Victus Spiritus

I have seen this video repeatedly over a number of years and when I tuned in again today, tuned into the lens of intuition, I saw something that I had totally missed.  As Steve Jobs described that at the moment of crisis when the Apple board let him go, who did he turn to?

Having also read “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill a few times, it hit me that Jobs in his commencement speech talked about his “mastermind” group.  For all the times I have listened to this, only today did the names David Packard and Bob Noyce spring out.

What a mastermind group Jobs had even at his worst professional moment.  I went back to my bookcase and pulled out yet again “Think and Grow Rich”.  The aspect of intuition it discusses is its THIRTEENTH PRINCIPLE.  The book says this about “Sixth Sense” :

“This principle is the apex of the philosophy.  It can be assimilated, understood, and applied only by first mastering the other twelve principles”

So according to Napoleon Hill, intuition or sixth sense fits in a larger context of development, and those principles are laid out in the manner that he learned from Carnegie.

While I too possess a strong intuitive nature, I can also profess on skipping and taking shortcuts, so much so that I trust in the pursuit of tiny differences showing me the way.  I do believe that something will emerge, but I do that at the expense of not earning the right to be able to understand fully the emergence as it occurs. 

Things are emerging all the time, and while I treat the passing of Steve Jobs as a seminal moment, because the video above and the book I have mentioned have been a part of many re-visitations.  I can credit my intuition being a guide to having a lived a fortunate life, but on its own, what intuition keeps telling me is that I am not prepared, rather than not ready – for my own life journey.

That preparation is sweat equity, which when I honestly appreciate it in context of the 12 principles that are laid out before he even mentions “Six Sense” – has not rightly been earned.  What I have learned can serve my intuition, but earning I feel is a right well before it becomes a reward. 

Some people are born with a silver spoon in their mouth, and earning has been that which has been inherited, but that isn’t earning my freedom.  As imaginative as I can be, the earning is apparent when I look at my life path dots backwards.  Then I see how expedience has robbed moments, which Steve Jobs in his life, faced with full head on force.

No one wants their faith tested, the majority seek the path of least resistance.  In that regard I maybe selling myself short because I have lived an unusual path, but I have not put it all out there also, I know how much of my life has been lived on borrowed gas – but faith needs me to burn my own fuel.

That is where I can draw instant inspiration from Steve Jobs life, he left nothing to spare, even kept moving forward when he was running on empty.  My intuition must not then become a looking glass at the things I could have done, but an intent that is vivid in Steve Jobs commencement words.

So long as I appreciate my underutilized capability, and trust it fully, then I can have faith that stalling isn’t a future path, calling is.  So long as I accept this seminal moment with full authentic spirit, the future calls, even if I still don’t know what that calling is.

I think now is a good time for me to revisit yet again, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.

[Em]

The ultimate gospel is a life lived rich in meaning, value and purpose.  There is no gospel that gets one to that richness, but there is in the act of becoming a guide.  The gospel of Richard Dawkins is a guide, the gospel of Napoleon Hill is a guide, the gospel of Jesus Christ is a guide, the gospel of Nietzsche is a guide.  The hard part is determining how we guide ourselves and the way we utilize the guide and whether the chosen compass serves the most relevant way – that leads to richness.

In that regard “Think and Grow Rich” is a guide that has great merit, so long as one is ready for it.  I watched a Kurt Warner documentary and why Green Bay let him go, the response of then quarter back coach Steve Mariucci was simple.  “Kurt wasn’t ready”.  

A lot of what makes a football player like Kurt Warner or Walter Peyton special in our eyes is their ability to accept guidance, their love of guiding others to excellence and ultimately guiding their teams when key aspects come together. 

What comes together maybe in the laps of providence, but the provision that arises depends in being ready, being true and being ever aware.  The one thing that jumps off the page in reading “Think and Grow Rich” for me, is the price-value relationship.  That one has to pay a price to create value.

At the same time, there is thing called the “third generation curse” i.e. when we are the ones whose efforts were pioneering and we are the ones who built the value, then succeeding generations are affected by the value we have ultimately created.  One of the chief reasons that Warren Buffett gave away billions, instead of passing it all on to succeeding generations, because Buffett realizes the true richness of being a value creator.

Beating the Third Generation Curse
http://www.forbes.com/global/1998/1130/0118064a.html

So I have come to look at this in an integral way, in as much totality my awareness can lead me to – and that awareness extends to the old adage “be careful what you wish for”.  In this larger context, I can use my intuition to see the bigger picture, and then begin the journey of drilling down, to chisel away and breakdown or breakthrough to my calling.  That is where I am at this present juncture of time – feeling that calling is sitting under a gigantic mess of too much thinking, and not enough separating the wheat from the chaff.

The rhetorical question “do I have what it takes” is a really stupid question IMHO – since we can only find guidance as to what blocks us from the flow of adding richness to existence.   What we don’t think about is how impoverished we really are, whenever we merely are influenced by glory or to be but emulations of greatness.  We are all born great, but then we let that greatness slip, fall away or get chewed up by life’s circumstances.  I have to redefine what poverty really is before I understand what life looks like when it is truly rich.  

With that perspective, poverty no longer becomes a financial thing – but a higher value of human spirit.  Even though I was born into a poor neighbourhood, I was also born rich.  Go to any village that lacks basic amenities and you will still find great people.  They have not lost their greatness, it is we who define what is great by falling into the trap of comparison – rather than gravitating with grace towards the richness of living a richer existence.  

That is the ever so personal context in which I am attribute and am reading this book and if abundance becomes a part of that journey, then so be it – I have to deal with whatever life throws at me, when it is thrown and however life manifests itself – and here the book does great service – because it redefines sacrifice, failure and set backs, into a richer scheme of things. 

I already have a broad perspective, my goal is to find the landing strip of my calling, and when I recognize that calling, remain grounded and set a foundation to a richer existence – rich equating with meaning, value and purpose, rather than a monetary value.  So here, I raise a toast to our individual life journeys and how our respective efforts and unique life ways enable that richness.

M.

Kickass speech. Never get bored of it!