This is the warning on every metaphor we can hold.
It’s almost countercultural to even speak about the slow, the steady, the time, the patience, and the persistence that is required in what we would cling to as beautiful.
What the world sees is this.
What really happens is this.
Most often to let the music play, you can’t simply just hit ‘play’, you have to let it unfold , till the soil, romance the instruments, and let time do its thing.
And it’s in this unfolding where true reward is found.
Dabbling doesn’t lead to mastery.
Enjoy the course, focus on the pins.
The scorecard knows no difference between a putt and a drive.
And of course…“Yep… Inside each and every one of us is one true authentic swing… Somethin’ we was born with… Somethin’ that’s ours and ours alone… Somethin’ that can’t be taught to ya or learned… Somethin’ that got to be remembered… Over time the world can, rob us of that swing… It get buried inside us under all our wouldas and couldas and shouldas… Some folk even forget what their swing was like…” The Legend of Bagger Vance Steven Pressfield
This week’s podcast can be listened to below or listened and subscribed to in iTunes by clicking here.
Book/Business Segment
Book: Linchpin: Are you indispensable?
Music Segment
Sleeping At Last on Spotify.
Download the album here.
Watch the lyrics and listen to this song on youtube here.
Lyrics to the song: North
We will call this place our home,
Crayons
Ashton’s writings on crayons are below.
http://ltmpblog.com/2011/11/22/do-you-want-to-color/
http://ltmpblog.com/2013/02/12/crayon-thieves/
Benediction:
May you become childlike again. May you take back your crayons and fill your pockets with them…and in every moment of life give them their opportunity to do their thing. May you dip the paintbrush of your business and stroke the canvas with service. May you color your relationships with the crayons love, laughter, hope. May you find the courage and the bravery to to pull the back the veil and bring us the light, the hum, the soul, and the crayons you came here with to be fully used so that we may be changed by your art. When you light up. We light up.
Pause by the orchid. Listen to the bluebird sing. Be love.
…it warms the dirt for your relationships, moments, and art to grow and bloom.
And so when we say that the hardest thing one will ever do is become who they were originally whispered to be, what we are talking about is the beautiful, hard, and rewarding work of pulling back the veil that keeps the stage of the soul closed.
Because where there’s soul, there’s light.
Where there’s light there’s vision.
Where there’s vision there’s an experience.
Where there’s an experience there’s meaning.
Where there’s meaning there’s fulfillment.
Where there’s fulfillment there’s peace.
Where there’s peace there’s a garden in bloom.
And where there’s a garden in bloom, we’ve then come full circle and waltzed backed to how things should and were meant to be.
All because something – you – shined.
This weekend I read Warren Buffett’s 2014 overview letter to his shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Turning the final page I knew that I would never see my life, passions, relationships, and businesses the same.
You can find a copy of it here.
Buffett is known for these letters and I’ve read them before, but there was something about this one that struck a chord deep inside of me. Was it his 84 year old flame of passion that felt as bright and warm as ever? Or was it his simplistic approach to life, relationships, and business that spoke to me? Maybe the student was finally ready and the teacher appeared…
In the last 50 years, Buffett’s simple, non-compromising approach to business, investments, and people has taken the per-share book value of Berkshire Hathaway from $19 to $146,186, a rate of 19.4% compounded annually…an overall gain of 1,826,163%.
I underlined the following lines from his letter…
Don’t these make you smile?
And yet you never hear a greedy tone in the symphony discussed that the fourth wealthiest man in the world has directed for 50 years. He ends his letter praising the 24 men and women that he works with everyday and says, “I truly do feel like tap dancing to work everyday.” Yes, even Buffett gets the idea of gathering musicians and their instruments and letting their collective music play.
He plans on giving away 99% of his earthly wealth when he and his essence take this show over the rainbow. Buffett once said, “Were we to use more than 1% of my claim checks (Berkshire Hathaway stock certificates) on ourselves, neither our happiness nor our well-being would be enhanced. In contrast, that remaining 99% can have a huge effect on the health and welfare of others.” Here’s his letter making that commitment and here’s his friends that have also confessed that meaning > money.
Crazy-beautiful things happen when you give simplicity, goodness, patience, kindness, self-control, and conviction the pen to author your days.
Ashton.Gustafson 