create discontent among the masses.

Dominant societies grow comfortable, and in doing so, are much more willing to overlook those in the world who do not have the means to survive. This is currently, and has always been the case with Homo sapiens. Ask any Neanderthal, (if one were still alive to ask), and they would most certainly agree. 

I think freedom of speech is one of the most compelling of topics because I am so continuously divided between my belief in the freedom, and my fear of those who speak in dialogues that directly threaten me and everyone I love and care for. 

We are most certainly bringing this issue to a boiling point (again) in this country as we struggle to maintain a truly representational government of the people, by the people and for the people.

As more and more distraction layers are spun out of those who wish for all of this to subside so that they may continue to dominate their positions in the current world order, we would all be wise to watch what is allowed to be spoken, read or shared and that which is banned, and try our very best to understand who is banning a topic or person or book, and why they are motivated to do so.

Happy Monday

What you do makes a difference and you have to decide what kind of a difference you want to make.

JANE GOODALL

Within our short supply of collected trips around the sun, each of us are faced with the prospect of opting for the solution to make our lives matter. 

These choices can play out on a personal, local, regional, national, or global stage. 

Regardless of scale, it strikes me that the one thread they all have in common is that whatever choice one makes, it should resonate deeply within one’s soul.

There is an internal quest to find a deeper meaning in life. We all come across this at some point in our journey. It is perhaps driven by the understanding of our own mortality, and driven from a need to know that what we have done, mattered. 

From that driving need to find a potent relevance of whom we are and what we do, stems a type of quest. A burning desire to understand what aspect of our existence on this rock hurtling through space will have value, not only to ourselves, but to the world at large.

As access to vast sums of information continually expands, delivering us exponentially more stimuli, more cause and reason to find deeper truths in life, we are ever more challenged to sort through the myriad potentials and find one or more that call out to us on the deepest of levels, beckoning us to pursue a calling. 

Sometimes that calling is a muse, inspiring us to ever greater accomplishments, and others prove to be Sirens, luring us to our destruction on the rocky coasts.

The more we understand about the world we live within, the more see both the incredible potential mirrored by the horrific downsides.

Within this harsh contrast of opposites lies our potential path. We are afforded more options than any humans who preceded us in history. We have more knowledge, more access, more technology, more communication. We are truly sitting atop a precipice of human achievement. 

So in finding our place within this incredible moment in time, the choices we make, paired with the options we pursue, could not be more important. We are all afforded opportunity to discover deeper truths about ourselves. We are given access to information, that within the power of our own mind, could potentially change the world in ways that have yet to be considered. It all lies on our proverbial doorstep, waiting for the choices we are determined to make.

That is perhaps the most exciting of all options in life. 

Happy Sunday!

Life is the universe in search of itself.

DOUG IVANOVICH

I have tremendous difficulty imagining that the entire universe exploded out of the smallest of particles. I have read numerous explanations about the Big Bang and while I can accept it as (at a minimum) a placeholder for what may have originated all of this, I still cannot wrap my brain around it.

What was the Big Bang?

The Big Bang Theory is the leading explanation for how the universe began. Simply put, it says the universe as we know it started with an infinitely hot and dense single point that inflated and stretched — first at unimaginable speeds, and then at a more measurable rate — over the next 13.8 billion years to the still-expanding cosmos that we know today.

Existing technology doesn’t yet allow astronomers to literally peer back at the universe’s birth, much of what we understand about the Big Bang comes from mathematical formulas and models. Astronomers can, however, see the “echo” of the expansion through a phenomenon known as the cosmic microwave background. As the James Webb Telescope comes online this summer, some of these questions may become more resolvable.

While the majority of the astronomical community accepts the theory, there are some theorists who have alternative explanations besides the Big Bang — such as eternal inflation or an oscillating universe.

The world’s leading scientists at CERN, siphon protons from hydrogen atoms and insert them into the hadron collider and accelerate them to ever increasing speeds to try to understand more about what happened.

That said, I have wondered often if there were a more philosophical approach to this question. My inquiry starts with whether or not the universe has consciousness. If you were to assume perhaps that it does, then my reasoning goes to… if the universe were one thing (call that the dense single point at the origin of the Big Bang, then perhaps if that single point had consciousness, what if it wanted to know more about itself? If that were the case, take the method within which we know about ourselves…. We understand ourselves through comparison. I am taller than some and shorter than others. I weigh more than some and lighter than others. Etc. 

A few decades ago, I read a series of books called Conversations with God. Without diving deep into those philosophies, I started to transpose what I was learning there on top of my theory of the Big Bang. So for simple nomenclature, if God was the only thing before the universe and God wished to understand more about itself, would it not make sense for God to subdivide into the entire universe in order that (by comparison) it learned more about itself? Look at Genesis 1:1 (When God began to create heaven and earth—the earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from God sweeping over the water—God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day and called the darkness Night. And there was evening and there was morning, a first day.) 

And, if this were the case, then everything is made from the same entity, so we are all pieces of a larger whole. SO… the golden rule would apply… Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

I realize it is not a theory, just something I was thinking about. But it gave me another perspective on the greater sum of things that I was determined to leverage in my daily life. So as Doug and I were chatting yesterday and he shared today’s aphorism with me, I felt that it crystalized in a single sentence that which I had postulated 20 years ago.

