Since you’re still in the middle of my end game, you may be scratching your head yet, trying to piece all this together.

This is where Joan of Arc comes in. According to Wikipedia:

“Joan asserted that she had visions from God which instructed her to recover her homeland from English domination late in the Hundred Years’ War. The uncrowned King Charles VII sent her to the siege of Orléans as part of a relief mission. She gained prominence when she overcame the dismissive attitude of veteran commanders and lifted the siege in only nine days. Several more swift victories led to Charles VII’s coronation at Reims and settled the disputed succession to the throne.”

When people quote Joan, often it is “I am not afraid… I was born to do this.” But there are two other quotes that I offer today:

“One life is all we have and we live it as we believe in living it. But to sacrifice what you are and to live without belief, that is a fate more terrible than dying.” (emphasis mine)

“Act, and God will act”

Regardless of your religious persuasion (or lack thereof), you have to credit Joan with an incredibly powerful belief. She knew her end game. She even predicted her own injury on the battlefield.

She knew what she had come here for and to her dying breath, she did it without compromise.

Are you living your belief? In your life, your work, your coming and going, your “rising and resting” as some scriptures would say.

Do you even know what you believe?

Here’s a girl that’s been praying hard for years and finally her end game becomes clear. She figures out the steps in the cycle and makes her move. She achieves her end game.

It’s the same pattern you see in powerful leaders throughout history. The details  may be more personal, but the patterns are undeniable. I’ve remarked on more than one occasion about the similarities between the rise of Hitler and one of our more recent presidents. Both were charismatic speakers. Both wrote books about their life that outlined how they’d “change the world”. Both rose to power with a grassroots level of enthusiasm.

Patterns. Cycles.

More recently, you might have heard it called “modeling.” The idea that if you want to be a millionaire, find someone else that has done it, learn from them and model them.

The problem with modeling is that you are NOT them. Your set of beliefs, your core values are probably not the same. Modeling their successes may also mean modeling their failures. Or WORSE.

But finding the patterns… now that’s something that can benefit you. If you want to be a millionaire, don’t just look for one person that’s done it. Look at many people who have done it. What are the commonalities? Where are the patterns, similarities?

Take notes. Lots of them. Then find those commonalities in YOUR life and work.

Then ACT. Take action. Move the ball down the field and see what happens next. See the end game and move relentlessly towards it. If it’s your life’s end game, as it was for Joan, you’ve got to be willing to die for it.

What are you willing to die for?

Are you living that belief?

Lest you think it’s circuitous thinking, give me the next couple of days to bring it into focus for you.

When my uber-helpful coach, Sarah Robinson posed the question “What is Generosity?“, she made the comment that too many people today are touting being generous as some kind of strategy.

I hit reply, almost without thinking and out came this:

IMHO, generosity can’t be a strategy, else it’s not true generosity – or maybe I’m confusing it with altruism. By definition, “Generosity is the habit of giving freely without expecting anything in return.” Any expectation negates the nature of generosity. Generosity is unconditional love in action. It’s not possible if it’s a strategy. Again, “strategy, a word of military origin, refers to a plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal.” A particular goal connotes an expected outcome. You can’t have expectation and no expectation in the same gesture.

You CAN have hope. For example, I’m doing this because I want to, and I HOPE that if you like it, you’ll tell people about it. No pressure, no expectation you’ll actually do anything other than receive the gift.

Hope is not a strategy either – at least from what people tell me, but I do a LOT of hoping, backed by action, and it seems to be working for me.

I also cracked that I should probably write a blog post about this, but didn’t feel I had the information to fully flesh out something of value to you.

A day or so later, while clearing off my in-box, I found a story card about Joan of Arc:

“Although she was not educated, Joan was very spiritual, and spent many hours in prayer and in helping others. When she was 13, she began to hear “voices” that carried messages from God. By the time she was 17, she was certain God wanted her to aid King Charles VII of France in his fight against the English.  She successfully predicted the defeat in Orleans and was able to pick out the king, who was in disguise.”

Eventually, she was placed on trial, condemned to death as a heretic and burned at the stake.

Later that night, I popped onto twitter, and saw the tail end of a conversation between Sarah, and two of my pals, which triggered this thought in my brain:

Children are “distracted” from the world by their dreams. Adults are distracted from their dreams by the world.

I thought it was kind of poignant, but it felt like one of those timely things to say on twitter that will get retweeted a little and then die. Still, not really thinking much of it, I tweeted it and went to sleep.

Joan of Arc, dreams, visions, faith, hope, kids, all this stuff was swirling in my brain. Somehow it felt like I had been here before, staring at a puzzle with tow pieces still in my hands, not sure how they went together. They were all connected, but I wasn’t sure how.

