I once heard a story about a famous landscape architect. He was a master at what he did. He traveled the world creating amazing gardens and landscapes for prestigious locations.
It is said that on days when he felt particularly challenged, he would pull out a piece of paper from his pocket, look at it, nod, fold it up and get to work creating another masterpiece.
People were astounded by the brilliant designs that would seem to come out of nowhere after he studied that tiny piece of paper.
Eventually, this master designer died. After the funeral, people went to his house for food and to share stories they each had, of this great man. His colleagues approached his widow and asked her about that mysterious piece of paper. They were convinced it contained the secret formula to his success.
She told them she did not know what was on the piece of paper. He kept it in his coat pocket normally and she never asked to look at it. After many requests for the opportunity to see the paper, she went upstairs and looked in the closet for his coat. Inside the coat pocket was the folded-up slip of paper.
The widow brought it downstairs and handed it to one of his colleagues. As everyone gathered around, the man unfolded the paper. Convinced that whatever was written on it, they would now have in their possession the key to their own success.
When they looked at the unfolded slip of paper, it simply said, “When laying sod, always put the green side up.”
It’s a brilliant little story about remembering what is most important. It’s also about not taking things for granted.
It is too easy to make life complicated. Especially in the United States. But I believe the temptation to complicate life is everywhere in this world. With the growth of technology and the rate of change that it occurs with, it often seems like we are playing catch up every day.
I know I have done this in my own life. There have been times when I would worry about what I was doing and at the same time, I would worry about what I wasn’t doing.
I would worry about money, my health, my relationships, my business. I would worry about my skillsets that I thought were always falling behind and that I needed to grow more skillsets to keep up with a changing economy and world.
One of the most valuable things I’ve ever done was to take the time and learn what I valued most in this world. I’m not talking about possessions either. I’m talking about what was intrinsically important to me to be as a man, a husband, a father, a businessman and as a human being who was created for a purpose in this world.
I also had to learn that I couldn’t have everything all at once. But if I did the work of figuring out my own value system, I could have the most important things to me, at the center of my life daily.
Figuring out what is most important to me, allowed me to take other, what seemed like important things, out of my life, off my plate and outside my head.
That way I was able to give my energy to only the most important things to me. It allowed me to get back to basics. To focus on only the most important five things in my life. My Faith, My Fitness, My Family, My Future, and My Foundation.
I learned to remember when laying sod, to put the green side up.
If you would like some help clarifying what’s most important to you, and want to simplify your own life, stop by my website and send me a note. I answer all the emails myself and will get back with you ASAP. If you are on Facebook, you can reach out to me there as well and send me a direct message.
An old student of mine stopped by in the middle of July. I didn't recognize him and had to ask his name. As soon as he said it I recalled his time with me.
He was a student for about 5 years. Roughly age 9-13. He was being raised by a single mom. She hoped the martial arts would help him get some discipline, direction, and focus.
It was a challenge getting him to do what would help him. It was a challenge to get him to make better choices. It was a challenge to earn his trust.
He was a boy then and a man of 32 now.
I asked him what he had been up to. He extended both arms which were covered in tattoos. It seemed as if he thought I should know by me looking at his arms.
I asked him what it all meant. He said, "I've been in and out of prison." I asked him how long that had been going on. He said, "Fourteen years. I just got out again about a month ago."
He told me how he had found his way into petty crime and then stuff a bit more serious. He told me how he had been doing this for so long, he just saw himself that way now. Gangster life.
I asked him if he wanted a different future to which he responded, "Yes."
He kept bringing the conversation back around to what got him where he was at.
I kept bringing the conversation back to where he might want to go.
After about 20 minutes, I had to get back inside to teach and let him know as much. I also told him he was always welcome and that I would help him if he liked. He said he would like that. I invited him to come back so we could continue our conversation the next day.
The next time I saw him was two weeks later when his face popped up during the local news. Police were searching for him. He had stabbed somebody.
Ricky saw himself a certain way.
God didn't see him that way.
I didn't see him that way.
I saw his potential when he was still a kid.
If he ever saw his potential the way I did, you couldn't tell it by his choices.
Not everybody you try to help is capable in the moment of receiving it.
Sadly Ricky is back in prison.
I'm certain that if what he saw in the mirror wasn't broken but strong and of value, he would have made different choices.
This same phenomenon happened in my own life. I was home on leave from the Air Force. I had been in the military for over two years at this point.