I do not pretend to know any of this to be true, all the way out to the Big Bang itself. I am just a scholar on the road in life, reporting what I see, think and explore, in order that it trigger others to do same in their own explorations. 

If we are all just part of a larger whole, trying to define that which the larger whole contains, then perhaps we are more able to see one another with a greater degree of compassion and empathy. If we are truly one, then we would look to others as if they are we and we are they. 

What does any of this mean other than a morning ramble of what ifs?

I think it means that we are foolish and presumptuous to expect that we have a full grasp of any of it. It is easy for any of us to determine that we are solid in our place in the universe, but the reality is far from that perspective. We may be random, we may be determined. We may have purpose or we may be arbitrary.

But the one thing we know we are is alive. Being alive is truly a gift, one of immeasurable value. So when the doldrums set in, and fear threatens to consume you, take a deep breath and realize that you are most probably a small construct of a much larger component, the concept of which would most likely elude us.

You and I are probably just an infinitesimal segment of a much larger puzzle in which the greater whole is still working to solve.

Happy Friday!

https://www.space.com/25126-big-bang-theory.html

If people don’t make an effort to be in your life, don’t try so hard to be in theirs. It’s not worth it.

We all have gone an extra mile for someone in our world with whom we wish to develop a deeper relationship, be it personal or professional. 

In this time, we exert energy trying to make the circumstances “perfect” so that the other party might adopt a more favorable impression and thereby grow a deeper attachment, need or desire to engage.

In almost every circumstance in which this transpires, there is an imbalance in the dynamic between both parties that is usually unlikely to cure through any traditional approach, and even less likely through nontraditional approaches.

When we find ourselves working to make everything “just so” and the other party is still not in balance with the equation, we are almost certainly destined for failure. It may begin to evolve in the right direction at first, but usually, without exception, the imbalance at the outset gives way to the final chapter, which is not the vision that we are expecting, having gone the extra mile to make such a relationship work.

There is an internal delusion that we are more than likely casting that says, “if I go to this effort, they will recognize this and their perspective will change.” So we expend the effort to win a client, friend or lover with high expectation of a victorious outcome.

So why is it that in most cases, it does not pan out?

I believe there are internal dynamics that generate balance at the outset of such a relationship. If the other party is not valuing you on par with the way that you value them, then what is going to ultimately make them value you on the level that you expect?

If you believe that it is the things you will do, the things that you might say, or the opportunities that you expect to provide, you are more than likely missing a bigger picture as to why there is an imbalance in the first place.

It may be considerably more prudent to size up the situation from the outset and see it for what it truly is and then recognize from prior experiences what your probable outcome will be.

In doing this, we are more grounded, standing on a firm foundation of understanding, paired with a realistic appraisal of the situation. 

Is all of this to say that it is not valuable to go the extra mile to try to bring the right relationship to fruition? Not at all.

But it is to say that we are most wise to see circumstances for what they truly are and when the reality is plain as day, any form of delusion to the contrary is wasting time and energy. In which case, our time, energy and expenditures are best focused on other efforts than trying to win a battle or relationship that cannot be won.

Happy Sunday!

One of the greatest joys of travel is the opportunity to leave the world you inhabit behind and head for territories unknown. Travel enlightens the mind and soul, and delivers personal growth on so many fronts as to make one’s mind spin with delight, confusion, suspense, intrigue, lessons, and if you are lucky, some relaxation as well.

More importantly, when you journey to a world vastly disparate from that which you live within, you are exposed to the new qualities of life that this territory will deliver and that helps us to grow much more quickly than we might ever accomplish staying on home turf.

After you have made several such journeys, you become increasingly aware of how those who stay at home are considerably more different than you. If for no other reason, than you have changed by virtue of your having taken yourself to territories unknown.

I believe a lot of the xenophobia that exists in the world stems from people not taking a portion of their lives to journey to new places with the expectation of learning from other cultures. If they stay at home, they are continuously exposed to the “same old, same old,” syndrome. 

With that lack of exposure to other cultures, comes a potential fear of what those cultures bring to the equation. A lack of understanding of the history of those cultures and how their part of the world has fared over the course of history and humanity’s insane push to dominate and control.

Covid has made us all stir crazy. The opportunity to get back out into the world and start living life again, could not be more atop of everyone’s minds right now.

I hope this weekend delivers you opportunity to get out and enjoy life in fresh new experiences in destinations unknown!

Have you ever set your focus towards an extreme, (almost) unreachable goal?

It could be a degree or series of degrees you wish to earn, or a career goal that seems most unlikely, or a performance in sports or the arts that would be life-transformative.

It really applies to anything you have that deep, profound inner passion to grow and attain through the most intense preparation.

What if I told you that the glory is all in the preparation? You would reply with an obvious rebuttal that the Olympic athlete is not a gold medal winner until they run the race…. And you would be most accurate. And truly, the performance is the summit and pinnacle of the experience without doubt.

