Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy

Welcome to Day 518 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

Harnessing The Vision for Your Future – Activity

Thank you for joining us for our 5 days per week, wisdom and legacy podcast. This is Day 518 of our Trek and today is Philosophy Friday. Every Friday we will ponder some of the basic truths and mysteries of life, and how they can impact us in creating our living legacy. Currently, we are on an extended multi-week trek as we explore the teachings from some of my virtual mentors such as Jim Rohn, Zig Ziglar, and Earl Nightingale.  The core of our current trek is based primarily on Jim Rohn’s book called The Five Major Pieces to the Life Puzzle. I have learned a considerable amount from reading and re-reading this book on my own trek of life, and I trust that it will benefit you also. Keeping with the continuity of Wisdom-Trek, I will be adapting it to The Five Trails on Life’s Trek.

We are broadcasting from our studio at ‘The Big House’ in Marietta, Ohio. Our five children, their spouses, and our six grandchildren will be in this weekend for our delayed Christmas celebration. Whenever possible, we like to get everyone together at the same time, and this works well for us. Having children that love each other and desire to be together is a real blessing. It should be a busy remainder of January which includes a trip for me back to our construction project in Arizona the last week of the month. If all goes as planned, and the project workload remains steady, I will be investing one week a month in Arizona during this year. Of course, as with the ebbs and flow of any business, it is subject to our workloadand the activities surrounding the projects. One thing that we don’t want to happen is to be stuck at the base of the mountain through inactivity, but proactively taking action towards success.As we consider the activities that we are engaged in, our trek today continues to be in sync with this philosophy. We continue on our third trail of this extended trek which is the Trail of Activity.

If you have missed the past few Philosophy Friday treks, it would be good to go back and review them to get caught up on our progress so far.  We have a lot of ground to cover today, so let’s break camp and continue on the Third trail of this extended trek as we cover:

The Five Trails on Life’s Trek – Activity Part 2

As a reminder, our overall extended trek will cover these five trails are:

Philosophy

Attitude

Activity

Results

Lifestyle

1.  Stuck at the Base of the Mountain

If you have a sincere desire for progress, then you are compelled to find every possible means to implement all that you know and feel. You must find ways to demonstrate on the outside all of the value that you possess on the inside. Otherwise, your values will remain unappreciated and your talents unrewarded.

Why some people fail and others succeed can be baffling. Sometimes it may even seem unfair. We all know people who have a good education, the right attitude, and a sincere desire to make something of themselves. They are good parents, honest employees, and loyal friends. Yet despite their knowledge, feelings, and desires, they continue to lead lives of quiet desperation. They should have so much more than they do, but they seem to receive so little.

Then there are those who always seem to receive so much and yet merit so little. They have no education. They have a poor attitude about themselves and other people, and are often dishonest and unethical. The only thing they seem to share in common with those who should do well but do so poorly is a sincere desire to get ahead. Despite their lack of virtues, knowledge, and appreciation, these people often ‘seem’ to come out on top.

Why is it that some good people seem to have so little while the dishonest seem to have so much? Why is it that the drug dealers and the mob members and the criminal element in our society are driving Rolls Royce while many good people are struggling to make the payments on their inexpensive compacts? If your desire to succeed is as strong as theirs, and if you have the added virtues of philosophical refinement and emotional sophistication, why are you not doing better than they are?The answer might well be that you do not work at achieving your goals…and they do. You do not take all that you are to the marketplace and put it to work. They do. You do not stay up late at night developing new plans to achieve your dreams and work hard day after day to make those dreams a reality. They do. You do not learn all that you possibly can about your industry and your markets. They do. You do not make every effort to get around the right sources of influence, to associate with those people who can help you to achieve your goals. They do. While you are dreaming about the promise of the future, they are doing something about it.

Granted, they may be doing the wrong things, but they are doing it consistently and with an intensity and a level of commitment that would put many of us to shame.

