Revisiting the spirit of Fiji

It's coming up to one year since my trip to Fiji. I've been working on my Fiji movie and it's shaping up nicely. Or, to restate that using the language of ownership - I am well pleased with where I've been taking it.

Why am I making this video now, almost a year later? I had previously made a short video last year that I had posted to my Facebook account, and a couple of slideshows using iPhoto, but none of those projects encapsulated the full scope of the video that I envisioned making while I was there. I've just really really really wanted to do it, and I've been having a slow period with regard to client projects, so I just started doing it.

While I was in Fiji I did the pole-climb. I also took over 400 photographs and recorded several hours of video. I had it in my mind that I would make a movie out of all that and I started thinking about what my soundtrack would be. One song I kept hearing was Faith of the Heart. That's the theme song from the series Star Trek: Enterprise, performed by Russell Watson.

I was really hearing that song, I was really hearing the words, and they seemed totally, completely, appropriate for the experience I was having in Fiji.

It's been a long road
Getting from there to here...

It certainly was a long road getting from Toronto to Fiji. I took something like five planes, crossed the International Date Line, crossed the equator, and crossed so many time zones that I'm not even sure how long it took me to get there. I think it was about twenty four hours.

Physically, it was a long road getting from here to there, but also metaphorically - my life journey has been a long road.

Some of the other lines I was hearing...

I'm going where my heart will take me
I've got faith to believe
I can do anything
I've got strength of the soul
And no one's gonna bend or break me
I can reach any star...

Those words - I could just hear those words and they completely went with the images I had, climbing the pole. It's what the pole climb is about - I can do anything, I can reach any star.

It's now, almost a year later, I'm going back to that video and man, I need that inspiration now. For a couple of weeks now I've been feeling down and discouraged about my fund raising efforts for the trek in Machu Picchu for Joints In Motion. As I'm watching the pictures of me climbing that pole and hearing that music and listening to those words, I feel a reconnection with inspiration.

I've had some kick-ass wins recently so it seems irrational that I should be feeling down and discouraged. I should just focus on my wins and feel positive, right?

Maybe, but I don't believe in so-called Positive Thinking. I equate that with putting on a mask. I think I would be remiss if I failed to acknowledge my negative feelings to myself and pretended I didn't have them. I think that sweeping them under the rug allows them to gain power over me. I've learned that I become stronger in the end when I acknowledge and respect my negative feelings and know that I won't stay in them for too long.

They're not gonna hold me down no more, no, they're not gonna hold me down.

I will see my dream come alive at last. I will touch the sky.

Playing the game like it matters

Tonight at my men's team meeting we took a break and played a game of street hockey.

I did not want to play. It was cold, I was feeling stiff, I wasn't feeling up to playing.

I didn't want to be a suck either so I agreed to play goalie. At least I wouldn't have to move around too much, wouldn't have to chase the ball down the road in the dark, wouldn't be getting jostled and bumped by guys bigger than me trying to get the ball away from me, or me futilely trying to get the ball away from them.

For a good three quarters of the game I had a really sucky context - how much longer will we be playing?

The opposing side scored at least four goals on me where I was just moving too slow to block the ball. A few of them just went right between my feet and through the goal line. How much longer will we be playing?

When I heard one of the men call out "Next goal wins!" I felt relief. At least the game would end soon. I didn't care which side scored that winning goal because either way would mean that the best team won.

Then I started thinking, what if I played this game as if it did really matter? What if I played it as if I really did have something on the line? There is a saying that the way we do anything is the way we do everything. I have a revenue target of $180,000+ for 2011. I have a fund raising target of $8,000 that I'm raising to help find a cure for arthritis which affects 4 million Canadians. Am I going to play the revenue game, the fundraising game, the way I've been playing this hockey game?

And then the hockey game did begin to matter, and it mattered which side got the winning goal. It mattered because now I had something on the line. I had $180,000+ revenue on the line. I had $8,000 fundraising on the line. I had 4 million Canadians with arthritis on the line.

Once I shifted those thoughts into my mindset I started noticing different results. The ball didn't just roll through my feet over the goal line, it bounced off my stick. Or it landed right under my foot and stopped. I noticed that the big guy who had been repeatedly scoring against me was losing control of the ball more often when he came near me.

Yes, the game was taking longer to finish now and that was okay because now it mattered. And in the end it was our side that scored the next goal and thereby won the game.

It makes a difference to play the game like it really matters. For those 4 million Canadians with arthritis it matters.

In Motion for Joints In Motion

I gave a successful presentation at the MDI Division meeting this week in Oakville.

I had a dilemma because on the same evening I also had the completion evening for the recent Pursuit of Excellence workshop that I attended. I ended up coming for the first hour of the completion event and made it for the second half of the Division meeting.

After I gave my presentation men started coming up to me with twenties in their hands. They ended up contributing over $300 towards my Joints In Motion fund raising campaign. That was with only half of the Division being present at the meeting.

I have a lot of thank you's to write.

Joints In Motion

I once made a list of one hundred things I wanted to do, be, or have, if I had a billion dollars. The purpose of this exercise was to create (or discover) my life vision by identifying the things that I would do if money were no object.

One of the things I came up with for my list was to find a cure for arthritis.

It was quite a number of years ago that I came up with this list. I don't have a billion dollars in my account and I don't even have my first million yet.

I recently started asking myself what could I do to advance this part of my vision with the resources that I do have.

One of the results of asking myself this question was finding out about the Joints In Motion program. It's a fund raising program where participants get to wall, hike, or trek in various parts of the world. I found a tour that appealed to partly because the timing was right: a hike in Machu Pichu in August 2011.

I've sent in my registration form already. This is going to be a big challenge for me, both the physical part of the hike and the fundraising effort.

It also makes quite the bucket list item.

Between my upcoming Date With Destiny event in Palm Springs, Leadership Tune Up Weekend in Calgary in May, and Machu Pichu next August, I'd say I've got quite a year of adventures lined up.

It's going to be a year of living large!