THE HUMAN SPIRIT, LIKE A campfire, must be lit again each day.
Unlike the spirit, a campfire is easy to observe and understand, because we can step back from it and see it. After a night of camping, we can emerge from our tents the next morning and notice with satisfaction that the campfire has gone out. We don’t curse the campfire for going out, and we don’t think life is unfair because we have to start another fire again the next night.
Yet we don’t have that same simple understanding of the spirit. We are confused by the human spirit. We think there is something wrong with a universe in which the spirit must be renewed each day. We don’t see the gift in that, because we don’t see that the spirit is just like a fire.
It is good that the campfire must be relit because it gives you control over the fire. You can start it or you can pour water over it and put it out. When you realize that you have that same kind of control over the human spirit, you will know how to live. I’m not saying you will be happy forever, but you will always know how to be.
And knowing that you know will make all your experiences of “unhappiness” feel temporary and inconsequential. Being unhappy will never be a big deal again because you’ll experience it the same way you experience “being tired.”
Once the spirit catches and is going strong, it feels even more like a fire in that it consumes almost everything in its path and it turns everything else into its own nature. You’ve seen fire in a forest do that, and you’ve seen the human spirit do that, too. When truly excited leaders are inspired and aflame with passion for a cause, their enthusiasm is so contagious that the people around them catch the feeling. They catch fire.
When he was asked to give a definition of leadership, Field General Bernard Montgomery said, “The leader must have infectious optimism. The final test of a leader is the feeling you have when you leave their presence after a conference. Have you a feeling of uplift and confidence?”
Once the spirit is really blazing, it consumes everything and everyone with a feeling of uplift and confidence. And it’s all an invention, not in the sense of being fake, but in the sense of being real, just like the lightbulb that Edison invented was real. The spirited person you invent yourself to be is just as real, and can just as easily be turned on as Edison’s lightbulb.
After each meeting and conversation you have in your personal and professional life, ask yourself whether the person you just met with left feeling higher or lower. Are they further up or down their ladder as a result of meeting with you? Once you have formed this habit, you’ll start to shape your conversations accordingly, and people will look forward to being with you. Your spirit will be something they feed on.
Someone sent me an anonymous quote today as I was writing this part of the book. He said it expressed what he felt in a seminar I’d recently given on reinventing yourself: “Help me to believe the truth about myself, no matter how beautiful it may be.”