entrepreneurship

Embracing Sacred Moments—Learning to Be in the Life You Already Have

October 20, 2023 by Ken Wells

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When I was a little kid, I used to always want to be somewhere else than where I was. When I sat in school in the third grade I could hear bulldozers and carpenters pounding nails outdoors and wished I could be one of them—anywhere but in school. When I sat through long hours at church I daydreamed about playing baseball to avoid the boredom and drudgery. During the summertime as a teenager, I would hoe beans and detassel corn. While walking the rows I would fantasize about swimming in a favorite swimming hole.

Looking back as an adult, some of those places don’t seem quite as bad as I once thought they were. I even have fond memories of grade school and summer jobs. However, as an adult, I have been in places where I wanted to be anywhere other than where I was.

Addicts and entrepreneurs have the same experience. Dread and craving trigger an addict to avoid what is real. Driven dreams powered by doing more to keep from being less, push many entrepreneurs toward the next enterprise. People tend to want to build a road to someplace other than where they are. Many find it scary and stressful to be present in the now moments of life and struggle to be comfortable in their own skin. So they keep moving from one project to the next or from one high to the next hit as an addict.

Recovery includes a voice that calls each of us to listen to the insights and wisdom that come from the heart. It won’t scream at you like busyness and chaos often do. In your darkest moment when you face total exhaustion, it will speak to you with clarity and resonance. Rather than look outside yourself for fulfillment you find the realization inside as you sit with your own personal brilliance, not to be utilized to do something great but to understand that you are something great just as you are.

Here are a few keys to cultivating sacred moments in the here and now:

#1: Take a deep breath and be where you are. In the presence of disgruntled living and the tumultuous commotion to create something new, inhabit the life you are given. There is nothing wrong with improving your outer circumstances. Yet, going someplace means nothing if you cannot appreciate and become present in what is real right now! Eckart Tolle wrote “As soon as you honor the present moment, all unhappiness and struggle dissolve, and life begins to flow with joy and ease. When you act out the present moment awareness, whatever you do becomes imbued with a sense of quality, care, and love–-even the most simple action.” Make the present space you are in a sacred moment.

#2: Slow your compulsive thinking about tomorrow. Understand that this present moment with its trial and tribulation is interconnected to all that exists. Troublesome times augment for inner choice. First, accept whatever situation that you are in with its accompanying feelings. Then change the circumstances by improving your attitude or leaving the unacceptable condition. Wallowing with negative feelings of complaint and derision will disconnect you from a possible sacred moment. Your present day struggle is a significant element to your future success because it is now which is the only time you will ever experience. Let the feelings that lie underneath the compulsive thought teach you what you need at the moment to care for yourself and mark that moment as a sacred experience.

#3: Don’t forget “Yesterday ended last night.” Lamenting about what could have been, should have been, or used to be is a common human response to life circumstances. Sports fans often reminisce about lost championships or glory days past. Addicts struggle to let go of missed or failed opportunities. Entrepreneurs sometimes languish in agony about what might be a reality if they just pulled the trigger on a particular investment or idea. Some become bitter with resentment toward others they blame for their missed opportunity. What is missing is acceptance. Working with what is reality in the present moment requires that you work with the results of past actions and not wallow in what could have been. Even, yesterday’s successes must be treated like yesterday’s newspaper. Saying yes to today’s results is a recognition that yesterday’s negative or positive results do not determine your experience in the present moment. Aaron Rogers, the great NFL quarterback once said “I have been to the top and I have been to the bottom and peace comes from some other place.” He’s right and that peace comes from the sacred moment of embracing the here and now regardless of yesterday’s results or the feelings you experience in the here and now.

Agility, Adjustment and Resilience—Necessary Capitol to Achieve Sobriety, Serenity, and Success

October 17, 2023 by Ken Wells

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When you begin a project it’s impossible to prepare for all the obstacles, difficulties, and challenges that lie before you. It doesn’t mean don’t plan. It just means you need more than the right connections, financial resources, and blueprint for creating what you hope to achieve.

A fixed rigid mindset will be your detriment. It is important to be stubborn with your intent to fulfill a dream. It is also essential to cultivate physical and mental agility. Adjusting your plans and approach in order to complete your goals is crucial. People who are unwilling to adjust and create new pathways become unbending which contributes to falling short of fulfilling their aspirations.

