In just the last 12 hours, I have experienced three truly inspirational stories. Last night, my husband and I watched the National Geographic special about Alex Honnold, the first man to climb El Capitan in Yosemite, free solo style (meaning no ropes!). Having just been to Yosemite this past summer, I cannot imagine how dangerous and terrifying that climb would have been and the fact that Alex achieved it, is almost miraculous. El Capitan was only successfully first climbed by climbers with ropes in 1958!
This morning, my husband was filling me in on a conference he just attended and he told me about one of the most inspirational speakers he has ever seen at one of these conferences. The speaker was Jon Derenbos, a former NFL long snapper, now turned magician who was a finalist and a fan and judge favorite, on my daughter’s favorite TV show, America’s Got Talent. What is truly amazing about this accomplished man, is all of the adversity he has overcome in his life, including the fact that his father brutally murdered his mother, he spent a year in foster care, and Jon has had to have open heart surgery, even though he is only in his thirties. Still, he is living his dream-life, expecting his first child with his wife, performing magic all over the world, and Jon now has a book and a major motion picture coming out about his life.
Also, this morning, when I was reading the news, I read the very emotional and thankful tribute that LeBron James gave to Michael Jordan, after superseding Michael’s all-time NBA points record. He talked about what an inspiration Michael Jordan was to him and all of his friends, as Lebron beat the odds out of poverty to become the great that he is in the game of basketball and in the calling of his Life. Donning Air Jordans with “Thank You M.J.” written on the side of them, this is what he had to say about one of the men who stirred LeBron to greatness, “M.J. was the lightning in a bottle for me, because I wanted to be like him.”
In a world full of negativity and anger vying for our attention, it’s such a great reminder that there is every bit as much positivity, beauty and absolutely stunning human achievements, happening all of the time, all around the world. I like to think that these positive feats way outweigh the negative, in their magnanimity alone. If we make the point of seeking the positive out, we are left breathless in the wake of the possibilities available to all of us, to choose to live in our passions and in our awe of the prospects of achievement waiting to happen, and to stir all of us, to our greatest potentials.
“Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow.” – Helen Keller
“In order to carry a positive action we must develop here a positive vision.” – Dalai Lama