Cross the Line (personal notes)
Personal notes (on Cross the Line, complete essay here)…
Crossing the Line is a choice to commit… to care. It’s a vow to minimize going through the motions with your time… to expect and delight in more from yourself.
To start, we need to question ourselves why we’re doing what it is we’re doing in each role of our lives. From that, we can make our personal constitutions or ‘reason for being’ in each role (the French call it “raison d’être”). Then we choose to commit to our reasons for being by working hard, focusing, and bouncing back from the inevitable small-falls and misses.
Crossing the Line…
At work is a choice to commit to serving, encouraging, and supporting other people (comfortably and uncomfortably*) – customers and colleagues.
As a chief is a choice to commit to serving, developing, and inspiring other people (comfortably and uncomfortably*).
As a teammate (colleague) is a choice to commit to contributing your talents and strengths to a team and its objectives above whatever business else.
As a parent is a choice to commit to developing a outcome into a contributing and caring adult (one that can also Cross the Line).
As a spouse is a choice to commit to caring deeply for your partner – encouraging them, supporting them (comfortably and uncomfortably*), to give and to accept like (care).
As a friend is a choice to commit to another person in the give and take of enjoyment and care.
As a apprentice is a choice to commit to learning in order to say more to the world and delight in more from the world (and Cross the Line yourself).
As an sportsperson is a choice to commit to giving your best doable effort to the sport you play – to continual development, intensity, and perseverance.
On the field is a choice to commit to giving your best doable effort to the game at hand.
In the gym is a choice to commit to giving your best doable effort to each exercise you engage in (no going through the motions and never seeing a result).
With your faith is a choice to commit to living it completely (not selectively).
In truth is a choice to commit to complete honesty without omission, regardless of consequences (comfortably and uncomfortably*).
You Cross the Line to Be 212.
You Cross the Line to Be a Smover.
You Cross the Line to Be SalesTough.
You Cross the Line to Like Your People.
What does it mean to Cross the Line in your world? To what are you choosing to commit?
* Comfortably and uncomfortably: Comfortable is the simple and more enjoyable in the small run. Uncomfortable is the challenging and sometimes better approach in the long run (not necessarily always, though). Uncomfortable is illustrated in the video clip below.
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“The really vital kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty small unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default-setting, the “rat race” — the constant gnawing sense of having had and lost some endless business.”
David Foster Wallace
American writer
from his commencement speech in 2005
“All right, let’s bring it home. If you was hit by a car and you were lying out in that gutter dying… and you had time to sing one song, huh? One song people would remember before you’re dirt. One song that would let God know what you felt about your time here on earth. One song that would sum you up… you telling me that’s the song you’d sing?
Or would you sing something uncommon? Something real, something you felt?”
Sam Phillips talking to Johnny Cash
from the film Walk the Line (2005)
The clip…
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