Posted by admin on Dec 26, 2015
Six years living almost entirely outside the U.S., no physical location to call home, and no television. But then again, I hadn’t owned a TV since the early-to-mid ’90s. No Breaking Bad, no Game of Thrones, no Sons of Anarchy, no Vikings–And no The Walking Dead. All of these were just names I’d heard in passing over the years, usually when people asked me with fanatical eyes if I’d seen the latest episode of one or the other. Nada. Only one episode of Breaking Bad in Brazil about 2 months ago. Then in about 4 sittings over a span of 2 weeks, I watched all 4 seasons of The Walking Dead. I’m generally no fan of horror films, but a friend recommending it promised it wasn’t that. I was hooked right away–and one reason I like to avoid television is because I watch it so intensely, emerging myself into storylines, and I don’t want to be addicted to anything. One of the reasons The Walking Dead hooked me was how familiar it all felt to me. The beautiful world you know has fallen apart, and now its time to survive–and help your people survive. Strange as it may sound to some, this is what happened when my esteemed and very conservative Mormon parents divorced and entered into a seven year court battle. I was fourteen at the time, the Cold War was raging, and I was preparing to be one of God’s soldiers in the final battle–seriously. Movies like Red Dawn and The Road Warrior were popular. Then the rug was pulled, my paradigm shattered, my father left home, and I began having serious ideas of leaving home and making it on my own. At seventeen just before my senior year of high school, I stole a car that had been stolen from me, then headed West to start a new life. Several months later I headed East to start again. Three months after that, West again. On it continued until I eventually landed in Austin, Texas and stayed for the better part of two decades. But even many of those years, I was more “on the run” than I was grounded. I have spent the last five years literally homeless and world traveling (but more accurately, houseless as I have made the world my home). Somehow being on the move feels more familiar and comfortable to me, than laying down deep roots...
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Posted by admin on Dec 24, 2015
“Here you go, Skyeee,” says Emily. I hang up the phone, pick up the club soda with lime and look out the window over the city to the ocean. Its late afternoon in September, 2004, in the not-yet-open Jazz club room with wall to wall windows on the top floor Eastland Park Hotel–the largest hotel in New England about a century ago–in Portland, Maine. I lean back into the big black leather sofa, and look over to the two female bartenders, one who’s becoming more than friend, neither of whom understand what my work is or why I come to the club day and night but don’t drink alcohol. “Cheers!” I’ve been staying here for the last month, and they let me work here during the day. I look back out the windows, focusing not on the ocean but on the challenge before me. I’ve just gotten off a call with a Vice President of a local Fortune 500 Company with a PhD in psychology, who is sponsoring my event* in a little over 48 hours. Earlier this year she attended my 2-day workshop in Baltimore, my 4-day boot camp in Austin and my 8-day boot camp in Lake Tahoe, and she raves about my work [link]. She just told me she’s still trying to enroll a few more of her fellow executives for this weekend… but she sounds a bit nervous. I just told her about the vision I had in the bathtub last night. I’d received the inspiration to change the event to be delivered via “socratic method,” which I am envisioning simply as answering all questions with other questions–another of my experiments. Although its the same content, the delivery style will be more challenging than what people are expecting, and I know there’s a good chance it will backfire. I just know it will be more powerful and more aligned with the intended outcomes of the workshop, so I have to go for it. My heart begins to beat faster. I didn’t know it then, but about 75% of participants would indeed choose not complete the event… even my event sponsor. Adding to my challenge, attending the workshop along with Fortune 500 execs will be drug addicts who read a book by a student of mine who applied some of my concepts to addiction, several young men who read my AWW book online, people who heard about me from my speech at a futurist conference after 9/11, and...
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Posted by admin on Dec 24, 2015
Can there be honor in being a porn star or a prostitute? Or the purveyor or customer of such? I ask not for advice but to provoke thought and discussion? And for those who might give advice, have you tried what you might be critiquing? I would pose the same question about being a volunteer soldier, a conscripted soldier, a deserter, a traitor, an assassin, a chicken-hawk and a terrorist? What about a slave, a slave seller, a slave owner or the descendent of such? The criminal, the convict, the ex-con, the Nazi concentration camp guard? The polygamist, the sexual deviant, the cheater, the prude, the virgin, the slut? The Cultist, the Atheist, the agnostic, the True Believer, the Holiday-only church goer, the Muslim extremist, the God-fearing Israelites and Christians who slaughtered women and infants? When it comes to the roles and choices we shame, we tend to have little understanding, let alone empathy or the possibility of being inspired. And often the truth is that with those whom we uphold as heroes, we seldom know their full story for the shameful parts are kept hidden… as if they are not worth honoring unless they were perfect in our personal or cultural lens of what is shameful, honorable, etc. This goes for Jesus, Gandhi, MLK, Mohammed, The Founding Fathers, sports and business heroes, etc.–do you know their full stories? And what about our spouses, lovers, former lovers, parents, etc. How quick are we to cast out, abandon, punish, betray or demote those who we perceive to sin in our eyes? And ourselves? How quick are we to judge and shame ourselves or parts of ourselves in the name of goodness or righteousness… or simply to appear to others or ourselves as good, righteous–or normal, acceptable, or not so bad? Who is this person we are judging? Underneath our judgments, who is the human? In her spirit? In all her naked glory? In her innocence? In her animal body? In her mind? In her heart? Isn’t it so easy to categorize and judge and forget there is an individual human being underneath–who we know not? What might it be to get to know him or her? To get curious? To not know? To become...
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