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[Micro Motivation #19 – “…There I Am!” This week I discuss the concept of a …]
Speaker: Adam DeGraide
Hey, everybody, it’s Adam DeGraide here with another Micro Motivation, coming to you from Carlsbad, California, which is a beautiful place. It’s hard to tell from behind me right now, but you can see the marine layer is still here.
Really, I wanted to talk to you today, as you guys may or may not know, I love to travel. I travel for business, I travel for pleasure. I like trying different restaurants, going and living in different communities, just to get the vibe as to what’s going on there because I enjoy traveling and experiencing things.
Many, many years ago, my mom and dad taught me a principle that there’s no such thing as a geographical cure. What that means is, wherever I go, there I am. It’s very interesting to think about that, but no matter where you go in the world, there you are. So often in my life when I was younger and even some family members that I used to listen to, they would always talk about, “Well, if I could live here and go there, my life would be better. If I could just take a vacation, if I could go over here or if I didn’t have to be stuck in this town or this job or this place or this relationship, somehow things would get better.”
The problem, folks, is that no matter where you go, you are still there. All of your fears, your hopes, your anxieties, things that you struggle with in life, opportunities you have, you are still there. What I realized early on is that if I didn’t enjoy myself, like myself—because I spend more time with me than anybody else, then I was going to have a lot of challenges in life.
Think about it in your own life. Have you ever thought to yourself, man, if I go here and did this, then somehow the world would be a better place, and that’s not necessarily true. Because once again, you’ll be there.
I was reading the Bible a couple weeks back. Actually, our church was covering about Jonah. Jonah didn’t want to go to Nineveh. He was really just afraid to go. God wanted him to go preach repentance there and he was trying to hide from God. What the Bible story relates is that you can’t hide from God and more importantly, you just can’t hide from yourself. No matter what you think, you cannot hide from yourself. You’re going to be there.
Then the story talks about how he was swallowed by a large fish. Whether you believe that or not, or it’s a whale—although you can Google stories on people that have actually been swallowed by fish, it’s kind of amazing—the problem, what happened with Jonah, is he realized that even in the belly of a fish, God was still present and more importantly, he was still there. The things that he was struggling with, he was still there.
Whether you’re in a different town or on a vacation or in the belly of a fish, the problem is wherever you go, there you are.
It’s so important that change happens from within and that’s why, number one, you’ve got to like yourself. You spend more time with you than anybody else. And you can change who you are, not where you’re going, but where you are right now, so in your life right now, what can you do to become a better version of yourself and enjoy being with yourself even more? Because remember, wherever I go, there I am.
This has been a Micro Motivation with Adam DeGraide. Thank you so much for listening and watching. Remember, if you can’t make your point in under four minutes, you might not have a point to make.
Thanks, everyone, for tuning in and I’ll see you next week.
