Tags
action, exploration, poetry, possibility, Spirituality, Wonder
22 Friday Mar 2019
Posted Exploration, journey, Wisdom, Wonder
inTags
action, exploration, poetry, possibility, Spirituality, Wonder
21 Thursday Mar 2019
Posted Challenge, Choice, courage, Exploration, journey, Personal Legend
inTags
Christian, courage, exploration, inspiration, journey, possibility, wisdom
I don’t know.
What a powerful place to stand – just ask Amerigo Vespucci.
When I was 23, I had no idea how to run a successful hot dog venture. I had no idea that my competition worked for an entire year with the city to create a vending license I just went in and picked it up. I didn’t know, I needed to apply for an event licence for the Discovery Day celebrations, just set up the cart and started to sell – paying the registration fee a few hours later and asking forgiveness was easy.
Within a few weeks we had gone from me and my girlfriend to 10 employees and a weekly bank deposit of $3000.00 over the next 12 weeks -not bad for not knowing what I was doing and not bad for 1986 when hot dogs were $1.50.
Who knows where I would have been now if I had chosen to stay in Newfoundland with that business after graduation from MBA school rather than going to find my treasure in the big city accepting a transfer to Brampton with Day & Ross from small town New Brunswick for an annual salary less than the money I made the previous summer selling hot dogs & pepsi.
I don’t know.
But I don’t get to know. We just don’t. We don’t get to wake up every morning living life over and over until we get it right like Phil Connors, TV weatherman in Groundhog Day.
We just have this life. And we keep moving forward as best we can.
Every once and a while or more often if you are lucky – we wake up in this moment. We slow down enough to be grateful for all of it. We recognize each little moment as precious, not gobbled down like the Burger King meal I had tonight.
Three years ago when I started speaking with Linda Hewitt from Mallorca, Spain who lives 5,000km away from me I didn’t know how a relationship would turn out, still don’t.
Didn’t know that 18 years ago when I stood on the railway bed that early Sunday morning and asked God for help because I did not know how to quit drinking, how wonderfully rich my life would be NOW after being finally willing to really listen to his advice.
So in this moment – I see once again – I don’t know how to be a property manager. Don’t know how to build a global enterprise. Don’t know how to write a book; publish my poetry; be a podcaster.
Don’t know…
Yet I am willing to sail in that not knowing.
You see, it is in that space that miracles occur.
Yes we can improve on the things that we already know. We can learn new things that we know that we don’t know.
But the magic; the wonder; they live in an entirely different place, a entirely different space.
Just ask Amerigo Vespucci.
What is it that you just don’t know?
You waiting for your ship to sail in with all the answers in crates on the decks?
Or…are you willing to cast off your lines and head out on the open sea?
Create a great day!
Gordon
Posted Exploration, journey, Recovery, Wisdom
inTags
Good evening!
Yes! Yes! Yes! – Seems like I have been saying that a lot lately. Yes I will do that writing course; yes I will sign up for the Writers Alliance of Newfoundland; yes I will join the team; yes I will take on that new role; yes, I will take on the accountability of one new blog post a week; oh look shiny object – yes I will sign up for Seth Godin’s The Podcast Fellowship to learn to become a podcaster.
Wow! That was a big yes. And I jumped in deep – real deep those first two weeks. And like the rest of my life, I seemed to do it to the extreme – less and less sleep each night, a high level of engagement, pushing everything else to the side – fun and exciting. After two weeks of high engagement I even got asked to join a group of student leaders in this 449 student course – an offer extended to only about 2% of the student body. So now, if you did not know it already I am a @remarkable. No, not an Incredible – but still pretty cool.
The problem is with all these yes’s and especially the last one is that I am self-employed. Self-employed and building a vacation property management company and only last week wrote about the importance of repairing my nets during this off season in this business. Repairing my nets would mean spending time creating the structures that will turn the upcoming tourism season into a fantastic year for myself and my clients. Yet here I was catching another wind gust.
