Decide to Be and Do Something Dangerously Different

As a child I vividly remember growing up in a tumultuous environment. Every negative word heard was a seed embedded in my soul that would produce a harvest of anger.  I carried more than a chip on my shoulders, it felt like the weight of a boulder.

After one base decision after another, I found myself standing on sinking sand. Underneath the pretty smile was a volcano of emotions ready to erupt. I feverishly made countless attempts to bury my head in the dirt and ignore the nagging pain that would not dissipate.

There comes a moment in the middle of your mess that you realize you were created for more than being average. I could no longer be content with being comfortable. Why do we gamble with our greatness, as if our life is to be handled frivolously with a roll of the dice?

We each have twenty-four hours in a day allotted for creativity, connectivity and change. What we do with those hours increases or decreases our contribution in the world at large. In the society we currently live in, the main focus appears to be accumulation of material assets. The higher calling is to be more concerned with who you are becoming, rather than what are you attaining.

I will never forget a conversation that I had with a shoeshine man when I was twenty-three years of age. He asked me two questions that would cause me to step off the path of destruction and begin a new journey on the road to divine destiny. As I stood in his presence, the first query was, “Are you happy?” And secondly, “Are you exercising your gifts?” I honestly could not answer yes to either. 

Frequently, I have dialogues with women in leadership who are living completely beneath their potential. They sense a call for more but are often paralyzed by a fear of the unknown. We settle for an empty attachment to the familiar as we simultaneously abhor the suffocating ties that bind.

How do you shatter the stained glassed windows of perfection and courageously embrace a brand new day of change? As simple as this: Decide to be and do something dangerously different right NOW! In the words of, Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, “What is not started today is never finished tomorrow.”