Transforming into an Eagle: The Flight Plan for Personal Success

I don't know if you are a hunter or not. I'm not a hunter very much. To me, roughing it is the hot tub at the Marriott. But I have some friends who love to hunt and especially they love to go bird hunting. And usually they'll be telling me about they're going to be hunting quail or dove or maybe even turkey around Thanksgiving time. But there's one animal I have never heard anyone talk about hunting when they're going bird hunting and that's an eagle. And there's a reason for that. Not only is it against the law to shoot an eagle, but an eagle has five characteristics that we need to copy and we need to think about that will help us be protected in our life so we can soar like an eagle.

Welcome to becoming wiser with Dr. Robert A. Rohm, author and world renowned public speaker as he shares stories and involving his experiences and lessons learned in a good spirited, positive and fun way. Here's Dr. Robert A. Rome. So we're talking about eagles today and first of all I want you to know there are a lot of folklore, there's a lot of interesting things you can find on the web about eagles. People make up stuff about them all the time that you know, the older they get. I've read where someone said they go and pluck out all their feathers and that seems to be an old wives fable. And I've heard that they fly so high that their beaks have any calcium deposits that'll break. And so I'm not going to go there with trying to, you know, fantasize over some mysterious aspect of an eagle's life. But there are five things I do want to talk about that we can know for sure. And each one of these represents something really powerful in my life or your life that we can copy, that we can emulate if we will think about it and see why this majestic bird does the things that it does. I really believe that animals teach us a great deal about life, about character, about integrity, about certain aspects of life. So let me share with you five things I've learned from an eagle. I want to be an eagle. I want you to be an eagle. I believe you do want to be an eagle. An eagle is a majestic animal. I mean after all, in the United States it's our national bird. Okay? That's one of the reasons that it's protected. But I have seen eagles flying. I've been in Alaska and I've seen eagles flying, landing, picking up the salmon that bears have come out of the Woods. It's a fascinating experience to watch an eagle and to see how smart they are, how careful they are, how cautious they are, and the things that they like to eat we'll be talking about in just a minute. But let's, let's talk about the five characteristics. The first thing, they fly higher than any other bird. There have been airline pilots that have reported they have seen eagles as high as 20, 25, 30,000ft. I mean, no bird think about how high. Most birds just fly around the trees in our neighborhood and then you go up and you see an eagle flying at unbelievable heights. Well, why is that? They have the capability of flying higher. As a matter of fact, they love to fly high because the draft or the wind that blows up in higher altitudes picks up their wings. It sort of carries them, so to speak. And the first thing is this. If you're going to fly higher in life, you're going to have to do some things different than other people. I mean, you know, we can ride around and see the buzzards and the turkeys and the sparrows and the other not so majestic birds flying around in our neighborhood and, or in our, in our environment. We, we don't think that much about it. But boy, some you'll hear somebody say, look, look, look, there's an eagle. It's because it's so incredibly powerful and strong. I know all over the Internet and on YouTube there are stories and pictures of things that eagles can do. But the first thing is they have an incredible sense of altitude. Someone once said that if you want to be a different kind of person, you're going to have to fly higher than others. You're going to have to have a desire to work harder, to do more, to be better. I don't live my life in relationship to try to do, outdo anybody, but I do live my life in such a way as to try to challenge myself to go higher, to do more. Some of you may have heard I've graduated from five different colleges. I don't say that to be arrogant. It's really amazing when I stop and think about it. Why did I do that? Not so much because I'm an academic. I've been around academics and I know what they're like. And I. I'm no academic, but I love learning. And I learned early on from several of my mentors who were very well educated. One of them said to me, you won't hurt yourself by getting additional education. And back in, when I was growing up, pretty much school was the main methodology. Now we have seminars and training on everything conceivable. So let me encourage you. Do more. Get better. Fly higher. If you don't know how to do something, you can learn everything you know you have learned. You weren't born knowing anything. And I'm telling you, I remember the day I learned how to put an attachment on an email. I was so excited. I actually learned how to add an attachment to a knee. I know you're laughing, thinking, well, a third grader can do that. Well, I had to learn how to do it, try to make myself a little bit better. Fly higher. I know you want to do that too. The second thing an eagle has is an incredible keen eyesight. An incredible an. An eyesight that is beyond anything you or I have ever experienced. I have read where an eagle can see a field mouse running through the field from two miles.

