Sunday Serenity

Happy Sunday to the Cadre Sphere. Before I start, I'll say that Cadre Sphere is official on Google now. If you Google Cadre Sphere, you will find the new office that Lucas put together. North Lupish, northeast Minneapolis. Check it out. They're in a building with, I believe it's Sip Coffee House. If you're a coffee fan, I was there last week. Definitely recommend anyway Cadres Pierre, I'm happy to be with you on this Sunday evening. You can see it's starting to get a little darker sooner and it's getting a little colder.

So I am dressed a little warmer tonight. But I'm happy to be here to bring to you Sunday Serenity, my weekly series where I talk about all things related to recovery, mental health and well being. I'm Jason Lennox. Again, recovery is the primary topic here and I believe we're all in some form of recovery, whether it's from substances, other addictions, mental health, just ailments, all kinds of things. And so I love talking about serenity and just how we get to a place where, you know, we operate in a state of, I'll call it nothingness, for lack of better terms, where it's not too high, not too low.

I'm just, I'm okay. I've got serenity. I believe we all have serenity in us. It's not something we attain. It's actually a state that we find when we can remove all the things that happen on any given day. So again, grateful to be here. And I left Friday a couple days ago and just got back this afternoon. I did a weekend retreat in southern Minnesota at a lake and it was, it was phenomenal. I do one to two of these each year. And I would highly recommend anyone who's just looking to kind of, you know, take it to the next level to find a retreat.

This one happened to be a 12 step retreat based on the 12 steps of recovery. And again, I do one or two of these a year and I just think it's so valuable to get people in the same rooms. We had about 40 of us camping out here at this place and to have a bunch of people who are trying, trying to grow and do better and just kind of get better together is really a phenomenal thing and finding the right location and all the things. So I wanted to talk a little bit about that because we talked about the different principles within 12 steps of recovery.

And it was really enlightening. Last night we had sat around the fire and we talked about this, this idea of spirituality and how we continue to grow and find spiritual success, and just how do we define that even? And one of the guys brought up something that was brilliant, I thought. And he said, you know, instead of me trying to plan out what I think I need to do, what I want to do, what if I start at the end? What do I mean by that? He said, what if I think about and ask myself the question, what will today.

What would a successful day look like today? What would make me feel like today was a success when I end the day and I go to bed? And I thought it was a brilliant question, really landed with me, and it brought me back to a place where I actually asked this question on a much broader scale. And I try to regularly do this. And by that I mean not the end of the day, but the end of my life. And it took me back to a year and a half ago, In June of 2020, I took a different kind of retreat. I call it a business retreat.

And, you know, I share that sometimes. And people get a kick out of that because at that point, it was just me, a solo business owner, and nobody else with me. But, you know, it was still a business retreat. It was still time for me to get away and really think about what I want to do and where I want to be in the next six months. And so I took a trip down to La Crosse, Wisconsin. It's right in the valley, beautiful area, right off the Mississippi river. And there's lots of good hiking out there, and just the nature is beautiful.

And it just so happened to be that it was mid-80s, the entire weekend, sunny, just absolutely gorgeous. And one of the things I wanted to do, I'd read a newsletter that talked about Warren Buffett, who's one of the richest men on the planet, and in many other ways, one of the most successful men that we've ever seen. And he was at a conference, and he told everyone at the conference, what I want you to do is go home and I want you to write your obituary. And I want you to do that, because you can start at the end.

Maybe you can see where you need, where you are now, where you want to be and what it takes to actually get there. And I thought about that, and I was going to, you know, carry out that exercise. And then I started thinking about it a little more, and I thought, you know, the obituary talks about who I was, where I was from, maybe my family, where I went to school, where I worked. And that's kind of it. It's a little more like bio about me. And I took it to a kind of a different place and thought, you know, I'm gonna actually, instead of writing my own obituary, I'm gonna write my own eulogy and hang with me here.

I don't want this to sound morbid, but it was one of the most valuable exercises I did. And I play there, I like to say I play there at the end of my life often because, you know, I want to get as close to that end goal as I can as I'm here, because we just never know when it's over. So writing my own eulogy, what did I do? How did I do that? All I really. The goal that I set out to do when I went out hiking that Saturday morning, it was four or five hour hike. My goal was to come back with three things I wanted.

Three things that I would be able to expand on. Three values, three beliefs, three characteristics that I would be able to expand on in writing and share about in a eulogy. Because the eulogy, again, like the reason I picked it, just that anytime I've been to a funeral and where it's been somebody that I've known really well, it's been meaningful. That eulogy is really what tells us what that person was like, because you have people up there sharing about how that person impacted you. So three things, three ways, three things that I would want in a eulogy if I had to write my own.

