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“Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.”  – Jeremiah 6:16 

As the great philosopher Yogi Berra once said, “When you arrive at a fork in the road, take it.”  Ah, Yogi-isms, don’t you love them!  But it hardly solves the dilemma we’re presented when we come to one of those inevitable forks in the road.

When my beloved friend and office mate, Jim Webb, was informed that he only had at most a year to live he found himself at a crossroad.  Faced with such a time limitation he had to choose carefully what path to take.  For him the decision was an easy one as he looked at his family with that big Jim Webb smile.  “You know,” he said, “a person can do a lot of good in a year.”  And off he went without ever looking back.

Just before graduating from high school each of my two sons had to endure a dinner outing with their dad for a little father-son chat.  During the course of the evening I asked this one question.  “What do you want to be?”  Each responded predictably that he wanted to be a lawyer or an architect or something-or-other I don’t recall.  But it was a trick question, you see, so I asked it again.  “No, I already know that,” I said, “I’m asking you what you want to BE!”  Each one in his respective moment looked at me as if I had three heads, then they got it.  Both, in so many words, gave me the same answer.  “I want to be a good person,” they each replied.  Ah-ha!  That’s exactly the answer their old dad was hoping for.  You see, what I was doing was leading them to a crossroad and asking which path they planned to take.

What I asked of my two sons was to stand at that same crossroad where Jim Webb was standing and consider carefully which path to take.  The only difference between Jim and my sons – as well as the rest of us – was that Jim’s time limit had been pre-determined; theirs and ours have not.  In his remaining months Jim did indeed do a lot of good and created a legacy through which his goodness continues.  He chose the ancient paths, where the good way is, and he walked in it, and by doing so he found rest for his soul.  By following his example so can we.

“It is more blessed to give than to receive.”  – Acts 20:35 

For most of my life I thought this quote was intended to guilt us into being a “giver” and that there was something bad or self-centered about being a “getter”.  But that’s not the point of it at all.  It is not intended to be some sort of do it-or-else command; rather it is offered as sage advice, the kind that we might expect from a wise elder.  Since we all come into this world as infants who are capable only of getting, giving is a behavior we must learn.  But once we learn it – I mean truly learn to be a selfless giver – something amazing happens in that our lives become enormously enriched.  It is one of the great paradoxes of life.

In recent years I have been on several trips into Central America to help the poor who live there.  My first time to do this was probably motivated by that guilty feeling I just described and because I knew I had more than enough and needed to give some away.  Admittedly my trip began with a bit of an Ugly American attitude, that I had much to give and the impoverished people would be grateful for my generosity.  What occurred, though, was the reverse.  I quickly discovered that what I had to give them paled in comparison to what they had to give me.  I learned much more about generosity, friendship, sharing, and love from them than they could ever have gained from me.

The same experience holds true in my coaching business.  I am often times hired to coach leadership teams and small work groups, and what I have discovered in doing so is that I learn much more from them than they ever gain from my expertise as a coach.

“My own experience about all the blessings in my life,” claims renowned author, speaker and consultant Ken Blanchard, “is that the more I give away, the more that comes back.  That is the way life works. . . .”  Simply put, “It is more blessed to give than to receive,” because when we give we almost always – and usually to our great surprise – receive much more than whatever it is we give away.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. . . . But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”  – Matthew 6:25,33 

Two business partners were discussing their goals for the next year.  “We should aim to increase our revenues by twenty percent,” the first one suggested, to which the other responded, “No, I think we should instead aim to increase the number of people we help by twenty percent.” 

In the preface to his classic book, Man’s Search for Meaning, renowned psychiatrist, author, and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl wrote:  “Don’t aim at success – the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it.  For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. . . I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge.  Then you will live to see that in the long run – in the long run, I say! – success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it.” 

The bedrock of our financial system and the hope for the future of our prosperity resides in our capacity to create and provide value to other human beings.  Work, in other words, must be first and foremost about creating value rather than making money.  Money is only a byproduct, a means of exchange, a way of measuring value.

In the end the abundance we realize in our lives will be the result of the value we create, not the money we make or the things we accumulate.  The second business partner had it right, instead of worrying about making money they should instead strive to help more people.  Then, by doing the right thing financial rewards will ensue.  In other words, “. . . do not worry about your life . . . But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

“Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.”

• Ecclesiastes 12:13 

There’s a great moment in the movie “City Slickers” when Curly, the crusty old cowboy, offered Mitch, the city slicker, some invaluable advice about the secret to life.  He held up his index finger to which Mitch responded, “You mean it’s your finger?”  “No,” Curly replied, “it’s one thing.”  “But what is it?” Mitch presses on for an answer.  Curly simply replied, “That’s what you’ve got to figure out.”

My first boss out of college also gave me some invaluable advice which I’ve never forgotten.  Learn how to do one thing really well, he said, and you’ll be successful.  And he was right.  So I worked hard at becoming a competent bond trader, and when I did others began to take notice, then my career took off and started to broaden into other areas.  But it all stemmed from that “one thing”.

Then some thirty years later I embarked on a new career as an independent executive coach.  Again I received some invaluable advice from some of the seasoned veterans of that profession who had become my teachers and mentors.  Find your niche, they advised; define it as concisely as you possibly can and you will become successful – just another way of saying, “it’s one thing”.

“Meaningless!  Meaningless! . . . Utterly Meaningless!  Everything is Meaningless,” Solomon lamented over and over in the book of Ecclesiastes.  Here’s the richest and wisest man in the ancient world who had access to anything and everything – wealth, knowledge, great accomplishments, leisure time, sensual pleasures, a good reputation, beauty, almost anything one could imagine – yet found little meaning or purpose in any of it.  “Now all has been heard,” he finally summed up, “here is the conclusion of the matter:  Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.”  Or as Curly so cleverly explained with his index finger to his city slicker mentee, Mitch, “It’s one thing,” and “that’s what you’ve got to figure out.”  But in the end Solomon did figure it out.  He figured out THE one thing . . .  And so must we; for it is the real secret to life.

“Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.”  – Proverbs 4:23 

Do you remember a movie a few years ago, The Horse Whisperer, or perhaps you read the bestselling novel by Nicholas Evans on which the movie was based?  It’s a story about a horse that had been deeply wounded emotionally in a tragic accident and a man who came along with an incredible gift for connecting with horses who was able to restore the horse back to health.  The story almost seems too farfetched to be true that a man could communicate with an animal at such a deep level.  But based on some things I’ve learned about both horses and humans it is not out of the realm of possibility at all.

Over the past several months I’ve had the opportunity to attend two different workshops that involved actively working with horses.  What I’ve learned about these magnificent animals is that they are creatures of the “heart”; that is, they think and respond with their heart rather than their “heads” as we humans are prone to do, which makes them extraordinarily sensitive to the emotions and feelings of human beings.  Therefore, like the horse whisperer, people who work well with horses are those who are able to connect with the horse’s heart, thus allowing the horse to connect with and trust the human heart.

While these experiences have taught me a great deal about horses, it has taught me even more about humans and importance of the heart.  It has affirmed for me what I have believed for a long time, that while we humans have been given a tremendous capacity for knowledge – which, by the way, we should all pursue with a vengeance throughout our lifetimes – it is the heart, our feelings of love and desire that dictates more than anything how we live and the choices we make.  It is essential, therefore, that we must be careful to guard our heart to ensure it is fully engaged, and that it is focused on taking us down the right path.

So let me urge you to ask yourself this.  When you come to the end of this life, what will have mattered most, your possessions, wealth, knowledge, achievements?  Or will it be those things that are of the heart?  Then consider the wisdom of the Proverb:  “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.”