After two weeks of high excitement and lack of sleep, I crashed. That is the problem with kites – left to there own devices they can get into trouble like that – crashing into power lines; blowing off course.
Fortunately for me – I am not a kite who flies on his own. I am tied into many communities where I can ensure that I get back on course. And while I still end up doing some things in an addictive way, the truth is that I am also in recovery – it is the most important thing in my life. In recovery, I am learning that I can say yes to many things and no to others – have healthy boundaries and live a rich fulfilling life while still maintaining balance.
One of the best ways to deal with the anxieties caused when you get involved in too much or perhaps when you are overwhelmed with other things in your life – is to share.
Last Thursday I had the opportunity to do that in a zoom call with other @Remarkables, our course leader, Alex DiPalma and the one and only Seth Godin. During the q&a session I said, “I am feeling stressed, overwhelmed and shutting down“. Seth replied, “how generous it is for you to say that – and imagine if you are feeling that how others must be feeling”. His tip, advice for moving forward was to move forward even if it was just a little bit at a time.
It was not the only place I shared this feeling of anxiety, of feeling stopped and shutdown. I shared and I listened to others share their wisdom about how they dealt with those feelings. I slept and got back on track in terms of my other healthy habits.
On Friday, my string got untangled and now with the right controller in charge, I am flying high again – enjoying the wind; dipping and spinning, playing full out and most importantly getting things accomplished.
On Monday, my creativity returned and I wrote a new poem. And now I am here again to share. This is not something I wanted to do. Like everybody else I love to share my wins, my attractive selfies, my best kite self. Yet I am committed to much more than that. So here I am sharing about my hitting the proverbial power line.
But I did not get electrocuted. Look up – I am gaining height again!!
Have a great week.
Don’t be afraid to share when feeling stopped!
Gordon
01 Wednesday Aug 2018
Posted Dr. Wayne Dyer, Exploration, god, Uncategorized
inTags
i have recognized a pattern in my writing recently
lots of stuff about god
it is interesting to me because for me
my understand of that seems to be always
in transition
yet another story comes and there it is again
unescapable
i was listening to a story on the radio the other day
a scientist was taking about heaven and hell
about the after life
in the past tense
how it was perceived
why it came about
what actually happened to us when we die
like it had all been decided
i am more of the mind of the author who speaks
about cutting open tomato seeds as a kid
and seeing that there was nothing but brown stuff
inside of them
brown stuff – no small tomatoes nothing that looked like
tomatoes
mystery
i think i would rather be sitting on the edge of mystery
and unknown
than in a place of here’s the answer
and maybe that is why there is so much commentary
about god these days.
namaste
gordon
01 Wednesday Aug 2018
Posted Exploration, Inspiration, Poetry, Taking Action
inMy voice goes silent as oft it does
I disappear from the landscape
Wrapped in a world of my own design
Tortured by voices that are my own
Your words are not enough
Not enough stay silent
Awakened by a message on the Radio
Contribute
Come out of the background
Emerge from the wood
Your camouflage not needed
Rise
For days I pondered
For what
For who
Stay silent
Let it die
Something changed yesterday
Arising from a hashtag
A movement born
The words of Tupac ringing in my ears
An evil geniuses invention
Flooding the street a $5 high
A gift for me to hear
Coming only
From another willing to share
I shall not stay silent
Benefiting no one
Emerging from night
Pulling aside the curtain
Light fills the room
The rest of the day
Engaged in play
600 words the rule
The limit
How much how many
Just one
a collection
A theme of expression
Of wrestling with this question
I buy no lottery tickets
Because I will never win
Yet life is not a lottery
Or perhaps it is
A lottery won a long time ago
Staying silent an option
I choose to abandon
My camaflouge not needed
My prize
Release from this cage
I put myself in
Embracing the light
The words of a mother flood my ears
A gift again from the radio
From one to another
We expand
That’s just the way it is,
Things will never be the same
24 Tuesday Jul 2018
Tags
Well I must admit that I was very nervous. Excited for sure but nervous definitely. I had asked many months before when I confirmed that indeed I was coming to California.
