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The Olympics! SNQ 7-29-12

I have always loved the Olympic games…When I was growing up they were the most awaited televised event along with the annual Jerry Lewis telethon. We knew the athletes and their coaches…it seemed like we knew more olympic athletes than professional athletes. Maybe that is because the Olympics were better televised than most other events, or maybe because professional sports were still more about the sport than the money…maybe it was young naiveté…regardless, we were all glued to the events and eagerly awaited each four year ritual.

As we have just experienced the impressive opening ceremony in London, and are well under way with an array of tantalizing Olympic events, I thought it would be good to look at some various Olympic quotes from an wide spectrum of sources….so relax and soak in some Olympic thoughts 🙂

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“The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not winning but taking part; the essential thing in life is not conquering but fighting well.”
– Pierre de Coubertin (primarily responsible for the revival of the Olympic Games in 1894)

“The six colours, including the white background, represent the colours of all the world’s flags … this is a true international emblem.”
– Pierre de Coubertin

“It is the inspiration of the Olympic Games that drives people not only to compete but to improve, and to bring lasting spiritual and moral benefits to the athlete and inspiration to those lucky enough to witness the athletic dedication.”
– Herb Elliott (Australian middle-distance Runner)

“If you don’t try to win you might as well hold the Olympics in somebody’s back yard.”
– Jesse Owens (American Athlete, 4 time Gold Medalist in Track and Field at the 1936 Olympic Games, 1913-1980)

“I wanted no part of politics. And I wasn’t in Berlin to compete against any one athlete. The purpose of the Olympics, anyway, was to do your best. As I’d learned long ago from Charles Riley, the only victory that counts is the one over yourself.” ~ Jesse Owens

“An Olympic medal is the greatest achievement and honor that can be received by an athlete. I would swap any World Title to have won gold at the Olympics.”  – Jeff Fenech (Australian boxer, 1984 Summer Olympics)

“For six years, I kept my five Olympic medals wrapped in a plastic bread bag beneath my bed.”  ~Mary Lou Retton

Most other competitions are individual achievements, but the Olympic Games is something that belongs to everybody.  ~Scott Hamilton

“If my dreams can happen to me, your dreams can happen to you. Champions are not made on the track or field; champions are made by the things you accomplish and the way you use your abilities in everyday life situations.”
– Bob Beamon, (world record holder for long jump from 1968 to 1991.)

“If you don’t have confidence, you’ll always find a way not to win.”
– Carl Lewis, (10-time Olympic medalists in Track and Field events.)

“I always believe I can beat the best, achieve the best. I always see myself in the top.” – Serena Williams, (two-time tennis Olympic gold medalist at women’s doubles.)

“The moment I think about past letdowns or future hypotheticals, I mentally put myself on shaky ground. If I clear my mind of chatter, I can succeed, just like I did in 2006.” – Julia Mancuso, (3-time Olympic medalist in skiing.) 

“Aristotle compiled the first known comprehensive list of all winners of the Olympic Games. Which means that quite probably he was sat in a bar with Plato, muttering ‘Go on then, give me any year you like and I’ll tell you who won the four-man bobsleigh.’ ”
Mark Steel (in The Independent (2006)

“Winning is great, sure, but if you are really going to do something in life, the secret is learning how to lose. Nobody goes undefeated all the time. If you can pick up after a crushing defeat, and go on to win again, you are going to be a champion someday.” Wilma Rudolph

“The Olympics remain the most compelling search for excellence that exists in sport, and maybe in life itself.” DawnFraser

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Risk…Sunday Night Quotes 5/27/12

Risk…for some, this word creates a sense of excitement and unlimited potentialities…for others, it creates a sense of fear, dread, or even paralysis. I believe risk is an attribute that God breathed into us…while smiling…infusing us with hope, potential, and possibility. You see, I think the capacity to risk flows from God so that we might dare to dream big dreams and make a lasting impact with the life we have been gifted.

To never take a risk leaves a person  sheltered, but luke-warm…alive, but stagnant…seemingly safe, but actually in danger of soul-atrophy.

I have talked to too many people who live as captives to the culture; captives to their circumstances; and captives to pseudo-happiness…all the while their soul is shriveling, longing for a jail-break!

If money was not a part of the world’s system for advancement…what would you do?

