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Step Five: Keep on Your Bearing
... and the Bearing is Caring
Volume 3, May 2004
Dear Mylnda,
Want to regularly tap the most productive and creative juices of your soul?
Here's how:
A few months ago I returned from an extreme climbing expedition to one of the most challenging mountains in the world.
How often have you returned from vacation having captured that "peak experience" just to find it escape the moment you slipped back into the morning commute?
If you know me personally, have read my book or seen one of my presentations, you will remember my peculiar gaucho guru, the infamously eccentric "Loco Rivera" who taught me a phrase that has become the focus of my life: "There is nowhere to go. And nothing to do. Except to be of service." What you likely do not know is that, one day alone in the middle of nowhere in the Patagonian wilderness, he took his own life.
In December, at the climber's camp at Fitzroy I ran into another gaucho, who it turned out was an old acquaintance of Loco Rivera's. When I asked him what had happened to my hero he ruefully smiled. Tapping his head, he said: "When you live that long alone& this is the first thing to go."
You and I possess a gift that my departed maestro Rivera did not. The human connection. Simply put, the greatest challenges we face - work, family and society - provide the very context that make our lives worth living. It is uniquely our human connection that offers us the resilience and the will to survive. Contrary to contemporary commentary, being of service is not a responsibility. It is a gift.
Want to keep that epiphany alive? Want to fan the sparks of momentary inspiration into a full conflagration? Want to find unflagging energy to take your work and life to the next level?
Make caring your modus operandi.
Learn life's sacred and secret jiu jitsu: Our lives grow richer only when we dedicate our efforts to the enrichment of the lives of others. Want more energy? Give energy away to others.
Ask yourself: How much of my life do I dedicate to making the world a better place for others? How does my organization make the world a better place? How would everything improve if service became the mission?
Caring is the key that leads to a successful life. Getting those around you to care is the key to leading a successful organization. All it takes is an opening of heart, an elevating of perspective and commitment to action.
Upon return from the recent Fitzroy expedition I wrote in my journal:
The success or failure of a journey is not determined on the summit, it is determined upon our return when, after breakfast, we push our chair back and decide what kind of day today will be. What kind of future we are going to create? Starting now.
To adventure is to fortify ourselves with the deep rich ambrosia of life, in order to return and enrich those whose lives we touch. Neither we nor the world can long survive any other way.
 Those who can must dare. Those who dare must return and share their discoveries in rich and empowering ways so our children will inherit a planet not of fear, darkness and diminished possibility but of ever increasing light and love. In daring and caring is the future of the world.
Me? Down off the mountain, the work begins. I'm working at being a more caring parent, lover and friend. I'm working at being a more giving colleague, speaker and team member. And I'm working at consciously making my goal not just home improvement but world improvement.
It's not easy, but it is the only work worth doing.
What are you going to do differently today?
Warm regards,
Jeff Salz
http://www.wayofadventure.com/
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Into Thin Air meets The Road Less Traveled. Adventure is a tool, and Jeff Salz has written a manual that details its use. Tim Cahill, author and founding editor of Outside magazine