Soul Food for the Chicken

I was driving down one of my town’s main streets the other day headed to a baseball game when, like a crashing wave, the obvious hit me! This street is our busiest street. High traffic. Lots of pedestrians. Stop lights. You get the picture. Most of the time as I’m driving, on this street especially, I’m thinking about things I need to get done, watching the traffic ahead of me, checking out the car next to me, playing with my kids or focused in on the talk coming over the air waves! (I won’t mention my cell phone at all……those of you that know me know I NEVER use my cell phone while driving!….:).. ok maybe some) This night I was headed to a baseball game. As I turned the corner of 21st and Prince the thought entered my mind, ‘Wow it seems like forever to get from here to Brady.’ Just as this fleeting thought passed I glanced over the traffic ahead of me and saw it! It seemed close enough to reach out and touch! It was the bridge that leads to the location I was headed to. This is when the wave of our horizon hit me. My dreading this drive down busy Prince street was now faced with the reality that where I am headed is really closer than I think. Too many times in life I get bogged down by the traffic…..ie….email, Twitter, Facebook, cell phones…….or maybe I get down about the economy…….ie…….401k, stocks, real estate, mortgage’s………some moments I get depressed by the weight……ie……..kids’ college, relationships, expectations. Does any of this relate to you? I’m so worried about time, red lights and break lights that I forget to look up and over the busy-ness to see the bridge that leads to my destiny! I forget that with the light of the sun comes the horizon of the sun and with this horizon comes hope, refreshing and purpose. Life can change at a red light but your destiny awaits forever. It’s your decision whether you enjoy the pause and focus on the bridge or get frustrated because life brought you a moment.

Last night I drove Prince headed to Brady again…….it was the best drive I’ve had in a while!

Here’s to your horizon,

Mitch

I hear people say it all the time. Especially religious people. ‘How are you?’ ‘I’m blessed!’ they say. I read the words on Facebook and Twitter constantly. The words that simply read, “I’m blessed.” Each time I hear or read these words I wonder to myself if the person using this phrase truly understands what a blessing is. For instance, a few years ago a tornado rolled through my town of Clovis, New Mexico. After the craziness of this destruction I would hear those that didn’t get struck by the twister say they were ‘blessed’ by not getting swept away. My mind always wondered about those that DID get struck. Were they NOT blessed because the tornado struck their home? To go a step further what about someone that may have even been killed by this type of disaster? With this blessing theory would they be considered……not blessed? I’ve just never understood the use of this term ‘blessed.’

I talk to alot of people about business. Often I’ll ask my friends how business is going. My religious friends will either say business is slow or that their business is ‘blessed.’ My friends that aren’t of a religious belief will simply say that their business is either good or bad. I have a few that regardless if business is slow or great will respond more from a perspective of solution. In other words these friends are always looking to grow regardless of the current state of their business. The interesting thing about my friends that respond from this point of view are very rarely religious people. Interesting. They don’t view things by being blessed or bad. They simply view life by giving the best they can give and letting everything else fall in to place. Hmm………

Why is it that religious folks think they are blessed? I’ve dealt with many funerals in my day. I’ve also dealt with many weddings. I’ve never gone to a funeral and heard the family say we are so ‘blessed’ because our dad passed. I find this strange because the whole mantra of christianity is that a better place awaits after this life. If this is what christians really believe then wouldn’t it make sense that the most blessing would come when we die? So at a funeral of a religious person you SHOULD hear people saying ‘Great! We are blessed because now our dad is truly blessed!’ Yet at weddings your hear this statement. In fact I remember one wedding I performed and I constantly heard how ‘blessed’ the family was because of this marriage. Funny thing was 2 years later when that couple was getting divorced noone was talking about how ‘blessed’ they were. My question is simple: Are they blessed or not? I know all of this sounds confusing, well, because it is. This picture of confusion is what religion has caused. It is a sad, sad commentary to our religious society indeed.

I’ve figured out over the years that what religious folks mean when they say they are ‘blessed’ is that really they are grateful that tragedy hasn’t struck them recently. Which in reality isn’t being ‘blessed.’ Well, I guess it could be a blessing of sorts but it doesn’t mean you’re any more blessed than you would be if you lost your job. In fact there have been jobs that I’ve lost that were actually the greatest blessings that could have ever happened to me! The other thing that strikes me when I hear people say they are ‘blessed’ is that while they say they are ‘blessed’ for successful business or good things this also means that others who don’t have the same success or good things happening aren’t blessed. I wonder if people truly stop to think about this reality. If you say you’re blessed when you’re successful then what are you when you’re not? HA! The madness of religion.

I’ll end my confusing ramblings with this: I’m blessed. PERIOD. I’m blessed coming and going. Hurt or healthy. Dead or alive. No circumstance or destruction can change my perspective on this because I know what the reality is. I’m blessed. You see the confusion comes when we allow our circumstance to determine our mindset. Take my kids. Destroy my house. Take my health and steal my money. I’m still blessed. My mind and perspective IS NOT founded on things, people or circumstance. No my mindset and attitude is determined by WHOSE I am and where I live. I live in a community and kingdom that cannot be destroyed. Cannot be shaken. And is blessed because we are possessed……by the King.

I encourage you to not say you are blessed unless you truly believe you are. If you walked into a store blessed and walked out to find your car stolen would you still be blessed? You better be…because your car is simply that…your car. To my religious friends: If this were you, the one that walked in blessed and out to a stolen car, if this circumstance changed your mindset all of a sudden then I suggest you truly take a long, hard look in the mirror and ask one simple question: ‘What do I believe.’ Better yet, ‘Who do I believe.’

