There’s no easy way to change. In this world of fast, quick, cheap and watered down opportunities, the only way to really make a difference is to commit to the hard work.

The good news is that everyone else is looking for fast, quick, cheap, watered down, and the competition is fierce for everyone else.

But we’re not everyone else. 

If you want to stand out, do the hard work first.

If you’re still convinced there’s an easier way, that shortcut, that quick-fix, that easy button – might be doing you a disservice.

The best way to stand out isn’t to be another cog in the wheel.

The dot.com bubble burst years ago.

Grit, perseverance and acknowledgment that the human connection — however slow it might feel — is the best way toward abundance, light, love and the realization that Awesome exists in this world.

So, when you decide to write down your manifesto, make sure to include…

Do the Hard Work First.

I have never seen a honeysuckle tree, and I think the only bonsai tree I have seen was in Karate Kid, but I know they exist. I live in central Florida, so I “know” citrus trees, and yet I also know that there are other fruit trees that produce delicious results.

Hateful words, attitudes and mindsets are jarring to me. When I see things that are foreign to me, I realize that what I “know” is limiting. No matter how open I want to believe I am, I am still in a forest surrounded by trees that are familiar, safe and comfortable.

When you surround yourself with oak trees, you think the entire forest is full of just oaks. (oak trees ARE beautiful… but so are elms, eucalyptus, pine and spruce, and any other tree I don’t know about!)

I have heard the expression: “He can’t see the forest for the trees.” But I believe the bigger problem is when all you see are the same things as you. Disparate voices are important.

In order to embrace diversity, an open mind is essential.

But we also need to remember, that just an open mind isn’t enough. We need to think beyond ourselves. And even further, beyond what we even know.

We need all of the trees, for all of the universe. 

Too many people who think the same way won’t be able to change a whole lot.

Do you know the song Galileo by the Indigo Girls? I never really new much about Galileo, except that he is considered the “father of modern science,” and that the Catholic church banished him for his scientific “theories.”

What I love about music is that it makes me curious, so when I first heard Galileo, sometime in the 90’s I became curious. Why was his head on the block? And why did looking for the truth cause so much controversy?

Galileo’s head was on the block
The crime was looking up for truth
And as the bombshells of my daily fears explode
I try to trace them to my youth

My interpretation is that the leaders of the church were afraid. Their limiting beliefs led them to decide that what Galileo was suggesting as facts were beyond them and the threat of his discoveries about the heavens led them to accuse him of heresy and he was forced to live out the remainder of his life imprisoned.

When he discovered the heavens with his telescope, he knew what he was up against. But he also knew what he had discovered was fact. The world just wasn’t ready for a scientific revolution.

In the stories I have read, Galileo is characterized as a philosopher, filled with awareness, and, while he knew his discoveries were going to shatter the reality of what everyone already believed, he didn’t stop. He didn’t back down from the truth.

“All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.”

This is still so true and so relevant today. We’re still asking the same questions. What is beyond our limiting beliefs? And if we discover a truth that is frightening, are we brave enough to acknowledge it, or do we turn it away?

Whenever I think about my own limiting beliefs, I try to give myself grace, but not too much — I believe my responsibility will always be to push myself beyond. More often than not, I fail, but I want to overcome this weakness, and I am ever seeking to look beyond.

As soon as I start believing my mind is open, I hope someone will remind me that the only trees I know are the ones in my forest. And there are millions of miles of trees I may never know.

As leaders, this must always be our quest. To make decisions that acknowledge not just the trees we know and recognize, but also the ones we simply know exist, even if we have never seen them.

It is unimaginable to consider someone running an extra mile after completing a marathon. But could you imagine the news coverage? Even if he didn’t do it for that, it would be worth talking about:

Dave Jones, after completing the NYC Marathon, continues running for an extra mile. When asked why, his response was, ‘I figured I’d be the only one crazy enough to want to keep going. I just wanted to see what if felt like.’

There’s a group of people I am connected to. We are called the ruckus makers. We’re students of Seth Godin’s altMBA and we do crazy things.

