Friday, a client of mine felt like settling. His eyes drooped a bit more than normal and had a far away tint to them. He looked like a man that was on the edge and running out of energy. I leaned against my tendency and told him a story. My normal mode is to challenge.
Friday, I gave some courage instead.
I told him how similar he is to one of my strongest clients. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. I reminded him of how far he’s come in such a relative short time. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. I told him that his OPUS, just like so many clients of mine, wasn’t his Magnum OPUS, his greatest masterpiece. And, I told him that this is not only alright, this is really cool. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. I told him that he cannot get to his masterpiece without making his current place a work of art too. You don’t suddenly paint a masterpiece after settling for painting by number kinda pieces year in and year out. You paint your masterpiece after a life of struggling toward mastery. Struggling, right where you are.His eyes told me that he was beginning to believe what he was hearing. His face grew brighter and a bit of a smile creased his face. Very cool.
As we ended our practice I told him that I wasn’t giving up on him and reminded him that he is far from normal. I told him that he’s one of the “damn few” and even the damn few feel like quitting all the time. Even the strongest suffer from dragging ASS, remember. They just dust themselves off and often with the helping hand of another, pick it up again.
Friday, a dragging ASS picked it up again. He changed his perspective on authoring his OPUS. He went backwards and picked up some momentum toward his aim. Friday, he embraced the struggle.
As I reflect back to friday and saturday, for that matter, I see how much of a struggle my life really is. Things rarely go as planned. My days are one part magic, two parts misery. My relationships are poison and wine. My soul is a house divided. My own body betrays me more often than not. My fears, insecurities, and doubts grip me at the strangest times and places. My mind can remember ancient history but can’t recall what happened last month. My work is more a failure than a feat of mastery. Few even notice much less understand what it means to become BTL. Fewer still even give a rip. Fewer than that will even miss me when I’m gone. And yet, somehow, I feel blessed more than I’m bummed. I’ve come to believe that the damn few is more than enough to pick up my dragging ASS and push me along this path.
God, help me remember this past friday and give the gift of courage with a bit more regularity. God, help me give a hand to my sons, my daughter, and to my beloved bride. God, help me give a hand to a few in the middle of their struggle.
God, help me tighten my grip on your hand. God, help me…
BUILT TO LEAD 
Great Chet, really great reminder. Its easy to forget as our expectations get higher. Thank god for the few…Thank god for you!
This is a great post. Nicely said!
Thanks guys for your kind words…
Sounds like your ASS is draggin’, too. Well, cut that crap out and realize that your job is to change the world one person, leader, one team at a time. Have I got that right? That’s what I remember from the script, anyway…
You know this Chet: We are called to “burn bright” for the time we’ve been given, mostly to glorify the Source of All Reality whom we address as ‘God,” and the remaining part is to call others to that Source through our brilliant, bright examples. “Souls on Fire” as I recall from the script.
When you’re on fire, you cast shadows. That contrast is vital. The mystery man from Nazareth seemed to draw shadows out of the woodwork everywhere he went, and he cast shadows from everyone when he found them. The Christ at the center of reality is the light and logic of it all. The logic of light is that it casts shadows when it meets an obstruction.
On what shall we focus? The shadows? Or the light? Life offers shadows if, for nothing else, to point back to the obstructions so that there is a snowball’s chance we might remove them and bask in the light. “Sometimes it may seem dark, but the absence of the light is a necessary part…”
Ripples. Remember the ripples. They extend so far beyond your line of sight.
Some of us who may (or may not be) included in the “damn few” have been borne up by the ripples> Some of us re-send them out with amplitudes you can’t imagine. You say that things rarely go as planned. I say they NEVER go as planned. (Sometimes they just seem like they do. Our plans are coincidental at best).
May I share my weird analogy/vision of what may (or may not be) reality? Each of us is a pixel on a vast screen showing, for our minuscule lifetime, one frame in a single scene of an awesome epic of life. Each of us is called to burn bright when our time comes, in the colors we have been made for, in order to fill in the picture of the frame we are a tiny part of. All we are called to do is agree to be that “little light” and burn true to the colors of our calling. Sadly, many of us miss the chance to light up when our time comes. No matter. The epic rolls on and we are forgiven. Grace saves the day. The girl is rescued. The boy finds his “true colors.” All will be well.
Chester E. Scott is a mentor and healer and challenger and prophet! He is a pixel par excellence! He sends ripples down through time and space that touch the lives of other pixels just in time to turn them on and light them up and give them color now, today…before time runs out. And just wait until the lives of those unborn catch the fire that burned in him so brightly it couldn’t be doused by death. Just you wait!
But my friend and mentor Chet Scott caught that fire from someone before him. And before them. And so on. The great good news is that Chet’s not in charge of anything. He’s just sailing on one of those amazing ripples, and amplifying it to the best of his God-given abilities.
Is that cool?
Don’t you wish you could learn to do that, too?
I’m still practicing, but it’s freakin’ AWESOME.
(That’s in the script, too).
Always good to get a hand from Sully. Thanks for extending your “and”….