Ever feel like that?

And then, Les McKeown, smarty pants that he is, made this post that made everything gel. In particular, it was this part of the post that pulled it all together:

“Many child prodigies in various disciplines – notably art, chess and mathematics – appear to be born with a highly attenuated ability to discern intricate patterns.”

Now, I’m not one to call myself a child prodigy. Perhaps that’s because I was fortunate enough to be part of a school program for academically talented/gifted kids from first grade through high school. A program, which sadly no longer exists in my community. I was in a room full of smarty pants kids that excelled in math, music, science, writing, art, etc.

I was not the smartest kid in ANY class, but I was “well rounded”, I guess you could say. I was in the top ten percent in most of my classes.  I knew enough to “get by” in every subject, which in that group was getting an A/B average. Seriously, if you got less than a B+, you were usually looked at like an idiot. We all came to respect each other though, because invariably, where one of us was weak, there were others who were strong. And because we were all so socially awkward (think Mark Zuckerberg in “The Social Network”), we only had each other for the most part.

That’s another lesson for another day.

The point of even dredging up my school days was that the one thing I was better at than anyone else was finding patterns, common threads and other “connections” between seemingly unrelated stuff. I scored exceptionally high on pattern recognition tests, from alpha numeric to shape identification, even when I was young. I could even point out errors in the tests that the administrators didn’t catch.

And since that time, I’ve come to learn that these patterns, connections and correlations exist in nearly every facet of our lives.

We all know that “dumb jock” who ended up being a nobody. Or the cheerleader that got pregnant before graduation. Or the nerd who went on to greatness and was voted “most likely to succeed”. These stereotypes exists because they are patterns.

They are cycles that we can see coming – sometimes from miles away. Like the girl who was rejected from her high school drama club and later went on to be a successful actress. Or the awkward basketball player who went on to become one of the greatest players of all time – after he was rejected by a coach when he was in school.

There is very little in the world that isn’t cyclical in nature. I maintain that if we can’t see the pattern, it’s probably because we just haven’t experienced a long enough cycle to see the full pattern yet.

Think about your favorite stories. What elements of those stories mirror your own life? What elements of those stories are repeated over and over in your life? We can hope it’s the happy endings, but for most of us, we’re caught in the drama of the story.

Hope is not a strategy. Neither for your business nor your life. It’s not a way to get things done – to walk around with our fingers crossed, thinking good thoughts, and offering up wishful “prayers” that our story will have a happy ending.

No you’ve got to DO something. Doing is the strategy.

Many moons ago, I made a conscious decision to ask for what I want. Mom used to say that “the answer is always no if you don’t ask.”

Funny thing about moms, they’re often more right than you care to admit – especially when you’re a kid.

So I started asking. And people started saying yes. Some people say no, but the majority, the overwhelming majority of folks say yes.

I devised a strategy: Ask, with hope.

Ask for that thing, and in doing so, you’re taking action. Take action, and be hopeful about the outcome. Hope, backed by action – or perhaps, action, backed by hope – is a powerful strategy in the world.

It builds businesses. It restores lost friendships, it heals old wounds. It improves lives. It creates new experiences.

It works.

What have you been needing to ask for? Stop asking yourself why you’re not asking for it. ASK for it. Go for it.

Ask, with hope, and watch what happens.

Don’t get me wrong. I think I’m fairly nice, and do my best to be kind, dutiful and loyal to my friends. People seem to like me well enough, but I struggle with making and keeping friends for the long haul. They tend to come and go through the seasons of my life, and I’m starting to think I’m the reason why.

There is goodness inside me. I do good things, I know I’m not evil. And yes, I recognize my human frailties, foibles, and the fact that we all make mistakes. That’s not to what I’m referring right now.

What I mean is that heroes are good people. They do the right thing even when it’s hard. They stand up for injustice – even when it means being ridiculed by the populace for being outside the norm. When they really want to quit, they jump back in the fray. Heroes don’t hesitate, they take action. They sacrifice themselves to the good of the whole. They throw themselves in front of the train to save the passengers from a derailment, even if it means losing their own life.

I am not that kind of good. I sacrifice when it’s necessary. I give until just before it hurts. I negotiate away my pain, and dodge many of the bullets Superman would take on the chest.

But then again, I’m not made of steel.

My apologies for the crudely edited video. As I searched for the train scene from Spiderman 2, I stumbled on Aunt May’s monologue about a “hero in all of us”. It reminded me of someone.

