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How Big Is A Railroad Tie? Part 2

A “Symphony of Your Life” blog with Mark Hardcastle

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Here’s Part 1 in case you missed it…

Did any of them have to climb to the top to reap those rewards?

Well, no, actually. All of those people really had to do was climb one railroad tie. Not all of them. Just one.

There’s another famous hike on Oahu. I’ve mentioned Diamond Head, that great guardian of Waikiki Beach. It, too, served as a military lookout in WWII. Today, it offers another challenging hike up a hillside, through a tunnel, up a long, steep stairway to a reward of tremendous views.

On another layover a few weeks ago I was ¾ of an hour into that hike when I noticed the crowd ahead of me starting to pile up, apparently impeded by someone who was having some sort of difficulty. As I got closer I saw that there was indeed an elderly gentleman stopped at the side of the trail breathing hard. When I reached him I saw his crutches leaning against the rail.

This, I learned, was a fellow from Seattle, who’d never been to Hawaii, and was seeing as much as he could see. He had heard of the Diamond Head lookout hike and wanted to make it to the top. But because of his infirmity, what had taken me only forty-five minutes had already taken him a couple of hours, and he was feeling the strain. He wasn’t sure he wanted to go on from this point.

In the course of our brief conversation I asked him if he knew what was before him on the trail to the lookout. He listed the 74 stairs to the first tunnel, then the 99 additional stairs to the second tunnel. But he didn’t know about the two flights of spiral stairs to the very top. My question was simply this: are you able to climb stairs? He quickly and decisively averred that as long as he had something to hold on to, he could climb anything. I smiled and quietly congratulated him for how far he had come. And reminded him of how close he was to the end. And reassured him that from this point on there would be railings for him to hold on to. And told him I’d be waiting for him at the top.

With that I turned and climbed the 74 stairs and walked through the first tunnel. But I didn’t go up the next 99 stairs. Instead I waited. About 10 minutes later here came the man with the crutches. And for the first time I saw the massive effort it took for him to walk. He had the distinctive gait of someone who had been stricken with polio as a child, weight forward on his arms, supported by crutches, twisting to fling one leg forward, shifting his weight onto that leg, advancing the crutches, twisting to fling the other leg forward. Pace. By pace. By pace. One. Shift. Step. Shift. At. Shift. A. Shift. Time.

He exited the tunnel, looked to his right, and saw the 99 stairs to the top. He moved over into the shade and leaned against the wall to gather his strength. Five minutes later he began.

I watched as he placed his crutches on the first stair. Then one leg up. Weight forward. Second leg onto the step. Crutches onto the next step. Balance. Pause. Gasp for breath. Mission accomplished. Victory.

Another step. Mission accomplished. Another victory.

Then one more step. Then one more. Ninety-nine times. Ninety-nine separate tasks. Ninety-nine separate small victories. Then he was there. Through the second tunnel. I watched as his powerful shoulders, muscles rippling with development over a lifetime of compensating for incapable legs, hauled his crippled body around the spiral staircase. To the first landing. Stop. Breathe. Then to the second landing. Breathe. And he was there. At the artillery observer’s post. Looking out over the Pacific Ocean to the south.

Just in time to see a mother whale and her calf breach off in the distance.

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Part 3…

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Link to Mark’s book, The Symphony of Your Life

http://www.symphonyofyourlife.com

Mark graduated from the USAF Academy in 1982. After nine years as a pilot on active duty, he left the military to join a commercial airline. In addition to flying B-777s around the world, Hardcastle spends time in the Rocky Mountains and serves on the artistic staff of the Colorado Children’s Chorale. He lives in Centennial, Colorado, with his wife and four children. Contact Mark today to schedule a keynote or workshop for your organization!
Posted on by Mark Hardcastle

You Can. You Just Need To Know You Can, Part 3

A “Symphony of Your Life” blog with Mark Hardcastle

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Here’s Part 2

I was one of those who kept running that day. Ironically, I feel like I was one of those who failed. Why would I say that?