But it is not the glory.

Achieving a miraculous goal is exhilarating beyond words. The overwhelming sense of joy and appreciation at that moment are incomparable. The release of the stress of “will all of this hard work pay off?” is answered in that triumphant moment. The adulation, appreciation, respect and other benefits that come from achieving it are all triggered by the outcome.

And yet, that is not the glory.

In my humble opinion, shared after hitting such moments in my life thus far, is that those moments are short fragments of your life. They are quintessential highlights, to be certain. Moments to remember for the rest of your life, no doubt. But they are short-lived and they are over before you can blink. And then what? 

The after moments are like the remnants of the most beautiful sunset. They remain for a short period and before long, blackness.  Many of the overachievers in life will tell you that when that moment of blackness hits, there is a sadness that is incomparable. That fire in the belly that drove you to such heights of exaltation has been replace with the contentment of having done it. And suddenly, everything feels hollow and vacant again.

Until, you set the next goal.

Glory, true glory, is found in the gap from setting the goal, to achieving it. When your goal is filled with your internal love and inspiration, as Ella shared, the road to achieving it is the glorious period…. The trouble is that most of us do not see it while it is happening, and we are too pigheaded to see the forest for the trees. 

Every setback along the way is a moment that is sparking glory, you just don’t see it. At the moment, you are consumed with your goal. Nothing. I repeat, Nothing…. Is going to stop you. So that setback is a frustration, disappointment, or irritation, but it is nothing more than a stimuli to propel you to greater glory.  Rumi said it best (as is often the case) “If you are irritated by every rub, how will you ever be polished?”

The setbacks are emotionally devastating, scary, debilitating and cause unparalleled anxiety, to be certain. But each and every one of those setbacks are the moments that trigger glory. Because in each setback comes the opportunity for you to prove to yourself (again) that you are worthy of that pinnacle moment ahead. That you are honed in fire, tried and true, worthy of achieving what you set out to do.

So the next time you are overwhelmed by the massive signs of failure that are staring you in the face… remember, these are the glory moments. Not fun, not enjoyable, even excruciating at times… but these are the moments that craft greatness. These are the moments where we learn what we are truly made of. And learning those things about oneself… is truly glorious.

Happy Thursday!

Tenacity is a trait that is modeled by some, and emulated by others. It is a quality that I have often admired most in those whom I have had the privilege of observing or reading about.

In the dictionary, tenacity is described as the quality or fact of being very determined. I would agree, but with a specific caveat. I believe that tenacity stems from self determination. I do not think we are capable of being tenacious without a devout inner compass that points to a true North that exists only for oneself. 

From that inner compass, stems a belief that if we are headed to True North, then that is the ONLY destination. It is a fixation. An obsession. And it can be all-consuming. 

Once bitten, it is very hard to recover from the tenacious bug, without reaching the predetermined goal. By definition, tenacious people are so fixated as to stay the course regardless of weather, hardship, disappointment, set backs and other variables. 

And in the course of acting in this manner, so many other variables in life start to pale in comparison to the necessity to arrive at your predetermined destination. Nothing else will suffice.

Sixty-two years ago today, I struggled my way out of the womb, because I had a business to start, a goal to achieve and a destination that I had set in an alternate nonphysical dimension, prior to coming back to the Earth 3 dimensional playground.

It has been a journey of journeys and I have been incredibly fortunate to have met some of the most talented people on the planet with whom I have had opportunity to collaborate.

I can’t share that it has been an easy journey. What journey of merit ever is? Lord of the Rings could have been a short story if the fellowship had taken a short walk to the Crack of Doom and cast the ring into the volcanic fires.

But what I can share is that having something to feel tenacious about makes one feel alive, powerful, focused and on a track to something more important than just satisfying the needs to stay alive. Feeling tenacious creates purpose and purpose generates a mental health that allows one to process the most difficult news, discard the most annoying distractions and stay focused on the prize.

That focus is the breath of life for me. It is the passionate determination that makes every other aspect of life acceptable.

I hope you have one of those fires in your belly. I believe it makes all the difference in the world.

Happy Saturday!

Have you ever said something that you regretted instantly? Something that you could never take back and which changed everything?

It is an eventuality. Once done, an opportunity for a life lesson comes knocking on your door and presents you with the opportunity to grow and evolve…. But most of the time, we do not.

Sometimes, the opposite is true. In these moments, someone will say something to us, or we share something with another that adds incredible wealth and value as to leave a lifetime memory.

Since Homo sapiens were able to communicate abstract thought using words, the power of the word has grown exponentially. One word from the right or wrong person can mean life or death, success or failure, and so much more.

I was raised to believe that kind thoughts were always meant to be shared. I try to ascribe to that behavior on a daily basis. 

Conversely, I live with a handwritten sign in front of my computer that reads: 

Black belts keep their mouths closed.  

This serves as my not so subtle reminder/reprimand to myself that in business and most things… unkind or other off-color thoughts are best left unsaid and never implied. 

When you have something warm and genuine to share, watch how amazing your impact is on another for your effort in sharing it. Some, once said, do change everything.

Happy Wednesday!