On this visit home I stopped by the house of one of my Aunt's. She catered for a living at the time and there was always food on the stove, in the refrigerator, or freezer. And it was delicious!
We chatted and visited and as per normal Italian life, food showed up almost immediately. Pizza, rigatoni, sauce, bread, Italian sausage with peppers and onions.
After we ate, my aunt stepped over to the two, six burners each industrial stoves. She started to prepare more food for the weekend wedding reception she was working on. My cousin and I were hanging out at the table and talking.
At one point she says, "Mark, you are so different."
My response, "What do you mean?"
Well...
You...
You're...
um, what's the word...
nice!"
After a brief pause, I simply said, "Well, maybe this is who I really am."
My cousin wasn't really saying I was "nice" as much as she was pointing out that I was different than when I left home.
Our environment, the experiences we have in our youth, plays a heavy role in who we think we are growing up. And who we think we are is reflected in our behaviors.
Getting in an environment where somebody hasn't already defined you, allows for your healthy growth. When your soul is nourished, you will grow in a healthy way.
Going to a new environment allowed me to be more of who I wanted to be. It was safe. I wasn't going to come under fire for who I wanted to be. I could just be me.
Maybe you too grew up in an environment that didn't allow you to be who you were meant to be. I get it. But life doesn't have to stay that way.
We can choose a new path. The one we were always meant to get to. And then start being more of us and less of them.
Recently, I had the honor of giving my One Last Talk. If you haven’t heard of OLT, the idea is to share with the world what you would most want people to know if you only had 15 minutes to do it and then you were gone from earth forever.
It is the idea and program of Philip McKernan. If you’ve been listening to this podcast for awhile you may have heard of him here or at a conference, you may have attended or on a different podcast. I’ve interviewed Philip 3 times now. If you would like to hear them the first one is Episode 33 and the second is Ep 99. I don’t recall, at the moment, the Ep number for the third.
I had the good fortune of giving my OLT in Boulder, Colorado. Philip was hosting the event. There were several other people in the audience I knew. I had gotten to know these other people a couple years earlier at another Philip McKernan event called BraveSoul. That event in Ireland. It was a retreat of sorts and we were there for 8 days together on the west coast in a little village named Ballyvaughn. You could throw a stone into the ocean from some of the cottages.
One of these wonderful people I got to hang out with is a lovely woman by the name of Heidi who is from Great Britain. She happened to be one of my two cottage mates, both of whom I feel so blessed to have been there with.
After I gave my OLT, Heidi came to me and said she was confused. I asked her why. She said her confusion came from what seemed like two different people regarding what I shared about my life and how I saw myself at my OLT in Boulder in 2019 compared to the person I came across as in Ireland in 2017.
I still didn’t really get what she meant. I mean, I live with me, and my thoughts 24 hours a day. And while I knew I was different in many ways over the timeframe of two years they didn’t quite so significant. For the most part, I felt like the same person.
What Heidi shared with me surprised me a bit. She said to me, “In Ireland, you came across as this grounded, wise, loving, beautiful kind of soul. After hearing your OLT today, I couldn’t believe how recently it was that you had these, other, darker thoughts about yourself.”
Even as I’m saying this, it makes me want to pause. I’m thinking about how different I was 2 ½ years earlier. I was bottoming out emotionally. And when I say bottom, I mean the very bottom. I don’t want to tell the whole story here. I’m hoping that my One Last Talk is released as a podcast episode by Philip at some point and if it is, I will share it with you. You can hear first-hand what Heidi heard.
As far as my conversation with Heidi, when she pointed these things out, I could see what she was saying. To hear the OLT and see me in Ireland it did seem like two different people. In truth, I guess I was. There was a lot of growth and change, and shifting between January 4th of 2017, and when I met Heidi in Ireland in June of 2017 and again all the way to when I gave my OLT in Boulder that Heidi was also there for.
As I reflect on it, I guess we are never a completely different person and we are never completely the same person given enough time and space and experiences.
I had no desire to present myself as two different people. My goal over the last 4 years has been to be as honest and transparent as I can be with myself first but certainly also with the world as well. But it is hard to be completely transparent about everything in our lives.
In light of that, Heidi’s question still made me step back and ask myself, “Was I wearing some sort of mask during that week in Ireland?” “Was I trying to put on airs about myself and present to the world some guy who didn’t have a problem and Worse some guy who had all the answers because Lord knows I don’t.
