“We don't rise to the level of our expectations; we fall to the level of our training.” Archilochus

(and apparently “famously said” by Bruce Lee at some point)

A volunteer wrote this quote to “Ricardo” in response to a story he had shared with us that beautifully illustrated this point.  All of us want to be brilliant, whole, loving and powerful.  And… we don’t know what we’re truly made of until we face a testing challenge.

In a recent packet, Ricardo spoke of his move to a new yard where he was confronted with a prison population with which he had not been in contact for well over a decade.  Ricardo is known by most – if not all – who know him as being gentle, wise and with very high integrity.   Many people across the Donovan yards credit him for saving their lives and being the example they can always look towards for inspiration.

Shortly after his move, members of this prison population tested and threatened Ricardo “to the point of reviving my old self…with only seconds to prove or show what I’m made of.  A part of my old self quickly wanted to rise up, but the Spirit of God was louder and at that moment gave me the words to speak. … They threatened to keep an eye on me (praise God ;-) ) and told me to watch myself.  The beauty about their threat is that it was an opportunity to preach the Gospel without words.”

Ricardo continues, “I remember that such an encounter in the past would have caused me to be quick to defend myself ‘at all costs’ and defend my ‘jail-house’ honor so no one else would dare challenge me afterwards.  However, I knew the old me was long gone and buried when I didn’t feel the need to defend myself, nor did it matter what they thought of me for turning down their challenge.  That’s how God shows me I’m not the old [Ricardo].”

What is your level of expectation?  What is your level of training?  Every time we become slower to anger and more trusting of our brilliance, we’re in training.  The training can be arduous.  And yet, we reap the rewards when the element of surprise tests us and we realize we’ve just been less reactive, less conflictual, more attentive, more in our brilliance!  The ensuing peace and joy are simply priceless.

Enjoy your own daily training.  Allow Ricardo’s journey from gangbanger to gentle wisdom be the inspiration that this transformation is possible for each and every single one of us.

"A bend in the road is not the end of the road, unless you fail to make the turn." – Helen Keller

"There are always flowers for those who want to see them." – Henry Matisse

This month, Patrick takes to the stage!  He is one of the 13 volunteers who have been corresponding with the Donovan residents monthly since covid shut us out of the prison walls.  In addition to writing to the residents, this month, he also takes a moment to share the experience with you!  Onto Patrick!

I LOVE telling people – friends, family and strangers alike – about my experience inside a maximum-security prison with its residents.  When I share the beauty of the residents, their crazy inner strength, their artistic talent, their creative energy, their deep intelligence, with the passion of deep truth, I watch in real-time as stereotypes are confronted and cracked. I am consistently inspired by these men, their talent and their spirit.  With the onset of the pandemic, I deeply missed my visits to Donovan and the injection of positive energy I get with each visit.

I was excited at the opportunity to continue a relationship with the residents through a monthly writing program.  In the absence of the ability to go inside, this seemed like a great way to provide and receive at least some level of that positive energy the Brilliance Inside programs provide to participants.  To treat the end of the road as a turn, as Helen Keller famously said.

And what an awesome, fulfilling experience the writing program has been!  The brilliance of the residents shines just as brightly in writing as it does in person.  There is an intimacy to writing that enables a vulnerability and depth of conversation that are challenging in a group setting.  They write clever autobiographical stories, witty poems, vulnerable personal truths, self-aware reflections – the personal strength and creativity jump off the page.

The bravery of the residents inspires me to share with a vulnerability and truth that is rare in my every-day life, and this has had a profound impact on my mental health during Covid.  In the early months of Covid, I found myself in a haze of mild depression as, like many, I felt isolated and overwhelmed by negative news.  Sharing my challenges with the residents, while also actively listening to their challenges, bravery and creativity, filled me with a deep sense of gratitude that helped lift my spirit and fight the depressive episode.

As the world reopens, I am excited to go back inside, to share and listen with the residents in the way only face-to-face communication enables.  And I also am deeply grateful for this flower we found during the pandemic, as a way to nourish both the residents and ourselves.

Hoping these words share a little of the brilliance we receive and give each month through the packets we send in and out.

Celebration indeed!!!  Things are starting to move on the inside!  With our drop in tiers and the vaccination of every prison resident desiring it, the Donovan gates are starting to creak open.  Visitors - meaning people with personal relationships with the residents - were allowed to visit one weekend.  The volunteer clearance process has started for the hundreds of volunteers; wow, we're glad we're not the ones handling those logistics.  And they continue to discuss how to reopen programming in the safest and most efficient manner.

Our team is stoked at the prospect of being back inside within a couple of months or so.  It may still be a rollercoaster as the system learns and adapts to the optimal processes as well as the prison shuts down if and when any person associated with the prison comes down with covid.  When there are 4000ish men inside, 1800ish staff and 100's of visitors and volunteers, it's a lot of people to monitor and keep safe.

But "soon," we'll be inside with our teams!

Are you interested in joining our team inside Donovan as this world opens back up?  If so, simply reach us to us on the Contact page so that we can discuss your availability and interest.  We'd LOVE to have you join!

In the hopes that your worlds are also feeling more open and more free while staying safe and whole, we hope you're also excited at the prospect we're soon inside.

One year ago tomorrow, California prisons shut down and, almost overnight, we radically shifted our support to the residents of our prison system (as well as radically shifted our lives…).

Like I suspect has happened to many of you, the past year has put a stress test on what we stand for and believe.  I cannot stand for brilliance and the authentic, continuous exploration and expression of brilliance without ensuring that Brilliance Inside stays aligned with its own brilliance, even as the whole world shifts around us.

