Gifts

In his book, The Everyday Hero Manifesto, Robin Sharma tells the story of a window of opportunity to meet someone – a movie actor – that he admired. And he let fear and doubt set in, and walked away instead.

I can relate to this as I have had many times in my ‘shy’ youth, that I could have approached people – not anyone famous or anything – and I was too fearful. I would never go for it. And I am proud to say, I really turned that around when I had the opportunity of being in the same hockey rink, as a famous hockey player of Vancouver – Trevor Linden.

The Vancouver Canucks were holding a training camp for rookies one year, at our local small town (private school) hockey rink. The school had recently built a rink courtesy of a benefactor of the school. The Canucks camp was there for a few days one July. So the locals were able to go and watch some of these young players. Trevor Linden is a famous, well-liked former player of the team, and at that time, was working as the President of Hockey Operations for them. My husband, who is a big fan was at work, I brought our boys over to check out the practice, and there was Trevor Linden. Another lady I know went up to him, quite close to me, and asked him for a picture with her. I watched all this unfold and she recruited someone to take their photo. In a moment of inspiration by her, I thought to myself, of all the times, NOW is the time. I need to jump in before I second guess myself. If I hesitate even a few seconds, the opportunity will have passed. So before thinking any further, I walked over, asked him for a photo as well, and since she was still standing there, handed her my camera and she agreed to take a picture for me.

I tell myself I have never been so bold in my life, as that moment, but I am sure that’s actually not true. I have surprised myself a few other times and just acted, rather than letting fear set in. I am also, still so proud of myself to this day! I would be kicking myself still if I hadn’t done it. My husband was quite impressed, albeit a bit jealous that he wasn’t there. Our boys didn’t really have a clue how much of a hockey star this guy was, plus they were running around the rink somewhere at the time. The photo is on my personal Instagram account, which you can get to from my art one. It was a few years ago now.

In his book, I love how Robin Sharma describes these ‘windows of opportunity,’ that “a friendly universe sends us” and he says oftentimes, “only to be closed by our own cowardice, timidity and craving to look hip.” I definitely felt like I could have looked like a dork, or an awestruck ‘silly’ girl asking for a picture. But I didn’t care, in fact, I acted quick enough that I didn’t let those thoughts set in. He goes on further in the book to say, “on our deathbeds it truly is what we didn’t do – the people we didn’t meet, the potential we didn’t express, the projects we didn’t finish, the enchantments we didn’t chase and the love we failed to deliver – that floods us with regret.”

His advice is to seize the gifts that life presents to us. Interestingly, the ‘treasure’ of that memory is that I went for it. The moment couldn’t have been timed better, the lady I knew standing there which helped me to feel brave enough asking her to take the picture – if there was no one around that I knew, I would have felt foolish asking and I likely wouldn’t have asked. It all aligned pretty well for me. Which is a gift. And years later, that lady is forever the one that took the photo of Trevor Linden and I. We have that shared experience together.

Sending Love,

Devon

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