I was 14 and my friend’s dad was dropping us off at 2 week summer camp when I heard the news on the radio.
Terry Fox has died.
He didn’t cross Canada like he wanted to. He made it halfway – a few thousand kilometres. On one real and one unreal leg.
The point was to raise money for cancer research.
Now 40 years later there are annual Terry Fox runs all over the world raising money, funding research, increasing awareness and strengthening community.
Marathon of Hope
All of this is true because of Terry’s intention to run across Canada.
Awesome.
There is a tensile, human strength in maintaining your intention while you make it happen. Realization of your intention may easily unravel before you in the moment. For most of us it requires we stick with it over many years. That is so valuable in this Twitter age.
The benefits of persistence- staying focused on the objective – are transferable to the next challenge. And are shareable with colleagues and children and spouse.
Every morning I drop one or two wrinkled pods of dried green cardamom into my coffee/spice grinder to grind with the coffee beans. The fine grind is flecked with the light green of the ground cardamom. I love the smell of fresh ground coffee probably more than drinking the coffee itself.
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We actually just got back from an autumn weekend in a rented cabin and all my coffee paraphernalia came with us. It means we are not buying coffee that is more costly and generates waste vía cups, lids and stir sticks. Before bed we have started drinking a cinnamon/ginger brew to boost our immune system. My favourite drink during the day is a bit of fresh hibiscus tea mixed with sparkling water. Super refreshing.
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Whether it is tea or coffee, cola, wine or whiskey. Coconut water, kombucha or beer. All of these are water based drinks. Some have sugar or fruit. Others are healthy. Again others fermented. Some are popular drinks because they taste good, a few for their rejuvenation factor and others are a success of marketing.
Water is to our body as oil is to the car engine. We are 70% water each of us. That kind of makes us, or our body, a bottle of water. How do we flavour our water?
Dr. Masaru Emoto pioneered the research into the consciousness of water. Based on experiments with water and music he concluded that we flavour our corporeal water with what we think, feel and do. The residue of these impressions settles in our blood, bones and organs where the water is at work. We flavour our water with life; good and bad, high and low, as a victim or author of our response to each stage of development.
But often it is the label of our human water bottle that we focus on most of the time.
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We get caught up in the image so often that the ingredients, or their production, gets minimized.
We are born with 2 eyes, 10 fingers and a little hair all of us. What anchors your existence is a planetary soul. That soul gets imprinted with the genes you are going to give expression to in your daily life and give continuance to by your life journey. So those eyes might be green. Those fingers could be brown. And that hair might be black. We all have eyes, fingers and hair but we are all so different. Why?
Race, religion, culture, upbringing and education. All of these are ingredients that get integrated into your soul. It takes a strong desire and sensitivity to interpret the soul and not get distracted by the ego of the image.
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What does it take to be a Sommelier of the soul? Because, if you think about it, we are flavoured water. How would the sommelier describe your soul? A hint of creativity, bold and upfront, goes great with fish? Refreshing! No bitter aftertaste:)
10 things a young man needs to to hear from a man. Always Be growing. Be curious about how to combine these 10 things to make you a generator of confidence and humility.
You are a vibrant power. This a seed of wisdom that should bother a young man. To grasp how it applies to him and be able to spot it in others. The trajectory of a man is seen in his ability to grow due the compounding interest of belief andaccomplishment. Many things will try to deviate a man from that trajectory. So what is stronger ? Deviation or belief?
Do the work to be emotionally agile not fragile. This one is so important to teach by example. The work can be analogous to juggling. If you focus on one ball then all of them will fall. To take it up a level you use your peripheral vision to manage the task at hand. What is being asked is to be able to have long term vision while still managing the present.
Define strength: mentally, physically, emotionally – as a man; find out what it is for a woman. What is your formula for strength in each case: Emotional Strength = _________ + ____________ Use your strengths to highlight them in others.
Decide what you want the residue of your decision making to be – belief, respect…
Love yourself. This will sound cheesy to a young person because their identity branding takes importance over most things. Still, this simple yet deep concept has many expressions into our lives. All of them are springboards for growing. Starting with your Ego. Elevate it to Your Best Ego; Accompanying your Soul we develop our participation in the Higher Soul. Then there can be talk of the universal spirit…
Always be generating. Generate your own reason for what you’re doing. This makes you the author of your own story so you aren’t at the mercy of someone else’s laziness. Be clean.
Connect with nature: breathe/5 senses, rejuvenate, exercise, ground, appreciate, marvel. Make nature your man cave. Use the peace in the moment and the power of nature to visualize you: healthy, successful, happy, spontaneous, loved, loving, agile (see #2), …
Frame your journey to make sense of how to manage the competing interests for your attention. Have a way to process what happens to you in various stages of life. This really helps when dealing with stress to understand what is impacting us so we can take responsibility for it. This is a proactive measure to rise above violenceagainst women.
Understand how to understand women. If you don’t know how to access your abilities and insist on dwelling in the lower levels of energy you will end up ignoring what she asks you to do. At the maintenance level you can do what she asks you to do. At the perception level you can ask yourself what she would want and do it.
Be of service. Find people who don’t count the cost. Read the books they read.
The Wild Coach 