I think about that as 5280. That's like over 10,000ft, the eagle soaring and he sees a little field mouse and he knows there might be my lunch, there might be an afternoon snack. But an eagle has a keen, incredible sense of being able to see things. So here's the second thing I want you to do. Keep your eyes open. Look around. Opportunity is everywhere. When I hear people talk about, well, I don't know what I'm going to do and I can't find a job and I'm not sure if I want to get involved, I'm thinking, wow, everywhere I look I see incredible ideas. There's a million dollar opportunity. There's another million dollar opportunity. Wow, that's about a $10 million opportunity. Because you're looking because you, you find things that you're looking for. Have you ever been looking for your car keys or have you ever been looking for a book? And you say, ah, the last place I looked was the place I found it. Well, that's for sure. And that you found it because you were looking for it and then after that you didn't have to look for it anymore. I just keep my eyes open all the time. I'm always looking. I'm looking for another story. I'm looking for another opportunity. I'm looking for anything that will make my life better. I keep my eyes open. I'm attracted to people who are very positive and want to have a better life and want to learn and grow. That's what life's really all about, learning and growing. So the first thing is an eagle flies high, aspire to higher and greater heights and activities in your life. The second thing is they have keen eyesight. Keep your eyes open. Just. Just always be looking. You're not trying to outdo anybody. But if you see something that. That appeals to you, maybe look into it, ask a few questions so you can learn more about it. Here's the third thing. Eagles fly alone. Now, this is a hard one. It's a hard one. You don't see eagles flying in a flock. You may see a flock of geese.

But you won't see a flock of eagles. Eagles fly alone. Now, I've got to tell you something. I enjoy people. I love to be in a group of people. I have more fun with a group than I do by myself. All right. Someone said, you need to find yourself. You need to get into your head. You need to know who you are. My problem was I found me and I discovered I'm not my type. Well, maybe you have that same experience yourself. The truth of the matter is, I like to be around groups of people. But you know what I've discovered in leadership and in life? You got to learn to spend some time alone. I have gotten very comfortable in my own skin spending time by myself. I have learned being by myself and being alone, it's not a bad thing. Again, it doesn't feel that good to me. But I've learned not to be led by how I feel about everything. I'm so grateful. I love being by myself. I. I love reading and thinking and writing and taking notes and listening and being quiet. Boy, that's a hard thing. You know where I learned that? Learned that from an eagle. I've seen eagles fly alone. And sometimes, if you're going to have a better life than others, you can't hang around with the turkeys, because if you ever hang around with the turkeys, you won't soar like an eagle.

I'm not calling anybody a turkey, but I'm just saying there's some people I avoid like the plague. There's some people, when I see them coming, I think, boy, I hope I saw them before they saw me, because I just don't have the time for them to SAP the life out of me with all, you know, my goldfish died, my car broke down. I don't feel good. My rheumatoid rheumatism's bothering me, and my lumbago is lumbagoing and the tires need changing on the car, and we got fleas and ticks and roaches. Wow. Wow. Well, that's okay. I'm not putting that down. I'm just saying that that's not the Way I want to live my life. And so sometimes you have to separate yourself. The hardest thing I have ever done in my life when I was 18 years old. It's the. I'm 74 right now. When I was 18, I made a conscious decision.

To get away from all my friends. My friends were not what I would call ideal. And don't blame my friends. I was the ringleader. I was right in the middle of them. So if I have anybody to blame as myself. But one day I just woke up to the fact of I got to get me a new set of friends. Someone once said, if you're the smartest person in your group, you need to get a new group. Well, I was the ringleader of my friends. I need to get a new ringleader and it not to be me. Sometimes you need to learn to be alone. That's hard. I mentioned that a minute ago. This is hard. It's the best thing you'll ever learn to do. I can be by myself for long periods of time when I travel. Sometimes I travel alone. Getting on an airplane, being quiet, reading, studying, thinking, not knowing anybody, nobody to talk to. Just time for me to kind of regroup my thoughts. It's a great thing. Learn to be alone and be satisfied with that. The fourth thing, this is a challenging one. Understand.