And it came down to these three. Family, integrity and generosity. And I shared about this. So the guy shared, last night I told you about what is a good day look like and a day well lived. What would that look like? I came back this morning because I happened to be presenting for about half of this retreat and I brought that to the table. What about a life? What would a life well lived look like? And that's where I went with it. It was family. It was integrity and generosity and family. It's just family, community, all those words, I think they're interchangeable for me.

I consider many different groups in my life. Family. I have my professional family. I have my, what I think of as my adopted family. I have my speaking family. I have my recovery family. And then I've got, of course, different biological families that I'm very close with. And it's very important to me that I'm inner, like I'm in all of those different families and that I'm making sure that I'm, you know, giving the energy and time to each of them as they deserve, as they, as they call for, and sometimes that means I don't get to do the things that necessarily I want to do.

But those are my families. They're that important. I want to be there for them. And I know at the end of the day that when I can do that and when I can give and I can participate and create experiences, I benefit as much as anyone. So family was very important. Integrity. Just maintaining a state of integrity and none of the fancy definitions. I actually just love a very simple one, which is whole and complete. Whole and complete meaning it's like I just feel like I'm complete. I can go to bed at night not thinking about the things that I should have done or I shouldn't have done, and I still have some of that.

But that state of integrity and then operating with that state where I'm not running around doing things, you know, that I wouldn't want to do. Whether people see it or not, I know we talk about integrity, doing the right thing when nobody's looking. And I like the different versions, but integrity in general, withholding that, upholding that, and making sure that, you know, that I'm doing the right thing and aligning with what I say in my actions. So integrity was huge. I want to go to the grave in that state of integrity and not with all these things left over.

And lastly was generosity. And it's partly a big part of what this retreat was. That's why I was there. I was asked to come and present. And of course, you know, in my life, when I have those opportunities, it can make a difference. And so I'm going to say yes. So generosity was key for me. And just continuing, you know, we talk about recovery, and I think there are two really distinct phases of recovery, and actually, I'll call it 3. There's recovery where we might still be struggling and maybe actually struggling with the active addiction and things like that.

And then there's a space of recovery. We get in here and we're working, and maybe we can find a way out of the addiction. And we're not living that kind of life, so we're free from the drugs and alcohol. And then there's what I like to call, like, a different portal. There's getting to a place where I'm free from drugs and alcohol, but then there's getting to a place where I'm expanding my life over and over and over and over. And that is where I think generosity comes in so much. And so generosity is huge for me because I know it's a key to the level of satisfaction and fulfillment in My life, I had people telling me early on, when you get past this whole thing and you can get away from the drugs and alcohol, then there's just a whole nother world out there that is full of the fulfillment, the satisfaction, the serenity, the peace, the joy, the love, all those things.

And how much of that you have is going to depend on what you're willing to do for other people. So that's one reason. But of course, then there's a benefit to the rest of the world when we can do that and we know that so much of our world needs so much help. So those are the three things that I came up with and I don't want to spend too much more time on them. But the exercise itself is what I was really trying to highlight. And again, I don't want to sound morbid and I don't want this to feel scary, any of that, but I think it's very important that we do from time to time look at what would a life well live for me look like?

What do I want that to look like when I'm gone? What do I want people to be feeling, to be seeing, to be thinking how will they have been impacted by the things that I can do in this world? And when I can get myself there and I can put it down on paper, I can start to see where do I stack up against what I'm really hoping to get out of this life. And thankfully for me, when I, when I did that exercise in lacrosse, I felt like, you know, I get pretty close on these things most days. There's always room for improvement and those three things could change.

But I encourage everyone to think about that, to think about three simple things and take an hour, take a couple, take a walk, whatever, it's, whatever is needed and really get out there and think about what are three things, or if it's two or if it's one. What are just those simple things, but very meaningful that when it's time to go, you want the people in your life who mean the most to you thinking about, feeling, just experiencing because of your presence in this world. So again, maybe it doesn't have to be a weekend retreat like I had, maybe not even a four hour hike, but I really encourage everyone to just take even an hour and think about that and really put yourself in a position to think about where would you land if you really in your ideal world?

And then where do you stack up? Now the good news is when we start putting these things on paper, we've got time to try to get there. So I'm grateful to be here, grateful to be able to share some of these things with you. Hopefully you find some value in that and you can put pen to paper and maybe give it a shot and come back and share with me next week. So I look forward to this every Sunday, but we'll look forward to it again next week. I will be out on the east coast, probably up in the mountains.

So I'll try to find service. I'll make it work and we will talk then and look forward to it. Hope you all have wonderful weeks.