My buddy Jeff, running right beside me, was one of those who dropped out.

Of course I failed.

Would I have been able to go another full mile? That’s something I’ll never know with certainty. What I do know is that I had enough to go another 3 or 4 steps. And hopefully another 3 or 4 beyond that. On another day, in another time or place I’d have reached out to Jeff and helped him along for those first few steps, then the next, until hopefully he got his second wind and would be able to keep going on his own. But that day I didn’t.

Why not? Two reasons. First, I was so consumed with my own burning lungs that I wasn’t looking around for anyone who might be losing steam. Second, Jeff didn’t tell me. Had either of those realities not been true I’d have reached out and grabbed him and pulled him along.

By continuing to run I got what the Jumpmasters wanted me to get that day. By watching Jeff drop out I got something else.

When Fortune starts doling out her challenges we need to think more deeply.

Are your lungs burning today? Of course they are. You’re running hard, living life, doing what you were put here to do.

If your resources are stretched, reach out. Do you have mentors a phone call away? Partners in your networking group who are more experienced? Advisers who’ve been where you are? Call them. They’ll help you keep going until you get your second wind and can go again on your own.

If, on the other hand, these are the good times for you and you’re hitting on all cylinders, take a look around. There’s somebody in your sphere who’s challenged and can use your wisdom. You have the ability to make a difference in a colleague’s life. Make it. Look up. Reach out. Bring him or her along.

In all cases mental strength rules. It’s always mind over matter. You can keep going as long as you need to. You just need to know you can. The real question, as is the case so often in life, is “how?”. Can you go it alone? Should you? Can you help somebody else? Will you?

I know you can. I hope you will.

The Symphony of Your Life

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Link to Mark’s Book: They Symphony of Your Life

http://www.symphonyofyourlife.com

Mark Hardcastle graduated from the USAF Academy in 1982. After nine years as a pilot on active duty, he left the military to join a commercial airline. In addition to flying B-777s around the world, Hardcastle spends time in the Rocky Mountains and serves on the artistic staff of the Colorado Children’s Chorale. He lives in Centennial, Colorado, with his wife and four children. Contact Mark today to schedule a keynote or workshop for your organization! Email mark@symphonyofyourlife.com or call 720.840.8361
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You Can – You Just Need To Know You Can, Part 2

A “Symphony of Your Life” blog with Mark Hardcastle

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Here’s Part 1 in case you missed it…

As we walked back to join our friends who’d given up only a few yards short of the end, the instructors said nothing, allowing the lesson to become self-evident: It’s always mind over matter.

“Mind over matter…”  Sounds impressive. We’ve all heard it over and over again since we were small. But what does it look like? What does “mind over matter” actually mean?

In this particular case, it meant that most of the platoon continued to run. So what was the difference between us and those who dropped out? Were we in better physical shape? I don’t think so. Other dynamics were at work. Several of us were young bucks from service academies, driven to show our mettle. Others were older service members—enlisted and officers—who had waited years to take this training course and were hell-bent not to blow their chance. The one commonality among all of us was this: a simple, undeniable determination not to be defeated.

Here’s the bottom line: If you believe you can keep going as long as you need to, you’re probably right. If you believe you can’t go on, you’re probably right about that, too.

Situations like this are classically self-fulfilling. We conclude that we can continue toward our goal, or that we can’t. How we come to that conclusion is critical. We can convince ourselves either way! Which means that our success is up to us. It’s all about what we believe. In other words, it’s always mind over matter!

What are you believing today? Are you good enough to do what you need to do? Do you have the resources within you to go as long as you need to go?

But what if you get tired? Not just tired… What if you get ‘I can’t go another step much less another mile’ tired. Then what?

