The crazy part of tipping over the 50-year-old mark is that you look back over your life and start to see patterns developing, things that you thought at the time were not linked at all it turns out to be far more connected than you ever thought. I have had the joy of starting several diverse ventures and businesses over the years ranging from starting church groups, charities, business coaching companies, electrical installation co and most recently a global Green Energy company. At the time of this writing I have been married to my wife for 28 years and between us have raised 2 awesome young men who both have gone on to find partners of their own as well as start their own separate companies. Hashtag ‘proud Dad’.
There is a common thread through my life’s endeavours, they have all been about starting and growing stuff! Business, Family, Friendship base, Community you name it, and in all this growing stuff, some common themes emerge that would have undoubtedly helped things grow much quicker if understood early enough.
So my purpose in writing this is simply to point out what some of these common areas are and how we might grasp them with both hands. At the foundation level of life, we find some common principles supported by rhythms and seasons. These 2 powerful unchanging forces either can work with us to bring growth or we find ourselves working against them, the results of which are never very pleasant. Just like the scientific physical principles we all know and understand such as the laws of gravity or thermal dynamics etc, these life principles are dependable and unchanging.
Understanding the role of seasons and rhythm is vital to finding a life-giving pace or cadence. Sowing seed during winter or failing to harvest in summer can bring baron times into our lives and leave us hungry and lost in life. As I look back in my life I see the times when I miss reading the season I was in and tried to force something to happen that wasn’t the right time, leaving me feeling exhausted and disappointed. Other times not see the harvest in front of me and missed a Golden opportunity.
They say life is lived forward but understood through the rear mirror.
History repeats itself because no one listens (C.S Lewis). How true that statement is when I see over and over people making the same mistakes and hundreds before them. When if we seek to understand the past, what led up to the decisions we made and how those affected the trajectory of our lives we can often then read the signposts as they come up and in so doing avoid further pain ourselves, that’s progress! It’s one thing to know what to do but it’s quite another to do it! This is so true in life when we look back and wonder what on earth possessed us to make that decision when we had all the facts at the time telling us to do something completely different, so often the ego in us is a stronger force than common sense. We all suffer from some degree of confirmation bias, essentially going through life with blinkers on not aware of our blind spots. The principle of inviting wisdom into your life is one that serves us well. In my life, I have sought out wise people who would be prepared to give their opinion and insight into my life regardless of my like or dislike for what they were saying. Learning to act on what people say is quite different from just listening. I seek out the wisdom of several people who I see good fruit in their life. Something I have told many that I mentor is to not fall for the clever rhetoric of people but rather watch for the fruit of their choices. ‘Wisdom is proved right by her children, this ancient proverb points us to look at the fruit of the wisdom taught outworked in the lives of others. It is so easy to read wisdom but often so hard to live it out. There is no real shortcut to be imbued with wisdom, taking a 5 step plan and trying to work it out without first allowing it to work within (Our mind and heart) is a shortcut that leads to frustration. True wisdom changes the inside of a person before any evidence is seen on the outside. Rushing this process is like planting a seed and then pulling up the soil continually to see if there has been any growth.