I Invite You To Fly

In order to truly follow your dreams, you must truly be willing to let go of the safety bar, take a step, and trust that your wings will catch you. You need to have faith in yourself, in the process, and in the universe that you will be fine. You need to do this before you know that you will be fine. This is a paradox. To take a leap of faith, you must first have faith. In this talk I share my journey, providing metaphors and examples along the way to encourage you to find your faith and to take that step and fly!

Transcript

So the last time we spoke I shared with you a story of celebrating a dark night of the soul.

My journey into the depths of despair caused by life circumstances and caused by medication that wasn't right for me.

Since that time I've been off medication,

Off everything for two weeks now and my mind is clearer than it's ever been.

The colors have returned.

It feels like life has a point and a purpose.

I'm waking up with hope and drive and belief.

Which is lovely.

But prior to all of this those emotions and those mental states still arose.

But I've got something new now.

Something that I think will be a bulwark against future downturns.

Something that I've never had.

Two things in fact.

First of all,

Faith,

And I'll explain what I mean by that.

And also a belief in myself.

They're intertwined these two things but we'll talk on the second first.

Belief in myself.

I've realized very recently that I've been approaching life,

Every aspect of life.

My martial arts training,

My work,

My hobbies,

Every game of chess.

Everything.

Playing not to win but just to lose slower.

To not lose as badly.

Playing on the defensive with no hope of offense.

Without the belief that I can be successful.

Now this isn't to say that I didn't want to be successful.

I've written books,

Done podcasts,

A whole variety of things that I want to be successful.

But I didn't quite expect it to be.

I sort of would put things out to the world.

Things that I was proud of and sort of hold them back and say,

Hey,

Do you want this?

Do you want this?

You might like it.

Very soft.

Very weak.

Because I didn't fully believe in myself.

I didn't have faith in myself that I could create something of worth and put it to the world.

I didn't have faith that I could stand in the strength of what I created.

But not anymore.

Something's changed.

A fire has been stoked in my heart and I am fanning those flames.

Just last night,

I was playing a game of chess with my brother and I was five moves in.

He's better than me.

He's been better than me for years.

Five moves in and my mind checked into gear and it's like,

You're not playing to win anymore.

You're just trying to not lose.

You think you're going to lose.

Change that.

And so I did.

And I played a better game of chess than I played against him in literally years.

Now I still lost that game,

But I didn't lose because of my internal mental state.

I tried and I continued trying and I was up in position until his technical ability,

His actual skill overrode my skill.

But I didn't quit on myself.

I've released,

Like I've said,

Books and podcasts and other projects to the world,

Thinking it won't go great.

Thinking that I'm not worthy of praise,

Of attention,

Of sales,

Of moving people's emotions.

Just put it out there.

Nonetheless still hoping,

Still hoping to be good,

Still hoping that it will go good,

But not believing that it will.

With martial arts,

I was training and if I was competing against someone I was better than,

I'd be fine,

Confident,

Strong.

But the moment someone pushed back,

The moment someone fought back,

The moment I was against someone that has trained longer than me,

Or is younger and fitter and training more than me,

I would roll over and accept defeat minutes before it happened.

And once again,

Technical ability does matter in this sport,

But it's like I completely discounted the point and the existence of fighting spirit.

And this Dark Knight of the Soul that I spoke on previously inspired a conversation with my partner,

Inspired the question,

What would it mean if I were to go all in myself?

What would it mean if I was to believe?

And I just sat in that space for a while and I checked into this feeling of passion in my heart,

This soul's flame,

And I tell you what,

I believed.

For once in my life I believed I could be something and that belief has continued and that is inspiring me forward.

I would hope for a better future,

But I didn't believe it would come.

This is where faith comes in.

Now by faith it's a little bit of an interesting word because it evokes imagery of religion.

And yes,

There is an importance of faith for religious beliefs,

But I'm not talking about a faith of myself,

Believing in myself,

In my abilities.

And the simultaneous dropping away of a fear of myself.

I've always had a dissociated love-hate relationship with myself.

I want to improve,

I want to get better,

I want to train,

I want to work,

I want to do things,

But past traumas and issues have made me fear,

Fear what it would mean to be a strong person,

Fear what it would mean to embody my full totality.

Because what if I try and fail?

What if I lose control?

What if?

But I'm finally,

35 years of age,

Finally accepting my power,

Embracing my truth,

Ready to take a step towards the greatness I was always destined to achieve.

And by greatness I'm not talking about necessarily or just,

You know,

Becoming a world-renowned poet or a renowned teacher or a coach,

Whatever these sort of career goals are.

I'm talking about just literally every aspect of my life,

Like a game of chess,

Like being confident in my parenting decisions,

Like having the belief in myself that people would want to,

You know,

Spend time with me and associate with me and hang out with me as a friend slash social group.