He had said yes, tentatively, recognizing that his schedule could change or that he could be anywhere as he said.
It got more real when he confirmed recently and set a time and place halfway between where I was staying in Santa Rosa and where he lived in Napa Valley.
And yesterday as the time got closer, and I read more about his life, I got very nervous. I started to judge my life to his. Reading his autobiography, I saw what a big life he had led and like we do I started to compare mine to his. I was even doubting a little as to why I had said about meeting him in the first place.
But then I paused. I started to read the correspondence between us. His grace, loving coaching, and wonderful acknowledgement and I was moved. And I knew that it did not matter.
So I let all that noise go and set out.
Leaving where I was and driving through the petrified forest was stunning and a little petrifying given the narrow, twisty Trinity Road.
Driving through Saint Helena, I passed by Robert Mondavi Winery where I had visited 22 years before – but that is a story for another day.
Then I climbed another windy path to Auberge du Soleil, the place of our meeting. A beautiful place overlooking the valley below.
We met at the Auberge du Soleil sitting on the balcony where he writes many of his blog posts, such a regular that he often gets a free breakfast and I know why he writes there overlooking the beauty of the valley in a place he has lived for the past 35 years.
It did not matter. My concerns, my anxieties, my considerations, my story about who I am and who he is, all that noise that rattled around in our heads. I met him and we just connected and shared as old friends.
It is not often you get to meet such people – or perhaps better said we are meeting such people all the time – we just need to be awake to know that.
So who? Who am I writing about? Who did I spend 2 hours with sharing about life, taking action, God, religion, and most importantly transformation and the life’s work and contribution of his friend, Werner Erhard.
His name is Laurence. He is the author of the blog, Conversations for Transformation, a blog that reaches 8,000 people each month. A man that says that who he is “is the possibility of conversations of transformation”. http://www.laurenceplatt.com/wernererhard/
I am grateful for our meeting and sharing and his humanity and mine and especially how God continues to beautifully show up in my life.
Last month I met a friend of Mother Teresa’s, this month a friend of Werner’s, what’s next I wonder?
God bless.
Come play with me out here. Out here outside of your sandbox. Leave your little games behind. Join me in the fields, let’s dance and hug and talk about God.
Gordon
Posted by Beyond the Sandbox | Filed under Defining Moments, Exploration, Letting Go, Uncategorized
14 Tuesday Nov 2017
Posted Exploration, Inspiration, Nature, Uncategorized, Wisdom
inTags
Did I jump too soon?
Celebrate too early?
Will I like others before
Become the cliche of sports re-runs?
Will they think I am enough?
go behind my back, cut me out?
Did I make the right move?
Involve enough of the team?
Questions flood my brain
flood my thoughts
blocking out beauty
Pausing I see amidst the turmoil
I am not these thoughts
They are a playback of an earlier time
Stuck in an endless feedback loop
Blocking the truth
Am I successful? asks this tree before me
Do I have enough?
Did I grow in the right location?
Do I have enough sunlight?
Will my offspring grow tall and be without burden?
Will others in my community thrive?
Will I be cut down before my time?
Did you notice my missing limb?
Do they trust me?
Do they love me?
My heart knows that trees
don’t think that way
They are
All their days in the
full presence of God
Connected to heaven
Intertwined with the earth
Allowing
Being
Dancing in place
12 Sunday Nov 2017
Posted Addiction, Exploration, Inspiration, Personal Legend, Recovery, Wisdom
inTags
Ain’t no Saint, no Guru
Yet I am willing to listen to you
And I am willing to share tonight
Just don’t take it as everything right
My words are for me, my experience of strife
They come as I reflect stories of my life
From the death of my dad and now my mother, new
From the places have been, and the people met too, from the mistakes made this pass through.
And I can listen and sit you see and let you talk, let you share with me.
You can share your joy, your pain, just try
We can laugh together or quietly cry.
I have been on this path a time or two
Just ain’t no saint, ain’t no Guru.