Discomfort. What do you mean, understand discomfort? Are you aware that an eagle does not feed on anything that's dead? A buzzard does. You'll see buzzards on the side of the road eating a carcass of an animal that got hit by a car. You'll never see an eagle doing that. Why? An eagle doesn't feed on dead things. I mentioned earlier that the eagle would see a field mouse running. That's because the field mouse was alive. Eagles like things that are alive. Eagles feed on fish. Eagles feed on other animals that they take as their prey. And they do it in such a manner.

That it's alive because they don't want something in their digestive system that's going to make them sick. They don't feed on dead things. Now how do I apply that? Be careful what you feed on. Do you feed on gossip? Talking about other people, running other people down? You don't want something that's amazing to me. I didn't even realize it till after I was grown. To this day, I never remember my father ever, ever talking badly about another person.

Wow. What a great legacy he taught me. Don't. You don't have to spend your time running other people down. What are you trying to do blow their light out so yours will shine brighter. Successful people just don't have time to run other people down. They don't have time to feed on dead things. Don't. Don't get involved in things that are sickening, that are. That will hurt you. I once read that if a person gets addicted to pornography, it will destroy their ability to have an intimate relationship with another. If a man, for example, gets involved in pornography, he'll get so addicted to seeing a picture on a page that he's not able to connect with a person in real life. I've counseled people who have had addictions like that. It's a horrible, horrible thing. And I'm not going to go into all of that right now because that's not the purpose of this. But I know this. If you spend your time feeding on dead things, things that are hurtful, things that are immoral, things that are unethical, things that are dishonest, the only person you're going to hurt yourself. Why would you want to do that?

Think about things that are good and pure and positive. There have been many times I've been in a movie theater with my wife. I've had to look at her and say, come on, let's go.

Just for what it's worth, I don't know if you know this or not. If you don't like a movie and you're leaving, you have the right to tell them I didn't like that movie and they'll give you your money back. They're required to do that. So just so you know that in the future you don't have to walk out, lose your money. If you get in a theater and the movie's terrible and you don't like it, just go, say, you know, I didn't like that movie. We're leaving. I'd like to get our money back. Sometimes we'll give you a coupon, sometimes they'll give you your cash. I've had it happen both ways. I just can't afford to sit in the movie and watch other people do immoral things. And it guide my life to help me. I don't want to feed on things that are sickening or are going to cause death and destruction in my own life, in my own relationships. Number five, the last one, and this is probably the best one and the hardest one. So I saved the best one and the hardest one for last. And it kind of wraps up with all of the others. Eagles understand delayed gratification. You say, now, what is delayed gratification? That means if things don't go like I want them to, I'm going to wait. If I can't find me something to eat today, then I'll just go hungry. If I go out hunting as an eagle and I'm going to find me some live food to eat and I can't find something, I'm not going to say, well, maybe there's some dead animals over somewhere I can go feed on them. That's not the way an eagle operates. That's not the way an eagle thinks. An eagle thinks this way. I'm going to prepare. I'm going to hunt. I'm going to do my best to accomplish what I'm trying to do, but it might not work out. And if it doesn't, then I'll just wait. I'll try again later. Do you know we live in a world where hardly anyone talks about delayed gratification, much less knows how to do it. I want you to understand something. And I say this very humbly and very humorously. No one is harder on me than I am. I am the hardest person on me that I will ever meet. I make myself go to bed early. I make myself get up early. I make myself eat certain things, and I make myself not eat certain things. And I make myself not talk about things that are hurtful or get this or could be repeated to another person and hurt them. Let me explain that. In the morning when I wake up, I have a little recorder on my right shoulder. You can't see it, and it's actually imaginary and invisible. But I turn that recorder on and I record everything I say all day long. Because at the end of the day, I want to take the recording and let anybody who wants to listen to it listen to it. You won't hear me saying vulgar things. You won't hear me running other people down. You won't hear me saying things that are unkind or hurtful because. And all of us listen. Sometimes if you're in a family and you have problems with other people, or at school with other teachers on business, with coworkers, just if you've got a problem with them, talk to them alone. I would wait till this is a good opportunity, make sure they're, you know, fed and they're rested and they're in a good mood and just say, hey, there's a couple of things that I need to talk to you about that would help me. Don't. Don't point your finger. If you ever point your finger at someone else, you got three fingers pointing right Back in your own face. Listen, I don't know if you're aware of this or not, but I could fix everybody in this universe if I had the opportunity to. The only problem is I haven't been called to do that. You say, what do you mean you could fix everybody? If I spent an hour with you, I could tell you what was wrong with you, what you needed to change, how you need to have a better attitude, how you need to work harder, how you needed to not say negative things about other people, and on and on and on. But I can't fix you. I can only fix me. So I'm going to apply all those to myself. And if things aren't going the way I want them to, and many, many, many times they don't, I just want to be an eagle. So I say, okay, give it a little more time. Give it a little more time. I raised four daughters. All four of them are grown adult ladies now in there. All of them, all four of them are in their 40s. Okay.