You know,

Like every aspect of my life.

The things are worth trying,

That is worth getting up in the morning and doing something with my life.

That's more what I'm talking about.

Talking about it all,

You know,

The ability to approach someone,

To apply for a job,

To approach a potential partner and say,

Hey,

Do you want to catch up for a coffee?

Confidence,

Self-belief,

Faith,

Faith in the future,

Faith that I will pull through,

That it will all be okay.

This comes hand in hand with mindfulness because with mindfulness you are sitting in the present moment,

You are focused on the here and now,

You are not dwelling in the past,

You are not worrying about the future,

You are here.

Most of the time,

In fact almost all of the time,

The present moment is glorious and beautiful and sublime and just is.

But we get lost in our thoughts and we doubt.

Why do we doubt?

The future has infinite possibilities and I am but one person.

It is impossible for me to attain that infinite world of possibility.

I can only be here,

Be now,

Be me.

But if I think about five possibilities,

Maybe I can manage that.

But eventually if I add more possibilities and things that could go wrong and things to contemplate and worry about,

Eventually I am going to get overwhelmed.

How many of those possible futures can I hold?

Five,

Ten,

Twenty,

One hundred?

And remember they ever branch out.

If I make a decision to work on my website today as opposed to exercising,

There's two different futures.

What if I choose to socialize?

What if someone calls me today?

You know,

There's five different futures.

And then what happens in the next hour after that?

There's another ten.

You get my point?

It branches out endlessly and exponentially.

Same thing with the past.

Yes,

The past happened.

Yes,

It existed.

If I do well in that and if I live in that space,

I am doomed to stay trapped by it.

I want to heal.

I want to grow.

I want to move on.

I want to evolve.

And there is a benefit in talking,

Sharing,

And writing and all these things that I suggest and do.

But ultimately,

I'm living in the here and now.

I'm not in the future.

I'm not in the past.

I am here right now.

Mindfulness.

So all of these things have combined in my mind.

This belief in myself.

This confidence.

This fire in my heart.

This faith.

This mindfulness of the ability to sit in the present moment.

Something's coming up that I want to share with you.

I've always had this imagery of standing on the precipice of a mountain.

Glorious mountain range.

Desperately,

Knuckles white,

Holding a safety rail.

Freaking out because I know I need to jump.

I need to fly.

But I don't know yet that I have wings.

And I'm too afraid to step over the rails and even look at what lies beyond.

And over these last,

You know,

13,

15 years,

I've had the courage to step over that rail and look over the edge,

But still holding on to that rail.

That I've tied a rope to myself and tied that rope to the guide rail and leaned over a little bit further,

Let go with my hands,

But still holding on to something.

It's like,

Oh,

That's a big drop.

This is scary.

I don't know if I have faith.

I don't know if I can fly.

But eventually,

One day I'm going to have to cut that rope and I'm going to have to jump knowing that I will be caught by the power and the majesty of the miracle that is within me.

The wings that are there just waiting to be unfurled,

Just waiting to catch the wind and to take me to distant places,

Faster,

Further than I've ever been.

But the thing is with faith,

You have to step before you have proof.

You have to act before you know.

You can do all of the planning you like and you should do planning.

You should plan and you should think about it.

You should get the feedback if you're doing art to make sure that your work is legitimate.

You should,

You know,

Put things in place to make sure your life doesn't implode.

I'm not saying to act recklessly,

Not at all.

But what I am saying is to believe in yourself.

Believe and take that leap of faith.

Because really it's not a chasm that stands underneath you.

It's not an edge of a cliff.

It's just a little stool.

It's just a little curb.

And were you to fall,

You might get a scraped knee,

But you can pick yourself up and try again and eventually you will fly.

The potential upside is limitless.

The potential downside is small.

And ultimately what's the worst that's going to happen?

Eventually we all pass.

We leave nothing but the memories of people,

But the work,

The art that we've left.

The writing,

The poetry,

The paintings,

The videos,

The creations,

The legacy.

That's all we leave.

So why not take a running leaf off that curve,

Spread your wings and fly.

And if you don't do it this time,

Try and try again because those wings are just waiting to be unfurled,

To be released,

To be let go of.

Because if you expect to be able to know where you're going,

To be able to get there before you start taking that step,

You'll forever be holding onto that guide rail.

Maybe the rope will get longer.

Maybe the rope will get longer and longer still,

But you'll always be tethered to that guide rail.

Back to the martial arts analogy for a moment.

I train Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

If you want to give up,

You tap.

You tap out and the fight stops.

They get off you,

You start again.

That's the guide rail.

That's the hand rail.

You always know that you are safe.

And in this way,

The training is limited.

