Just a bit more...

 Dear Why Team member,

I hope this message finds you well and encouraged. This week we consider how consumption affects output.  

Why? To feed and fuel not just our second wind, but our third and fourth wind as well.
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While it is common that most people will break their nighttime fast with something to eat in the morning, appropriately known as breakfast, consider how you break your inevitable mental fasts from new insight and knowledge.  I find that as disciplined as I attempt to be with my nutritional diet, it is as important, if not more important, to be...

...disciplined with my mental diet.  Not only do I seek to feed my mind regularly with high quality fresh ideas and insight, I have also established various disciplines around the methods of intake.  To be clear, when I say new and fresh, of course, I mean new and fresh to me.
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One of my methods for the consumption of high quality insight, is to listen every morning to Inspirational Living Podcasts found at LivingHour.Org.  I am particularly fond of the inspirational writings written in the late 19th and early 20th century. This was a time when there was less technological distraction, brilliant timeless insight and outstanding prose.  Recently, I was listening to an adaptation of the book, "New Thought Healing Made Plain", by Kate Atkinson Boehme, written in 1918, where she references, what at the time, was a recent observation and the coining of the term, "A Second Wind".  She refers to the paper written by Professor William James of Harvard University, who shares the phenomena of an athlete's sudden burst of renewed energy at the point of utter exhaustion.  

What few know, is that he also believed there to be a third and a fourth wind as well.  That at the point when we believe we can go no farther, if we can but sustain the effort a bit longer, we can tap into a well of energy that we would not know existed had we not been blessed with the test.  Kate found this insight particularly exciting, as do I.  When adversities meet us, which they most certainly will, if we could maintain this awareness that deep within us there is not only a second, but a third and fourth wind, we may even have the courage to call upon adversities to reveal our latent capabilities.  

In the song, "ROOTS," by Imagine Dragons, there is a great line that says, "Trouble find me."  Why?  The song goes on to say, "Hell always comes before we grow.., trouble find me."  

Whether you choose to ask for trouble or not, life will certainly deliver it.  To be more prepared, and even excited about what life will bring you, consider being more intentional with how you feed your mind, with attention to both the quality and the quantity of what you mentally consume.  Consider podcasts like the ones provided by LivingHour.Org, and no doubt you will be more capable of tapping into your second, third and fourth wind, for you, and for those you seek to serve.

Make it a great week,

Steve Luckenbach

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