Sunday Story…What you leave out

 

The picture of the thing is not the thing. The reason the picture exists is to represent the thing. But it is not the same as the thing itself. The picture is an incomplete representation of the thing, even if it is a perfect rendering of the thing.

 

The picture leaves things out. And by leaving things out it forces us to focus on the representations the artist wants us to see. We aren’t distracted by the noises or the smells or the insignificant details. Think back to all the different renderings of “the pieta” artists have created over time. Each artist forced us to see what he wanted us to see.

 

This is not a bad thing. The artist left things out on purpose. When they did they expressed the things they wanted the viewer/reader/ user to see. The artist gets to make the point they want to make, it doesn’t just appear by happenstance.

 

What are you leaving out of your story? Does leaving those things out tell your story the way you want? Or are you leaving it to chance? The decisions you make about the parts of the story you tell form the crux of the story. The question is this: Do the parts you leave out tell the story you want to tell?

 

John Mariotti

www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com

www.crossfitodyssey.com

775-338-2412

 

 

Sunday Story…WHO are you?

 Most of us identify ourselves in any number of ways. Maybe as a generation (x, y, boomer), maybe as an alum, maybe as a member of some organization but we will tend to gravitate towards some identification.

 

The problem is you are not that…you are not the car you drive or the fact you graduated from someplace, or the church you go to. You are not those things. Those things are choices we make, or tastes we may have. They are changeable.

 

Your identity may encompass any number of things currently. Those things will change and evolve over time. But the real question is in the title today…WHO are you? Because you are not the car you drive, the wine you drink, or the political party you belong to.

 

Are you a person of integrity (doing what you say you are going to do when you say you are going to do it)? Are you a person who can be relied upon? Are you kind? Do you look for the best in people first? Is your glass half full?

 

I can be attacked, put down based on my membership in some group but that isn’t a personal attack. I may take it personally but really, it isn’t an attack on my person, on the WHO I am. It’s an attack on the identity I am choosing to present. I am not my membership in a group.

 

In the words of that famous sailor…I yam what I yam.

 

John Mariotti

www.crossfitodyssey.com

www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com

775-338-2412

Sunday Story…Plant a Tree

There is a Chinese proverb that goes something like this…the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is now. So if you want shade you need to plan for it.

 

What the proverb leaves out is all the things that have to happen in that 20 years for the tree to provide the shade. It needs sun, water, and nutrients to thrive and grow. I often use this proverb to illustrate the importance of doing now in order to be who you want to be later. You need a plan, a road map for your success. The work I do today will bear fruit 10, 20, 30 years from now. For the change I want to make tomorrow needs to be different than today and so on.

 

The work you need to do to get where you want to go needs to start now. It will continue until you get to your destination. If you want to be doing something different later, change what you are doing today and keep changing it.

 

Otherwise you may wake up a year from now and find yourself in the same place you are now. And wouldn’t that be a shame if you expected to be someplace else!

 

John Mariotti

www.crossfitodyssey.com

www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com

775-338-2412

 

 

 

 

Sunday Story…Distinctive

 

Is a choice. You can try to be everything to everyone but that rarely works. You end up in a race to the bottom, a race to homogeneity, a race to see if we can all be the same. Although there is a comfort in sameness, there is also a peculiar lack of interest surrounding that bland thing.

 

I want to stand for something. I want to be clear about who I serve. I cannot serve everyone. I cannot be everything to everyone. But I can stand out to the people who are looking for me and the things I stand for. When you look for me I want to be recognizable from a distance. And when you approach it will be obvious that I am the one you are looking for.

 

I don’t want or need to yell and scream at you to see me. If you are looking I will be seen, I will stand out from the other packages on the shelf. The easy thing is to blend in, to be bland and boring. Standing out is hard and scary. You are all alone on the shelf, nowhere to hide. This is the risk of distinction and like all risks the more often I take it the easier it gets.

 

Make the choice to be distinctive. Serve the people best suited to be served by you. Square pegs don’t belong in round holes.

 

John Mariotti

www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com

www.crossfitodyssey.com

775-338-2412