I was one of those who kept running that day. Ironically, I feel like I was one of those who failed. In Part 3 (coming soon!) I’ll tell you why…

The Symphony of Your Life

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Link to Mark’s book: The Symphony of Your Life

http://www.symphonyofyourlife.com

Mark Hardcastle graduated from the USAF Academy in 1982. After nine years as a pilot on active duty, he left the military to join a commercial airline. In addition to flying B-777s around the world, Hardcastle spends time in the Rocky Mountains and serves on the artistic staff of the Colorado Children’s Chorale. He lives in Centennial, Colorado, with his wife and four children. Contact Mark today to schedule a keynote or workshop for your organization! Email mark@symphonyofyourlife.com or call 720.840.8361
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I Had A Paintbox – Redux, Part 3

A “Symphony of Your Life” blog with Mark Hardcastle

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In case you missed it, here’s Part 2…

Video: What I Told the Kids That Night

I enjoyed their ideas and the insights they came up with to explain why they thought that Randall had placed the notes the way he did around those words. But I left my own thoughts out of it for the time being.

At the concert in November I took a moment after we finished The Pasture to tell the audience about our interaction with Randall Stroope. I told them how fun it was to watch, and how gratified I was that they had come well prepared with intelligent questions for the composer. And this was when I finally shared my thoughts about Tali Shurek’s The Paint Box. I chose this moment because it was my last with the 303 Choir for the foreseeable future, and I wanted them to understand not only what choral music can convey, but what I hoped they were learning from us on this night, in this setting, through this musical experience. Here’s what I told them.

“My grandmother was a painter. And I can imagine a situation where (had I been a little smarter!) I might have sat down with her and asked, ‘Grandma, How did you decide to live your life? What caused you to make the decisions that you made?’”

“And I think in her wisdom she might have said, ‘Son, you know I’m a painter. And I have this paint box. And I had the opportunity to choose the colors that went into that paint box – the colors that I wanted to use to paint my life. There were certain colors that I rejected. I didn’t want to have anything to do with colors that represented discord and pain and hardship. I chose colors to put into my paint box that would allow me to paint beautiful paintings and create a beautiful life.’”

“That idea is what I hope you guys will take with you – the idea that you have the opportunity now to put the colors into your paint box that you are going to use to paint the painting of your life. And I hope that you will do as the song says. That you will use that opportunity to create something beautiful. Let’s make beautiful things with that paint box, shall we?”

With that I turned back to the choir, gave the accompanist the downbeat, and we were into the music.

So what really happened that night? At least, what do I hope happened?

Here was a group of young people whose entire lives lay before them. Middle schoolers. High schoolers. Only starting to have inklings of who they are as unique individuals. I wanted to have an influence on who they will become. I don’t care what they become. I care that they become their truest, most perfect selves, whatever that might look like. So I planted a seed – the idea that they are the captains of their own souls. They will be the ultimate arbiters of what their life-paintings look like when they finally put their brushes away.

And here’s a thought. You are older than them. In fact, if you’re like me you’re approaching the end of middle-age. What does this idea have to do with you?

How about this? Just like those singers, your entire life, however long it may be, is before you. The reality is that some of those kids will have more time to create paintings than others. Some of us adults will have relatively more time to work on our canvases as well. There is no difference. Those of us with more time in our past have just that – a history. We cannot change it. We have no control over it. It will enrich our memories forever.

What we can change is tomorrow. What will your tomorrow look like? What colors do you need for your paint box? Will you reject colors that represent wounds, orphaned children, the face of the dead, burning sands? Will you choose colors warm, cool and bright? Colors that evoke joy and life? Buds and bloom? Clear bright skies? Dreams and rest?

Are you today living the life you were meant to live? Do you already have the paints you need? Then paint! If you are not today doing the things you were put on this earth to do, take out a new, clean canvas. Go get your paints. And paint the masterpiece of your life.