In giving my OLT I had to go deeper than I ever had before. I decided to share some things I had never shared before. And in so doing, some people who knew before the talk would have learned something or somethings they had never known before about me. And that is the whole idea behind One Last Talk. To share your deepest pain so others can learn they are not alone in this world. OLT was absolutely one of the best experiences of my life.
I didn’t have any intention of sounding like I’m doing a commercial for OLT although I could. I didn’t plan on doing a promo for Philip McKernan although I could and would. And actually, as I’m sharing this with you it occurs to me that I should unpack a little more of what happened for me when I gave my OLT. But that is a story for another day.
It’s hard to tell the complete truth. We are so terrified of being judged for what we think. We are so scared of sharing who we really are, what we have really felt and what we truly believe that opening up to the world can seem like a fate worse than death.
Having been on this journey for the truth for the last few years, at least the truth of who I really am, Of who I completely am, Of who I really want to be in this world, unashamed, unapologetically, unabashedly, I really wish I could reveal all of who I am at once.
The problem with that is it’s similar to when we look out on the horizon. We can only see so far. We don’t know what is beyond the horizon until we get there. And then we can see the new horizon in the distance. Only then do we get to see what is between us and the new horizon.
That’s how life really is. We only know in part. We only know the part of us who we are willing to explore and challenge and question. Once we figure that out part out, we get to explore and challenge and question and wrestle with the next part. And on we go. Year after year until we run out of years.
I don’t want to run out of years before I run out of understanding who I am. I don’t want to run out of years before I understand the world better. I don’t want to run out of years until I learn how to love this life and everything in it.
What do you want to do? Are you willing to go to that horizon in the distance? Are we willing to go that far so we can not only see more of the world but also so the world can see more of us? More of the gifts that we have to share? More of the vision we have for ourselves and others and the world?
We may not be able to see far enough that we know exactly what is ahead for us. Maybe we only have to see the horizon, head in that direction and along the way, find out a little more of who we are and the gift that we are to each other and to this world.
First off, I want to Thank You! For listening today. It means a lot to me, that you brought your time, your energy and your attention here today. Thank you.
Sometimes as I look around this world we live in, it can seem pretty confusing. There are often things going on that don’t make sense to us as an individual member of the human race.
People do hurtful things to others.
People do harmful things to themselves.
People do illegal, unethical and immoral things to themselves and others.
If we try to look at the world from a “logical” perspective it is impossible to do effectively. In part because what is logical to me, isn’t necessarily logical to you.
The values I hold may not be the same values that you hold.
What I feel is moral or ethical, you may not feel the same way about.
That being said, one thing I’m 100% certain of is, I’ve never seen any good come of focusing on the negatives in our lives. With one exception… focusing on a negative is only valuable if we use to create something positive.
There are plenty of things wrong in this world that many of us would agree on. Violence, abuse, abandonment, poverty, bigotry, sexism, sex trafficking, homelessness. I mean there is a good portion of the world who doesn’t even have clean drinking water.
What kind of world do you want to live in?
A world that is a little less poor.
A little more kind.
Has put a dent in the sex trafficking trade.
One with clean drinking water.
A world with enough food, shelter, clothing.
A world with less waste and pollution.
How about a world that is less about consumption and more about compassion or conservation.
What about a world where there are more kindness, patience, and consideration for others.
I want to share with you a few people who decided they would actually create a world they want to live in.
John Walsh – John Walsh’s son Adam, who was only six years old, was kidnapped and killed by a sociopath. John went on to create the TV show America’s Most Wanted as well as The Hunt. Those shows were responsible for putting 1,200 violent felons in prison where they couldn’t hurt kids and adults anymore.
Larry Hagner – Larry grew up without a father that showed him how to be a good dad. Larry desperately wanted to live in a world where dads celebrated and worked hard at being good dads so he created the Good Dad Project Podcast and has helped change for better fatherhood for families around the world.
Candy Lightner – Candy had her heartbroken when her 13-year-old daughter Cari was killed by a drunk driver. She wanted to live more happily in a world where parents didn’t have their children taken from them by someone who got behind the wheel of a car and drove drunk. So she founded MADD – Mothers Against Drunk Drivers which can be found in all 50 states as well as each province in Canada fighting to keep drunk drivers off the roads.