May you be truly blessed.

Cheers, Mitch

One of my favorite sayings…..’It is what it is.’ Life happens. People mess up. People succeed. I often wonder how life would be if instead of worrying about what’s going to happen or how they might react or what people think I focused on what is. And really what is….is me. I can’t control you. I can’t control the guy next to me. I can’t control my kids or my wife or friends. I can only do what I can do and how you respond to that is your decision. Now, this DOES NOT give me the right to not treat you in the best way possible. That’s why I love my little statement, ‘It is what it is.’ If I have done everything within my power at that moment in time to treat you with the best of my ability then I’ve done what I need to do. The rest will play itself out. If I give everything I’ve got to make any given day the greatest day possible then I’ve done what I can do. There’s no need to worry or fret over things I can’t control. Things work out if I’ll just be patient and take the pride and time to act and live to the best of my potential.

Friends, live a life of freedom. In America I hear people literally everyday talk about how we are a ‘free’ country and how we must ‘protect’ our freedom! There’s only one problem with this claim: I don’t see very many ‘free’ people walking around our ‘free’ country. I see stressed people, in debt people, over weight people, people that hate their jobs people, people that regret people, married people that don’t want to be married people, drug addicted people, sex addicted people, work addicted people, depressed people….maybe you’ve seen these type of people too. Maybe you’re one of them. We have become a culture of such radically undisciplined and unfocused people that it’s now a running joke. I was watching a baseball game the other day. A team made a terrible mistake in the field. As the team made this mistake the camera panned to the manager and his grim demeanor. The announcer jokingly responded, ‘That’s why so and so doesn’t have any more hair! His team is making him lose all of it!’ HAHAHAHA….um I find that true story to be a seriously delirious commentary on our culture. We aren’t created to be stressed or in debt or addicted or out of shape or over weight or depressed. No we were created to be powerful, influential, positive, smiling, truthful, focused and motivated. THAT IS FREEDOM! Oh, and this type of true freedom has no need to be protected. Why? Because it can’t be taken!

Don’t get swallowed up in the wave of craziness. Smile, dance,  sing and let things unfold…..because it is what it is.

Cheers,

Mitch

On my fancy cell phone is this simple really cool thing. It happens only when I plug it in and have the phone off. It’s not an app I bought or downloaded. It’s not some feature that will help me stay organized. But it’s still one of the coolest things on this ’smart’ phone. Today I was talking to a friend and my phone died. I didn’t have my charger with me and was in the middle of some things so for the next 45 minutes or so I was disconnected from the world I know. The world of email and tweets. Status updates and texts. Wouldn’t you know it by the time I got back to the office, plugged my phone in for a few to get a charge I had missed 5 phone calls, received 8 texts, 4 instant messages and had 7 emails come through. Yes in 45 minutes. Those texts, i.m.’s and voice mails?….’Mitch where are you?’ ‘Mitch call me back!’ ‘Are you gonna answer?’ ‘Is May 25th ok for our appointment?’ You get the picture. While I’m amazed at how ‘instant’ we have become I’ll save that topic for another blog. Also to my friends, family and future business partners that I missed out on during my 45 minute vacation I love you. I’m sorry I missed you and I did call the person back that I was talking to when my phone died.

Back to my cool feature. I plug the phone in today and it pops on the screen. The coolest feature my phone has. When I plug my phone in while having it powered off a picture of a AA battery pops on the screen. Inside this little battery is a meter that flows back and forth like water showing how much of a charge your battery has. Less than 25% the water is red. Once the charge gets past 25% the water turns green. Underneath the battery is the percentage of charge. When the phone is less than 5% it won’t even turn on because it knows there isn’t near enough charge to do anything. Simple, I know, yet powerful. Powerful? Yes. Powerful. Every time I see this little battery pop up it reminds me of….well….me. This battery with it’s flowing, watery like charge meter reminds me of my life. It reminds me how I need to keep my life charged. Not plugged in but charged. You see if I stay plugged in then I stay tied to an outlet that is usually attached to a wall. In other words when I’m plugged in I can’t move. I can’t go. I can’t give to others the energy that I’ve just been given. BUT it is vital that I plug in and recharge often. If I don’t? I soon lose my energy and usefulness. I become short tempered and impatient. I say things and make decisions that I should never say or make. My head becomes cloudy when it should be clear and sunny. Why? Because I’m less than 5%. I have no energy. I need to plug in. What would happen if I plugged my phone in to charge then never used it? The charge would stay for a while but eventually it would die. Energy must be active to be useful. My youngest daughter loves to play with our old cell phones. She will play games and talk to people. One day she forgot to recharge a phone. It sat. The battery died. It made this noise. A terribly awful WAH….WAH…….WAH…….we couldn’t find that phone anywhere! The battery died even tho it hadn’t been used.

Friends, plug in but don’t stay plugged in. Use your energy to make the world a better place. Invest in others. Then plug in again. Don’t just plug in and sit. It will kill you. When you see that little battery pop up in your life recharge. Be active. Meditate. Pray. Read. Laugh. Sing. Write. Run. Simply recharge. My 45 minute vacation wasn’t much…but it was enough. I’m recharged. I’m ready and the river of my life is flowing.

Here’s to a recharge in your life!

Mitch