Since our brilliance is not what we do but who we are, these “stress tests” invite us to better identify and articulate who we are so that our brilliance can show up in any circumstance life presents.  As we explored more deeply what makes Brilliance Inside Brilliance Inside, one mind-shifting key surfaced:  instead of problem-fixing, we future-form.

Most of us believe that creating change consists of identifying problems and fixing them.  While this problem-fixing approach has its relevance, it also has significant limitations: (1) limiting the space of transformation to our current construct and (2) creating a ceiling for transformation.

Instead of seeing the problems to fix, instead of fighting against a system that’s broken, my intent is an immersive co-creative approach in which all of us come together across all parties, even – and actually especially – across those we consider “toxic” or “enemies.”  It’s because of our differences that we create a powerful transformation, and not despite them.  Long-lasting productive solutions come by bringing together what we have separated.  They serve ALL and therefore are designed (or “future-formed”) with everyone at the table.

By creating space for and honoring every person’s, entity’s and institution’s beliefs, values, needs and desires, we find common ground.  This is where the true answers lie. Instead of looking for what cannot work, we look for what does.  All is possible when we allow ourselves to open up to what is possible.

So, we don’t fix a system by pointing fingers to everything that’s wrong with it.  This transformation happens by pointing to what’s right with it.

Invitation:  Look for what’s right in you, your families, your organizations and ultimately our systems, structures and world?  How does this change your perspective and your actions?

Over this past month, we explored co-creation with our team of Donovan residents.  It’s the critical ingredient #5 of our 7-ingredient Journey to Brilliance.   With this ingredient, we work in collaboration with others to create something new.

This co-creation takes place between our volunteer team and the Donovan residents.  We also co-create with each of YOU.  Without you – your thoughts, your visit(s) to prison, your financial support – the rest of us would be incomplete and lack the power of transformation to which we have all been witnesses.

This ingredient focuses on stepping into your own brilliance, as well as seeing and respecting others’ brilliance and boundaries. You problem solve together, define and implement solutions together, tweak and refine them together.

It reminds us that people don’t lack ideas; they lack the resources, opportunities and tools to bring their ideas to life.

So, what new ideas are you currently co-creating?  How are you taking what you’ve experienced in prison and using it to ignite your light and others’? Let us know by below or by reaching out through the Contact page.

PS:  Update from the inside:  After months of preventing its intrusion, Donovan was hit hard with Covid in December and January.  Every resident we've heard from but one got sick at one point. We understand that the situation is getting better and hopefully those walls are protective once more.

Happy new year!

May you become an even brighter light this year, for yourself, for your loved ones, for our entire community and world.  We all need it!  As you explore what this means for you, we invite you into a journey we take with our Donovan residents every year:  creating our vision board.

I was floored when, in December, I reviewed 2020.  Despite being a year that radically blindsided all of us, I achieved almost every item on my vision board!  This just shows that when it’s meant to happen, it does!  Even if it’s not the way we had originally expected.

Over the past 9 New Year’s Days spent building the annual vision boards, I’ve learned that a successful, actionable vision board sets intentions, not expectations.

Begone expectations and SMART goals!  :-)  These have their place in our lives and businesses.  And vision boards aren’t it.  With expectations, we set our eyes on an outcome, on a rigid definition of success.  Then life presents circumstances than we could not have predicted (hello covid), so we often set ourselves up for disappointment and failure.

When we set intentions, we visualize a future towards which we are called to move, without attachment to the journey or outcome. There is flexibility for the unknown.  It opens us up for creation.  It creates the space for our brilliance to show up in ways we could have never imagined.

Plus, contrary to popular belief, I have stronger results when I set intentions versus expectations. 2020 is yet another perfect demonstration!

Here is the exact document we sent into Donovan in the first days of this year, inviting the residents into our annual process of vision boarding.  Let it be an invitation for you to create yours.

As you set up this new year, be sure you’re setting intentions, not expectations.

In the last packet, the Donovan residents reflected on their journeys of liberation.  As I read their insights and reflect on my own journey, I realize that

Freedom is expensive.

In its chrysalis, it seems that the caterpillar sleeps.  And yet, inside that immobile cocoon, an unimaginable metamorphosis is taking place.  Same goes for us.  On the outside, nothing seems to be changing.  And this can create a lot of impatience and frustration.  And yet, on the inside, we are dissolving, to then rebuild into a completely new creation. 

The cost here is two-fold.  First, we dissolve. This means letting go of past ways of being, past ways of doing, past values, past identity.  Nothing is harder to release than identity.  There is a dying of self that takes place.  And it requires the courage and humility to release and allow this dying process.  With its undoing, pain, mourning and ugly cries (no later than yesterday, for me).

Second, it takes a huge amount of energy to (re)build.  And I find that the greatest amount of energy is not in the construction, but actually in getting – and staying – out of the way.  We live in such a culture of control and doing that I naturally want to take things into my own hands and make things happen.  Oh my, the energy required so that I don’t get into my own way.  Because if I build according to my beliefs, I’ll simply recreate my past.  In other words, re-become a caterpillar.  To become a butterfly – something the caterpillar knows nothing about – I must trust that it’s happening as long as I stay out of the way.

So, freedom is expensive.  AND its return is priceless.  As is evident in several residents’ writing, the peace, joy and wellbeing – in all circumstances – is worth every ounce of work to achieve this freedom.

So, as we invite you to reflect below, what is your liberation?

As we edge out 2020 and step into 2021, what do you release and leave behind?  What have you learned and in what ways have you grown that you embrace and bring with you into 2021?

We wish each of you a massively merry Christmas and the happiest of New Year’s.  May they provide the gifts of love, peace and growth that each of us deserves.  And take a moment of gratitude as you hug those you love extra tight, as the Donovan residents won’t be hugging their kids this Christmas.  We are blessed, today and every day.