Andrew Lewin – Andrew sees a need for a better conservation in our Oceans. Less Pollution, better management of this beautiful resource. He created a podcast, Speak Up for Blue to help create a world he is happy to live in. One that values our natural ocean resources now and for generations to come.
John Williams – John grew up in an environment of poverty, violence, and abuse. He saw how those three dynamics challenged his own life and he wanted to create a world where teenagers were taught how to make better choices with health outcomes. That world is being created by his non-profit, Life that counts.
Ryan Michler – Ryan thought he knew how to be a man. He came to the conclusion that in fact did not know how to be a man when his wife took their 10-month-old son and left him. Ryan did some soul searching and realized his ideas of being a man weren’t working so he started to work on himself. Eventually, he founded the Order of Man movement which is shaping men into a strong and positive version of a husband, father, and man.
My son Josh and I are creating a world we want to live in. A world where there is more interaction, understanding, and connection between what would be termed normally developed people and those people who were born with or acquired intellectual deficits.
I want to see a world where people are more kind to and connected with the intellectual disabilities community. I believe if we were interacting in more ways in more environments between normally developing people and those with these extra challenges, we all will.
I live with someone who has that extra life challenge and you know what, my life is better because I do. It has most definitely made me a better person in so many ways. I believe when these two communities to spend more time with each other in school, at play, and at work, the world is a better place. And that is a world that I want to live in.
So, I have a question for you…
What kind of world do you want to live in?
What kind of world could you create that makes this world a better place to live? You don’t have to solve the poverty problem for the entire earth. But what if you solved it for a community? What if you solved it for just one family? What if you solved it for just one person?
What if…
What if…
What if…
It’s possible. It’s actually possible to create a world you would want to live in.
I want to thank you again for listening. I would love to share a message of encouragement and possibility and how to overcome any adversity with your group or church or organization. If you go to markgoblowsky.com you can click on the contact us tab and send me a message. I will be sure to get back to you within a day or two.
I am a big Allman Brothers fan. I have been since I was a teenager. After Duane Allman died in a motorcycle accident, I became a fan of Gregg Allman as a solo artist.
There's a song Gregg wrote titled These Days. It's really about regret. And, more specifically, the regret of a relationship that came to an end. The first time I heard the song, the last line got my attention. Let me share it with you.
Please don't confront me with my failure. I'm aware of it.
For me, it isn't just about the regret of a relationship ending but the regret we all feel when we have made a poor choice or when things haven't gone our way.
When talking about the statement, I've frequently made a small adjustment.
Please don't confront me with my failures. I'm aware of them.
One thing that would get to me when I was growing up was to have my shortcomings or failures brought up to me repeatedly.
Not the run of the mill kind of failure like 2+2=5. But the kinds that were a big deal. Like not being liked for who I was being seen as inherently bad because of a stupid choice I made as a child
But there are other places where we can be reminded of how we don't maybe measure up with the crowd or what is defined as normal.
There have been many times when I have been in a doctor or therapist's office with my son Josh. If you aren't aware of his situation, When Josh was three years old, he was riding in the back seat of his mother's Chevy Cavalier, when a semi-truck hit them which sent the car spinning out of control. That semi kept ongoing and hasn't ever been found.
When the car Josh was in stopped spinning, it was hit by another semi-truck which totaled the Cavalier. While that truck stopped, it had nothing to do with causing the accident. That driver was a victim of the first truck, just like Josh. The collision left Josh with a massive brain injury. Ever since that day, he has lived between the world of people with disabilities and those without having recovered partially but never wholly.
So back to the doctor and therapist visit.
In the past, I had to answer the professional's questions because Josh couldn't. As he gained more and more awareness, he could tell we were talking about him. The more he understood about himself, the more difficult being at these appointments became for Josh.
Eventually, he began to cry after being in an appointment and having to listen to all the things that he needed to work on in therapies in order to keep healing.
He couldn't understand that it wasn't his fault. He just heard that there was something wrong with him.
He's being reminded not of any failure on his part, but of his differences. And for him, those differences are both perceived and real. The differences are noticeable because he can compare himself to others now.
He was, and still is, reminded of a day that changed his life completely every time we go to a doctor or therapy appointment. He is much better at handling it now that he is 17 and he can see his life in a more positive light, but it still gets to him.
Something that many of us are good at is reminding others of their failures and their differences. We often believe we are doing it out of care or concern or even love. And possibly that is true.
