1979. Jr. High School Physics class.

Mixed in with the insights on the life to come, our physics teacher/basketball coach/football coach introduced us to Isaac Newton and his laws of motion. His first law of motion: “an object at rest will remain at rest until an outside force acts upon it, and an object in motion remains in motion in the same direction until an outside force acts upon it” has echoed to me through the years. Little did I know that this great idea would come to describe how I believe people move through life. We do the same things, and head the same way until “SOMETHING” changes our direction. These “somethings,” both good and bad, change the direction of our lives and, therefore, changes our destiny.

Perhaps the first step to increasing our awareness of these “somethings” as they appear is first to realize that we are, in fact, in motion. Everything is!

My mom summarized this same great notion by constantly reciting to me that “what you will be, you are now becoming.” Both science and mom were giving me the foundation of what has become by dominating perspective. Life can be a Great Work or Opus, if we make the right choices, and everything will continue to always change, just as the numerical representation of the ratio of a circle’s area to the square of its radius (PI) does.

Opus Pi will be my attempt to share the tapestry of ideas and “somethings “that have altered my journey thus far..

Expect a Great Day!

 

“Vitamins and supplements don’t work.” said the soft fat guy with no energy.

“The motivational self help stuff is crap” says the pissed off man; made because someone is holding him back.

“I don’t read” says the man that is “unlucky” at …everything.

“ I don’t have time.” says the man right before he sits down to watch tv.

“I don’t like gay people,” says the straight person that nobody likes.

“ I could do that if I really wanted too”, says the person not brave enough to admit that that wan tot be more than they are.

” Don’t tell him that you love him” said the lady that’s such a relationship Guru she is alone.

“Thats ulgy!” says a man as he points to a thing of absolute beauty, as seen by someone else.

“But….” says must people right after they say what they want, and before they give the excuse of why they can;t have it.

“There’s nothing good on TV” says the person that spends a few hours flipping through channels to try and prove himself wrong?

Most plans and All diets are scheduled to start “in the future” almost never “right now.”

There are more books with instructions on how to do , go or get what people say they want, than all the books most people have read in their entire lives.

“So, what are you going to do about it?” says all great coaches in thier own unique ways, when you tell them your problems.

“That guy’s a bum!” say the over weight coach potatoe as he describes a world class athlete on a professional sports team.

“I not sure how  but I must” says the winner

“You can do it!” says the person that has lost enough to learn how to win most of the time.

“But what if….” starts winner who is told what he wants to do can’t be done.

“I TOLD YOU SO!” thinks the winner, silently to himself, as he smiles and looks in the mirror after doing the impossible………….again.

 

Today we’re going to talk about a concept I have called failspeed. Failspeed combines two critical concepts to achieving any dramatic changes in success, direction or transformation. One is that of failure and the second is that of speed. First of all, let’s look at failure. We need to remind ourselves constantly that failure is not a person, it’s an event. Failure is just an event.And it’s a critical event in achieving anything worth obtaining. Let’s look at two examples. These are two of the most complex things that most people accomplish as human beings, one being walking and the other being talking. When we look at how we acquire these skills, we can see that it’s done through failure. If you ever watched a small child learn to walk, what you’ve seen them doing in the very early stages is failing dramatically, failing miserably; they can’t even maintain their balance. It takes a long time just to get a little wobble in order to stand up. But once they accomplish that, they move on to taking that very first thing that looks like a step. It’s not quite a step and it definitely ends up with them on the ground, but that failure is necessary. It’s a necessary step towards them learning how to walk.It’s the same when we learn how to communicate so we know how to talk. The first sounds that come out of our mouths remotely resemble words. They’re these big blobs of sound that slowly over time evolve into something as beautiful sounding as Daddy. Failure is absolutely necessary in us acquiring new skills. And new skills are fundamental to us getting ahead.The second concept is that of speed. In this, when we look at speed as related to failing, one of the key components of dramatic success is to put yourself in an environment where you can fail quickly. The faster you can fail, the faster you can learn; and the faster you can learn, the better you can become. If you can do that in a very short period of time you stand to get very good at whatever that particular task is.We call this type of rapid failing or failspeed, practice. Practice is when you can go out in a non-threatening environment where you don’t actually win or lose the game, but you can fail as you get better. So when you actually do play the game you’re very good at it, and your probability of failing is very, very small.Average people have very small opportunities in their lives to fail, especially at a high rate of speed. Extraordinary people constantly have avenues and opportunities in life where they can fail. Those people fail at a very rapid rate of speed. This failspeed sharpens their instincts; it sharpens their awareness, creates their points of reference. It gives them the advantage and helps them win. The quickest way to add this powerful concept of failspeed in your life is simply to learn something new, anything new. Learn something new and see how much better you get at the things you currently do. Expect a great day

It might rely upon its roots, planted in its past, to take from its enviorment what it needs to grow.

Push upward beyond the grip of the ground, towards the light that it hasn’t seen yet.

In the early stages when its small and vonurable, it would not shrink back undergorund and hide.

When its finally tall enough to see more than inches ahead..it could look up and see Trees!

and in that instant it would know…all it needs to know… That it can do it too!

GROW!

and then it can go on to be shade for some, a home for others, backgound in a picture,

or completley be over looked…..but still be a tree.  A glorious tree!

and it could sing of how it fought and won, and shared and grew, and took the light inside!

with never having to say a word……

I could hear them

Running behind me

A steady cadence of staccato thunder

the pulse of the wave that the sound of their footsteps created.

