1.
A Manifesto for the Everyday Hero within You
āIf you have not discovered something you would die for,ā said Martin Luther King, Jr., āyou are not fit to live.ā
I would easily die fighting for the idea that you are great.
I would take a bullet for the concept that you are meant to make marvelous works, experience majestic events and know of the secret universe of mastery that was populated by the advanced souls who walked before us.
As a citizen of the earth, you have been called to harness your primal power to do amazing things, to make astonishing progress and to uplift the lives of your brothers and sisters with whom you caretake the planet.
I believe all of this to be truth. No matter where the hands of nature have now placed you, your past need not prescribe your future. Tomorrow can always be made into something better than today. You are human. And this is what humans are able to do.
Yes, we show up in different colors, sizes, genders, religions, nationalities and ways of being. Nelson Mandela, Harriet Tubman, Mahatma Gandhi, Florence Nightingale and Oskar Schindler are heroes of the highest order. Yet those who lead quieter livesāthe ones who teach in schools or work in restaurants, write their poetry or launch their startups, pursue their trade in bakeries or parent their children at home; those who help within communities as first responders, firefighters and aid workersāmay also be worthy of being called heroes. Many of these good souls do hard jobs, with a noble resolve to do them well. They work with smiles on their faces. And grace in their hearts.
I am humbled when my life intersects with such human beings. Truly. I learn from them, am uplifted by them and am somehow transformed upon meeting them.
These are everyday heroes. So-called āordinary peopleā conducting themselves in virtuous and honorable ways.
And so, with sincere respect for all the possibility within you longing to express itself, as we begin our journey together, these words flow as my encouragement to you:
2.
Being Faithful to Your Ideals Is a Force-Multiplier
When no one believes in you is when you most need to believe in you.
Those committed to the fullest expression of their native genius know that self-faith and staying true to yourself and your mighty missionāespecially in the face of ridicule and uncertainty, attack and adversityāis the gateway into legendary. And truly a pathway to immortality. Because your noble example will live on long after youāre gone.
The journey to your most heroic life will be colorful, inspirational, messy, marvelous, tumultuous and most definitely glorious. Dedicating yourself to inhabiting your greatness, generating a vast barrage of beautiful results and doing your part to build a brighter world will be the wisest and best ride youāll ever take. This, I promise you. And stepping into the immense splendor of your most creative, powerful and compassionate self will energize everyone around you to awaken to their gifts, making our planet a friendlier place.
If I may, Iād like to take a moment to share a little about my origin story, so you get to know me better. Because weāre about to spend a fair amount of time together on these pages.
Iām no one special. No guru. Not cut from some special cloth that you canāt wear.
I have my talents, as you have yours, possess very human flaws (donāt we all?) and can feel insecure, unworthy and afraid, as well as brave, useful and hopeful.
I grew up in a blue-collar town of about five thousand people. Near the ocean. In a small house. A child of immigrant parents, with very good hearts. I had no silver spoon in my mouth, thatās for sure.
Full of enthusiasm at age four
Playing in the snow in front of my house
Yes, thatās me at a school play. And in our front yard during a very cold winter. See, no Ferrari in the driveway. No lavish adornments or unnecessary things. All very basic. The best way to be.
In school, I never fit in with the hip crowd. Always loved being in my own head, dreaming up fascinating dreams, marching to my own drumbeat. Doing my own thing, if you know what I mean.
A principal once told my beloved mother that I showed no promise and that it was unlikely Iād graduate from high school. Other teachers quietly warned my parents that I had minimal potential. A few predicted Iād end up as a drifter or a vagrant. Most people simply made fun of me.
Except for one.
Cora Greenaway. My grade five history teacher.
She believed in me. Which helped me believe in me.
Mrs. Greenaway taught me that every human being is born into some form of giftedness. She explained that each of us can be astonishingly good at something, and are born with special strengths, remarkable capacities and dignified virtues. She told me that if I remembered this, worked really hard and stayed true to myself, good things would happen and great blessings would follow.
