Life shrinks or expands in proportion to your courage – Anais Nin

There is nothing quite so sweet clear and pulse-racing than being in the presence of someone who is living their life’s purpose. passionately. These are beings who bear a beauty made only more attractive by their battle-scars. Humans who have really used their hearts, minds, bodies and let life live through them.
They are disproportionately sexy.

Those who dare to look ridiculous. As they foolishly and audaciously take on dragons and dreams far beyond their human capabilities or common sense. Without those who get laughed out of hand because they believed the impossible, humanity would still be pottering about in fear of the wrathful weather gods from their caves.

Speak your mind and stand up for what you passionately believe in, your environment may not support you and others may ridicule you. And you may not even be right this time. But in the tradition of the Wright brothers, Copernicus, Gallileo, Bell, Magellan, Branson, Rosa Parks, Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, Soichiro Honda, Churchill, .. if you have a vision it is your clarity that helps us out of the doldrums of chaos that we humans occassionally drop into, and so becomes your responsibility if you have seen further. The mark of the great is that they don’t let the limited holding pattern of current reality stop them from helping to guide humanity to higher ground. No matter what.

Schopenhauer said it best: All truth passes through three stages. First it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

This aspect of genius has nothing to do with being especially talented. It has everything to do with the guts it takes to really LIVE in this crazy chaotic shared game.space. It is true genius though, and requires a distinct intelligence.
Courage comes from the original French root Coeur (heart). Those lionhearted among us have an intelligence not governed by solely by rationality, but one that offers absurd amounts of strength, determination and insight that outstrip all logic. This was Einstein’s singular genius above all. . making the heuristic jump to truth that had not been imagined before, to see the solution and progressively use empirical evidence to fill in the gaps to create the bridge for reality to catch up.

I went to an exhibition last year Hands that Shape Humanity that is a celebration of the bright and brave who walk among us. It supports the Peace Trust, established by one of South Africa’s bravest souls, the Arch (Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu) ..and well worth the time to ignite your own courage and creativity when the exhibition comes to your city. Go rediscover people who have acted.thought.spoken so daringly that they have become larger than life.
38 legends :: among them Jonah Lomu, Tom Peters, Edward de Bono, Tom Robbins, Gary Kasparov, Carlos Santana, Craig Venter, Isabelle Allende, Gary Player, Anita Roddick, Wayne Gretzky, Phillipe Starck, Paolo Coelho.. just go see for yourself >>

Big hearts. Big souls.

so again: IF YOU HAD THE GUTS, what would you do? today?