They sang with one voice:

Here we come, I heard them said, Here we come!

It was them, my enemy.

The average; the pack I fought to stay ahead off

“Slow down,… get in line” they commanded as they always did.

There rhythm was steady…slower than mine….calming

To abort my plans and join them,would allow me to breathe easier

Maybe even rest a bit.

But as they got closer I could see their eyes

There was Most-men, Average-guy and the Fatman

All calling to me, to slow down, relax and get in line.

Telling me that I was one of them.

But pushed harder.

I pushed against the voice in my head, against pain in my side, against the gravity of the world

And I slowely started to pull ahead again, leaving them in the distance behind me.

Finally the thunder of their steps faded into the distance, and I could barely hear them

But I know that they are back there, moving slowley steadily back towards me,

Screaming at the top of their lungs

“Tomorrow”, they sing in one determined voice, “Here we come!”

so I push on……..

Butterflies, I’ve always thought, are great metaphors for success.  Many people will tell you “don’t show people that you care.”  They tell you to separate what you do for a living from your emotions. You know what?  I think that’s wrong. I think you need to get in line with your emotions. Your emotions are part of what make you special. That’s what makes humans special – our ability to care about something.

Getting in line with things about which you are passionate aligns you with the things that are going to give you power…these things that are going to give you a glimpse at the truly great person that you can be. Many people out there tell us, “Hide your emotions, never cry,” or keep a “poker face.”  We say this on the one hand but on the other hand, when we look at the lives of many of the people we idolize – the sports stars, the entertainers, the athletes – they’re completely connected to the things they care about most. They are completely driven by their passion.

In fact, look at football. In football you can see a 300-pound monster of a man, a rock solid mountain of muscle, fall on his knees in front of 60,000 people and shed a tear because a ball didn’t go through the uprights. Think about that. That’s somebody who is truly connected to their passion. It’s no wonder that pro athletes are compensated so greatly for what they do. I find it just a little odd that it’s all right to be completely passionate, almost fanatical, about sports, yet you are supposed to be completely nonemotional about your career, your job – those things that are actually providing for you, and your family, and your future.  It doesn’t make any sense. Performers get nervous about performing..athletes get butterflies before a game.  Maybe we should all pursue our butterfly-creating moment; something that makes us stretch…something that makes us grow.

Maybe if you pursue those butterflies long enough, you might actually become one. Think about it. The life of a butterfly starts off as a caterpillar – weak, small, and crawling around on the ground. There’s nothing around to tell him that he will be anything other than that; nothing around him that tells him he will be anything greater than that. When he looks out – whether or not he’s got dreams of flying above the trees and the clouds – nothing in current life, nothing in the couple of inches before his face tells him that he will ever be anything greater than what he currently is. The only thing that does is the voice inside of his head – the voice that says drive forward, keep going, to follow his instincts.

One day he’s going to be so driven, and one day he’s going to be so surrounded by his beliefs, that he’s going to wrap himself up to isolate himself from a nonbelieving world. He’s going to wrap himself up to isolate himself from the naysayers, from the dream stealers, from all the people who don’t believe. He’s going to find himself completely separated from that world in his little cocoon. And then one day, one day, he’s going to step out, out of that cocoon, and transformed he will be, completely transformed. He will fly away from that moment forth. He will fly out into the world, and no, he’s not going to look out into the world and say, “I told you so.” He’s going to look into himself and say, “I knew I could. I knew I was more than the world was telling me I could be. I knew I was more than everybody surrounding me was telling me I could be. I knew I was more than even the mirror was telling me I could be. I knew that I could fly! I butterfly!”

A Letter to the Nation

 Out of a powerful group of ideals, ideas and people… Emerged America.   And over the last few hundred years America has evolved into not only a super power, but for many, an example of what is possible in the development of citizenship through the complex status we summarize as “The Free.”   But now we find ourselves challenged.  Most people today are quicker to point out our problems before our progress, our wrongs before our wonders, and our tragedies before our triumphs.

I am not going to be as dramatic as to say that we are sitting on a great defining moment in our history; but I will say something even bolder! Giving the nature of our inception, all moments in our existence are laced with the potential for extraordinary greatness.  America was not founded to just be another Country; we have the deliberate attempt and charter, to be better than that. We were created to try and become the best home for humanity if in the world!

This is not a geocentric or arrogant statement; or a slight to our global neighbors; on the contrary, it’s a compliment; For woven into the fabric of our nation is the open call for the diverse opinion‘s and contribution from the citizens of the world.  We welcome and appreciate the Difference in perspective and experience that in many cases originated in cultures and peoples whose history predates our own. That is our global advantage; that ideas born from the struggles and successes of other people, families, and communities can find themselves here at rest with us.

America is the place that tries to guarantee to the world that individual ideas have a chance for survival.

We have struggled constantly and consistently since our creation; to change, adapt and expand our rules of law, so to increase the possibility and survival of the individual idea.

The slowly changing ideals that we have built a nation around – The constitution- is more than a testament to who we think we are; It is our commitment to WHO WE CAN BECOME; both individually and collectively.

 Great and dedicated people have spent their lives, and some given their lives, for this simple and most precious belief.

We will stand at the dawn of our greatest time, the very monument we all decide to live up to our individual potential; while encouraging others to do the same.

God bless the America that is, and the one we strive to become.

Earl Mann