They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning.
We will remember them.
– From “For the Fallen” by Laurence Binyon
THEY WERE THE LOVED AND LOST
Fathers, mothers, daughters, sons, wives, husbands, cousins, nephews, nieces, all.
NOT BY ACCIDENT
They passed on not by accident, not by bodily deterioration brought on by the mean ravages of time, but because they had a special job.
A job that ended a too-brief sojourn on this blue-green magical wonder called earth.
A job they chose.
SO COSTLY A SACRIFICE
They were American soldiers.
Astep ahead. A step behind. A look left, instead of right. Right, instead of left. Up instead of down. Down instead of up.
A blink of the eye at the wrong time.
And … it was over.
WHAT IS LIFE?
It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime.
It is the little shadow that runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.
– Crowfoot, Native American Blackfoot warrior and orator
The fleeting flash of a firefly in the night … gone.
But not.
Not these Americans.
THEIR EFFULGENT LIGHT …
… echoes eternally throughout the music of the spheres like heavenly bagpipes playing Amazing Grace … across the unfathomable unknowable on their way to The Last Post.
WHO WERE THESE FIREFLIES IN THE NIGHT?
Who were these shadows that ran across the grass riding a Sonata of Moonlighton an Ode to Joy – to living, giving and life?
Who were these shadows that ran across the grass into the arms of an …
The Mount Everest of writing achievements for lazy, lackadaisical, languidly lachrymose scribes like me. And, made it in supraluminal time – took me no longer than 5 years.
THE SECRET
This momentous achievement could not have been achieved if it wasn’t for a secret I discovered in an ethereal DaVincian quote.
THE DREAM
Code it was. Came to me in a dream at work. Right after the usual lunch fare – a peanut butter, jelly, anchovy, mustard, mayonnaise sandwich sprinkled with M & M’s, Sweet Tarts and diet popcorn.
“Having not much to say, he said it often – in a panoplied pastiche of panache-less panache.”
You have this story to tell. It’s gut-wrenching. True. Meaningful. It will change lives. It will save lives … lots of them. It has to be told. You have to tell it – because you’ve lived it.
“Someday, One Day” Photo courtesy of H. Kopp Delaney
BUT
You have a family. Responsibilities. Spouse and kids. Your job is pretty demanding. Business travel and all that. When will you ever find time to tell your story? Save those lives? So much to do …
IS THIS YOU?
Years later do you still have that story in you? Still have that idea for a new invention? New company? What’s stopping you? What’s stopped you?
RESISTANCE
You’ve heard about it before in, “The Power of Resistance: Lessons Learned” from bestselling author Steven Pressfield. It’s the intractable foe of all working writers and the death of most aspiring writers—and entrepreneurs, painters, astronauts, and <insert your dream here>. Resistance is a brutal, intangibly tangible force, an implacable foe. Evil. Toxic. It wants you dead—or dying slowly so it can laugh at your misery.
ONE DAY IS YOUR ENEMY
How many of you reading this right now intend “one day” to write a book? Start a new business, do charity work, paint, do something meaningful? “‘One day” is your Resistance. It’s also the unrelenting foe of anyone wanting to achieve anything substantive in this life.
THERE’S THIS PERSON I WANT YOU TO MEET
He has a spouse, kids, demanding job – a lot like you. His job requires travel and ongoing training – probably a lot like you too. But he has this story in mind – that just won’t quit. This concept. He’s been writing, researching and working. This story will change lives. It will save lives … lots of them.
RESISTING RESISTANCE
He’s committed to writing this story – and is – while still maintaining his commitment to his family, his work, his country. Passionate about it. He’s been doing the work – regardless of all other commitments. And — his job is making him travel soon – back to Iraq. Yes, he’s a soldier. He’s getting ready to deploy to Iraq, where he will lead an Iraqi commando battalion — but he finished the story. Along the way he made a friend, the bestselling author Steven Pressfield who uses him as an example of how to overcome resistance.
“Resistance, it seems, melts away in the face of conviction, passion and hard work.”- Steven Pressfield.
The person’s name? Major Jim Gant. The story? “One Tribe At A Time.”
General Petraeus with Army Special Forces Maj. Jim Gant, “Lawrence of Afghanistan,” in 2010.
“‘One Tribe At A Time’ is not deathless prose. It’s not a super-pro Beltway think tank piece. What it is, in my opinion, is an idea whose time has come, put forward by an officer who has lived it in the field with his Special Forces team members–and proved it can be done. And an officer, by the way, who is ready this instant to climb aboard a helicopter to go back to Afghanistan and do it again,” said Pressfield.
IT CAN BE DONE
For those of you that are, at this very moment, being slowed by Resistance, taunted by Resistance, need inspiration to fight Resistance, aspire one day to defeat the evil beast of Resistance … read “One Tribe at a Time,” by Major Jim Gant. Or – download “One Tribe at a Time” to your computer.
A couple weeks ago I wrote an article called “The Big Presentation.” It was in response to this question.
“Our company is really struggling. I have to give a presentation to upper management about new ideas or new ways to try to help grow our business. I’m afraid if it doesn’t go well, our department will face serious cuts and people will lose their jobs. Any suggestions?”
