JUST TOUCH THE MOON

   This is my finger touching an actual moon rock on display at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. I have touched the moon. 

    Kathy and I are watching the series FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON produced by Tom Hanks (available for rent on Netflix) and after the second episode, the one about the astronauts who perished in the fire in the capsule, there wasn't a dry eye in the house. Highly recommended!

     Many people don't realize how influential our reading and viewing choices can be to our personal development as citizens, as parents, as professionals and as humans. They make all the difference in the world. One of the things I love to do with my mastermind and coaching school groups is ask them to share with me the movies that most moved and inspired them. Why not watch those? Instead of the steady stream of clever vulgarity coming from Hollywood today.

     One of the movies I've been recommending a lot lately is THE CROSSING with Jeff Daniels as George Washington. It is centered on a dramatic battle in the Revolutionary War.  Amazing dramatization of what commitment can do when one person holds it for a whole group of doubters.

     Commitment and agreement are the courageous antidotes to victim thinking, and especially people in the grip of the ultimate mind parasite: EXPECTATION.

     Expectation leads to disappointment. Whereas agreement and commitment lead to ACTION and RESULTS. I can expect an employee to be on time for my team meeting, but if he is chronically late, that's a reflection of my leadership, not a reflection of his character.

     So the solution is not to tell him that I EXPECT him to be on time, but rather to create an agreement. By creating a mutual agreement, I can learn a lot. We can let each other know what we can count on from each other. Perhaps he was late because he was keeping a commitment to another segment of the company...or because his daycare didn't open up until our meeting time and he had the children...I just don't know until I seek the agreement.

     Expect nothing. When people are not doing what you want, seek an agreement and make mutual commitments inside the agreement. It seems too simple. How could it be that easy? It's not. It takes courage.

     It's much easier to walk around with my head filled up with expectations (and therefore disappointments.) When I expect things it puts the burden on others to come through and LIVE UP to what I expect. It's cowardly. It disconnects me from the true source of my inner power to communicate boldly ... to shape events with requests and commitments. It's easier to just expect things to happen. Then when they don't I can indulge in my anger and frustration. I can plunge my rattle into my pillow and howl ... about how other people are letting me down. That's easy.

      Nathaniel Branden said it best when he said, "Suffering is the easiest thing we humans do." Of course it is. It allows us no growth. No maturity. No development. No accumulated adult strength of purpose. Just tantrums.

      Byron Katie said, "Sadness is a tantrum." It's a rejection of what is and a childish strike against reality. God's wrong again. He has made another mistake and boy am I sad.

      All of this can be solved by my waking up and smelling the roses. I write about this in FEARLESS, how one can turn all this around. How the fear of death can fade away. How commitments can be joyfully made and how thrilling total focus can be. It can take you to the moon.