Defining Moments

Orrin Woodward, on his blog over at BlogHarbor, in his most recent post has started a discussion about defining moments in his life. He has asked us (his readers) to respond in kind and post our own stories of defining moments in our lives. I have had many of those moments in both my faith and leadership journeys. I will share the latter with you now and the former sometime in the next couple of weeks. Enjoy.

I was enjoying a warm summer afternoon playing in my room, waiting patiently for the most exciting moment in any nine year old’s life. The moment that dad got home from work. As usual he came up to give me a hug, and most unusually he handed me a book. It was black and purple and the authors name I could barely pronounce. Key-O-Sock-Ee... what a weird name I thought to my self. I sat quietly on my bed, slowly opening the book. There was a yellow sticky note on the front page. “Rick, I think your son would enjoy this book” is all it said. God was orchestrating my vision before I even cared who He was. I read for the rest of the afternoon and was twirling in the story of another nine year old boy who was learning the ways of the wealthy from his Rich Dad and the ways of the middle class for his Poor Dad. A train of influence was set in motion that day, and it could never be stopped. I found the man who would be my first real mentor; his first lesson to me was that I could do what ever I set in my mind to do. I don’t even know if that lesson is explicitly stated in the book, but that’s what I got from it. I could do anything, he told me I could and I was naive enough to believe him with my whole heart. It was my first defining moment. Many more were to come and my second one was to come shortly there after and it was the lessons taught by this Kiyosaki guy that helped me understand it.

I was enjoying another warm summer afternoon (I should mention that I lived in So. Cal., so every afternoon was a warm summer one), sitting in the passenger seat next to my dad. He had just picked me up from one of the first days of high school. As I had gotten in, he said he had something he wanted to show me. Intrigued, I asked him what and as was his style he said that I’d just have to wait and see. I should back up here and make a point. My father is one of the most wonderful men to have ever blessed the days in my life. He taught me so much that I am extremely grateful for and without him I would not be the man I am today. All though my life up until this point my dad had told me that he believed I could do anything I set my mind to, same as Kiyosaki. Again, in my naïveté, I believed him. Something was about to happen, though, that would shake me down to my very foundations. In recent months I had again been reading one of Kiyosaki’s latest books (I had read so many of them that I considered him a friend, and he didn’t even know I existed). In the book he mentioned something that I didn’t entirely believe. He said that the message would change. You know the message of fathers to their sons. The one that says you are strong, capable, and can do anything that you put your mind to. Well, my message hadn’t changed and I didn’t believe it would and so the rest of Kiyosaki’s message and teaching were thrown into doubt in my mind. But today would prove different. Back to the ride in our truck with my dad. Were barreling down the road and where my dad should have turned right to head home, he instead turned left and took me somewhere I have never been. We round a few more corners and pass a couple of small ranches, when suddenly several mansions come into view. They were huge! My dad slows as I just gawk at the homes... I didn’t even know we had a rich part of town. The first one had a huge lake in his front yard and a yacht that looked to be too large for that lake it was on. The next was a spanish villa ranch style with at lease two guest houses that were bigger than the home we lived in. The next one had so many plants in the front that I couldn’t even see the home. My favorite one, however, was the last in line. It was nestled on top of a humungous hill and it had a two story living room that was circular and made entirely of glass. The view must have been amazing. Then from the front yard there was a really big water fall that ran from that impressive living room all the way down the hill to a large pond next to the road. I fell in love with the outside of that home and for years I would drive down that road after school just to inspire myself and remind me of all that was possible. I looked over at my dad, he wasn’t gawking at the homes, but smiling at the look of amazement on his eldest son’s face. He simply said, “I just wanted you to see what was possible,” as he began the drive back home. He was telling me again that he thought I had what it took to have a house like that one day. I knew it. So, to show him that I got his message, that I understood what he was trying to tell me, and to reassure myself that I believed him, I looked over at him and said “Dad, by the time I am twenty-five I will be able to afford any of the homes on that block.” I was proud of myself. My first real goal. It was specific, measurable, and timed; Kiyosaki said my goals should be like that. All I had to do was write it down. What came next shocked me greatly; instead of telling me that he knew I could do it my dad responded with the infamous comment that so many children hear; “Don’t get your hopes up, son.” Confusion whirled around in my thoughts. What? I thought he believed in me. It was at that moment that I realized that everything Robert Kiyosaki had been telling me was right. The message had been changed and it would never go back. For years following that moment, I heard my parents, my friends, my family, and a whole bunch of people who cared for me tell me not to get my hopes up. They were just trying to protect me. It was at that moment that I realized that I could no longer look to those who were wrapped up in the nintey-five percent world for my direction and vision in life. I had to look to those who had the success that I wanted and follow their example and listen to their advice, ignoring the incorrect or inadequate advice that came from those who did not have that same success.