Sometimes though, it comes from another place. A not so kind place. A place where we may actually enjoy reminding them of their failure, or misstep or how they are different. I remind them of their failure for the benefit of reminding them of their failure.
If you ever find yourself or someone else being overly critical in reminding someone of their shortcomings, there is a way to turn that upside down and make it work for both you and them.
Being a teacher, I have to make corrections to students' actions. The more I point out the mistake the more likely that person is to repeat it. Even if I tell them what to do to correct it, if I come from the negative, the thing I don't want to be repeated, more that person's mind is drawn to that mistake and the more that mistake is re-inforced.
What I have found that works best is to focus on the thing I want to see more of as opposed to the thing I don't want to see.
For instance, if a student is misbehaving, I can highlight and praise different students' correct or positive behavior. We all want attention. In a perfect world, we would only do good things and seek positive attention. But if we don't get what we want, we often change tactics.
It's amazing to watch a child who is not getting the positive attention from a teacher, sit straight up, keep their hands to themselves and focus when you point out how well their classmate is doing those very things.
It works with adults as well. I can't count how many times I've complimented an adult student and actually had the other students in class adjust their own effort to match the person being complimented. We all want to be noticed... the key is to teach ourselves to focus on what we want, not what we don't want. It is easier for an adult or a child to see what is wanted as opposed to what is not wanted.
Of course, people need to be reminded of things. Including to look both ways when crossing the street. Don't play with fire. Be nice to others.
What we don't need is someone who is all too ready to confront us with our failures. We are already aware of them.
Thanks Gregg!
There was a time in my 30’s and 40’s when I wanted to change my name. Not my first name. I was good with that. I considered changing my family name.
Growing up I had a number of experiences that landed for me in a negative way. I was molested at the age of 6 and again at the age of 9. I experienced physical as well as mental and emotional abuse. My father was fond of telling me, “You aren’t worth the powder to blow you to hell.”
I heard that “I wasn’t worth the powder to blow me to hell,” so many times that I actually started to believe it to be true. It was a lie, but in my young mind, I couldn’t make sense of it. Why would my father say such a thing if it wasn’t true? I came to the conclusion that I was broken beyond repair. I’m not saying it made good sense for me to end up believing that lie. Those words along with the other forms of abuse seemed to validate each other.
Through that process, I came to believe there was something inherently wrong with me. That I was fundamentally broken. And seeing myself that way hung around with me like a dark shadow all the way into my fifties.
Maxwell Maltz –was a cosmetic and reconstructive facial plastic surgeon. Over the years that, he was active as a surgeon, he helped many people with reconstructive surgery needed for various abnormalities and injuries to a person’s appearance.
Over time he realized that even when his skills brought about a stunning improvement to a person’s appearance if that person didn’t see themselves from the inside as beautiful, the outward changes didn’t matter. Even if they could see a difference on the outside, it didn’t matter to their self-esteem or confidence. The inner negative belief they held about themselves would win out.
This same dynamic impacted me in such a powerful way. I wasn’t going to have plastic surgery though. I thought if I changed my family name, I could somehow, miraculously become a new person who would also have value. The problem was I could change my name 1,000 times but that couldn’t change how I saw myself. Even though it wouldn’t work, there was a part of me that believed it would.
I never did change my name. Maybe deep down inside me, I knew that wasn’t the real problem. I have been able to change how I saw myself but it took me some time to do it. I tried everything imaginable. Self-help and personal development books, seminars, and programs. I tried praying and affirmations and visualizations. All of it helped but none of it completely fixed it.
I had to go deeper. I actually had to go back and wrestle with the truth of what the root problem was. That I had come to believe a lie. It didn’t matter that it was a lie. I believed it to be true and I behaved in accordance with it.
After doing the inner work of unpacking the lies, I was able to see myself more clearly. When I could see myself more clearly, I was able to behave differently. I was able to see the world more clearly. Things took on a new brightness. I found more joy even though my circumstances hadn’t changed.
When we change how we see things, the things we see begin to change as well.
I hope that was helpful to you. Would you please share this with somebody you know. The only way it helps is if it is heard by others. Will you also subscribe to the podcast, download the episodes and give a rating and review. I would really appreciate that.
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Mark reflects on the life that has revealed itself for him over the past few decades and realizes how grateful he is to have the life he has.
I discuss the new direction and structure for the podcast that I have implemented today. I have been thinking about it for a long time and I am excited for you to continue to follow me on the j9urney of Finding Strength Through The Struggle.