I have been called into the director’s office. I know it is going to be bad. No one is called into this director’s office to be congratulated. I try to get into a supremely calm state of being, but the fear is creeping in. He begins his lashing out including telling me that no one has done anything as bad as I have done in his 30 years of administration. In my calmness I repeat back to him what he is so angry about. A voice from inside of me tells me to throw caution to the wind and let him have it. I do. I tell him that I have never seen such bad administration in all of my years in schools. He stops, pauses, almost in shock, as if anyone would dare to hurls insults at him. He tries to regain the advantage, but it is already too late for him. I win the fierce battle and he knows it. I win because he was hoping that I would cower, be his subservient slave when he was in the one in the wrong. I didn’t cave. He caved. He then pulls out the threat card. It is what bad administration does when it is threatened. I ask him if he is going to fire me. I am calling his bluff. He recoils and assures me he is not. He is lying, but what else can he do when he has already lost. It takes him nearly six months to remove me from my position by trying to make it look like I was incompetent. A couple of months after my removal I see him, approach and greet him in a friendly manner. He literally starts mumbling garbled sounds and cannot say my name. It is sure sign that despite not having the same position, the future belongs to me, not him. He has no future. He is clinging to a past where he had the advantage by keeping people in fear. I took it away from him.

In my new position in the same school, one with much less administrative authority, I continue to be experimental, creative, and adventurous because I didn’t let an unjust leader rob me of the future. The future belonged to me. He had no future. He is swimming in his fear.

While it is not always wise to be as bold with your speech as I was in that meeting, the principle of not giving up your future to a lower entity always holds. I have been in other situations where I had to use restraint and caution, which I am sure was the correct thing to do. Sometimes you have survive so that you can re-emerge on a different day. The goal is to own the future, not give it over to tyrants, because they have no future whatsoever.

Creativity, optimism, hope, courage, enthusiasm, and being adventurous. When you have these qualities in abundance, it is a good indicator that you own your own future. When you are having difficulties going forward with your life, It means that the energy of one or more of the above qualities is blocked in some way. The place to start in uncovering the blocked energy so that you can thrive is with what you are fearing. Fear is the message that tells you that you do not have enough of one of the qualities that are future-oriented.

We see a number of leaders in all parts of the globes who rally people around the theme of taking us back to the past. The past was somehow glorious, and if we would only get to it, then all of our troubles would be gone. It always starts with trying to expel one group or another. When you hear this kind of rhetoric, the first thought that should come to your mind is that the leader is terrified of a future where creativity and hope abound. If creativity is alive and well, it means that they have no place in it. If you have a society where men have been dominant and can do as they please to keep people subservient, they are not going for want a world where there is equality between the sexes. The same holds true for race and religion. The dominant group is terrified of a culture of equality because then it means they have to develop themselves, and developing yourself always means facing your worst fears. Going backwards means going backwards to dominance.

When you think of creativity, what is the fear that comes up inside of you? When you think of being more courageous or bold in your life, what is the fear? These are the important questions. However, there is a very powerful way to have a lot of momentum going forward so that facing the fear isn’t so scary.

Here it is. Make a list of 5 or 6 of the most positive capabilities that you have. They could include things like you have a great ability to solve difficult problems, you are loving and compassionate, you are truly honest with yourself, you have self-discipline or you have a lot of determination and endurance.

When you finish the list, go inside and feel what each one of the qualities feels like when you are experiencing them. It will be a very positive experience. Then you can take yourself in your mind out into the future with all of your positive energy. Your positive self automatically by nature loves the future. It will want to start using all of its positive energy to achieve things. When you feel the will of the positive self out in the future, write down three things that it would like to achieve or focus on. It will feel so delighted with what you chose.

The next day as you begin to implement the future activities, the undeveloped parts of you, will begin to communicate with you principally through fear. So you have a positive self that can do a huge amount towards achieving goals, and then you have new qualities coming into development that will take you even further into future. You know that you need something new when you feel the fear. It will be some aspect of one of the above qualities such as creativity, hope, or courage. As those qualities develop you will completely own the future.