Going Out of My Head

Call it an existential crisis if you will, but a couple of years ago an awakening poured over me like a big ice cold Gatorade Dunk. However, I didn't necessarily feel like a championship winning coach pacing the sidelines as the game clock ticks down the final 15 seconds of the Super Bowl.


Don't get me wrong. I've had my share of winning moments throughout my life. This just wasn't one of those times.

I felt like a dog tired player who had been running up and down thousands of yardage, huddling and executing the plays I'd been trained to eventually lead me to record scores and titles. But the plays just didn't seem to be panning out the way the coach or the play book had promised. Either I was following the wrong play book, listening to the wrong coaches, or was in the wrong game.

The reality or simple truth of life that somehow eluded me after years of friendships, relationships, work, travel, meditation, and studying numerous personal and leadership development programs:

Twenty Four.

Twenty four point seven to be more exact. No matter our trials and tribulations in life, all things being equal, each of us above ground has 24 hours each new day to make the most of our talents, our connections, our lives each day. Whether you are Bill Gates, Oprah, or the guy at the deli, we each have 24 hours. How we each decide to spend our time is what ultimately shapes our destinies. Sounds so simple, huh?

As it turns out, time is the stuff of which life is made. This simple fact of life became painfully clear to me when I lost my father to cancer. He was just 56.

The impossible had now happened. I wasn't ready for that. Can you ever really be ready for that?

Naturally, I began to take an elevated and renewed interest in this awesome concept of time. I began to take full inventory of the product of me, asking myself a series of tough questions:

Are you getting everything you want out of your gift of every twenty four hours?

Are you giving all that you've got to your twenty four hours to get all that you really want from life?

At the end of each day, can you honestly say that you've lived your best day that day? That you were fully present?

Did you take action TODAY to break through barriers that you have allowed to delay you from living life as vibrantly as possible? If not, what are you waiting for?

What did I learn today to lift my spirit, and elevate my mind over matter?

Starting this blog is an exercise in a renewed effort, a campaign of sorts: live each day a little better, a little fuller than the last.

It's a new play book for a new game plan.