If you could change anything and you believed that you couldn’t fail, what would you do?

When you answer these types of questions, your internal risk manager quickly shows up to work and begins to convince you of all the reasons why it won’t work…So tonight, fire your risk manager and breathe deeply from the divine grace that was infused in you before the world was even made and “Do It!”  It’s time to be a Planet Changer and experience life to the full!  Here are some great quotes to fire up your soul and duct tape your risk manager to a pole 🙂

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If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.  ~Jim Rohn

Hesitation increases in relation to risk in equal proportion to age.  ~Ernest Hemingway

Risk is a part of God’s game, alike for men and nations.  ~Warren Buffett

It’s a shallow life that doesn’t give a person a few scars.  ~Garrison Keillor

If we listened to our intellect, we’d never have a love affair. We’d never have a friendship. We’d never go into business because we’d be too cynical. Well, that’s nonsense. You’ve got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down. ~ Annie Dillard

No man is worth his salt who is not ready at all times to risk his well-being, to risk his body, to risk his life, in a great cause.  ~Theodore Roosevelt

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.  ~T. S. Eliot

During the first period of a man’s life the greatest danger is not to take the risk.  ~Soren Kierkegaard

I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.  ~Pablo Picasso

You’ll always miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.  ~Wayne Gretzky

A ship in harbor is safe – but that is not what ships are for.  ~John A. Shedd

Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.  ~Robert F. Kennedy

What great thing would you attempt if you knew you could not fail?  ~Robert H. Schuller

You must lose a fly to catch a trout.  ~George Herbert

If one is forever cautious, can one remain a human being?  ~Aleksander Solzhenitsyn

One cannot refuse to eat just because there is a chance of being choked.  ~Chinese Proverb

Don’t listen to those who say ‘you taking too big a chance.’ Michelangelo would have painted the Sistine floor, and it would surely be rubbed out by today. Most important, don’t listen when the little voice of fear inside you rears its ugly head and says ‘they all smarter than you out there. They’re more talented, they’re taller, blonder, prettier, luckier, and they have connections.” I firmly believe that if you follow a path that interests you, not to the exclusion of love, sensitivity, and cooperation with others, but with the strength of conviction that you can move others by your own efforts—and do not make success or failure the criteria by which you live—the chances are you’ll be a person worthy of your own respects. ~ Neil Simon

The risk of a wrong decision is preferable to the terror of indecision. ~Maimonides

There can be no vulnerability without risk. There can be no community without vulnerability. There can be no peace, and ultimately no life, without community. ~ M. Scott Peck

People who don’t take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year. People who do take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year. ~ Peter F. Drucker

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. ~ Helen Keller

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. ~ Mark Twain

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I… I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. ~ Robert Frost

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Sometimes We Need a Double-Dog Dare

Reminders are a good thing. I have found over the years that most people don’t need some new teaching, rather, they need an encouraging reminder of what they already know to be true, but the truth has faded into the thick mist of busyness. I came across this thought by Steve Maraboli today that had some good, encouraging reminders in it…so I double-dog-dare ya to be light this year!

Monty

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Dare to Be 

When a new day begins, dare to smile gratefully.

When there is darkness, dare to be the first to shine a light.

When there is injustice, dare to be the first to condemn it.

When something seems difficult, dare to do it anyway.

When life seems to beat you down, dare to fight back.

When there seems to be no hope, dare to find some.

When you’re feeling tired, dare to keep going.

When times are tough, dare to be tougher.

When love hurts you, dare to love again.

When someone is hurting, dare to help them heal.

When another is lost, dare to help them find the way.

When a friend falls, dare to be the first to extend a hand.

When you cross paths with another, dare to make them smile.

When you feel great, dare to help someone else feel great too.

When the day has ended, dare to feel as you’ve done your best.

Dare to be the best you can –

At all times, Dare to be!”

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mirror, mirror on the wall…

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I remember those lines. They were delivered with such a drippingly powerful intensity that you actually felt sorry for the mirror!

"mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all."

The wicked queen was not gazing into the mirror for truth, but for vanity and ego appeasement. When we look into a mirror we have the choice to look inward and grow, or deflect what we see and live in the land of denial which ultimately shrivels the soul, and diminishes the truth about God.

