Have you ever felt like the universe was trying to tell you something?

Several years ago I decided to go to motorcycle safety school so I could buy a harley and hang out with my best buddy on Saturday afternoons in the summer. My plans were changed when I fell off my bike during the training and although I wasn't hurt physically, I ended up with a concussion and amnesia. It was probably the scariest day of my life as I couldn't remember anything in the last several months of my life--including going to see the team of my childhood in a playoff game.

My memory mostly came back (I still don't remember the fall) and a few months later I started considering going back to the class and going after my dream of having a motorcycle. My buddy was headed to the Bike Expo and I decided to come along. On my way into the building I was walking through the parking garage--just minding my own business--and I rammed my head into a pipe that was hanging down. I hit it so hard I saw stars.

It was in that moment that I decided that the universe was saying as loudly as it could: DON'T DO IT.

  Read More »

So, like most of us--I woke up this Monday morning to the news that the man at the top of the US Government's MOST WANTED list is dead. Killed in a raid by Navy Seals in Pakistan.

I listened to the coverage on the radio, read the newspapers, and scoured the internet. I was struck over and over by tremendous emotion that people were feeling about the event. The jubilation in knowing he's dead and in some cases joy that brought grown men to tears. What is it about one man that could create such powerful reactions. I won't pretend to know the depth and breadth of it all but I do have some ideas about it.

Primarily, Osama Bin Laden is a symbol. He is a symbol of the specific brand of hatred he subscribed to towards America and the monstrous actions he planned, funded, and implemented on citizens all over the world. He is a symbol of many of our fears. He is a symbol of much of what we don't understand about the middle east. He is a symbol that reminds us of that horrific day nearly ten years ago when we watched people dying.

For me, Osama is a powerful symbol of a messed up world where violence trumps kindness at nearly every turn.

The entire thing got me thinking though. It got me thinking about the fact that the power of Osama Bin Laden's symbolism was much greater than any power that he really had. The man has been on the run for almost a decade with certainly some positional power in a feared organization but I'm having a hard time thinking of something powerful that he did in the last nine years. In terms of personal freedom--prisoners in US jails have more freedom than he had.

So here's the coaching question that has me pondering what this means to me and you:

What symbol in your life have you given way more power than it really has? What story are you telling yourself about the importance of something that simply isn't true?   Read More »