Everythings Changed

Sometimes even I get slightly jaded to the daily routine when I am sharing the same information with so many people. To each person or new group the information is fresh, but I sometimes have to talk about it for hours on end throughout the week. That can become somewhat routine if one is not careful to focus on the moment at hand.

One moment in all of my seminars and training that stands out was a telephone call I received late one night. I had been working with a close friend on intense rapport building for business executives.

During our daily conversations one of my suggestions was that he attempt to see things through the eyes of other people. Nothing too special there in that I'd said it a thousand times in the past, but this time something happened that changed everything.

Late one evening he called me and I could barely understand him through the sound of the rain outside the telephone booth and his tears, but the one thing I still hear and most likely will echo in my mind for the rest of my life was his voice sobbing over and over,

Everything's changed, everything's changed...

While out eating at a restaurant he decided to truly and honestly examine the others around him. Suddenly his perspective shifted and he realized that every person had their own life, feelings, past and deepest inner desires. Each had the same dense detail of memories and emotions that he had from all of his past years of family, friends and living experiences.

Just as he had, they had laughed, cried, hoped, dreamed, wished, lost and loved.

And everything changed...

He no longer saw these people as just shells of the living that he must tolerate and maneuver around in order to get where he was going in life. They weren't just co-workers or close friends. Instead they had transformed into him.

Standing before him were lives, feelings and dreams just like his, each with their own special beauty and purpose. Then he broke down again in tears as he thanked me from the bottom of his heart for the gift of this vision.

I was numb and speechless.

Here was a socially powerful, physically, mentally and emotionally strong man moved to incoherent sobbing and endless tears by the sudden change in the way he thought and felt. I was experiencing an actual life altering moment in real time and didn't know what to say.

After all of the information I have shared with countless people I had come to realize that true change that reaches the core of the individual must originate within that individual. For him, some natural combination far beyond my influence had unlocked a vision of the world so pure that few of us will ever experience it.

Even weeks later the powerful feelings of personal clarity and release would reduce this man to tears if he pondered over the matter or the moment of change. It was one of the most amazing and inspiring times of my life as a student of human behavior and mentoring.

In hopes that this might happen to just ONE more person I share these words with you.

Ignore the clothing, hair style or words you hear. Look into the eyes of other people. Behind those eyes are the same hopes, feelings and dreams that you experience.

They are you in a different human shell.

Love and support them as if they WERE you.