Today we have a guest post by Dale Swinburne, the third of our new monthly guest writers. Enjoy.
The day I met Chip Anderson I will never forget. The statements he made to me and the questions he asked of me are still with me to this day, four years later. People and circumstances enter and exit our lives at a rapid pace. Some come and go and we don’t spend another moment of thought on them at all. But others, we know from the very first moment that something special is transpiring. We sense that this meeting is different. Perhaps it is the epicenter of ripples that will go on for years to come, a meeting that has the potential to change who we are at the core. I sensed this from the first words Chip spoke.
Chip said “I don’t want to waste your time and I don’t want you to waste my time. If we are going to be here, let’s really be here.” He spent the rest of our time together making sure of just that. Though struggling with a cancer that had him in chemotherapy several times a week he poured himself out to us. He displayed for me the paradox of laying down your life in order to gain it. The battle with cancer he lost only several weeks later on June 5, 2005, but during those days in March he changed lives forever. Even on the threshold of his passing he thought of others and not himself. That lesson stands in my memory foremost.
In those precious days in the twilight of his life he shared with us his passion for living your life through your strengths and becoming fully alive. Chip wrote the book StrengthsQuest: Discover and Develop Your Strengths in Academics, Career, and Beyond. Chips had spent many years dedicated to bringing people to the understanding the strengths living was the best use of their energies. While introducing many students in over 100 universities and colleges to the strengths they’d been created with he noticed something. He noticed that they seemed to come alive. It seemed that when he was able to show people that they were gifted in a set of strengths that were unique to them it had a life changing effect. As he saw this over and over he spent some time studying it and then labeling it the Aliveness Theory.
We go through the motions. We take care of our responsibilities. We tow the line. We live out our days. But are we alive? Would we define our lives as vital? As pivotal? As crucial? As momentous? Or are we here to take up space, punch the clock, and then fade away?
Chip saw the changes taking place in the lives he was able to impact. He was able to guide them on the path from insignificant to vital and moved the from lives of insignificance to lives that made a difference. And that is what aliveness is, living a life that makes a difference.
Chip didn’t just live. He lived alive.
Join me in the weeks to follow as we discuss Chip’s Aliveness Theory and how we can become fully alive.
Thanks for being a regular visitor to Awaken. If you haven't already subscribed, you can stay up-to-date by email, RSS, or Twitter