This kind teacher saw the best in me, encouraged me and showed a form of decency that is very much needed in a society that all too often demeans our abilities and degrades our mastery. Sometimes, all it takes is one conversation with an extraordinary person to reroute the rest of your life in an entirely new direction, right?
A few years ago, I searched for Cora Greenaway online. What I discovered genuinely moved me.
As a young woman, she was part of the Dutch resistance, going behind enemy lines in World War II to rescue children facing extermination in Nazi death camps. She risked her life and honored her convictions to save young kids. Just like she saved me.
Mrs. Greenaway has since passed on. She died the same year I found out about her past. I thank the gentleman in Amsterdam who so generously cared for her to the end, and who kept me updated about this mentor who meant so much to me.
Cora Greenaway was what I call an āeveryday hero.ā Quiet and humble, mighty and vulnerable, ethical and influential, wise and loving. Improving our civilizationāone good deed at a time.
She inspired me to transcend the limited expectations that many had placed on my life and finish high school. And then complete university, with a major in biology and a minor in English. Then secure a seat in law school. Then earn a master of laws, on a full scholarship.
Cora Greenaway at age 101
Trust not your detractors. Pay no attention to your diminishers. Ignore your discouragers. They do not know of the wonders within you.
In time, I became a successful litigation lawyer. Well-paid but empty, driven yet creatively unfulfilled, disciplined yet disconnected from who I really was. Iād wake up every morning, look at myself in the bathroom mirror and dislike the man looking back at me. I didnāt have much hope. And I had no intimacy with the natural heroism that Iāve since learned is one of the core benefits to being human.
Success without self-respect is an empty victory, isnāt it?
And so, I decided to remake myself. To get to know a truer, happier, more peaceful and better version of the person I was. By starting a campaign of massive personal growth, profound emotional healing and deep spiritual progress.
You absolutely have this power to make tectonic changes, too. Evolution, elevation and even outright transformation are part of the factory-installed hardware that makes you you. And the more you exercise this inherent force within you, the stronger it will grow.
Regenerating a more creative, productive, inventive and unconquerable version of your selfāone filled with more joy, bravery and serenityāisnāt some unreachable gift reserved for The Gods of Sublime Genius and The Angels of Unusual Excellence.
No. Genius has far less to do with your genetics and much more to do with your habits. Stepping into the person youāve always imagined you could be is a trained resultāavailable to anyone willing to open themselves up, do the work and run the practices that make magic real.
At this period of my life, I set out to rebuild, rewire and recreate the person I was into a human being who drew his power from an inner system of navigation rather than from outer attractions like position, material goods and prestige. One who did not hold back on speaking truthfully (even when faced with unpopularity), one who stood steadfast to his ideals, one whose job never felt like a job but more like a calling, one who did not need to purchase things to experience rich pleasure and one who used his days to make the lives of others happier.
Itās far too easy to spend an entire existence climbing a series of mountains only to realize at the end that we scaled the wrong ones.
ā¦ By being busy being busy.
ā¦ By being addicted to distractions and seduced by diversions that give us a false sense of progress, yet in reality steal the most valuable hours of our most precious days.
ā¦ By the hypnotic allure of filling our lives with items and activities that our culture sells as the authentic measures of success whenāin truthāthey are as spiritually satisfying as a quick trip to the nearest shopping mall.
My devotion to reforming myself by living more to the point just as I was entering my early thirties makes me think of the words of poet Charles Bukowski:
For a period of three long years, Iād rise early, while my family slept, and experiment with practices that would reduce my weaknesses, purify my powers and more fully align me with my personal destiny.
Iād study books on the great men and women of historyāthe artistic geniuses, the fearless warriors, the prodigious scientists, the business titans and the tireless humanitarians, learning of the central beliefs, dominant emotions, daily routines and ironclad rituals that generated their luminous lives. Iāll share everything I discovered on the pages that follow.
I attended personal growth conferences and invested in self-development courses.
I learned to meditate and visualize, journal and co...
