Live open!

Dear Why Team member,

Live open!

Choose connection over perfection.

Holding tightly to the status quo can reduce our ability to give and receive.
Preoccupation with what we currently have, or how we are currently seen, can disconnect us from the many new opportunities life presents us. Jim Collins, author of "Good to Great" and "How the Mighty Fall", was once advised by one of his mentors that he would be well served to be more interested than interesting.

Apparently...

... life is fueled best by our openness and curiosity, by our gratitude for the opportunities to learn, grow, and give. Staying a student, fuels our ability to receive and to feel privileged to give what we have received to others.

Early last year on a trip to NYC with my 13 year old daughter Gabrielle, we visited the wax museum where they offered us the chance to make a wax sculpture of one of our hands. I simply chose to have one made of my open hand. It is not by chance that this wax impression of my open hand is in my home where I may often see it as a reminder of how I want to live my life. The open hand, for me, is so symbolic of how I might best live my life. When we make a fist, grasping tightly what we fear losing, we live a life both fearful of loss and limited in its ability to receive. Make a fist right now! Squeeze tightly! Now, relax and slowly opening your hand, feel the difference.

There is one particular friend of mine, a fellow Why Team member,
that reminds me of the importance of being open to receive every time I see him. We don’t get to see each other very often but when we do, before we exchange any words, he often holds up his fist and then opens it. I always appreciate the unspoken meaning of his gesture. It has become this knowing between us and we often do the same when we part, grateful for the time together and for the letting go to see what life will give us around the corner.

Endeavor to live more with the open hand, giving, lifting, serving and by doing so, receiving so much more of what life has to offer. Fear not the letting go, be grateful for the receiving AND the letting go. When we more gracefully allow endings we are more often graced with new beginnings.

Live open!

Make it a great week,

Steve Luckenbach
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