New Year, New Changes: Will You Go With The Flow or Fight It?

New Year, New Changes: Will You Go With The Flow or Fight It?

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Purpose - Enthusiasm - Nrg - Action - Results

I deeply believe that what you feed will grow and what you starve will die. Some of us will fulfill our Purpose, and others will die with their purpose not fully unattained. Yet, each of us has a purpose. Purpose is awareness, sometimes an unconscious awareness, of our unique opportunity to enhance the human experience for others and ourselves. That awareness is what turns on the light. Once we look at that opportunity, we begin to develop a vision for the possibilities. That is where the excitement comes from.

I have a friend who asked me to "consider Harlan at his greatest self. This Harlan in the distant future who has fulfilled his destiny." Then he challenged me to describe him in specific detail. After doing this, I was so damn excited that I couldn't wait to get moving in that direction. A second later, I realized that I was already moving in that direction. That reflection time generated a massive amount of Enthusiasm. That is what reflection does for us. Taking time to stop and think fuels us. It fills our tank. Enthusiasm is like a bolder at the top of a large hill or the "red button" in the Batmobile. Enthusiasm is knowing that you have what you need to do what you need to do.

Enthusiasm comes from taking time to reflect, mediate, or just think. In that quiet time of reflection, we can discover wonderful things about ourselves. There's an old Baptist song we used to sing that goes, "As I look back over my life and think things over, I can truly say that I've be blessed. I got a testimony." The Greek philosopher Plato said, we do not learn from our experiences but from the thoughtful reflection upon those experiences. That thoughtful process creates the Energy (NRG) that helps us feel competent and capable to move. Think about how you fill when you have a full tank of gas. For me, I feel like I can go anywhere and do anything. A clear destination (passion) a nice car (you) and a full tank of gas (energy) will guarantee a fun ride.

Once you get the car running or the machine going, we are ready to kick things in gear and start moving. I'm a planner. I'm pretty good at planning. I can tell you every detailed step necessary to build a pyramid. However, this gift often stands in my way of actually building pyramids. Getting in gear requires that steps be taken. Action, in this sense, is bringing the abstract to the concrete. It is our highest gift from God. It is evidence of God's presence. The greatest thing God ever did was to create something from nothing. What was once a thought in God's mind is now the earth, moon, stars, galaxies and the universe. As we were made in His image and likeness, we are blessed with this gift to see in our minds and manifest in the physical world the visions of our hearts. This is done through Action. As we careen through the wonderments of our lives, we leave behind a trail of colors and textures that paint the evidence of our existence. These adventures can be considered our careers. My friend, you are now painting consciously. Your actions are being guided. Your steps are ordered and you have decided to GO. You are creating a beautiful mural of life.

There is a mural of the great Paul Robeson at Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio. That mural is a collage of his experiences as an All-Star Athlete in Football, Baseball and Track and Field. It includes his accomplishments as an actor, scholar and activist. It glorifies his birth, life, struggles and death. This single mural exemplifies what it means to live a beautiful purposed life. Clarity of Purpose increases ones enthusiasm. With increased enthusiasm, energy increases. More energy leads to more action. More action leads to greater Results.

Although, we are challenged live life detached from the outcomes, it is good to look back over our lives and see that we have walked through the maps of our minds and created the visions of our hearts. Hopefully, others will benefit from our example.

Go live and create.

Coach Hodge

Of Pigs and Paragraphs

It recently occurred to me that writing is a lot like that old story about those three portly brothers venturing out on their own. Let's call the first one Lazy, because he was always trying to find the easy way out. Let's call the second one Vain, because it was all about the looks. And the last one, we'll call Coach because he was dedicated to doing stuff the right way.

Well, here's what happened. One-day mama put them all out the house. They had reached the ripe age of 18 and they had to go. So, they all set out to the forest to claim some land for themselves. Lazy stopped at the first opening he could find and started putting together some scraps of hay and straw that were lying around. Vain stopped a little further into the woods near a stream and thought, "I'll build my house right here. The ladies will love this!" He used some sticks that sat alone the banks to make some walls and immediate went to Best Buy and bought a leather couch and a 40" flat panel TV. Well, Coach went deep into the woods and found a piece of land on the highest hill. He spent days clearing a few acres and used the wood to build a house that resembled an HGTV Dream Home.

Late in the fall, Hurricane Katrina came and blew down Lazy's house and washed away Vain's new color TV. They both ended up living with Coach in the west wing for several months.

Here's the lesson for us as writers. It is in our best interest to find the most suitable topic to write about and spend the time and labor developing our thoughts into a timeless statement to the world. Yes, it is easier to pull together the stuff we already have and throw together something fast, but that will blow away in the wind just as quickly. And it is just as true that when we tell people what they want to hear that we are like the water that ebbs and flows with no clear ground or identity. Yet for us, we are eagles that perch high and look low. So, we build our homes high in the bluffs. We labor in our thoughts and find themes that are universal and timeless. We preach about the truths of our mothers and grandmothers. We retell the stories of our fathers and grandfathers. We update and upgrade that which works. And when necessary, we create new stories and devise new methods to reach more people.

Writer, teacher, preacher, speaker, singer, presenter here's what I want you to do. Identify your fertile ground. What subject is so close to you that you could consider it fertile ground, a place that you could cultivate and develop a unique statement to the world? Start writing about that topic. Describe it in detail. Make a list of stories you could tell about that topic. Identify the lessons that you have learned. And list some tips that you would give about navigating through that place.

This is the beginning of your endeavors to build a Dream Home. Send me an outline; I'd love to read it. If you need help, let me know.
Coach Hodge.