A person who leads or teaches has the capacity to enlarge their soul in greater proportions than those she/he leads. A great leader or teacher is not one who simply regurgitates data to an audience, but one who dances in and out of the truth, sweating through the unknown in order to create an atmosphere of epiphany and understanding.

In my own world, most often as I wrestle with the things that I am to teach in the realm of spiritual formation or leadership, I am faced with my own inadequacies, brokenness, and desperate need of God.

One of my leadership life commandments has been that: "I won't be like a travel agent who sells people on a destination that he himself has never been." That means that I have had to lay my soul on the altar over and over again.

Education has a cost. It is the cost of integrity forming in us what we have learned. If we do not allow what we have be enlightened with or to, to transform us, we have chosen to leave the gift unopened.

I have found that it is easier to regurgitate information, or prepare a great and enthusiastic speech about places we have never been than it is to set the ego aside, admit our self-focus as well as our self-hatred at times, and allow God to move through us. But the results of the latter far outweigh the former.

In Parker Palmer's great book, "The Courage To Teach" he notes:

"Teaching, like any truly human activity, emerges from one's inwardness,
for
better or worse. As I teach I project the condition of my soul onto my
students,
my subject, and our way of being together. The entanglements I
experience in the
classroom are often no more or less than the convolutions of my inner
life.
Viewed from this angle, teaching holds a mirror to the soul. If I am
willing to
look in that mirror and not run from what I see, I have a chance to gain
self-knowledge–and knowing myself is as crucial to good teaching as
knowing my
students and my subject." 

When we don't like what we see in the mirror of enlightenment, we have a divine choice…we can either move toward what frightens us, and grow, or back away reducing our depth and self-understanding to information distribution.

The condition of our soul enters into everything we do as humans. The way we relate or don't relate. The way we choose to respond or thoughtlessly react. The way we communicate through a discussion or evade one altogether. The way we dialog through conflict or deny their is conflict.

Teaching/leading has created an atmosphere in my life where I have to continually look in the mirror and do something about what I see. Though it's never easy, and often painful, it is also a great blessing. The more I deal with and heal the image of myself in the mirror, the more I heal the man-made image of God I also carry in my soul.

When we look in the mirror, we often see a Pandora's box of paradox, In the book "The Ragamuffin' Gospel" Brennan Manning noted the following as he honestly assessed his heart:

"When I get honest, I admit
I am a bundle
of paradoxes. I believe and I doubt, I hope and get discouraged, I love
and I hate, I feel bad about feeling good, I feel guilty about not
feeling
guilty. I am trusting and suspicious. I am honest and I still play
games.
Aristotle said I am a rational animal; I say I am an angel with an
incredible
capacity for beer."

Brennan has a great way with words! Often when we see the paradoxes that dwell within they scare us and we stop looking. We are afraid of being accepted by God and others due to what we see that we don't like. So we live a life of cover-up or performance hoping -that- will make up for the deficiencies we see in our lives. But this simply creates a new religion for you to live out…Christ came to free you from that trap. I like how Manning re-centers us on the Gospel of God's grace:

God's love is based on
nothing,
and the fact that it is based on nothing makes us secure. Were it based
on anything we do, and that "anything" were to collapse, then God's love
would crumble as well. But with the God of Jesus no such thing can
possibly
happen. People who realize this can live freely and to the fullest.
Remember
Atlas, who carries the whole world? We have Christian Atlases who
mistakenly
carry the burden of trying to deserve God's love. Even the mere watching
of this lifestyle is depressing. I'd like to say to Atlas: 'Put that
globe
down and dance on it. That's why God made it.' And to the weary
Christian
Atlases: "Lay down your load and build your life on God's love." We
don't
have to earn this love; neither do we have to support it. It is a free
gift. Jesus calls out: "Come to me, all you Atlases who are weary and
find
life burdensome, and I will refresh you."

If you have never stepped out in leadership, or decided to teach someone else, let me encourage you to look for an opportunity. It will cause you to look at who you truly are. It will create an awareness of who your really are. It will force you to consider some of your held beliefs about God that are more than likely false. This will bring you to a new and truer awareness of who you are and who God is…and that is where real growth happens.

Mirror, mirror on the wall…who's the fairest of them all? Now the mirror can honestly respond, "Jesus is, and do you know what? He thinks your incredible."

Dei Gratia,

Monty