They were speeding in the freeway until they came to a spot where the driver was caught by surprise. He had to do a maneuver. But he missed it. They came tumbling down like a rolling tin can.
In the middle of that tragic accident is a man named Brendon. Good news: he is still breathing.
He looks through that broken windshield. And just like movie rolling in rewind, he sees all his life events appearing in front of him in a fast yet seemingly slow motion. He looks at his families and his loved ones. One by one, he looks at his life. And then he realizes that this is it. This may be the last moment of his life.
A moment after, as he stands amidst a wrecked car, he realizes that at that end of our lives, when are about to face death, we will all ask these three burning questions: Did I live? Did I love? Did I matter?
Friend, this is my attempt to narrate such life-changing moment in the life of Brendon Burchard. A 19 year old kid who had a terrible break up with his girlfriend went on to change how he is living his life, how he is relating with other people, and how is serving the world. Today, he is a bestselling author, Oprah.com calls him “one of the most influential leaders in the field of personal growth”, and he is commonly cited as “the world’s leading high performance coach.”
I’m blessed to be learning from the man.
I take inspiration from him and what I will be sharing with you today are influenced by his teachings, combined with my own experience, observations, and learning from life’s events and encounters.
Before we are to face those three burning questions that Brendon shares, there is also this burning desire of something in our heart. It is just there. Sometimes, we do not even know what to call it. We cannot define it but we can describe it. There is this longing inside of us to do something greater, bigger, and larger than life. What is that?
This is embedded in the question: What do we desire to be?
We all can have different answers to this question. But those answers would boil down into these three: We desire to be alive. We desire to be present. We desire to be loving.
First, we desire to be alive. What does it mean to be alive? To be alive means fully alive. We are not just existing or merely surviving. We are living and thriving. We are fully alive!
That is our desire! We do not want to be like walking zombies. We do not want to be like lost souls. We do not want to be like robots or machines trying to do our routinary tasks day in and day out.
We desire to live our being human. This is our truth. We desire to be fully alive!
Second, we desire to be present. What does it mean to be present? To be present means to be in the moment. To be living not in the past or worried of the future. We desire to live in the now.
Some people are living in the past and worrying of what the future holds but if we go back to the core of our being, we all want to be right here, right now. We desire to be living in this moment, this present, and live this gift of life we have today!
Third, we desire to be loving. What does it mean to be loving? To be loving means to be of service to other people, to care for, to extend our life beyond our own.
This can be the love of a man or woman to his or her spouse or partner, this can be the love of a parent to a child or a child to his parent, this can be the love of a company to its customers and clients and its people, this can be the love of a leader to his organization, this can be the love of a person to the community he belongs, this can be the love of a citizen to his nation, this can be the love of a man or woman to the whole wide world.
This is translated in different versions. People say things like: I want to make a difference. I want to change the world. I want to make a dent in this universe.
It can be so grand as that but it starts with the small ones. Regardless of the size, we all have that desire to love! To serve!
So what do we desire? We desire to be alive, to be present, and to be loving. That is what we aspire. That is what we desire!
The question is not do we really desire these? The right question to ask is: Are you still connected to that desire? Do you still aspire to live that desire? Do you still push to live your truth that embodies that desire? I hope you and I are.
If this then is what we desire, the next questions to answer are: What do we long to do? And what do we need to have (to be able to do what we long to do)? We will answer these in the coming Sundays.
(Chris Dao-anis, CPA, ACG, ALB is a speaker, trainer, and writer on personal and organizational leadership. His latest book ‘Living Large in the Little Things’ is available at Mt. Cloud Bookshop, Casa Vallejo, Upper Session Road, Baguio City. For talks and trainings, email him at chrisdaoanis@gmail.com or visit www.chrispoweracademy.com. For more inspirational stuff and daily videos called #ConfidenceCode, like him on Facebook at www.fb.com/chrisdaoaniswriter.)
