I had a close friend years ago who would always ask everyone he met, “So if you were an animal what type of animal would you be?” He loved that question because it immediately opened a portal into the soul of the individual and revealed to him how they identify themselves with the world.
I think I used to frustrate him because I would occasionally change my answer depending on the environment I was in. I don’t think his frustration came from the fact that I was intellectually more elite than he was, but rather, he’d get all crazy on me because his brain could only process linear answers. To him, life could only be black and white. Rainbow colors and multiple choice answers just couldn’t exist in his mind. I live in a world that looks like a kaleidoscope. I do take pride fitting into any scene in which I walk into, which I admit has gotten me into trouble at times. I suppose that means I have some chameleon in me too.
Something happened to me this week. I was flowing through the crowds of my life, searching for the next adventure and newest talent to help me pursue my life purpose, and I realized I’ve been spending most of my life searching for a feeling and experience and I wondered why? I asked myself, why am I this way? I then remembered my friend, and I asked myself, if I was an animal what type of animal would I be?…
I decided that God has designed me the same way he designed a shark. Not in the way it can bite. I don’t bite; I’m a really caring guy with a huge heart. But the way a shark always has to keep moving and searching to survive. I spent many of my younger years being an aimless wanderer, but I’m not that type of lost soul anymore.
Now I’m going out into the world in the search for the most captivating talent and inspiration so it can push, inspire, and change me. I always want to find it so I can bring it home and I can take my business to the next level. Like the shark I’m always moving, and looking, to see if I can find anything to improve the quality of my spiritual life.
While on my adventures last week I met a few people whose lives sparkled on the outside. As we spoke deeper I learned that they each had overcome both good and bad decisions to get where they were. I was so proud to become their friends because I am taking the same journey with my life. I wrote them this private message today, and after sending it I realize this note speaks to everyone and I think it can touch some people. There are many more of us. Our scars can make us even more interesting and brilliant than the unmarked people we were when before we had them. I wrote this,
This is meant to inspire and empower you… it is one of the many comments I will make to you as we become better friends, and you become utterly confident and supremely motivated to be yourself no matter where you’ve come from.
One of the reasons we’re going to be really good friends is because of my total lack of care of what others think of me. I have ten years of experience of taking leaps of faith of just being myself among almost all culture groups you can find in the USA – white, black, latino, native american, rich and poor – and I have learned over the years that people don’t like having perfect people around them. Instead, they like original people who embrace their stories and are always trying to improve all unique talents that make them them. I have earned a lot of respect over the last ten years, but not because of the man I pretended to be, but because of the determined, transparent, and honest man I am.
This is going to be a key ingredient in building my success in the coming years. You might not know it, but everyone is overcoming challenges, and when they see someone with total enthusiasm overcoming their challenges it is the most inspiring, liberating, and motivating thing they have ever seen. Strength and enthusiasm and talent is exuding in the direction God is calling them to move is the most awesome phenomenon I have experienced. You just have to find the courage to show it. Then it becomes contagious. Come on man, let’s rock this party together. My calling is the guy who goes first and loosens up the scene, and then everyone else can feel liberated to do the same. Let’s go.
So if you were an animal what animal would you be?