Pure Moxie
Hello and good day!
If you saw my brother Brian walking around in the grocery store, you wouldn't think twice about him. He is a regular looking guy. He is five feet ten inches tall. He shaves his head bald to hide the fact that he is going bald.
He is in good shape for being a 53 year old man. He just did a half triathlo Unlike me, he doesn't talk much when he is out and about. He always goes about his activities in an efficient, business like manner.
I tend to get into deep personal and philosophical conversations with just about anybody I meet. Brian isn't like that and therefore he truly does not stand out much. Nobody would know by looking at him that he has pure, unadulterated, moxie running through his veins.
I love the word moxie. I've used it over the years and had a general idea of it's definition. In preparation for writing this email, I wanted to get the official meaning. According to dictionary.com, moxie means "courageous spirit and determination; perseverance". Yeah, that sums up Brian pretty well.
But before I start writing about some of the things that Brian has done, I want to point out that there are tons of people walking around in the world, who you wouldn't look at twice, who have displayed great moxie in their lives.
We have a family friend in her seventies who beat leukemia a few years back. She was told to get her affairs in order and get ready to move into hospice. She decided it wasn't her time yet and stayed home. She did chemotherapy, kept a stiff upper lip and a positive attitude, and came out the other side.
The doctors say she is a miracle. As I write, she is in perfect health. Here is what I find so fascinating. If you were to see her out and about, you'd have no idea what kind of inner strength this woman has.
She looks just like any other seventy something year old woman. She is the sweetest person in the world and totally unassuming. You'd never guess that she stared death right in the face and it was death who had to turn around and walk away. She kept on living.
There must be millions of stories of moxie out there.I bet most of us have some story of great courage and perseverance that we can tell about ourselves. That being the case, it makes good sense to treat most people with respect. Almost everybody has showed resolve during hard times at some point in their life.
Getting back to Brian.
It is hard to explain how much moxie it took to move out to the jungle in Peru to start buying and processing cacao. There is one fact that has always blown me away. Nobody asked Brian to be there.
In fact, in the beginning there were as many people who wanted Brian to leave as wanted him to stay.People resist change.And they especially resist change when it proposed by person they don't know and don't trust.
In spite of that, Brian didn't stop.
Every couple of weeks he kissed his young daughter and new wife goodbye and headed back out to the jungle to stay for a month.He never stopped campaigning. He over and over again why the vision he had for the cacao in that community would be a good thing.
He did this of his own volition and because he thought he should. Again, and I can't stress this enough, we were not invited there.Brian kept going because he sincerely believed in what he was doing and he wasn't going to stop until he hit his goal, which was to buy and process enough cacao for us to be able to build a sustainable business.
Little by little, over time, he convinced hundreds of families to join him in his vision. These families were going about their lives. They had their own plans. Brian had to convince them that his plans would be a better way to go.
And here we are today.----Pure moxie.
I get to be the fortunate front man, talking about what Brian has done. Because Brian would never talk about it himself. You would walk right by Brian and not give him a second thought.
Same with so many other courageous and amazing people out there in the world. The unsung heroes of this world are a massive group.Probably just about everybody is an unsung hero in some way.
We should keep that in mind when dealing with each other.
I hope that you have a truly blessed day!
Adam
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