Happy Independence Day!

Today America celebrates its 235^th birthday.  That means in a few weeks I’ll be turning 35!  That’s the magic age.  The US Constitution stipulates that the minimum age of a US president is to be 35 years.  When I started College, I established my American Online email address to be Prez11.  My dream at that point was to be the President of the United States.  Back in 1995 I was looking ahead to 2011 and the excitement of turning 35 and becoming eligible to run for president.  My dream and vision wasn’t to become president, it was to change the world.  At that time, becoming president seemed like a good way to go about making those changes.

Life has turned out quite differently for me.  I’ve spent the last eight years living overseas and pursuing a vastly different life from the one I imagined back in 1995.  Although the likelihood that I’ll ever run for president is slowly fading away, the passions and desires that fuelled that dream still burn intensely in my spirit.  I still want to change the world.  I’m still looking for ways to make a huge impact.  Many of the projects that I’ve been apart of have missed the mark.  They’ve been too narrowly focused, or too limited in their scope to be globally effective.  As I’ve been teaching leadership and management I’ve realized again that I can’t change the world on my own.  I might be able to change one or two lives through my teaching, but making a global impact will require access to a much bigger audience.  It’s going to take resources, networks, and other like-minded individuals that share a similar vision for the world being a better place.  So I’m doing what many other dreamers and influential figures have done before me when they’ve had an idea that they thought might change the world.  I’m writing a book.  

There, I’ve said, I’ve published it on the World Wide Web.  Now I have to do it.  What’s the book going to be about?  It’s going to be about how I think we can change the world.  It won’t just be a bunch of ideas; it’s going to be about the roots of those ideas and my attempts to do things different.  I’m reading several books at the moment that I would recommend to anyone who is looking to live life a little differently.  One of these books continues to be my ongoing inspiration, while the others have played a role in helping me to clarify what I’m supposed be doing with the one life that I have.  In a sense I’m taking my permission to do what’s been in my heart for a long time from these sources.  These books* are:

1. The Bible (God) – an all-time best seller and a book I’ve read almost every day since I turned 13. It really is as relevant today as it was when it was first written. 
2. Strengths finder 2.0 (Rath, 2007) – a book that reaffirmed who I am as a person and validated that which I already knew about myself.
3. The art of non-conformity (Guillebeau, 2010) – I’ve never met Chris, but I feel like we are so like-minded in our outlook on life that reading his book is like having a conversation with an old friend whom I’ve shared all my inner most dreams with. Chris is starting a social movement, which is exactly where I’m heading. 
4. 80/20 individual (Koch, 2003) – this book provides some great practical advice and steps towards turning our ideas into reality and in finding the right partners to help us along the way.   

The title of my book is Revolution! Appropriate for Independence Day.  So I’m declaring July 4, 2011 as an Independence Day from mediocrity, for myself and for anyone else who wants to join me.  

*I'm not receving any commission by recommending these books :)