Instinct: The Power to Unleash Your Inborn Drive (18 page)

The height to which your giftedness may carry you may mean leaving the lower greenery to the folks whose mouths and eyes line up to that terrain beneath you.

Standing there beside the Jeep in South Africa, I kept my gaze focused on my new fascination, aware of what I was about to discover: giraffes were much more complicated than they appeared. It wasn’t until my guide, a zoologist, began telling me about them that I realized how much I didn’t know.

For instance, no one can deny the majestic beauty of the giraffe with its various shades of brown, a divine mosaic of chocolates and caramels painted by God himself. But as beautiful as the external view may be, the logistical diagram of its inner construction is where the mind staggers in sheer awe.

Its beautiful curvaceous hide is a work of art when it moves. Beneath its artistic exterior is a richly
well-thought-out biological masterpiece. The giraffe holds within its chest the largest heart of its species, a twenty-five-pound muscular pump capable of sending blood all the way up its massive neck to its head and brain.

Somehow the giraffe, by feeding from the tops of trees, nourishes this extraordinary heart. In its simplest form, the circulatory system forms a circle by which the body feeds itself.

You must always remember to feed what’s feeding you; this cycle of nourishment is the source of our very survival. If it’s a marriage, you have to feed it. If it’s a business, you must pour resources back into it. If it’s a church, a club, a friendship, an educational institution—whatever it is that stimulates you, gives you energy, and helps you be your best self—you must feed it in turn.

The heart of the car is the engine. It doesn’t matter how the wheels glisten or how sophisticated is the computer technology that operates its systems. If there is no engine, nothing else is energized. The heart of the corporation is human resources. This is the department that hires and supports the right staff to fuel the vision of the CEO. If you don’t build up your human resources, the company will eventually go code blue. You’ll learn the hard way that talented, committed people really are your greatest resources.

The heart of the church is the Gospel. If the building is loaded with stained glass, great music, and social
services but loses its core message of salvation, then it may be a great organization but it certainly isn’t a church. For the brain to be sustained, the heart must produce a steady flow of lifeblood. The two must work together to move the body in synchronicity, or you will never reach the heights for which you were created.

So ask yourself, what feeds your dream?

At the heart of our instincts, we discover our primary purpose. Our purpose provides the message or mission by which we live out our gifts and talents. Our instinctive life mission cannot be purposeless and powerful. In film development, the heart of the movie is the script. If the screenplay doesn’t feed the actor the lines she needs to develop a compelling character, then even the greatest actor becomes powerless to deliver the punch.

Have you ever seen someone have a heart attack? Their eyes go dim, their pulse stops, their mouth goes dry, and their pupils dilate. Why such reactions in the head when it’s the heart that’s malfunctioning? Obviously, the head along with the rest of the body manifests the effects of the heart shutting down. It is from the heart that the head and body have life.

The giraffe has a tongue like no other animal. It can reach around branches and pull down fruit, and its
fur-covered horns are strong enough to ram through any obstacle in its path. However, none of its attributes and strengths matter without the heart energizing the activity. Yes, the heart must function properly to sustain the body.

When I teach leadership courses, I compare the relationship between leaders and those they lead to a traveler moving through the desert on a camel with only one canteen of water. If the camel drinks all the water, it survives and the passenger dies. But if the passenger drinks all the water and the camel dies, then the passenger dies of sunstroke!

Life sometimes presents us with strange teachers, but their lessons are often the most memorable. This has certainly been my experience with sighting a group of giraffes in the African bush. They immediately triggered an epiphany that allowed me to realize why I had let my loudest critics demotivate my budding journalistic efforts.

But more important, the giraffe inspired me to want to reach higher, extend my abilities farther, and taste new treetops. If you want to live by instinct, feed your heart and stretch to the treetops!

I
can still remember my friend the zoologist sharing with me how even the angles of certain animals’ teeth were designed to gnaw at branches as a source of pruning so that both the food chain and cycle of life would not be broken. I thought to myself, “Look at how God has made all needs to coincide so that the animal’s hunger serves as a gardening tool for the branches that provide his food!” Relentless reliance on instinct not only supplies what we need but also becomes the vehicle by which all else around us is affected and sustained.

As we conclude, I hope your confidence is greater, your aim sharper, and your awareness of your innate abilities more finely honed. More fully immersed in the wellspring of your instincts, you will have an increased impact on the target before you. Whether
you’re aiming at a change in career or just hoping to parent a child, I believe the answers we often seek from those around us are actually buried somewhere within us.

