Inspired Project Teams

Audio: Be the Change You Want to See [Time - 11:25, File Size - 10.8 MB]

“You must be the change you want to see in the world.” -  Mahatma Gandhi

“I can’t hear your words because they are drowned out by your actions” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. Men will believe what they see.”  – Henry David Thoreau

“… if you want joy, give joy to others; if you want love, learn to give love; if you want attention and appreciation, learn to give attention and appreciation; if you want material affluence, help others to become materially affluent.”  Deepak Chopra in The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success

All these quotes point to the same powerful truth that has become an aphorism: Actions speak louder than words. What’s more, implied in all these bits of wisdom is the deeper truth that when you take a heartfelt action, especially one that is rooted in giving of yourself, you somehow release into the world the same sort of energy that propelled you to take this action. The result: Other people resonate to your energy and begin to replicate your behavior. By being (or manifesting) the change you wish to see, you are actually releasing forces that conspire to bring about more of this change in the world.

OK. That sounds a little cosmic, right? Well, here are a couple of examples that will make this all a bit more real.
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Audio: Accept What Is [Time - 16:45, File Size - 15.8 MB]

Imagine this situation: You are in your beautiful, newly remodeled kitchen wiping the counters clean after dinner.  Out in the hallway you hear your big labrador retriever galloping toward you. In a flash, he bounds across the tile to the table, plunks his meaty front paws up on a chair and begins sniffing the dinner plates for leftovers. Stopping your clean-up chores, you whirl to see what he’s getting into and bam!… his big nose knocks over a nearly full glass of dark, purple grape juice left untouched by one of the kids. The tough plastic tumbler bounces all over the place, spritzing the walls with purple droplets, while a big puddle of juice begins expanding across the tile. It’s flowing straight toward your new beige living room carpet.  Do you:

• A. Deny that this is actually happening, telling yourself that you are a good, hard-working person who doesn’t deserve this kind of misery?
• B.  Find your spouse and begin an angst-filled review of your family’s history of owning this dog, bemoaning the fact that while the dog is lovable, he has always caused too many minor disasters?
• C.  Sit down with your wife and kids and imagine a future that has in it no potentially staining leftovers and no dog anywhere near the kitchen?
• D.  Run across the room, placing yourself and your counter-cleaning sponge squarely between the expanding puddle of purple and the new carpet, thus preventing the major stain?

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