  • We write blog posts daily.
  • We search for answers to unanswerable questions.
  • We look for ways to make things better.
  • We don’t follow the herd.
  • We dance with fear.
  • We stand up to injustice.
  • We disrupt the marketplace, for the greater good.

We aren’t the only ones doing this, but we’re the ones to took the leap to sign up for 4 weeks of sprinting to dig deeper into our projects and begin shipping better, faster. 

I believe the extra mile isn’t as crazy as it seems. It’s just something most people are not willing to do, because there’s no one leading. People need leaders worth following, and unless there’s someone leading in the extra mile, no one will be going there. There’s no precedence, no reason.

We can all just get along in the world everyone else is living in. And we’ll be just fine.

But for anyone who has ever decided to make a ruckus; anyone who wanted to explore uncharted territory; anyone who believed the status quo wasn’t enough for them, and wanted more.

You know one thing —we won’t likely change anything doing what has always been done and we definitely won’t change anything by standing in the middle of the masses with cattle prods trying to convince them that they are wrong for believing what they believe.

The only way to change the way people think is to go beyond what they believe and show them a different way. Prove that there’s something along the road less travelled. To want change isn’t enough, it’s up to us to illustrate that there’s something better. To do the hard work, the lonely work, the unsupported, difficult work of paving a new way.

And this is exactly why it’s so quiet along the extra mile. The trick is — you’re not alone. The trick is finding the others who want to go the extra mile.

And, when we find enough of us, we’ll change the culture, we’ll make the difference. We’ll stop settling.

Contributed by Mark Parker 
Owner, Bella Visage | Lakeland, FL

Music

It moves the heart and stimulates the brain. It can soothe or frustrate the spirit. It frees the mind and it grabs you! Music is a part of our lives from birth till death.

We listen when we shower, when we eat, when we work, when we are happy and when we are sad. And usually it’s a part of our last celebration on this earth.

I want to tell you a short story about my dad. Yesterday marked the 16th
anniversary of my dads death.

Looking Back

My dad was a social creature and loved people. He was in the air force. He was a pilot (a gifted pilot). His biggest quality was that he was a tinkerer. He tinkered at woodworking. He tinkered at building electronics. We were the only kids I knew that had a home built computer (TRS-80 from Radio Shack). The thing he tinkered at the longest was music. For as long as I can remember my dad always had a guitar.

He would keep it next to his recliner and occasionally practice. The one thing he never really accomplished was being good. Oh, he could play the hell out of the first 14 notes to “Stairway to Heaven”. Or he could play a Spanish ballad at half speed. But not one whole song, ever!

It was after he died that it dawned on me that his comfort or joy (which ever) didn’t come from mastering the song it came from his attempts. For him it was probably the mechanics of the learning more than the perfecting of a melody. The beauty was in the process. For me, the beauty is in the music itself. It inspires me.

I started with guitar lessons. Then in Junior High I started playing tuba. Picked up baritone and Bass trombone along the way. I was influenced by the world renown musicians that resided here. From Robert McDonald to the Adderley brothers. I earned a full Scholarship to college. Played up until my Senior year. By then I had come to the realization that I wasn’t talented enough to make a living at my passion.

Dreaming of One Day

Well, one day a young fella (his words) moved in next door. He was going to FSC as a music major. He is an amusing fella. He grew up in Fort Meade and is an accomplished fiddler. After traveling the country playing his fiddle he said he was “gonna do it right and finish college.” A few short weeks after moving to Lakeland, he ran into another accomplished musician (and FSC grad). Before long they were playing the local music scene.

One night we where enjoying a few adult beverages on the back patio and he mentioned the band had an opportunity to go on tour for about a week here in Florida. After one or two more beverages a deal was struck. I would be the tour bus driver and beverage manager. Two months later my ginger sidekick, Charlie and I loaded up my motor home and hit the road with BSB.

