Joe Gerstandt | keynote speaker, freedom fighter, freak-flag flier

You have no idea.

A lot of my work around authenticity is focused on self-awareness. To consistently be true to who you are, you need to first know who you are and what you are capable of. Makes sense, right? Having some real clarity around what your values and beliefs and gifts and aspirations are makes it a bit easier for us to act accordingly. If we do not keep that stuff top of mind, it becomes very easy to make day-to-day decisions based on other things (like what people want from us right now and what is safest, etc.).

I see this is as an ongoing process because we do change, we do evolve, and what matters to us at ages 20 and 30 and 40 might be very different.

We have to struggle with these things throughout our life, because we are moving targets. Life experience and changes in the world around us inform us; they shape our identities. It is important for us to reflect on our purpose and our values, and then hold ourselves accountable to those things.

It is also important, I believe, to challenge ourselves from time to time. I think that when we take on big, crazy things we often learn valuable information about ourselves.

A long time ago, in a former version of myself, I spent four years as an infantryman in the United States Marine Corps. It was an incredible experience for me and without a doubt the most valuable way I could have spent those four years. I was not expecting it, but the Marine Corps taught me a lot about myself. A lot.

Being in the Marine Corps means you are going to have to do a bunch of absurd stuff that you are just not likely to experience elsewhere.

How long can you go without sleep? Can you put 60 or 70 or 80 pounds of gear on your back and hike? For 5 miles? How about 15 miles? How about 15 miles in the desert when it is 101 degrees?

You probably do not know the answers to these questions. Most people just do not do stuff like that, so how would you know?

New and unique challenges are incredibly insightful because they teach us things about ourselves that we cannot learn in another way.

You do not have any idea what you are capable of.

Almost every summer we spend some time in Colorado, and my father-in-law and I hike one of the Fourteeners. It is usually fairly challenging, and at some point I usually regret my decision to do the climb. My legs are burning and I cannot catch my breath and it doesn’t make any sense why I would choose to do this to myself! But then we get to the top and it is like I have just walked into The Real Church because the view is amazing because I have just climbed a freaking mountain! I am standing on top of the world. And then I say to myself: I have to do this more often.

Even though I was regretting the climb on the way up, I had no regrets on the top. I have to climb mountains from time to time to remind myself that I can climb mountains.

If we do not climb mountains, it is pretty easy to believe that we cannot. If we do not speak out in The Meeting it becomes pretty easy to believe that we cannot. If we do not follow Our Bliss, it becomes pretty easy to write it off altogether.

“To be fully alive, fully human and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.”

-Pema Chodron

What is left unsaid in your world? What is left undone?
Throw yourself out of the nest.
Do it today.

Be good to each other.