What The Spirit is Saying...

KNOW WHAT YOU KNOW.

The Power of Naming (or Renaming)

Harvard University recently published a study in which it divided 84 female hotel workers into two groups, and monitored the fitness level of each group for four weeks. Both groups were instructed to simply follow their regular workday routine, with no additional exercise. However, at the beginning of the study one of the groups was informed about how their ordinary work activities (cleaning, making beds, etc.) actually amounted to a form of exercise, and fulfilled the recommendations for daily activity levels in healthy people. The other group served as a control group, and was not given this information.

Although neither group changed its behavior, the women who were conscious of the fact that their work activities amounted to exercise experienced a significant drop in weight, blood pressure, body fat, waist-to-hip ratio and body mass index in just four weeks. The control group experienced no improvements, although they were engaged in exactly the same physical activities.

This study illustrates the profound transformational impact our perspective and awareness has on our results. How you choose to look at something--that is, how you "name" it (in this case for example, naming their work activities as "exercise" instead of simply "my job")--has significant power to either lead you toward real change and growth, or to keep you stuck in the status quo.

Where is your perspective holding you back from real, significant life change? Sometimes the biggest breakthroughs in life come from simply "renaming" a perceived weakness as a strength, or a perceived burden as a stepping stone to a better life.

Powerful Question of the Month

If Money were a person, how would you describe the nature of the relationship between you?

Share you thoughts--just click on the "comments" link below.

A Transformational Kick in the Pants

The War of Art by Stephen Pressfield is required reading for my writing clients. The following excerpt from the book tells you why:

"Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance...

"Resistance is the most toxic force on the planet. It is the root of more unhappiness than poverty, desease, and erectile dysfunction. To yield to Resistance deforms our spirit. It stunts us and makes us less than we are and were born to be. If you believe in God (and I do) you must declare Resistance evil, for it prevents us from achieving the life God intended when He endowed each of us with our own unique genius. Genius is a Latin word; the Romans used it to denote an inner spirit, holy and inviolable, which watches over us, guiding us to our calling. A writer writes with his genuius; an artist paints with hers; everyone who creates operates from this sacramental center. It is our soul's seat, the vessel that holds our being-in-potential, our star's beacon and Polaris...

"Look in your own heart. Unless I'm crazy, right now a still small voice is piping up, telling you as it has ten thousand times, the calling that is yours and yours alone. You know it. No one has to tell you. And unless I'm crazy, you're no closer to taking action on it than you were yesterday or will be tomorrow. You think Resistance isn't real? Resistance will bury you."

As I said, I require all my writing clients to read this book as a part of our coaching journey. I highly recommend it to anyone who feels creatively blocked, either internally or by circumstance. Ignoring Resistance won't make it go away; quite the contrary, actually. It's the opponent you don't see coming that knocks you out cold.

Are You Living a Story Worth Telling?

Donald Miller delivered a talk on "Story" at Mars Hill in Seattle recently that utterly blew me away. His insight into what it takes to live a truly meaningful life...by crafting your life according to the elements essential to a really good story...are nothing short of genius.

What is the "story" you are writing with your life? Is it a good story? You want to find out? Listen to this--you won't regret it (appox. 1 hr):

One Chef's Defining Moment with Buddha

The famous chef Eric Ripert describes his "defining moment" of life transformation in this month's issue of Best Life Magazine. Prior to his personal transformation, Ripert described himself as a "mini dictator, throwing things at people and frequently humiliating them."

"I was not happy with my life, and I didn't know why," says Ripert. "I needed something that would trigger a positive change in me."

That trigger came for Ripert in the form of a book, The Rampa Story by T. Lobsang Rampa, which the chef picked up in an airport in Paris as he was about to depart for Washington, D.C. Although the book was not a reference manual for Buddhism, it's Buddhist slant awakened within him a hunger to learn more. Through the Buddhist teachings and practices he has studied in the years since that key moment, Ripert says his life is transformed. "It's been a big evolution, a revolution, actually," reports Ripert. "My friends and family were surprised by the change, and some of my employees were suspicious of my transformation at the very beginning..."

OK, so why am I sharing this? For those Christ Followers out there (and I am one of them), I offer a question that perhaps we all need to consider: How is what Ripert experienced through Buddhism different from the sort of life transformation we often say is the exclusive turf of the Christian journey? If Ripert's transformational experience is genuine (and I have no reason to think it's not), then what exactly is the nature of the transformational experience that we believe only Christ can offer?