“As thy days are, so shall thy strength be” literally means that in proportion to the demand, the resource emerges to fulfill the need. You have what you need when you need it! Maybe not always exactly when you
want
it—but when you
need
it.

Once again, I want to be sure you understand that these concepts are not meant to give you any formula or template for success but to awaken what may be dormant or underutilized in your life. Sometimes recognizing the resources already available to us can be the most empowering moment of all. We are most effective when we draw from every God-given resource we have been given to survive in this world. Now with the full armor of all that has been given to you, it’s time to change the dynamics of the game.

We’ve had an exciting journey through concepts and precepts, jungles and junctures, as we’ve explored the various nuances to developing a more effective life by using our instincts. However, all of it means nothing if we do not recognize that the investment of
ideas merely prepares us for the opportunities with which we’ve been graced in our individual lives. If you believe as I do that we have been divinely prewired for a master purpose beyond ourselves, you then should be equally excited to realize that tapping into your instincts acknowledges your own unique purpose on this earth.

You see, our instincts not only exist to enhance our experience here on earth; they also provide evidence of a mastermind above us who placed all that we would need within us. I believe that what God has given us is his gift to us. How we utilize what we’ve been given is our gift back to him. By shedding fresh light on something profoundly primal but not primitive within us, I’ve challenged you to consider new paradigms and empowered you to shatter the limitations of fear and frustration blocking your liberation.

Much of our attention has been invested into the introspective examination of bundling all that is within us to affect all that is around us. We now clearly understand that intellect without instinct is like a head without a heart. When we embrace all that is intellectual and psychological without including the deeply spiritual, the instinctive inclinations of our hearts limit us unnecessarily. Remember, Scripture tells us that out of the
heart
flows the issues of life—not out of the head!

Recognize the adequacy of what is within you to survive and succeed amid all you face. You do have what it takes to master the outward challenges as you release your inner resources. But if you’re going to accomplish this awakening of instinct within you, it’s time to act. You must connect ideas to ideals and excitement to action. You must do more with this book than place it on a shelf or file it away in your electronic reading device.

Don’t get me wrong. I love being able to share my ideas here with you in these pages. Reading is the gymnasium of the mind. It is the place where thoughts are exercised and minds are stretched and challenged. However, through tranquility and deep reflection we are able to search the heart for answers that the mind alone doesn’t contain. The mind may guide you in what to do, but the heart affirms your passion to do it. This is what will ultimately move you to motion.

Somewhere in your passions lie the clues to your deeper purpose. It is my hope that you will recognize the divine investment placed within you and garner all your resources to steward this treasure for the future before you. In short, you have what it takes! All that you need is within you and can be accessed instinctively. Understanding this truth secretes confidence, which I’m convinced has a lot to do with
overcoming obstacles and releasing your inherent, resilient power.

It is an exciting moment in history to have the privilege to see innovation spring forward so quickly and technology create so many forums through which we can convey our ideas. And yet, while we have more ways to exchange ideas as a result of that technological influence, none of the iPads, iPhones, Skypes, Google chats, and Facebook exchanges can create the thoughts we want to exchange. They are designed only to enhance the way we convey them.

Absolutely nothing we have created will replace how we have been created. These technological artifacts assist us in communicating ideas, but none of them create the ideas we communicate. The data they transfer, share, and compute is only what we program in them. So then the most precious resource we have to date is not around us but
inside
of us.

The demands of the times and the pace of communication has heightened to the degree that we can dialog with others all over the world in real time without physically leaving our living room couch. But this global connectivity isn’t what makes us a great society. What makes us great is not the vehicles from which we speak, but rather that which we have to say through them.

So what is your deepest, truest message that you want to convey to the world? This is the moment that we need to clear our minds from the clutter and allow
our instincts to guide the process of creative reasoning. If we can strengthen what is within us, we can change that which is around us. I am excited to know that we are only one domino-toppling thought away from a cure for HIV-AIDS. I am excited that we are gaining ground on dread diseases like cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, and autism. Even at this very moment, the solutions to world poverty and global warming are locked in someone’s mind and about to be unleashed by their instincts. Whoever holds the key to changing the world can’t be someone who runs with the herd and fits in with the pack. Our world has always advanced through trailblazers who broke boundaries and shattered limitations.

