Foreshadow – The Pain, The Heart, and The Spirit – Hint
On September 13 one of my budget disqualified prospects responded to my check in and encouragement with a life changing catastrophe:
I wish I could say I was doing great but I am doing ok. I couple weeks ago I was cutting down a few small trees to make a rope swing for my kids. About 2 minutes into a 3 minute job a piece of wood shot up and stabbed my left eye. I had surgery that night to remove the wood but I completely lost vision in that eye. I had a few consultations last week and another surgery a few days ago. I can see a little light now but that’s about it. Everything else I’m my life is on hold for now but I’m still serious about ___
–Budget Disqualified Prospect
He is a Christian, husband, and father of young children and works in the field in a typically flush industry. That combination tugs on my heart and spirit. I’m moved to do something. This could be meaningful in his life and could be the first pre-sold SaaS product development partnership for my company. A success story with a purpose. But. . . fear, doubt, greed.
Now it is October 3 and the “moved” has been stationary.
Nothing – Something – A Reminder
Yesterday, I was called by a lead I’ve been reaching out to since September 21 and marked a “lost” lead a few days ago. He, I’ll call him “B”, is a 75 year old philosopher on social security who recently lost $3M in silver bars in Switzerland.
B has a vision, an idea, a mission. Initially I couldn’t hear it. What I heard is “I’m looking for a free developer.” The old equity pay development project. We’ll come back to that. . .
I think the base of his idea is a “meaning” based vs. a “pattern recognition” based search engine theory. But that doesn’t cover it, we talked for 50 minutes (and I never let a “free developer” conversation go that long) about learning, knowledge, the four causes principle, the four domains of content of knowledge, cognition, realization, semantics, syntax, ethics, robots, rubrics, spirituality, balance, existence. . . I make it seem unstructured but it’s not. The whole conversation had an elegant structure and demonstrated a life work and passion for the concepts and theory and greater good.
What? – Future Connection – Meaning Formation
Next, my 6 year old, Bet-z comes in from school, says hello with her big hug, turns to my book shelf and points at a large book and asks “What is this book daddy?” For the record, she has never taken notice, looked at, or mentioned anything on my bookshelf before.
The book pointed out holds the original Hebrew and Greek versions of the Bible in line with the English translations, The Interlinear Bible. I grabbed it off of the shelf. I haven’t opened it in 10 years as I was overwhelmed to consider learning ancient Hebrew and Greek–my original intent. Then I explained to her what it does and how it worked. She was fascinated. {nudge} to my conversation with B on spirituality.
Scale – Paradigms, Ethics – Fear
Skip just ahead to dinner. One of our topics include discussions about new partners, projects, and interesting calls from the day. B’s conversation was interesting so it made the grade. My 13 year old, Erin grabbed onto robots and how she is not in favor of them taking over jobs from real people. I surprised myself with my response how ethical robotics and automation could free the human race. {nudge}
Pain & Problem – Invisibility, Unrecognition – Purpose
Following dinner and playtime with the little ones, Leah and I sat down for date night, COVID style. We discussed the state of the family, home, and business. Played a short video game session. Then I pulled up Netflix and grabbed a recommendation from our masterminds: The Social Dilemma.
{nudge} {nudge} {nudgity} {nudge} Following that, We watched a “fun” show that I paused more than once to share portions of the chain of events above and the state of our 21 year old, live at home son with a severe video game addiction, our 16 year old who somehow consumed 5x as much cellular bandwidth as the rest of the family and grandparents (5 other phones) combined, and the desire to cut off or severely limit the use and consumption of tech. The tech leaders in the movie don’t allow their children use or access to any of it until high school or later.
Question – What’s Next – Pray & Listen
Action nearly overtook me but writing this has probably saved me. I pray it leads me to Kingdom action. I feel like:
- Building “patch eye’s” application
- Meeting with B to differentiate philosophy and spirituality
- Completing my life planning application
- Spamming https://www.thesocialdilemma.com/
- Creating and posting links/clips from the movie
- Activating for Center for Humane Technology
- Finding God’s vision and plan for my life
. . . “Speak, for Your servant is listening”
1 Samuel 3:10 NASB