A couple of seasons ago, I met a man with an incredible mission: he teaches kids about everyday heroism, and how to rise above and be an everyday hero. Of course, I’m incredibly generalizing the work that Matt Langdon is all about, but you get the idea.

During lunch, I told him he had a powerful message for adults, not just kids. I guess he finally agreed, because he’s working on a new blog, The Hero Handbook. I don’t make a dime for telling you about this guy, and I wouldn’t want to. He’s creating heroes, one kid at a time. The world needs more heroes and more guys like Matt.

When I found his new blog, I was reminded of the teleclass we did together where he shared “The Hero’s Journey“. Matt’s easy-to-digest, 5-point journey portrays the approximate path every hero takes on their way to becoming a true hero. For me, it was a melancholy reminder of our first encounter, and my own personal journey in the last 18 months.

See, if I’m really going to do this “super hero” thing, Matt says the next step – after my Mundane World, and The Call to Adventure, is what he calls “Crossing the threshold.” In Matt’s own words:

“Before the hero can leave the old world behind they have to cross the threshold.  There can be a number of added features at this step, but for now it is simply the act of stepping into the new world.  It’s Harry’s platform nine and three quarters, it’s Luke’s Mos Eisley, and it’s Alice’s rabbit hole.”

Platform 9 3/4 photo courtesy KingsCrossStation.com

Indeed.

I remember watching Harry stare at the wall leading to the platform, trying to figure it out. I remember a later episode when Harry missed the train and crashed into that wall.

I’m not too keen on the crashing part. But in order to break through, you have to risk smashing into the wall.

What if the hero never crosses over?

Crossing that threshold takes a certain amount of moxie, and recent life events have caused me to scrutinize whether I really am as courageous as some people think me to be. It’s easy to take the first step toward the threshold – maybe even step into the doorway. But to fully cross over, not look back, and “burn the ships” as my coach, Sarah Robinson, would say?

Or what if we all took a cue from Peter Parker and just quit? We cross the threshold, decide it’s too much like work, and want to go back to the way things were? Peter ultimately decided the only choice was to go all in, stop the train, and give up everything…

…because he was the only one who could.

But before we cross the threshold, our life is still our own. Our training, our identity, isn’t complete, we’ve only sampled the possibility of the other side. When Harry got the invitation to Hogwarts, what if he’d stayed with the Dursley’s?

Now I know, the Dursley’s are about as pleasant as a root canal, and maybe that’s the point. Maybe the pain of staying where you are is supposed to be far worse than stepping across the threshold when you’ve got hero potential. When you have nothing to lose and everything to gain, it makes stepping across the threshold that much easier.

How many of us with hero potential never cross the threshold because there’s too much at stake? How many heroes have we missed out on because they had too many commitments – bills, family, friends, activities, etc – that made life too comfortable to cross the threshold?

Can you imagine Clark Kent saying “Gee, this super speed thing is great for winning track meets and cleaning the house in a jiffy!” whilst the train speeds headlong into the ocean?

Or what if Bruce Wayne said “Alfred, we could mass-produce the bat-mobile and make a killing in the auto industry! Take THAT General Motors!”

How about if Wonder Woman said “Honey, can we just stay home on the couch and cuddle today? I know the world is in despair, but I need some me time!”?

My mind boggles.

The reason they are heroes is because they make the hard choice. They give up a piece of who they are in this moment for the greater thing they are becoming. Even Harry has to die to save his friends (and himself) from Voldemort.

I’m reminded of Indiana Jones and his leap of faith in The Last Crusade: save yourself and live a life of relative ease, or risk losing your life for the greater good.

In the movies, there’s a happy Hollywood ending waiting. But in real life?

According to Matt, after I cross over, the “path of trials” is where the real work begins.

*shivver*

I don’t mean to be indecisive or melodramatic (well, maybe a little).  I honestly didn’t realize I was pussyfootin’ around so much. I’ve been busy, you know. I’ve had LOTS of ‘stuff’ to do. I stay busy. Chronically.

My reality, however, is that my busy-ness has kept me from crossing the threshold.

My best friends for this season of my life basically put it to me thus: “do it or don’t do it, but either way, get on with it.”  Their words were a little more blunt, but you get the idea.

I’m still not entirely sure what the entire threshold looks like for me. I may never really know. But this week, I’m stepping through. By my math, it’ll take me the next 60 days to complete the crossing over, as the final embers of my ships cool to ashes and waft on the sea breeze.

Ironically, that’s also my birthday.

At nearly 36, the prospect of making this leap terrifies me. Seriously.

Hopefully, I’ll be a better friend, mom, spouse, business owner, human being when I make it to the other side.

Here goes everything…