Yes,

It's lovely,

It's beautiful,

And it's the best form of self-defense you could do.

In my experience over 20 years of different types of martial arts,

It is what I will teach people.

However,

There is a limit because,

And it has to be,

To train safely,

You have to have that safety mechanism in place.

But the top competitors,

They don't compete with a tap in mind.

They compete with the idea that they are not going to ever tap.

They compete with this idea of jumping off and winning.

Now that is competition.

That is conflict.

That is a zero-sum game.

But the analogy holds.

If you want to win,

And truly win,

Be the top,

Be a champion,

You can't fathom the concept of losing.

That's impossible.

Impossible to hold those states in your mind simultaneously at the same time,

Right?

You can't do it.

You have to know that you're going to win.

Up until this point,

I didn't have that.

I was holding onto the guide rail.

I was extending the rope.

I've been training for 20 years,

Like I said,

10 years in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

I am good at what I do.

I am better than the vast majority of the world's population.

But when I faced someone that is better than me,

I would crumble because I was still holding onto that safety rail,

Still lacking the belief that I could win,

That I was worthy of winning.

I would do the same thing with my books.

I would release a book,

Knowing that,

Or believing that I didn't deserve success,

Putting it out there,

Going,

Hey,

Here's my book.

And yet,

That energy shows.

It shows in the marketing.

It shows in the final release.

It's an energetic transference.

Because what it would mean were my books to be widely read,

Were my poetry to be widely received,

For people to be moved so fundamentally that they read a poem of mine and it changes their existence.

That is a lot of responsibility.

It is a lot of power.

It is a lot of potential conflict.

It's real.

If I put my art out there and act as the struggling artist,

That's all I will ever be,

A struggling artist,

Known by a very small few,

Still impacting them,

But not sitting in this space of potential and possibility and power.

You know what I mean?

But it took this dark night of the soul.

It took me feeling these flames of power and anger and possibility in my heart.

It took me believing in myself,

Leaping off the edge to realize I had wings that I could fly.

And I am never going back.

I am not ever stepping back off this.

Every decision from now on in my life will be built around this idea,

Is this helping me to fly?

Is this taking me to that distant mountaintop that I now know exists and that I am desiring with all of my heart to summit?

I was praying my whole life to be one of those people that had a calling.

You know,

Those kids that are like,

I'm going to play baseball.

That's what they do.

They're just playing daily,

Daily,

Daily.

You know,

Or they're painting or they're,

You know,

Acting,

Whatever it is,

Investment banking.

It doesn't matter what it is,

But they've got this drive,

This passion to be something in this world.

Because for a lot of the time I was running,

I just wanted to exist,

Survive passively without this goal.

But I wanted it.

I wanted it more than anything to have a call.

And now that it's come,

This little voice in my heart has opened the door and it's on me to step through,

Not just to step through,

But to run through,

Run screaming into the future saying,

Hey,

This is me and I'm going to achieve everything.

I've been stalling.

I've been waiting.

I've been wasting time,

But not anymore.

I am ready.

I'm stepping through this door.

This is where I am.

This is what I'm doing.

This is what I'm becoming.

Come along with me.

Let's take that step.

Now I'm not regretting my life decisions up until this point.

It is what had to happen for me to be able to open that door and step through it.

It is what had to happen for me to be able to let go of that safety rail,

To even acknowledge that the safety rail exists.

I needed to do all of this stuff to get to this point right now.

But now that I'm here,

I'm not stepping back off.

I'm not coming down.

I am flying.

I will continue to fly and every decision I make will be built around,

Will this take me close to my goals?

Is this in line with my truth,

My totality?

What I know,

Is this in line with my faith,

My knowledge of myself and the world?

So I invite you,

I invite you to consider,

To step into a space of possibility,

To sit with this idea and just be.

I invite you to look over the edge,

To realize that that cliff is in fact just a mere step.

I invite you to let go of the safety rail,

To unhook that rope and to jump into the future,

Trusting that your wings exist and they will catch you.

And knowing that were you to fall,

It won't cost you that much.

Scrape your knee,

You'll get back up,

You'll try again and again and again until you teach yourself how to fly.

Then you'll look back at that little stool,

That little step,

That little curb and chuckle.

Because the mountain,

The mountain,

The cliff that you were so worried about has shrunk in size.

Well in fact,

You've grown,

It's stayed the same,

But you were so much bigger and now you are flying towards the future,

Towards possibility.

I invite you to come,

Let go of the handrail,

Take that step,

Fly.

Reviews

So glad to hear the colors are back!! Thank you for the encouragement to let go of the rail. I will continue to take steps into flight. 🧚

Thank you for being brave, having faith in yourself & being authentic Zachary 🙏🏼
Look forward to seeing you fly to new heights & places 🧘🏼‍♂️☮️🪽