Charlie provided the snuggles and face licks and I drove. I remembered just how much work goes into the production side. Hours of practice! Hours of driving! Cord changes. Last minute changes by a picky customer. Drastic temperature changes, all of it can affect what happens when the curtain goes up.

Fast forward 3 years. The band is no longer together. Two members are continuing their dream in Nashville and Jason is finishing up his senior year.

What does this have to do with me?

Recently, Jason asked me why I sponsor the events at LKLDLive. I think he already knew the answer but he is sly like that. I thought about that for a minute and said, because music is what helped me become who I am. While I had long ago made the decision that I wasn’t good enough to make a living at it, I am qualified to clap. I am completely qualified to clap. And that is what I’m doing when I carry the equipment.

When I unload the instruments. I can run cables and hang lights. And when needed, I can write a check. In realizing that, I found myself!

Chrissanne recently said “When you find someone else finding themselves, it’s almost as exciting as when you find yourself”! It’s because you know the struggle, the effort that was put in. The sacrifices that where made. It is exciting to watch.

My wife and I are blessed to be able to give back. I will never again blow a horn or sing, but I can encourage those who can or who want to learn. I can support their efforts. I can drive them (and their 4 friends and 400 instruments) on tour. I can enjoy the process of watching them grow and mature musically. I can help them reach a bigger audience by spreading the word.

And most importantly, I can clap.

Each day we are all given opportunities to support someone or some cause. I ask that each of you find something that grabs you. And clap.

Please help me welcome to the stage…

“A rising tide lifts all ships.”

I hear this statement often, and I tend to agree, it’s a good message for what happens when the economy is improving around us, the benefits for all are great. So, we cheer for economic development, because it will help us all rise!

Recently, I have started to see this a little differently, and quite frankly, I wonder if the prediction a friend of mine made several years ago — that I would eventually become cynical like him — is actually happening. I am hoping that’s not the case, but… this shift in thinking is somewhat foreign to me.

After all, I am an idealist, so this is something I worry about happening. Am I being worn down by the cynics?

I really hope not!

Today, when someone chirped the very familiar “tide” aphorism, which I discovered while writing this post, was popularized by president John F. Kennedy, and borrowed—interestingly enough—by Kennedy’s speechwriter, from the slogan of the New England Council  ( the area’s chamber of commerce), I saw a fallacy to the statement that I had never noticed before.

I wondered why we don’t talk about where the tides come from?

While we’re all in this together, there are also some responsibilities we have — to ourselves and to those we serve, and it’s in this space that I am most focused today.

We can pray all we want for the tide to rise, but what are we doing in the meantime? Just waiting? How can we be bettering ourselves?

Not just the obvious — a leaky boat, or worse, being tied to the dock, and finding ourselves underwater when the tide actually does rise, because we’re so attached to the moorings that we forget to loosen the ropes!

So, today, as I explored this idea a little further, I started to ask, “Where can we start using our own internal “water sources” to assist the process?” Is it always an outside source that is responsible for lifting our boats?

Have I been cheering for the wrong things, focusing on the external forces that are not within my control? What energy, attention and work can I add to the cause that will allow us, even ever-so-slightly, begin to contribute to raising the level of our community?

I heard someone say today that small businesses —  the organizations that we credit as being the backbone of our community —  “are not-for-profits whether they mean to be or not!

Wait? Really? This might be the problem! We have to become better than that. Individually, we have to begin to understand that we are not a charity, and we do not need people to make donations to our businesses.

We must begin to look at the marketplace differently.

Because it’s not someone else’s job to ensure you succeed. And, the tide may not be rising, unless we, as leaders, community-minded people who believe in a better future, start to assess what we’re doing to raise the bar.

Christopher Gardner, (who wrote Pursuit of Happyness, but also Start Where You Are: Life Lessons in Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be — another book that was integral in my personal growth journey, reminded me, at just the right time:

“Only by acknowledging, ‘Hey, here is where I am, and I’m here because I steered my horse here,’ can I make the next choice to ride on out to the sunset where I’d really like to be… The cavalry ain’t coming. You’ve got to do this yourself.”