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MAKE A MASSIVE IMPACT

Often we are caught in a mental trap of seeing enormously successful people and thinking they are where they are because they have some special gift. Yet a closer look shows that the greatest gift that extraordinarily successful people have over the average person is their ability to get themselves to take action.

—Tony Robbins

Earlier this year, I signed up for a training in Transcendental Meditation, otherwise known as TM. You’ve probably heard about the guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi who taught TM to the Beatles in the 1960s. Much of the Beatles’ “White Album” was inspired by their time spent in India with Maharishi.

So many people swear by the power of TM to soothe the mind, improve sleep, concentrate, regulate stress. I had to try …

I was told to show up for the first day of TM training with a piece of fruit, a white handkerchief, and a bouquet of flowers. Not to mention, it costs hundreds of dollars. At first, it felt a little cultish and over-the-top spiritual.

On day 1 of the training, my TM teacher gave me my mantra, taught me about the TM technique, and led me through a meditation. After one hour, the first day of training was complete. I felt nice, but …

I said to the teacher, “I thought for the money I paid, we would have done more today.”

In a very peaceful tone, the teacher put me in my place. “Listen, when you get on a plane to go somewhere, you don’t need to know how the plane works, what the pilot is doing in the cockpit, what kind of fuel the plane uses. You just sit in your seat, watch your movie, relax, and the plane gets you there.

“When you send an email, you don’t need to know how your computer breaks down the data and sends it across cyberspace. You just press ‘send’ and trust that the email will arrive on the other person’s computer.

“So it is with the TM technique. Just do the technique. Your mind will relax. It’s the easiest thing in the world.”

He was right. It is the easiest thing in the world. I do TM every day. It works. There’s nothing spiritual about it.

In moments when I overthink life, worry too much, create fake stories in my mind, I remember the advice of the TM teacher, “You just sit in your seat and the plane gets you there;” “You just press send and the email arrives.”

In other words, why waste your life thinking about the stuff you don’t need to think about?

Get yourself into action.

It’s the same practical, no-nonsense approach that Barry Segal, 83, uses to change the world, every single day.

Barry started out working in his family business. He married his girlfriend during his sophomore year in college. They had five kids and at thirty-one, Barry branched out and started his own company distributing roofing materials. It began to grow, and Barry continued opening branches, until his operation reached 150 branches and nearly $2 billion in sales. Barry sold the business in 2007.

After selling his business, he went to the Clinton Global Initiative. He met a woman from South Africa, Anne, starting a project in Rwanda much like a kibbutz, or cooperative community. Barry and his wife went on a trip with Anne in Africa and decided to fund their project. That was just the beginning.

Barry then saw an article in Sports Illustrated about Kip Keino, the great Kenyan runner and Olympic champion. Keino turned his home in Kenya into an orphanage for 35 kids. Barry sent him a donation.

A short time later, Barry read an article about doctors working in Uganda. Barry sent them a donation.

He said, “We deal with a lot of people with very small budgets who do amazing stuff.”

He then told me about an eye doctor who was going to Liberia to treat people. He gave her some money. Now, this doctor has a clinic in Liberia. As Barry said, “Those are the type of things we like to do.”

Barry has always believed in the power of the individual to create change. But you have to take action. Action might be as simple as writing a letter. Barry recently assembled a massive binder of all the letters he has written throughout his life, like the one he wrote after his first wife died of cancer at 42 years old.

Barry was called for jury duty shortly after his wife died. While he sat, waiting to be called by the clerk, cigarette smoke polluted the air. The non-smoking laws were recently put into effect but they were not well enforced. Barry was disgusted and walked out of jury duty in protest.

Barry wrote a letter to the court explaining why he left, saying that the non-smoking law was not being enforced. Someone from the court system wrote back saying that he too had lost his wife to cancer, and they would be sure to enforce the smoking rules from that point forward. Barry’s letter made a difference.

His binder of letters includes those penned to Bill Clinton, Bloomberg, and Obama. But Barry is not afraid to protest the old-fashioned way, one person, one picket sign, one voice at a time.

He said, “We see the wealthy get wealthier and the lower classes slipping. A lot of things don’t make sense to me. In the northeast, if you have an EasyPass, you pay $10 for tolls. If you can’t afford an EasyPass, you pay $15 for tolls. The poorer people lose.”

A few years ago, when New York and New Jersey created this increase in the EasyPass toll fare, Barry made picket signs reading, “The Fares ain’t Fair,” and asked everyone from his office to picket with him outside the Holland Tunnel.

Each of us has this power to create an extraordinary impact. But you have to activate this power, by getting out of your head and taking a step into action.

In his book What Is the Bible? Rob Bell writes, “There are lots of reasons all around us every day to make us believe that we don’t matter, that our choices aren’t significant, that it’s all just a meaningless slide into nothingness. The writers of the Bible speak against this, insisting that you can make choices to live in particular ways, that you can decide to use your voice and your energies for healing and building up, and that you can help take things in a different direction. In story after story in the Bible, the hero is flawed and frail, prone to make all kinds of mistakes, stumbling through life with a fairly pathetic batting average. In other words, the Bible is a library of books about people a lot like us, trying to figure it out, doing what they can to make a go of it.”

In this sense, Barry is “biblical.” When he first visited Africa in 2007, he noticed the conditions in the rural areas. There were six or seven children per mother. Many of the four- and five-year-old children carried a one-year-old on their backs. Mothers would sell children for cattle in arranged marriages. In some countries, the people had an average of a third grade education.

Barry took action.

He started the Segal Family Foundation and has funded over 200 NGOs (non-governmental organizations.) He said, “We like to take small, grassroots operations and see them grow. We’ll give $10 or $15,000 dollars and more as time goes on. Before you know it, they’ll have a budget of $700,000.”

The Segal Family Foundation gives away approximately $1 million per month, much of it in sub-Saharan Africa. The foundation’s successes have made it a major role model in the non-profit world. Leaders of African nations have met with the Segal Family Foundation to learn how to mobilize NGOs and get them to collaborate.

Now one could argue, “This guy Barry Segal is a man of extraordinary means. It’s easy to make an impact when you rub elbows with the wealthy and powerful like the Clintons, Barbara Bush, and Robert Kennedy Jr.”

Barry wasn’t always rich. But he always believed he could make an impact.

When I finished my interview with Barry, I thought about all those times I wanted to write a letter to the airlines, to the credit card company, to the politician. I never end up writing the letters. I always assume it’s a waste of time. Who would ever read my letter?

Occasionally I post something on social media that I feel strongly about. But I only have 5,000 followers. Is that really going to move the needle when people have 100,000 or 1,000,000 followers? Is it really worth posting?

That’s not Barry Segal’s schtick.

The Director of Pediatric Health Initiatives for his Focus for Health foundation, Sheri Marino, said, “Barry is passionate about making the world a better place. He often says, ‘this just doesn’t make sense’ and then he’ll go after it and won’t give up.”

I don’t think he does TM. But he certainly is not beholden to an overactive, stressed out mind steeped in worry and fear. That’s enemy number one to getting it done.

Whatever you feel strongly about, stop thinking so much.

Write the letter. Make the call. Take the action.

“My grandfather Enrique was the absolute most loving man I’ve ever known. He passed away when I was 20 years old, on January 11, 2010, at 78. We had a bond no one else had. There was so much chaos in my family, within my immediate home life and within the rest of the family, but when I was with my Papa everything disappeared. We had a magical bubble that surrounded us and it was filled with love and light.”

—Lucy, San Diego, California