“I’m sorry about your dad,” the football coach said to one of his players whose father had died the previous week.

“Coach, please let me start Saturday,” the players asked.

Now the player was strictly back-up and only saw playing time when the game was either won or hopelessly lost. But the coach read the expression on the player’s face and agreed to let him start. “It will only be for the opening series,” he warned.

On the first play from scrimmage, the player tackled the opposing quarterback. He was all over the field and ended up playing the whole game, which turned into an upset victory.

After the game, the coach awarded him the game ball. “What got into you today?” the coach exclaimed. “You played like a pro.”

A lot of people didn’t know it, but my father was blind,” the player said.

“Today was the first game he ever saw me play.”

Consider if there is a perspective shift that will allow you to play like a pro…

I am speaking to the Bainbridge Island Rotary Club (a big shout out and thank you for the invitation by the way)… I’m presenting on purpose and service.

As I prepare for my presentation I’m present to how much better life works, how much better I work, when I’m aligned with my purpose.  Kids’ books often strike a chord with me and this topic was so beautifully addressed by Brian Selznick in his Caldacott Award winning book.  Take a look and let me know what you think.

An excerpt from the novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick:

“Did you ever notice that all machines are made for some reasons?” he asked Isabelle. “They are built to make you laugh, like the mouse here, or to tell the time, like clocks, or to fill you with wonder, like the automaton. Maybe that’s why a broken machine always makes me a little sad, because it isn’t able to do what it was meant to do.”

Isabelle picked up the mouse, wound it again, and set it down.

“Maybe it’s the same with people,” Hugo continued. “If you lose your purpose…it’s like you’re broken.”

…..

“It’s so beautiful,” said Isabelle. “It looks like the whole city is made out of stars.”

“Sometimes I come up here at night, even when I’m not fixing the clocks, just to look at the city. I like to imagine that the world is one big machine. You know, machines never have any extra parts. They have the exact number and type of parts they need. So I figure if the entire world is a big machine, I have to be here for some reason. And that means you have to be here for some reason, too.”

The African Impala can jump to a height of over ten feet and cover a distance of greater than 30 feet. Yet these magnificent creatures can be kept in an enclosure in any zoo with a 3-foot wall. The animals will not jump if they cannot see where their feet will fall.

Faith is the ability to trust what we cannot see, and with faith we are freed from the flimsy enclosures of life that fear creates as traps for us.   –Anonymous

Take a look at any place in your life where you are stuck.  Is there a place you are not willing to go?  A risk you are not willing to take?  A jump to a new level you’re not willing to try for because you can’t see how it will turn out?

Take a leap today… or to quote Les Brown, “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it you will land among the stars.”

I LOVE Mama Gena…. and she happily sends out a regular newsletter…. check out this gem below fora new twist on how you present yourself… Mama says “It was a love letter to myself, composed with heart and haste, in service to all that lay before me on this most mundane, yet sacred, day in my life.”

Consider what in your wardrobe serves you… what expresses your essence… what works for you and with you in your mundane and sacred life?

A Haiku to My Beauty | Mama Gena Moments

So, this morning, I had to run to Brooklyn, before my first meeting, to drop off Maggie at a friend’s house for a play date. We were due at her friend’s at 9 a.m., meaning we had to leave our house at 8 a.m. And I woke up at 7:30.
Not good.
That meant no shower, no clean hair, no breakfast, no coffee.
But the one thing I would not give up for lateness was fashion.
Nor would Maggie.
She and I have our priorities straight.
Fashion can lift me from despair, into poetry.
From crankiness, into humor.
From pathetic, to divine.
How?
Well, it is my little time to flirt with my circumstances.
I put on a skirt that I once wore on the Today Show to remind me that, even in my having-overslept haste, I am a star. I wanted to tone down the glamour of the skirt, so I put on a pair of flat brown riding boots that can stand a fast hike to the A train. Some crocheted tights for a flirt at the hemline. I popped on a dark brown sweater, to pay tribute to the fall day. And a gold necklace that the man I had dreamt about last night once gave me.
So, my outfit was a little dialogue with me, by me, and for me.
It was a love letter to myself, composed with heart and haste, in service to all that lay before me on this most mundane, yet sacred, day in my life.
A haiku to my beauty.
A tipping of the hat to all I am, and all I stand for.
I was perfectly dressed for my office, all my meetings, my trip to the dermatologist, doing homework with Maggie, and my downtown dinner at a hot restaurant with a client.
The power of fashion is so potent it can make messy hair seem purposeful.
And it can keep me on track with recognizing the absolute best about me, which allows me to interface with the world in a better, more gracious, more me, way.
See, the whole idea of the ­Womanly Art of Owning your Beauty ­is not to make you, or me, or any of us, beautiful. We already are.
It is to give us a way of remembering the truth in a world that does not encourage a woman to face the fact of her beauty in a consistent way.
That is the gift of fashion, as far as I can figure.
And it is why I am so delighted with this issue of the newsletter.
Check out your closet today. Make up a little poem, a little haiku, a little love letter to yourself from whatever you find in there. Each of us is always just a few decisions away from being a living monument to our own beauty.

This is an article from ‘Mama Gena’s School of Womanly Arts Newsletter.’ For more from Mama Gena check out: http://www.mamagenas.com/