26 Saturday Aug 2017
Posted Exploration, Inspiration, Nature
inShall we taste the sky You and I Shall we get on our knees breathe in the dirt Not in …
26 Saturday Aug 2017
Posted Exploration, Recovery, Taking Action
inTags
10 years ago, I was an Intern leading the project team for a 350 person sales meeting in downtown Toronto.
During the same week that we were there, Toronto was abuzz with TIFF – the Toronto International Film Festival.
During the pitch a few months before, the advertising company came in and pitched ACTION! as the meeting theme.
That was it!
And yet the marketing folks did not like that they did just one – and so back to the drawing board. A pointless exercise really – – they had it right all along -The ACTION Sales Meeting was born.
In Dec 2015, as I was suffering under the weight of my life awry and sitting in my seat during the Landmark’s Advanced Course, the leader said that most of her colleagues around the world – work for 3 weeks a month and then get a week off. Me she said, I work a week and spend 3 weeks in bed recovering, explaining that she had lupus.
I don’t suffer she said, just take ACTION.
This week I took ACTION placing my Cabin on Airbnb. I had been thinking about it for 2 years wanting to but doubting whether anyone would want to come and not wanting to deal with the rejection and did nothing.
Werner Erhard, the founder of the work that Landmark Education bases its work on says “we need to get clear for ourselves, that the only access to impacting life is through ACTION.
“the world does not care what you intend, how committed you are, how you feel or what you think, and certainly has no interest in what you want and don’t want. Take a look at life as it is lived and see for yourself that the world only moves for you when you act”
And I am seeing that for myself these last two days.
All my thoughts, ponderings, wondering about what to do with my cabin – how could I have it be that I could keep it – afford to maintain it, while working through my current financial space had no impact whatsoever.
I needed to take ACTION.
Yet only hours after the listing got posted, I had my first potential customer, then two. Then I shared it on Facebook and I witnessed other people sharing it also and people asking questions clarifying my rules of the place – Pets – Sure”
When my Rotary Club posts on Facebook, we sometime beg people to share our posts. Liking it does not do it anymore – sharing it is where it is at. So far my initial post has been shared 9 times and liked 37 times And I have had two serious inquiries and one booking. (That’s the world moving for me)
Today, one day later, I welcomed my first 3 guests to my Airbnb. (After 6 hours of ACTION called cleaning) …my house could use that as well.
And my brain is on fire – thinking of how I can market it as the fall & winter approaches.
Along with my 6 hours of cleaning, I made sure to pick up a bottle of Red (the colour of choice) and a new Guest Book, at Hallmark in Mount Pearl. I set up a new category on my expense app that I track all my expenses for Airbnb and Cabin Rental for bookings outside of that model.
I can see that my first guest will bring me $168.78 and so far I have had an outlay of $95.65.
And I want to give a shout out to The Airbnb app – it has been seamless and simple. I have used it twice as a traveller for that Dec 2015 trip to Toronto and an amazing find of a listing in Los Cabos Mexico in Dec 2016. And yet this is my first time as a host. (I wonder if I can augment my house income by doing it also for the house I rent – my mom’s room likely won’t be getting used any time soon)
And I can kick myself all I want about why I never listed it last week or the month or year before that. None of that matters. All that matters is that I did it.
Recovery is like that too – an ACTION program. Suffering is optional.
My mom has been sick for 9 weeks following her fall and broken hip and since that time, both of my dogs have died. It landed heavy on me and I could not seem to get out of my own way in terms of putting pen to paper to write this blog or to write a poem, or take ACTION in the way that I must in terms of my business.
And yet while I have been silent, I have been in ACTION in my recovery. In doing the work, making the calls, reading, going to meetings, and talking to my sponsor. My sobriety is growing for which I am so grateful.
Today I wrote a poem for the first time in a while, called “Taste the Sky” after using those words to tell a songwriter why my cabin was such a great place to create.
For today, I have come to the end – as it is way past my bedtime.
So I have to ask – what are you waiting to take ACTION on?