Here is a list of considerations that come into play while you attempt to fulfill your pursuits whether it be entrepreneurial success, addiction sobriety, emotional serenity, or whatever else you aspire to achieve.

#1: Intensity. Creating dreams requires intensity. Merriam-Webster defines intensity as extreme energy or force expended. A synonym for intensity is passion. You will not be successful with a half-hearted effort. You must prepare your heart to be intense.

When I was a kid my favorite football team was the Chicago Bears and my favorite player was middle linebacker Dick Butkus who just passed away a few days ago. Butkus was a living incarnation of intensity on the football field. During plays he was knocked down, he popped back up and sprinted to the other side of the field to make the tackle. Those who played or watched him knew that he was intense about achieving his goals on the football field.

When I was Little Leaguer, I was intense about winning. When I pitched, if the players in the field were not “talking it up” with chatter, I would go to the teammate and get on his case. I thought that was what it took to win.

We are not all football or baseball players or fans. Some people in pursuit of achievement do not fit the projected stereotype of one who is intense. They may appear calm and quiet but when you connect with their spirit you discover a burning intense desire within. The takeaway is that intensity is a necessary ingredient to fulfill whatever you are passionate about. A half-hearted effort will never fulfill your dreams.

#2: Detach and surrender what you cannot control. You will not be able to control all of the factors as you pursue your goals. You must learn to be flexible and live life making constant adjustments. The more rigid you are, the more you must have what you want when you want it, and the less likely you will create your dreams. It’s not like you cannot create success but it is more likely success will begin to own you rather than the other way around. Rigid people lose sight of the goal along the journey and even once the goal is accomplished, there is a subtle sense of hollow fulfillment.

Practice the Serenity Prayer, “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot control, change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Detaching from what you cannot control, being clear about your lane of responsibility, and staying there is the hardest simple thing to do in pursuing a life goal. Dream fulfillment is dependent upon your capacity and commitment to let go of what you cannot control. Detachment is a daily lifestyle, not a one-and-done event.

#3: Play the hand you have been dealt to the best of your ability and you will win! When things don’t work out as planned, it is easy to become stuck in self-pity. You will need to assess what are the strengths and resources you have to draw from and adjust your focus and strategy as you move forward. If you allow yourself to get bogged down in discouragement, self-pity, and self-defeat, you will not fulfill your dream.

Sunny Weingarten is a perfect example of someone who refused to be mired in self-pity. Sunny was a friend of mine when I was a minister in Denver, Colorado. He was a key member of the board of directors for a citywide ministry that I engaged. Sunny was struck down with polio when he was a young boy. His days were controlled and confined to an iron lung every day of his young life.

Sunny was determined to live life outside of the iron lung. As a young adult, he disciplined himself and practiced forcing air into his lungs sort of swallowing and forcing air into his lungs outside of the iron lung enclosure. Eventually, he conditioned himself to live up to 10 hours outside of the lung. He purchased a Van, hired a driver, and engaged in life, including activities on my board. He was a powerful energetic force. He began attending Denver Bronco football games and never missed a home game for over 20 years! In the course of time, Sunny tapped into his creative spirit and designed a lightweight portable lung that allowed him to operate outside of the lung for the entire day. Soon, drawing from his entrepreneurial spirit, he organized a company and flew around the world making a living selling his Port-a-lung to those in need!

Sunny demonstrated passion with intensity, a willingness to surrender what he could not control, and played the hand he had been dealt as well as anyone I knew. Though confined to a wheelchair in the day and an iron lung at night, Sunny lived 70 years of life a true winner.

When you are discouraged and tempted to wallow longer than necessary in a mud hole of self-pity, remember an old saying that says “When you don’t like the way you are sailing, don’t curse the wind, change your sail”.

Play the deck you have been dealt with intensity, detaching from what you cannot control, and what you desire and hope to create will become reality.

The Addictive Matrix of Entrepreneurship

June 13, 2023 by Ken Wells

We live in a culture that encourages having more not less. Inflation alone demands that you earn more tomorrow than you made today, just to keep up with yesterday. Economic homeostasis is an illusion. Entrepreneurship is a concept of becoming free from hand-to-mouth living. It eclipses the mentality of merely being able to bring home the bacon to that of owning the whole store. It transcends owning one store to networking all the stores that exist so you can access every imaginable type of bacon that exists in the world anytime you want.