The Symphony of Your Life

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Link to Mark’s book, The Symphony of Your Life

http://www.symphonyofyourlife.com

Mark graduated from the USAF Academy in 1982. After nine years as a pilot on active duty, he left the military to join a commercial airline. In addition to flying B-777s around the world, Hardcastle spends time in the Rocky Mountains and serves on the artistic staff of the Colorado Children’s Chorale. He lives in Centennial, Colorado, with his wife and four children. Contact Mark today to schedule a keynote or workshop for your organization!

Email mark@symphonyofyourlife.com or call 720.840.8361

 

Posted on by Mark Hardcastle

The Watershed Part 3

A “Symphony of Your Life” blog with Mark Hardcastle

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Up on the watershed
Standing at the fork in the road
You can stand there and agonize
Till your agony’s your heaviest load
Never fly as the crow flies
Get used to a country mile
When you’re learning to face
The path at your pace,
every choice is worth your while

– The Indigo Girls, Amy Ray and Emily Saliers.

…we have an opportunity in those challenges to create meaning. Now it’s not the challenges themselves that matter. We have no say in what Fortune throws at us. The opportunity is in how we respond.  So how are you responding today when Fortune challenges you with difficult times?

Challenges. Are. Inevitable. It’s how we respond that matters.

Ok, Mark. How inevitable are these challenges?

Well let’s look back in history and see if we can find a pattern or two. How far back? Well, how about 2500 years? Would that provide enough perspective?

In about 400 BC Buddha imagined the Four Noble Truths. Truth number 1: Life is suffering. Fifty years before that on the other side of the world, Plato was reminding his followers to “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” Still in the Mediterranean half a millennium later Epictetus was teaching that “it is what it is.”

Hmm. Can we just skip over the Dark Ages and come right to the 20th century? In 1946 we received Viktor Frankl’s wisdom. He posited that life is not so much a quest for pleasure or power as a search for meaning. Then in 1978 M. Scott Peck wrote his controversial (at least in my world) book, The Road Less Traveled. Chapter 1, page 1, line 1: “Life is suffering.”

Right back to Buddha.

Seriously? Is that the best we can hope for? Absolutely not!

Every one of these individuals used those ideas as starting points in a conversation about how to find joy in an imperfect world..

May 18th 2012 I had  a profound opportunity to join that conversation…

I woke up on that trail, my nose and mouth filled with the dust of the Utah desert. The sun, earlier hidden by overcast now making itself fully known on my face and in my eyes. Pain building steadily between my shoulder blades and at the base of my neck as I became more and more aware. With that awareness came clarity and I told myself I must remain still until I knew more. With absolute care not to allow my head to move I took inventory of my extremities. Left toes? Yep, they work. Right foot? Check. Left fingers? No problem. Right arm…?

Right arm!!…? ? ?

Problem.

In the silence of that moment Fortune presented her challenge in great big letters across the sky: Your neck may be broken. Your right arm is gone.

How are you going to respond?

Part 4: https://thesymphonyofyourlife.wordpress.com/2016/01/22/the-watershed-part-4/

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Link to Mark’s book, The Symphony of Your Life

http://www.symphonyofyourlife.com

 

Mark graduated from the USAF Academy in 1982. After nine years as a pilot on active duty, he left the military to join a commercial airline. In addition to flying B-777s around the world, Hardcastle spends time in the Rocky Mountains and serves on the artistic staff of the Colorado Children’s Chorale. He lives in Centennial, Colorado, with his wife and four children. Contact Mark today to schedule a keynote or workshop for your organization!
Posted on by Mark Hardcastle

Don’t Be A Pebble – Be A Rock!

A “Symphony of Your Life” blog with Mark Hardcastle

Captain’s Log: May 1, 2014. Sitting at my desk, my first book newly in publication, refusing to rest on my laurels. This is the first writing of what will become my second book. How shall we begin?

What has me thinking these days? My life for years has had a priority of creating legacy and meaning, for myself, and especially for others. Can we start there? Has anyone given me grist for that continuous mill in the near past? Well, yes, actually.

