So in the full spirit of honesty, this is actually the fourth time I’ve hit record this morning. But we are here now in this moment. And first, you might notice that I set up slightly different this morning. And that’s because my energy today is one of cosiness. It’s one of wanting to be comfortable. I feel very peaceful and very calm.

So I went to the effort of setting this up so that I could remain in this space of comfort as opposed to starting the day at my desk. I wanted to start it instead from this chair. Now, the other thing I’m going to do today is slightly different in that I actually want to share with you a couple of paragraphs from this book, The Motivation Manifesto by Brendan Bouchard.

But before I do that, I just want to introduce the concept to you of taking what resonates and leaving the rest. And what I mean by that is that it is entirely possible to listen to something, to take in some of these ideas, to consume some content and to go, Yeah, you know, 80% of this is really helpful for me.

The other 20% I’m actually not so sure about. And that’s okay. We don’t have to either fully accept something in its entirety or therefore fully reject something in its entirety if there’s something that isn’t quite right about it. We can exist in this new on grey area where we agree with some of what somebody says but disagree with other parts of what they say and still be okay.

I think we live in a world that encourages the black and white, the encourages the extremes in whether we actually take something or leave something, whether somebody is worthy and woke enough to be in our culture. I’m playing with terms here or whether they deserve to be cancelled because their views are so outdated. This nuance and so much of our personal lives and there’s new ones in so much of what exists out there.

And so as you listen to what I share now, I want to encourage you to take it all in, but not feel the need to accept every single thing that I say or everything, single thing that Brendan says in this case. Because within this book, there’s certainly paragraphs and statement s and concepts I don’t necessarily agree with that I think are overly simplified, but there is still some gold in here, which really does help me.

So with that being said, just a couple of paragraphs I want to share with you this morning. There comes a time in the lives of those destined for greatness, but we must stand before the mirror of meaning and ask why. Having been endowed with the courageous heart of a lion. Do we live as mice? We must look squarely into our own tired eyes and examine why we waste so much time sniffing every distraction.

Why we cower at the thought of revealing all true selves to the world. Why we scurry so quickly from conflict and why we consent to play small. We must ask why we participate so humbly in society’s frantic race, allowing ourselves into its mazes of mediocrity and settling for scraps of reward. When nature has offered unlimited freedom, power and abundance to the bold, the determined, the creative to be independent to each of us.

We must ask if our desire is to feel safe and accepted, or in fact, enslaving us to popular opinion and to boredom. We must ask when will we be ready to ascend to another level of existence? And jumping ahead here. When a long chain of self oppressions and social controls has reduced our strength and independence, it is our rights, our duty to throw off such a life, rise in you and change and charge unencumbered through the gates of greatness.

We have patiently suffered long enough, hoping that someone or some kind of look would one day grant us more opportunity and happiness, but nothing external can save us. And the fateful hour is at hand when we either become trapped at this level of life or we choose to ascend to a higher plane of consciousness and joy in this ailing and turbulent world.

We must find peace within and become more self-reliant in creating the life we deserve. This will be a difficult effort as the history of our actions too often tells a tale of self-injury and unhappiness stemming from a blind desire to be judged worthy, acceptable, unlovable by people who hardly know our true hearts and powers. And so we have kept ourselves down.

We forgot to set clear intentions and standards and too often failed to voice our desires and dreams. Randomness and mediocrity too often ruled the day, and the loud and the needy dictated who we were and what we should do. Our lives becoming subject to the tyranny of fools. If we can be vulnerable and brave enough to admit such missteps, we might see the potential we left and realize that we might see a shining new path.

And so let us live. And so let us write our lives. Let us face the mirror and be candid no matter what we see. That was use these common human truths and personal declarations to reclaim our freedom. We are too often lost in the abyss of unawareness. We regularly miss the energy and blessings around us and the importance of this very moment.

It is, though, as we prefer to be elsewhere, doing something else as if we are living in distant time zones. I was behind or head of the joyous tick and bliss of the Now we have forgotten that the natural so to life is not a distant death, but a present in the moment. Detached moment from living. Should we wish to be free and alive with full power?

We must decide to bring the full might of our conscious mind to the present. Expel dreams. We must choose to feel again. We must set intentions for who we are, for what roles we wish to serve, for how we will relate with the world. Without a vibrant awareness, we cannot connect with others or ourselves. Nor can we meet the demands of the hour with grace.

For this, we now declare we shall meet life with full presence and power. All. I’m going to leave that with you to bounce around your soul, to take it in and to invite you to spend more time in the present moment, more time witnessing than now, as opposed to being lost in futures that haven’t happened or pasts that have long gone because it’s only in the present moment.

It’s only in the now that we have access to life, that we have access to joy, to creativity, to love.