They say that when the student is ready the teacher will come. Five more years of reading and dreaming had passed. I had committed to learn something new about success everyday and read a book on the subject every month. Again because Robert Kiyosaki had told me I should do that. He was my mentor and He also had that success I was looking for; so I listened. I was almost twenty years old and newly engaged to an amazing woman I thought would someday be my wife. That didn’t work out, but that’s another story for another time. I was online looking for people who might play Robert’s new Cashflow 101 game with me. I found a guy in my area by the name of Joel Burroughs. He agreed to meet me and my fiance at Barnes & Nobel the following afternoon to play the game. Little did I know that I was about to have another one of those defining moments. This time, however, dreams and reality would collide. After an enthralling game of Cashflow 101 and then another of Cashflow 202 with Joel and his wife Maria, he asked me if I wanted to see a business opportunity. Intrigued I said yes, and in the hour that followed I was introduced to the TEAM Leadership Development system (then called Legacy). For the first time in my life there was a method given to the madness of the dreams in my head. Joel would become my coach, my encourager, and my good friend over the next couple of years. He would begin to teach me the science side of leadership and he had helped to put meat on the bones of my dreams by giving me a system by which I could accomplish everything that I ever wanted. He also introduced me to a man by the name of Nick Scarcella who would become my next mentor, a man who could teach me the art side of leadership and encourage me to be the man he knew I could be.

The latest of these defining moments is really no moment at all, but a menagerie of little moment that when brought together bring a crystalline like definition to the life I intend to lead from this moment forward. Up until just recently I had a dream, I had a goal, and I had a plan to get there, but I was missing the most important ingredient to any journey of success, my heart. The TEAM LDS had introduced me to a man who quickly became my hero, a man who’s vision was bigger than himself. Orrin Woodward did something that no one else could have; he put a heart into my vision. When a vision, a dream, a goal, gets a heart, it comes to life. Orrin shouted to me over my car stereo, “GET YOUR HOPES UP, RICHARD!” I knew he was talking to me, “Stop, pecking on the ground with the chickens and come up here and fly with the eagles... where you belong.” Orrin was telling me that I needed to have a heart in my vision. I needed to know why I was doing what I was doing. Without a defining why, I would never get were I wanted to be and I wouldn’t enjoy the journey. God was at work in all of this and he showed me his fingerprints again this last week. I was just about to finish Launching A Leadership Revolution, by Orrin and his partner Chis, when I had to put the book down before finishing the conclusion. I had a leadership book club coming up in two days and need to finish Wild at Heart by John Eldridge before that time. So I put down LLR before reading the conclusion (something I never do) and read Wild at Heart. That book challenged me in a lot of ways and helped me to understand several of the actions and attitudes of my life. What John did in that book was to peel that last layer of dirt off the fossil that had become my heart and let God breathe new life into it. One of the concluding thoughts in that book that washed over me like a tidal wave of realization was a quote by Gil Bailie which read, “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what make you come alive, and go do that, because what the world need is men who have come alive.” Wow! That’s what Orrin had been trying to tell me, and God wasn’t going to sit by idly and let me go without that message getting thoroughly ingrained into my head. Remember how I had not finished LLR, well I picked it up yesterday and read the conclusion. The concluding thought in that book read something like this; it was a quote by Gil Bailie which read, “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what make you come alive, and go do that, because what the world need is people who have come alive.” Okay! Okay! I get the point God. I need to find out what makes me come alive and go do that. That’s where my hero comes in again. Orrin puts it best when he says that we have a battle to fight. We must change the heart beat of our nation and in so doing the direction of our world. How do you change the heart beat of a nation? By changing the hearts of its individuals, one person at at time.

So here I stand, at the edge of today gazing into the endless vista of tomorrow and thank God for a battle to fight. You see everyday spent in the battle to win the hearts of those without truth is truly a day lived in the fullest of adventures. It makes me come alive inside and that’s what our world needs, men who have come alive. Please come and join TEAM Leadership, this battle can’t be won alone.

With Love,
Richard Matthews

PS - According the John Eldridge... all I have left after having a battle to fight and an adventure to live, to really get my heart back, is to find a beauty to rescue. That’s sounds fun!