Let’s start here. Someone recently lamented that a coworker had died and a week later he’d been replaced. She was shocked that the world simply kept turning. It was as if he’d never existed. The image that came to mind for her was that of a pebble tossed into a pond – small ripples evident for a little while, then nothing. I understood her sorrow, and even her shock. And she got me thinking. Can we somehow change that perception of a life when it’s over? What would it take?

Then this question rose to top of mind: what happens when you throw in a big rock rather than a pebble?

I thought about those times as a child when my friends and I stood on the edges of creeks or ponds and heaved in the biggest rocks we could wrestle. We roared as we contested to see who could make the biggest splash – cascades of water splashing up onto the banks. And if we could manage big enough rocks (and didn’t have the strength to heave it far!) often the tops of the rocks remained visible above the surface of the creek, their presence obvious forever to anyone looking that way. Indeed, those rocks forced the water to change its path as it flowed around them. Impact; significance; legacy. And yes, meaning.

Which are you today – a pebble or a rock? Which do you aspire to be?

This book is my second. The first was somewhat longitudinal in nature, a memoir of stories from my own life and those around me, and chronological. I hope it was (and is!) encouraging. That was my objective in writing.

I have the same objective for The Captain’s Log. Much like ship’s records kept by sea-faring Captains of yore, this is my record of significant voyages I’ve taken, many literally as an airline Captain, others as organic observations that presented themselves along the way of the biggest journey of all, the journey of life. In that sense it’s also a memoir. But it isn’t chronological. Each chapter is its own, having arrived in its own time, with its own beginning, middle, and end.

Something you’ll notice is that many of these log entries were written during The Age of Covid, from early 2020 through early 2022. Those will reference thoughts I had as I came to work with my colleagues in the airline industry, wearing masks, being as safe as we could while the world tried to understand the plague and come to terms with it. Recent as those events are, I imagine you’ll relate.

Now, this. I had a mentor years ago who told me that I had collected 60+ years-worth of stories that I had paid for with my life, that some of them were pretty good, and that any good story comes with a moral, a lesson. Because of that, he encouraged me to share those stories with you. So here we are.

As of today, the manuscript is complete. Editing and layout may change the chapter count, but so far there are 45, each containing 1,300 words, give or take a few hundred. It is enough, and I’m declaring it “good.”  I’ve officially entered the next phase, the phase of editing, which promises to be arduous. Still, after eight years of working toward creating a book, the end is in sight.

But still a few nautical miles ahead. We’re not there yet. Editing, layout, and design, will take months. Those processes will make what I’ve done to this point all the better. So as we anticipate putting hard copies in your hands (and the hands of your friends and family – Christmas is coming!) here’s my pledge.

If I’ve done my job, you’ll enjoy the stories. And the lessons and simple thoughts they contain will be useful and will help you navigate the inevitable turbulence you encounter along your way.

More importantly, if I’ve done my job, these logs will inspire you to look inside for your greatness, whatever that may be. Which will in turn help you find a desire and the means to become a rock, not a pebble, over the course of your life. And that will make it possible for others to see your wisdom, visible above the creek water, for many years to come.

Thanks for reading. I am grateful for you.

Captain Mark

Summer, 2022

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Link to Mark’s book, The Symphony of Your Life

The Symphony of Your Life    

The Symphony of Your Life on YouTube

Mark graduated from the USAF Academy in 1982. After nine years as a pilot on active duty, he left the military to join a commercial airline. In addition to flying B-737s around the country, Hardcastle spends time in the Rocky Mountains and serves on the artistic staff of the Colorado Children’s Chorale. He lives in Centennial, Colorado, with his wife and four children. Need some help figuring out why you’re on this planet? Want to talk about discovering your mission and purpose? Contact Mark today at 720.840.8361 to schedule a free personal consultation. He can also deliver an inspirational keynote or workshop for your organization! email: mark@symphonyofyourlife.com for information.

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