My Freeway "Voice Over"

Yesterday on the long drive north to my final Gateway U Powerful Conversations course, I gave God my voice.

"He has made my mouth like a sharpened sword' -- Isaiah 49:2

We were talking about my speaking ability and I was listing off for him all the ways I felt that my skills as a public speaker (and even in private conversation) were not up to snuff. And finally I took a breath and asked him to comment on all I had just shared. And he said, "Will you give me your voice?"

An image came to my mind in that instant, a memory of a particular day many years ago, when I surrendered to God my writing...literally, I gave him my "pen" and it has been his ever since. This moment, in the car stuck in rush hour traffic on my way to class, felt holy like that.

Of course, I said yes...immediately. I said it a few times in fact, just to be certain I was being sincere. And then I asked, "What will you do with my voice, now that you have it?" And that's when Isaiah 49:2 came to mind, and I realized that even though I had recently spent weeks meditating on that passage, I had always thought of it in terms of my wordsmithing skill rather than my speaking voice. And I also thought how all of my adult life I have carried a quiet belief that my voice tended to have a calming effect on people. I'd noticed over the years of leading that my voice seemed to cover people with a warm blanket of peace and stillness. So I've never thought of my voice as being a sharp sword. But I've always wanted that...a voice that cuts, strikes to the heart and rouses the soul. And so it seems, in God's hands, that may be the voice I will have.

I speak tomorrow morning at the Gateway Men's Breakfast. I'm excited! The message is strong, and I know it in my bones. I'm bringing these men my gift. And, perhaps, a sword.

Nick's Testimony

This inspired me today...

Check it...

The splash is up! http://www.thepearlsongrefounding.com/ ! It won't be long now...

A Moment of Zing...

Can't believe I came across this verse this morning in my time with God:

"The righteous gives and does not hold back."

(Proverbs 21:26)

Sound familiar?

Awesome...

Are You Twittering Yet?

In case you've heard the word "twitter," or heard people talk about twittering, but don't know what it means, here's a helpful video to answer all your questions. I'm still debating whether I, too, will begin to twitter soon.


Twitter in Plain English from leelefever on Vimeo.

Powerful Conversations

I'm currently leading two separate Powerful Conversations courses, and just had to drop a note to say I'm so stoked with how they are going! I'm getting emails between classes from participants who are experiencing some really amazing conversations with the important people in their lives. One father had a breakthrough conversation with his son with whom he'd been estranged for years. Another several have deepened their connections with their spouses using the tools we cover in the course. Even though the course is geared primarily toward leaders and leader relationships, the principles and tools we explore work powerfully in every kind of relationship. Love it!

And the Winner is...!

OK, is this an awesome cover or WHAT? I am so stoked! Just had to show this off, and to offer a massive thank you to Josh Tilton who has successfully blown my socks off yet again! Josh, I'm forever in your debt.

Thanks to all you, too, for posting your vote on which cover you liked best. This one was the clear winner from that straw poll, and I couldn't be happier with it. Incredible.

Just a few quick updates on the book process (want to make sure you all stay in the loop!):

--Kristin has completed the first round of typesetting for Gideon's Dawn. I'll be sending it back to her for minor changes this week.

--The "innards" of The Transformed Heart is ready for the printer! Kim will be finishing up the cover soon. This will be the first book released by Ascent Books & Media! Shazaam!

--Kim is also working on the cover for Alone With God.

--The edit of Waymaker is nearly complete, and will be heading to Kristin this week for typesetting.

And as soon as these books are safely in the pipeline, I can finally dive in headlong to writing the final book in the Pearlsong trilogy, The Word Within.

Thanks everyone!

What The Spirit is Saying...

PLAY TO WIN. EXPECT TO WIN.

(1 Corinthians 9:24)

Courage, Limitations & The Power of Choice

An inspirational example of what it looks like to let your courage, rather than your limitations, determine what's possible for your life...



p.s.--I didn't even notice the girl had only one arm until close to the end of the performance.

The God Who Runs...Part 3

I had one more insight recently about my exploration of times & situations in which God moves fast, and we (by implication) are called forth to keep pace with him.

It's in the famous story Jesus told about the prodigal son, which I had referenced before by pointing to the fact that the father (God) ran to embrace the prodigal upon his return home. But there is another little word in there that I think speaks volumes about God's heart toward us.

