A little while ago I downloaded an app called Masterclass... it's not free, I think $10/month. In it you can choose any category, any subject, and listen to master classes from people who have excelled in whatever that field is.
Yesterday and today I listened to a new one, a Martha Stewart Masterclass called Think Like a Boss, Live Like a Legend. Every word she said clearly defined and then illustrated one of Sophie's core principles, and beyond that, she made it clear that she does the things that make her happy .
She loves and is passionate about every branch of her business - the cooking, the decorating, the sewing, the gardening, all of that, but she also loves finding and hiring people who have attributes that she looks for, she loves visiting every office and part of her business and her farm & having a hand in each piece of it...she knows every employee by name and their families, she loves baking them a cake or pie for the holidays and having them over for barbecues, not to boost her business, not to help them out, but because she loves it, and it MAKES HER HAPPY. She planted every tree on her land, she grows whatever she eats. She had to learn about every single aspect of it, and she says she became a good teacher through her learning. She says she is happy, and I think she's the first one I've heard say that where I really believed it.
She takes time to do puzzles each morning....in contrast, I stopped doing the Eye-Q exercises because I thought I didn't have time. She exercises every morning, enjoys a cappuccino every morning. She wakes with daybreak every day, she doesn't worry about how much sleep she's getting, she has very few fears. She's someone who can do whatever she wants whenever she wants it, and yet she's up early every day and she does not have 'down time', she doesn't see a need for it. Every unknown is exciting to her. And maybe just as notable and noticeable as having her heart in the right place, she views it all as a project, that is never finished. Completely not focused on 'getting done', only focused on DOING, and doing it well and doing it beautifully.
Not to make this all about me, but I can't help but notice I'm pretty much the opposite of Martha, and yet I clearly have far more self-concern and self-importance, which makes no sense.
I also couldn't help but notice that my husband, in his 'hey day' when I met him, had most of the same habits and a similar mindset. I remember actually being condescending and superior with him about it, saying he was 'unbalanced', and thinking I had better habits. UGH...it seems I have daily reminders as to how and why I am the cause of the way that my life is.
I'm posting this because it was AMAZING to see, in real life, in progress, the very life that Sophie was trying to teach us about...I found it amazing to see it in action, and to see how much happier a person is when they're not enveloped in self-concern and protecting themselves, when they have a purpose to life that they never lose sight of, and what it really looks like to have your heart in the right place.
The challenge now is to incorporate some of those habits, emulate some of those characteristics. It's light years away from where I am, but all we can do is start where we are.