However, it’s a matrix that has constraints. Not everyone is an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship is powerful. Beginning with nothing and creating something can become addictive. It is certainly exciting, exhilarating and generates a dopamine rush. Listening to stories of entrepreneurs who have gone from rags to riches and have provided value to so many is inspirational.

Like so many aspects of living, the creative thought of entrepreneurship must be guided and governed. Without boundary, entrepreneurs become addicted to the disease of more. They get caught in the rubric of doing more to keep from being less. Here are a few considerations to help guide and govern your entrepreneurial thoughts and behavior.

1. Ownership is an illusion. Everyone wants to be an owner. The amenities of ownership are many. Ownership is a paradox that creates a challenging hook for both addicts and entrepreneurs. In order to own you must learn the art of surrender. The very thing you grasped and sacrificed for must be let go! This paradox applies to an entrepreneur with respect to achievement and possessions as well as addicts regarding sobriety. When the vice grip of pressure closes in while you stretch and strain to make something new a reality, the last thing you want to do is let go! How crazy is this?

Every day a recovering addict must start all over by surrendering the achievement of yesterday to the possibilities of beginning a new day with all of its opportunities and potential pitfalls. Entrepreneurship is the same. Possessions are an illusion. In truth, no one really owns anything. Each person rents space on this earth and eventually, you must give your space back to the life force in the universe. Your past accomplishments must be surrendered to the present moment. This view is not meant to minimize your accomplishment, it just means you cannot possess yesterday.

There is a parallel matrix that aligns addictive behavior and entrepreneurship. The more success you enjoy at one level the more you want at the next. Your perspective is no different than when you had less. It’s the nature of the disease of more. It creates a hole in your soul and you become like the little boy who can’t get enough sugar. It’s important to remember ownership is an illusion.

2. Practice the secret that more is less and less is more. Let your world come to you. Success and sobriety need not be a Brazil nut that requires a nutcracker to open. There is a phenomena that happens when you push for more and more. You never get enough! You become enslaved by an incessant push for success. Jaded by the disease of more, you never get enough of what you really don’t want.
When you let go of the results you allow success and serenity to come to you. It’s not that the results do not matter. It’s just that you free yourself from the illusion that you control outcomes. You can influence results. You can do all that you know to create a positive effect. Then you let go of the outcome with the unconditional confidence that whatever the result it does not define you and you will manage whatever happens. You get free from the bark of shame that screams that you are not enough! As in the lyrics crooned by Janis Joplin, “Freedom becomes another way to say you got nothing left to lose”. It’s the journey of the common average daily experience that creates fulfillment and happiness. If you do not embrace this understanding, then when you achieve the spectacular it will not be enough or fulfilling. Your corner of freedom is how you choose to think about your accomplishments and acquired possessions. No one can take this away from you. Letting life come to you is a Zen mentality necessary to experiencing value in the ordinary, average spaces of life. This is a key matrix position to addiction recovery and entrepreneurship.

3. Failure is a necessary ingredient in the matrix of recovery from addiction and the entrepreneur profession. If you cannot control the results then at some point you will be disappointed with the results of a given effort. It is as certain as the sun coming up the next day! There are many cliches—“Failure is never final”; “Fail forward” etc. They are all meaningful. For sure, to establish longevity as a recovering addict or inveterate entrepreneur you must manage failure everyday. Wayne Dyer used to say “there is no failure, you just produce results” What you do with the results you produce is what matters. You must be able to make meaningfulness from disappointment and discouraging results. It requires the power of reframing your experience to life. It is not about denying or ignoring shortfalls. It is not about lowering expectations so you can pretend you did not fail. It simply means that you become the person that allows yourself to be a mistake-making person and that you will sort and sift meaningful wisdom from every failed endeavor. In this way, you make every failure a source of wisdom that you build upon each day of your life. You learn to not minimize or rationalize excuses for failures and shortcomings. You simply face the reality of temporary defeats, losses, and failures. You glean understanding and wisdom from every mistake. You become more sage and astute to the experience of life. Addicts, with long-term sobriety, and long-established entrepreneurs live with the unshakable awareness that failure is an essential part in the matrix of long-term fulfillment and ultimate destiny of success.

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