When the prodigal returns, he starts spouting off this speech he had been practicing about how stupid he was to have left, how he didn't deserve to be called a son anymore, and would the father please just take him back as a servant, blah blah blah... But the father doesn't care to hear his grand apology. He interrupts the son in mid speech and says to his own servants, "Quickly, bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet; and bring the fattened calf, kill it, and let us eat and celebrate..." (Luke 15:22-23, emphasis mine).

This speaks volumes to me about God's fierce passion, not merely to forgive us, but to restore us to our true identity. In essence, he wants us to know and experience who we really are...and he wants everyone around us to know it too. Through the father's actions toward his wayward son, he's basically saying to his son, "Enough of the groveling! Throw off these old rags and take your place as the true son you are." And then to the others present, his actions seem to me to be saying, "See this robe? See this ring? Pay attention and take note--this is my son, and you will all treat him with the honor due his true name."

Makes me wonder what "old rags" I stubbornly cling to at times, even as God is telling me to shutup, put on the robes of my true self, and celebrate with him.

What the Spirit is Saying...

SPEAK YOUR TRUTH.

LIFE is our Goal...

Talked with some friends the other day about John 10:10...in particular, the Greek word perissos, which we translate as "abundant life" or "life to the full." The word actually means life that is "superabundant (in quantity), superior (in quality), extravagant and beyond measure." Holy definitions, Batman! Now that's LIFE.

So I asked these folks to share, "where are you experiencing perissos life right now?" And we talked about where we have it, where we don't, where we pretend to have it or pretend not to. And one theme in the conversation that really surprised me was this tendency many of us have to downplay or dilute our expression of perissos life so as not to make others "uncomfortable" or to avoid feeling different from them. It was fascinating to me that even when this sort life--this superabundant, superior, extravagant, beyond measure LIFE--is truly alive and resonating in us, we are tempted...okay, I am tempted...to not relax fully into it or abandon myself to it, and certainly not to express it in an unbridled way, a raw unfiltered emotional way, in front of other people. My friend Neo was there and commented that hiding our joy in this way is a normal social reaction. When one person gets an A on an exam, and learns that his friend got a D, he naturally tries to avoid telling the D-guy that he got an A. We don't want to seem to be boasting or to make others feel "one down" in their relationship with us.

And yet, it is this very abandonment to LIFE that draws the weary and the hungry and the willing to the Wellspring of Living Water within us! It's the LIFE within us, expressed through us, that invites them to drink deeply of His joy, His freedom, His life resonate and alive in us...and find that life for themselves. It is the radical joy of Christ--exquisitely present & unleashed through us--that captures the hearts of those around us and invites them to know Him.

"Don't Hold Back," right? Yeah, it's all coming together.

This also goes back to a question I had around something Chesterton wrote in Orthodoxy--that Christ concealed his joy from us while he was here in the flesh. I asked, why would he do that? Perhaps the answer lies in the amazing attractive quality fo Christ's joy. If his joy had been unveiled, its power might well have drawn people to him so powerfully that they would rebel against Rome and fight to establish him as an earthly king. But that was not the plan...the plan was for Christ to die, and then for us to become the conduits through which his joy and LIFE are unleashed on the world.

How awesome to think that our call, our mandate as Christ-followers, is to abandon ourselves to the Life-To-The-Full he came to offer, to dive into it headlong as to a powerful river, and let it take us, helpless and free, wherever it wants to go.

Stop resisting life, indeed.

"We can live any way we want. People take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience—even of silence—by choice. The thing is to stalk your calling in a certain skilled and supple way, to locate the most tender and live spot and plug into that pulse…I think it would be well, and proper, and obedient, and pure, to grasp your one necessity and not let it go, to dangle from it limp wherever it takes you."-

Annie Dillard

Book Publishing Update...The Latest

Just wanted to update you...projects are in motion:

Josh is programming the Pearlsong website

Kristin is typesetting Gideon's Dawn

Kerri is formatting The Transformed Heart

Kim Sharp is designing the cover for Alone With God

I am (this week) prepping the Waymaker manuscript to send to Kristin

I am so full of GRATITUDE for all these great folks and the skills they are lending to this work. Grace is spilling out everywhere I look....

The Daily Show Takes on Life Coaching

Jon Stewart and his cohorts turned their sarcastic guns onto life coaching (apparently they did this some time back, but I just learned of it), and showed no mercy in capitalizing on every stereotype and hyperbole that has come to be associated with my profession. And it's pretty funny! I tip my hat to you, Demetri (the creator of the "report"). You burned me but good.

Warning: The video has some unfortunate language. Watch at your own discretion.