Having sat through hundreds, if not thousands of business presentations, I offered a different approach to the questioner’s presentation. An approach based not upon technical presentation skills. One not based upon showing how many facts, statistics, and upward pointing trending arrows or bullet points you could force on a PPT. slide. But one that ended with a challenge – to everyone in the room- to try to think different. Act different. Be different. Not your typical presentation.
SO EASY
It’s really easy to give gutsy advice. Especially if you don’t have to do it yourself. Then, a short time later (as these things mockingly go), I had the opportunity to make the same type of presentation myself. To a budget committee. Budget=$$$$$$. Important in any business.
TO BE A HYPOCRITE
I was going to be a hypocrite and whip up the same old boring corporate PPT gobbledygook-crapola that’s expected. But I went back and revisited my answer. Pondered it. Pondering is not my strong suit so … I decided to take my own advice.
Taking your own advice is always scary. I mean really, the last person I want to take advice from is me.
HERE’S THE MARKETING & PR KILLER
But there was one major catch. I had to review an entire year’s worth of work and accomplishments of the department in … FIVE minutes (my allotted time). FIVE MINUTES. If you’re in Marketing or PR you know the new media and social media developments over the last year have exploded at supraluminal speed. You have to go 186,000 MPH just to do an even barely adequate job. So, I compiled the facts and stats. The work on Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Friendfeed, LinkedIn, Wikipedia, Blogs, Social Media News Room, E-Zines, Widgets, Blidgets, Idgets, etc. When I laid it all out on slides I ended up with 110 of them. That’s right. 110 slides. FIVE MINUTES. Even Einstein, relativistically speaking, couldn’t make that math work using the same old approach.
WHAT TO DO?
There was only one answer. Experiment. With the very same new media tools and thinking that have exploded over the last year.
THE PRESENTATION BEGINS
Then – the day was upon me. I started out by informing the budget committee that I could not possibly finish the presentation in five minutes because — I had 110 slides. They took it stoically (if you don’t count the gasps of horror, tears or heads down on the table). “But,” I went on, “I could do it 5:06.” (Five minutes and six seconds.)
CLICK & GO
The presentation below is best viewed in Full Screen mode (click on bottom right of screen) and with the sound on.
“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning.
We will remember them.”
“For the Fallen” by Laurence Binyon
70 YEARS AGO TODAY AN EVIL BEAST WITH A SILVER TONGUE …
… started the deadliest conflict in human history. A charismatic, hypnotically mesmerizing megalomaniac. An evil human beast whose oratory powers seduced the masses until they gave up their liberties – then their lives, their souls – to this Anti-Christ wannabe.
KILLED 100 MILLION SOULS
When it was all over approximately;
22,000,000 to 25,000,000 (million) military personnel were killed
60,000,000 to 80,000,000 (million) innocent civilians were dead (I know I could have shortened those numbers with abbreviations — but it wouldn’t be respectful)
5,700,000 Jews, (78% of the Jewish population in Europe at that time) were murdered.
Six years of raging war, blood, guts and inhumanities piled high in death and destruction.
THE AMERICAN SACRIFICE
Approximately 418,000 Americans lost their lives.But they are not gone. Not forgotten. They laid down their lives …
AT THE ALTAR OF LIBERTY
How costly a sacrifice war brings. Sometimes it’s unavoidable. 70 years ago today it was. But it …
IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO
For liberty. For justice. For human dignity. Securing the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity is, and will always be, perilous and fraught with danger. But ultimately, fate has shown it to be purposeful. Meaningful. Essential to our survival.
The right thing to do.
IT’S SIMPLE
“Secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity.” The meaning of that statement has never been summed up better than this short, heartfelt letter, to a grieving mother from a plain-spoken man. A self-educated and deeply moral man. One who shortly thereafter would pay the ultimate sacrifice himself.
Dear Madam Bixby,
I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.
I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.
I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.
Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,
A. Lincoln — Washington, Nov. 21, 1864.
So Costly a Sacrifice
A step ahead. A step behind. A look left, instead of right. Right, instead of left.
Up instead of down. Down instead of up.
A blink of the eye at the wrong time.
And … it’s over.
BUT WHAT IS LIFE ANYWAY – REALLY?
“It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime.
It is the little shadow that runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.”
– Crowfoot, Native American Blackfoot warrior and orator
A FIREFLY IN THE NIGHT
The fleeting flash of a firefly in the night … then gone.
But not – not for them. Ever.
THEIR UNDIMINISHABLE ETHEREAL ESSENCE …
… echoes eternally throughout the music of the spheres like heavenly bagpipes playing Amazing Grace … across the unfathomable unknowable on their way toTheir Last Post.
LIGHTS THE SHADOWS
Their shadows run across the grass riding a Sonata of Moonlight on an Ode to Joy – to living, giving and life. Outshining, outshining, the sun from deep within the eternal embrace of the arms of
Angels
HONOR
To honor the fallen, with their lifeblood splattered on the altar of liberty — a respectful duty remains.
VIGILANCE
To be forever vigilant against another charismatic, hypnotically mesmerizing megalomaniac, silver-tongued evil human beast – that could, with our current technology and weaponry, make 100 million souls look like a piddling pittance. A trifling travesty.
REQUIRED
Of you. Look. Think. Question. Speak up.
FIGHT
Fight to secure the blessings of liberty – for ourselves and our posterity.
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Lessons Learned from Hollywood STORY Guru Robert McKee