Amp It Up!

What beautiful things are happening right now?

nobody@vox.com(Amp It Up!) — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 16:08:39 -0700

While riding our bikes on the North Augusta Greeneway today, Michael and I came around a curve in time to see a doe cross the trail right in front of us. Within seconds, we spotted her two fawns on the other side of the pathway. We couldn't help but stop and admire their beauty and adorableness for a moment. But in just that moment, we became aware of the fact that we were separating the doe and her babies, which were too afraid to cross the trail while we were there. We re-mounted our bikes and pedaled on so that the lovely family could be together again.

Everyday life is full of surprises. It's the license plate that makes you laugh out loud. It's the door held open when your hands are full. It's the perfect connection at the airport. It's the way the attendant in the hospital has the goal of giving you a gift every time he comes in to take care of you and your family. (Thanks, Guy. You da bomb.)

Just like you, your life is a beautiful, beautiful thing. Can you see it? Even if life seems to be holding you down now, the sun might be shining, the rain might be falling, a rainbow might be forming. Can you see it?

Write it down. Write down the beauty. Remember it. Cherish it. For you may not pass this way again.

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10 Things I Love About The Future

nobody@vox.com(Amp It Up!) — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 07:50:14 -0800

10. There's so much of it. Or at least, I think there is. Like most humans, I consider myself relatively immortal. The older I get, the more I become familiar with my own creaking life cycle, but I still can't see the end on the horizon...

9. It's unpredictable. I'm surprised by the number of the times I've said to myself, "I never imagined that my life would take this turn." It's encouraging to know I can't predict it all the time, no matter how good of a futurist I am.

8. It's generous. I know that I will be given so much in the years to come: love, new friends, beautiful days, engaging experiences, laughter...the universe has so much to give, and there's always more where that come from.

7. It's full of discovery. We've come to a time in our evolution when the universe seems like an onion that we're peeling apart layer by layer. I can't wait to see what the next layers will reveal to us.

6. It's mine. If I embrace my own power, I can live in the future any way I want. Every day I have the opportunity to accept that challenge.

5. It's a promise. As I sit here writing, some future is promised to me, no matter how small. I can make every moment of it count, if I stay awake and aware.

4. It will teach me. There is so much more to learn! Before me lie infinite chances to turn information into knowledge, and knowledge into wisdom.

3. It's the playing field of my purpose. My legacy is yet to be written. I can choose in each future moment to be true to my purpose and to honor my passions, because no one else can make my contribution but me.

2. It's exciting! As the creator of my own experience, I look forward to all of the wonderful and as yet unknown possibilities that I will amplify into reality!

1. It's a loom. And on that loom, as my life's master weaver, it's my intention to weave a rich, warm and tasty tapestry of life, full of hope, cheer, love, comfort and passion from the fabric of time.

And I must get started right this second! The future waits for no woman!

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Invisible Possibility: Controlling Soda Bottle Spray

nobody@vox.com(Amp It Up!) — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 20:39:32 -0700

Okay. So here's where I admit that it was not until I was 43 years old that I figured out how, when opening a bottle of agitated soda, to stop it from spraying all over the kitchen.

Having broken the seal on the bottle by twisting the lid, I would run—swearing, bottle in both hands, eye on the volatile neck of the bottle—to the sink, and let the soda overflow until it was done. Followed by more swearing and clean up.

This was my preferred method for decades.

On one such occasion, during my 43rd year, it occurred to me that if I just twisted the cap back in the opposite direction, I would close the bottle, and prevent the soda volcano from erupting.

This was a revelation of which I am not that proud. Where the hell had my brain been? Where the hell had I been? Why was it that this simple solution had not occurred to me—oh, I don't know—20 years ago?

I wondered why no one else, watching me open these bottles, had suggested closing the lid. I wondered where I had learned that running to the sink in a panic was the right answer to the problem.

But most of all, I wondered how many other simple and elegant solutions were right under my nose, and I wasn't seeing them.

In thinking back on what might have triggered this revelation, it occurred to me that it was around this time that I heard about the Mentos and Diet Coke experiments. Some kids had discovered that dropping Mentos candies into a liter bottle of Diet Coke would create a veritable Diet Coke fountain. They filmed themselves doing it and put it up on YouTube. Very shortly after, there were something like 1200 videos of other kids pouring Mentos in Diet Coke. It was an interesting media event, and since I was in media, I studied it. At an executive strategy meeting, we actually tried it ourselves. (It worked!)

In retrospect, I realize that at the time, I was focused on soda spewing from bottles. My awareness about soda spewing from bottles expanded, as it were. I not only observed, but intensely observed. And then one day, while I was holding a bottle that was about to explode, I became aware of the bottle, and twisted the cap back shut. End of soda disaster.

Previously, my mind was running a routine. Who knows how long I would have continued to run that routine if my awareness had not been expanded.

So now I know that if there's something in my life or business that's not happening optimally, I'll focus on it. I'll find other examples like it, and focus on them.

But more importantly, I intend to continue to practice being fully present instead of in my head. Thinking is great, but it's not everything. Experience is the ultimate teacher. We have to be here now to learn the lessons.

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