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A few years ago, Aaron produced some talks on video about themes central to our mission to help teens and kids overcome their personal challenges and live fulfilling lives. These videos and others are on the Fire Mountain YouTube channel. They explore some of the key aspects of living fulfilling authentic lives.
The videos are for parents and teens and even the kids! This series is being posted on our blog so that viewers can get a better understanding of our approach to life and the perspectives that we live and share with the the teens and kids at Fire Mountain.
The video below is about Willingness (Part 2) from Feb, 21, 2008. See Willingness Part I here.
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Transcript
Aaron: Hello Friends, I told you I’d be back in a couple of weeks to finish our conversation about willingness. I’m sitting in my back yard in front of a cave because you know all us gurus like to sit in front of caves. I hope that you remember that guru means g-u-r-u.
Aaron: What are you willing to do? Let’s start instead with what are you not willing to do. Let’s take a look at your life right now. Look at your relationships, your health, your finances, your current job situation. Where do you feel the lack of abundance that is your birthright? Where do you feel there is more you deserve or more you need before you can achieve your happiness? What haven’t you been willing to do? What is something that if you did it, you know you would achieve the abundance, the success, the happiness you deserve, but you haven’t been willing to do it? Now, I am not talking about stealing or lying or things that are against your morals or ethics or going against any dogma that our culture may request of you.
Aaron: Are you willing to get up early to get to that gym? Are you willing to stay late at work to get that promotion? Are you willing to put yourself out there in the dating scene to find that partner that you are looking for? Are you willing to spend the extra time, do the extra work, go the extra distance to take your partner to a seminar or workshop that’s really going to improve your relationship and really give you that time together that you need? Or are you not willing to do it?
Aaron: What are you not willing to do? I just spent five days in the mountains with a bunch of teenagers from all over the United States doing a teen Rite Of Passage program and the week very much started off with what they were not willing to do: with what they were not willing to with their parents, with what they were not willing to at school or their society’s expectation of them. And instead of focusing their minds on what they weren’t willing to do, we got them thinking about what they were willing to do. To prove to themselves who they were, to prove to themselves what they were capable of, we took them away from the negativity of what they weren’t doing and got them focused on what they could do and were willing to do and then got them practising that.
Aaron: What can you practice? What willingness can you begin to practice? What small step can you take that is a step that you weren’t willing to take today? What step are you willing to do tonight that you were not willing to do this morning? And it does not have to be the giant mile strides that are going to shift your life instantly. Each step is one step closer to the end of your journey.
Aaron: Are you willing to take your dreams and turn them into goals? Are you willing to take a beautiful idea and create a marketing plan? Are you willing to take your passion and create a business plan around it? What are you willing to do for your relationships? Are you willing to put yourself out there into the clubs or the bars or the dance studios or where you will find a partner? Are you willing to be vulnerable to rejection? To try again? What are you willing to do?
Aaron: We all have things in our life that we wish were better or we had more in them and getting to the point where we say this is just how life is and I’m willing to accept that. Well that’s ideal. But is there something that you lack? Is there something that you truly desire? What haven’t you been willing to do that has kept it from you?
Aaron: What are you willing to do tomorrow? What small change are you willing to do? It could be something very simple that creates a monumental shift. For example, which fast food chain has square hamburgers? He was willing to make one little small change in the paradigm. He didn’t even, Dave Thomas, didn’t even have a high school diploma and when he died he was worth billions of dollars and created a franchise that rivals Burger King and McDonalds. Wendy’s hamburgers are square! He mixes vanilla and chocolate ice cream and calls it a frosty and outsells vanilla ice cream that McDonald’s sells. And we all love to dip our fries into it. Because he was willing to make one tiny little shift, did it affect him personally? No. It was something he was passionate about.
Aaron: I knew a mother who had a 16 year old son who had grown quite large and was very aggressive with her. Downright threatening at times. And she decided that she needed to change her parenting paradigm. She had to be willing to parent her child in a different way than other parents considered normal or acceptable. She was very cleaver about it and taught me a lot about parenting. He was sitting down and watching TV and she wanted him to turn off the TV. He had watched enough that day.
Aaron: He had homework to do. She said turn off the TV. He said no, make me. Your smaller than I am. So, she walked up and turned off the TV and with the remote he turned it back on and she she turned it back off and he got up and stood between her and the TV and said if you want to get to the TV, you got to go through me. She said whoa now, I certainly don’t want to get into a physical altercation with you. You are way bigger than I am and much stronger than I am. So, I guess you win this round. She walked out of the room and he sat down on the couch very smug, very proud of himself.
Aaron: She came back from the kitchen with a pair of scissors and unplugged the TV and snipped the TV chord and took the TV chord back into the kitchen and put it in the garbage disposal and turned the garbage disposal on and took the remains out and tossed them away. She said I’m willing to live without TV to make sure you get a good education. I’m willing to use my brain against your strength and I’m willing to run my house like a goddess. The relationship is great now and he is in college. He is still a big kid and plays football. She was willing to show him that she was willing to go one step beyond her opponent.
Aaron: Anything that is blocking your success in life you must be willing to go one step farther. In martial arts and the art of war we need to practice doing one thing our opponent is not. If they are willing to punch, be willing to kick, if they are willing to bike, be willing to bite something off. Always be willing to go one step farther than your obstacle. If you go up to the obstacle and say oh my god there is an obstacle, you’ll never get past it. And the obstacle will become the end of your journey instead of what it really is: an obstacle.
Aaron: When you hit your obstacles, what are you willing to do about them? Where do you find that lack of abundance in your life? What have you been willing to do? Is there more? What can you change about tomorrow that would make it different than today? By all means if you want tomorrow to be the same then continue doing the same things, but if you want tomorrow to take you closer to the success that is your birthright, it’s about your willingness. What are you willing to do? I’ll see you again in two weeks. In between now and then, take stock about what you have not been willing to do. Discover what you are willing to do and then go take action and do it.
Aaron: As always, I love each of you very much. We’ll talk again soon my friends. Blessed be.