On February 11th, 2014 I woke up having lived exactly 65 years, an auspicious amount of time in our culture…
In the most important ways; my body, primary relationship, and way of being in the world, my life reflected the plan I wrote out for myself at age 18:
“I am a human-based, universal energy being. My purpose is to communicate health, love, joy, compassion, understanding and enthusiasm. I intend inspiration, a good reputation, abundance, leaving things better than I found them. To succeed I must maintain authentic presence, right attitude, follow intuition, constantly learn, remain fit, keep perspective, breathe deeply, cultivate a regular rebirth.”
The Results
Body – 47 years later, my body is strong, healthy, flexible and resilient. I weigh almost exactly what I weighed at 18 and I am more fit and am having more joy in this embodiment than ever.
Primary relationship – One of my coaches says “Look across the breakfast table at your mate and know they are, inside and out, a mirror for you.” If that’s true, as I look across at my wife, Olga Kostrova, I see I’m incredibly loving, smart, creative, beautiful, hardworking, sexy, direct, demanding and devoted to conscious, low-consumption living.
Way in the world – We live an abundant life, have zero debt, our bank account continues to grow and we’ve designed a lifestyle that is adventurous and free. We’re spending this winter running our business from a condo on the beach in warm, wonderful Panama. In our business: I write (love), coach (a calling), sell (a practice), speak (a responsibility) and help clients market themselves and their businesses (a blessing). And, we’ve started a new sustainable lifestyle business venture here, and will be launching it in California and Florida this spring.
For 45 years I’ve studied yoga and fitness and been around world-class athletes. Using that knowledge and experience I’ve designed, practice and teach a meditation, Longevity Meditation and an exercise system for Baby Boomers, called PleasureStretch.
I’ve experienced:
- 20 years as a sports and news anchor on television
- Running community PR for the San Francisco Giants, and currently doing thought leadership marketing as a co-founder of SocialAgenda Media
- Producing a children’s television program that was awarded an Emmy
- Being Mayor of Los Gatos, California
- Running a yoga studio
- Being a Ritual Elder at ManKind Project initiations
- Being honored as a Black Journalism Pioneer
- Discovering after 60, the best years of my life, which include finding a woman I describe as “my lifetime achievement award.”
I’ve ridden the Wheel of Life up and down many times.
I’ve faced the dark night of my soul.
I don’t believe anything and I believe in everything.
To paraphrase Nisargadatta Maharaj, when I look outside myself with love, I see that I am everything and there is only oneness. When I look inside myself with wisdom, I see that I am nothing and there is only space.
I notice that everything contains everything else and cannot be understood separate from its environment; that a leaf contains, as do we, sun, wind, earth, water, fire, ether, something of the energy of every other being and thing.
I notice that it’s hurt people who hurt people.
I notice this is a dynamic and emergent reality where there is nothing worthy of belief, and observe everything is only a current hallucination or close approximation and here for us to play with and improve.
I “get it” that once I reach a conclusion, I am left only to validate and defend it. Said another way: Position creates opposition, which at best wastes time and at worst hardens into conflict.
I’ve learned the hard way about shadows, projections, thoughts and feelings and how my fearful ego uses them to protect itself, hurt you, sabotage me, judge all of “them” and ignore the fact that everything I think and feel is an illusion I overlay onto the transcendental, mysterious experience of living.
A wise one wrote, “The challenge of being a sage is to be able to look into the dark and not be afraid.”
So with gratitude for the understanding of my regular clients, my gift to 65 “qualified” members of this tribe is 30 minutes of free coaching via Skype or Google Hangout. Reach out to discuss and work out arrangements to sit together. Qualified = committed, willing to be challenged, willing to allow themselves to be seen.
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