I have an Idea

And I've had it for a while now.

For one week -- appropriately enough, the week before Thanksgiving -- I will be training all of my clients for free.  Well, not exactly free.  Instead, my entire fee for that session will be donated to a charity or cause of the client's choice.  And I'll work as many hours as I can that week.  So those clients whom I normally cannot see on a regular basis will probably be able to secure a spot with me at least once.  Even people who aren't on my current client roster are eligible to train with me if they are so interested.  The one caveat I will impose on my clients that week is that they have to match my contribution.     

See, I am thankful for my life.

And while I'm sure that most people are grateful to be alive, too, I'm one of those people who knows he's alive despite the odds.  I'm not just talking about having leukemia or having survived three concussions, a hit and run, and the countless other close calls and bone-head maneuvers on my part.  I'm talking about the rare lining up of the heavens that has allowed me this brief an opportunity to share my limited years on this earth with you.  You are my wife, my friend, my mom/sis/stepbrother, my mentor.   You are that volunteer on the course whose smile was enough to keep me going, my classmate, my competitor, my doctor.  You are all of these people, reflecting brilliant insights into who I am, who I've been, who I could be.  And I am thankful.  

Money's not how I show my thanks.  But it has power in this world.  And though my contribution might not be enough to make much of a difference, perhaps when I combine it with lots of contributions -- yours -- the possibilities increase exponentially.  By sacrificing one week's worth of income, I can give two weeks' salary to causes greater than my own.  I believe a hurricane can be set off by the flap of a butterfly's wings.  And I'd welcome that storm thankfully. 

There's so damn much to appreciate in this life.  If you've read this far, money's probably near the end of the list for you.  It is for me.  Yet I fully realize it can be and has been both a salvation or the undoing of many.  I want to prove it doesn't have power over me.  That it doesn't really have power over any of us.  That real power comes through working with one another to achieve a common goal. 

What would happen if you donated a session's worth of income to a worthy organization?  What good could you do by giving a day's salary away?  What would you prove if you took your commission from a sell or part of your yearly bonus and gave it to charity?  I challenge you to find out.  Pass this e-mail on to your friends.  To your co-workers.  To your boss.  Have your company match me.  Better yet, have them one-up me.  Have them make such a positive impact that my simple idea gets forgotten by intricate deeds of kindness.  I think I'd be okay with that.   In fact, I can imagine it being like those first few seconds without training wheels--when your dad let go of the bicycle seat and you chased the horizon, hoping you'd never catch it so the ride would last forever...Yeah, I'm sure that's how it'd feel.