As the story goes, a high school teacher walked up to the chalkboard and put a dot right in the middle, then turned to her class and said, “What is this?” Well, one kid stood up right away and said, “Obviously, it’s just a chalk mark on a blackboard.” And there were no other responses. The teacher looked at the classroom, and she said, “I’m really surprised at you guys. I’m surprised because I did this exact same exercise, or this question, in front of a group of kindergartners, and they came up with 50 answers.” It’s a squashed bug, it’s a star in the night sky, the answers went over, and over, and over again as their imaginations flew. You know, Picasso said that all children are born artist, and it’s up to us to actually hold on to that imagination as we get older, right?
Now, this is a tip I got from Robin Sharma, now as leaders in our communities and leaders in business, we get hit by a barrage of information every day. You know right here, right now, I’m talking to you, I have three screens going. There’s information coming at us at all angles. We have chats going on, we have social media, we have messages from our friends and our family. And oftentimes, what happens if we lose focus.
Today, I just walked back into the house because I just got back from a trip to Smith Rock, just outside of Bend, Oregon. Now, this is world famous for rock climbers, but the majestic beauty of this location is unparalleled. It’s one of the most beautiful places that I’ve been to, and I’ve traveled all over the world. And so the reason I bring this up to you is I was amazed at how few people that were there, and of the people that were there, there were a lot of people from around the world, but there weren’t a lot of Oregonians or local people or even people from the western United States.
I just got off the phone with another coaching client of mine, now this is a new coaching client I just started working with. And with each of my clients, I take them through what I call a 90-day game, where we gamify their life and their goals over the course of a 90 day period. Now for this particular individual, I was checking back on his game and how he was performing in the game. I noticed he had changed some of his goals, some of his goals became instead of being one direct key characteristic or thing that he wanted to achieve, it became I’m going to do this or I’m going to do that. I’m not really sure, I’m going to do this, or I’m going to do this over here.
Start now. What are you waiting for? Life is short. You have anything that we’ve seen around the world in terms of just natural disasters, let alone manmade catastrophes, and all the other things that come along with just this human condition. Life is short. We’ve had earthquakes, fires, floods, you name it, wars going on around the world. I actually know people who have been killed. I want you to start now. Whatever it is that your story’s about, your Author of Your Own Story Lifestyle, what does that mean to you? Start today.
