“Think more with your heart, less with your heard,” Brad Ludden. Creative Mornings [11.8]
Brad Ludden left the house at the age of 13 thinking with his heart and a lot of it. When his parents unleashed him into adulthood in that first teenage year of his life, it was about the bravest thing they could have done. The decision paid off, including a lot of firsts in life for their son which included kayaking a river; becoming the first sponsored whitewater kayaker to launching his own non-profit, Frist Descents which provides outdoor adventures for cancer fighters.
But, it isn’t the firsts that necessarily made him brave. In retrospect he realized, as most living humans do, that what was once eventually becomes just that: what was. Now, bravery to him is facing mortality at an unexpected moment in life.
When he said this, I thought, what is mortality? Surely, for most of us in the audience on that November day, and to whom his talk will reach, each time we face a fear, we are facing some part of our mortality – the death of an idea, which when conquered, becomes a what was. The question then, is not, just when will we allow ourselves to face mortality –literally or symbolically, but how many times will we manually propel ourselves into life – each and every moment that we are alive? There is bravery even in how one dresses for an event at 8:30 in the morning which is why “where there is coffee, there is style.”