I didn't do a perfect job, and they weren't perfect daughters, but I sure loved them. And as time passed, I saw improvements in them. And I tried to say things that I could to encourage them or help them, but here's what I knew. They're not stuck at 8 years old or 9 years old or 12 or 14 or 16 or 13 or 19 or 22. We're all on a journey. So if you're not where you want to be, don't beat yourself up. Just ask yourself, how can I be a better person tomorrow? Learn from your mistakes. Learn from the fact. Okay, I didn't do that exactly like I wanted to, but I learned a good lesson from it. And next time I'm going to do better. Don't live life with if only. Well, if only I had known that. If only I'd done that differently. If only I hadn't said that. If only I hadn't made a mistake. Live your life with the next time. Next time I'll do better. Next time I won't say something. Next time I'll start earlier. Next time I'll have a better attitude. Next time, I'll look for the good, the pure and the positive to see how things can be better in my life. So, pretty much that's it. Let's have a quick review. Number one, eagles fly higher. I encourage you to fly higher. Number two, they have keen eyes. Eyesight. Start looking. Keep your eyes open. Look for new opportunities. They're everywhere. On my stars. I just cannot Believe how many opportunities are going to waste because nobody can see them because they're not looking. Number three. Eagles fly alone. Learn to live your life alone if you have to. At times.

I am my own best friend. Now I know at times I'm my own worst enemy. But I learned from that and move on and say, okay. Learn to accept yourself. Recognize your faults. Work on things you can change. All of us have heard the Serenity prayer from time to time. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Boy. Learn to incorporate that as you sometimes step aside and live your life alone. The fourth thing. Learn to understand discomfort. There are things that will make you uncomfortable. Learning and growing is challenging sometimes. Starting a new position, working in a marriage that has its challenges, going to a new place, learning a new language. I have often said the most discomforting thing in my whole life has been learning how to run a business. And I've been doing it over 30 years. May I tell you something? It's still uncomfortable. There are no end to things that can happen in a business. I spent yesterday afternoon working on two forms for a state government that were totally confusing to me. I worked on them for about an hour until it started to make some sense and I got them completed. I'd much rather been watching TV or laying out by the pool or eating something. I wanted to learn how to do that. It was discomforting. Now I'm comfortable in knowing how to do that, moving ahead. I'll do it better next time. I'll do it faster next time. And the fifth and final thing. Understand delayed gratification. And that sums up everything is because I still don't think I'm an eagle. But I think I'm getting closer. Some days are better than others. Some days I feel like I'm flying like an eagle. That's not for me to decide. That's for someone else to decide. I just know that's what I aspire to. And if it doesn't happen today, or maybe it'll happen tomorrow, and if it doesn't happen tomorrow, maybe it'll happen the next day. Learn to work with yourself until you get to where you're comfortable with yourself and you're making progress with yourself and you're becoming the person you want to be. I'm on the journey with you. We both have the opportunity to become an eagle. I'm gonna look forward to seeing you up in the sky somewhere. We might be flying alone. At 20 or 30,000ft, but we'll flap our wings over at each other and smile at each other as we say, hey, I'm up here where the eagles are. I'm soaring too. Hope this has been helpful. Have a great day. I look forward to our next time together. For more information about this podcast, please visit www.becomingwiserpodcast.com.