Evil always rushes in to fill the void created by the absence of good. The only thing that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing, and unfortunately, that is what too many good people choose to do. It is our lack of intense, disciplined activity that has allowed evil to flourish and good men to flounder. If life does not seem fair sometimes, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

Evil always rushes in to fill the void created by the absence of good

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Imagine how different your world would be if you made a commitment right now to put into action all that you currently are, wherever you currently are, and with whatever you currently have. What if you gave 100 percent to your job, your family and your community? What if, starting right now, you began to read the books, replace errors with disciplines and associate with people who have stimulating ideas? What if, starting right now, you converted your dreams into plans and your plans into refined activities that would lead toward the achievement of your goals? What an incredible difference you could make! In no time at all you would have evil on the run and good would be rushing in to recapture its rightful place. What a life you could then share with your family. A life filled with challenge, excitement, and achievement. What an inheritance you could leave to the next generation. A wealth of virtue, integrity, and substance with which to build a whole new world, and all because you cared enough to do something with your life and to put your skills and talents to work.

2.  Harnessing The Vision Of The Future 

Niagara Falls is one of the most breathtaking spectacles in the world. Every hour thousands of tons of water flow along the Niagara River and cascade down several hundred feet of rock into the churning, raging waters below. Through man’s ingenuity, the powerful force of this falling water has been harnessed and now provides an important energy source to hundreds of thousands of people.

Your own dreams can be as breathtaking and powerful as this wonder of nature. But they must also be harnessed and converted into some form of energy if they are to have any value to yourself and to the world around you. Otherwise, they will remain only an exciting but untapped spectacle of the human imagination.

You say that we want to succeed, but sooner or later your level of activity must equal your level of intent. Talking about achievement is one thing; making it happen is something altogether different.Some people seem to take more joy in talking about success than they do in working to achieve it. It is as though their ritualistic chant about someday lulls them into a false sense of security, and all the things that they should be doing and could be doing on any given day never seem to get done.

The consequences of this self-delusion has its own inevitable price. Sooner or later the day will arrive when they will look back with regret at all those things they could have done, and meant to do, but left undone. That is why you must push yourself in the present and experience the milder pain of discipline. You will experience one pain or the other. The pain of discipline or the pain of regret but the difference is that the pain of discipline weighs only ounces while the pain of regret weighs tons.

Productive activity requires that you proactively take action. If you do not, you will find yourself stuck at the base of the mountain, looking at its glorious heights, but no closer to the summit. You must harness that activity and match it to your visions and dreams. Push the activity of evil aside and fill the chasm with good activity so that you can positively impact your world.

In the letter James, the half-brother of Jesus wrote, replace the word faith with visions and dreams as we apply this teaching from Chapter 2:14-17 What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don’t show it by your actions? Can that kind of faith save anyone? Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing, and you say, “Good-bye and have a good day; stay warm and eat well”—but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do? So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless.

We are deliberately taking our trek slowly on The Five Trails on Life’s Trek as we continue our hike on the Trail of Activity.  Today we learned that we must get unstuck at the base of the mountain and take action. If we do not, action taken by those who are evil will fill the void. We must put our visions into action through good activities. Next Philosophy Friday we continue on the Trail of Activity and explore why enterprise is better than ease and the proper balance between activity and rest. Join us next Friday for additional insights. I know you will find these insights interesting and profitable in living a rich and satisfying life. Our next trek on Monday we will continue our new series call The Tools in Gramps’ Backpack where we will equip you with the tools needed to impact the lives of others. So encourage your friends and family to join us and then come along on Monday for another day of ‘Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy.’If you would like to listen to any of the past daily treks or read the associated journals, they are all available at Wisdom-Trek.com.

Thank you for allowing me to be your guide, mentor and most of all your friend as I serve you in through this Wisdom-Trek podcast and journal.

As we take this Trek of life together, let us always:

1. Live Abundantly (Fully)
2. Love Unconditionally
3. Listen Intentionally
4. Learn Continuously
5. Lend to others Generously
6. Lead with Integrity
7. Leave a Living Legacy Each Day

I am Guthrie Chamberlain….reminding you to ’Keep Moving Forward,’ ‘Enjoy your Journey,’ and ‘Create a Great Day…every day’! See you on Monday!