Now I must confess, it is unlikely that any of these tasks are likely to be vanquished by someone like me. But that’s okay. I will be happy to tackle the challenges within my view even if they gain no notoriety in the world of medicine nor instigate world peace. If my instincts do not lead me to a more perfect world, and only succeed in granting me a more peaceful home, I will still be fulfilled.

If my instincts can aid me in my affairs and can be used to settle the level of problems my life unfolds, then I am still content. At the end of the day, I realize that all great people will not be famous. And all famous people will not be great. Instinct was never meant to ensure our recognition. Instinct may remain incognito but always inspires and initiates your success.
It propels us forward—and we need not all travel at the same speed. As we’ve seen, one of the gifts of our instinct is timing and knowing the pace of our current season. As long as we’re moving forward, we will reach our destination.

It is so comforting to remember that we’re equipped by what’s within us to respond to the demands of what’s around us at any given time. It may not feel like we’re in sync with those pressures around us, but I’m convinced that’s often because we’re not following the tempo within.

I often think of those affluent men who practice their sporting reflexes by enjoying the challenge of skeet shooting. Clad in the dapper hunting fashion of the sport, these shooters have oiled their guns and packed a rucksack, and then head into the wild to practice their aim. Their competition is fierce, either against one another or their own abilities, as they take their loaded shotguns and move them into a position of anticipatory release. Obviously confident that his gun is loaded and the barrel clean, each marksman gingerly rests the butt of his gun against his shoulder, providing stability but also the flexibility necessary to avoid the full brunt of recoil. Then, and only then, does he shout, “Pull!”

Faster than a lightning bolt flashing across the sky, the designated operator then releases the automated device propelling the small clay disc, or skeet, into the air hundreds of feet above the shooter. The gunman aligns his vision, using his knowledge of the disc’s expected trajectory, the physical reflexes of his arm, and, most important, his trigger finger to fire his shot at the inanimate target. If he is successful, a spray of clay shards soon falls to the ground around his feet.

Though I have never done it myself, I’ve observed the sport enough to know that the shooter has only a brief few seconds to align what he has on the ground with what is being catapulted into the air. While I only shot pictures of the beautiful creatures we encountered on safari, I still know the importance of an acute sense of timing. The right shot at the wrong time becomes just as impotent as a poor shot.

This same sensitivity to timing has guided my life. It is reflected in the famous line from the Lord’s Prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread.” In other words, Lord, please don’t wait until tomorrow to give me what I need today!

Similarly, we ourselves are reminded to use what we’ve already been given this day, the resources within us that can provide sustenance for life’s journey. Let me be found possessing what I need at the pace of the challenges I face. We must trust our instincts to release the instructions we need commensurate with the stage and age where we find ourselves.

Nothing hovers around you that you cannot overcome by leveraging what you already know as well as your instincts, that which you know but don’t realize you know. Right now, today, even as you read these very words—this is the moment to align what you’ve learned with what is deep inside you. This is the time to look ahead and reconsider the obstacles that block your sight line of future success.

By now, I hope you’ve reconsidered your view of these barriers. Most obstructions are merely opportunities in masquerade. You no longer need to adhere to the conditions of a cage you have left behind. Especially when they will cause you to fall prey to larger predators within the new jungles you’re facing. To survive as well as thrive, you must activate your instincts in sync with the life you lead.

Like the gunman who moves his rifle in rhythm with his target—or in my case, the photographer on safari snapping a mighty elephant’s pic, you must squeeze without missing the right moment. You now have the fluidity of thought to break rhythm with normalcy and aim at destiny with a heightened awareness of your instinctive prewiring, a gift imbued within us by God himself.

It is my prayer that none of us will allow where we start to determine how we finish. It is my hope that ultimately we would garner the fortitude and tenacity to plunge beyond the boundaries of the obvious and into the opportunities our life affords us. In this brief
shining moment, you and I must activate all that is within us to initiate the instinctive process and planning inherent to the greater purpose of the One who created us.

The design is not greater than the designer, so ultimately we acknowledge his handiwork in all that he has placed within us. Understanding how wonderfully and thoughtfully we were brought into existence, our best and most instinctive response is simply to live according to this abundance we’ve been given. It is our way of saying yes to what was in God’s mind when we were formed. It is our way of letting our Creator know we’re ready for the next opportunity.

As you prepare to release all the aim, energy, and intellect now loaded into your instincts, there’s only one thing left to say as you squeeze the trigger.

“Pull!”