Hope – Disney Leadership Keynote Speaker

Planned freedom, mind

mountains — Not far from Granite Park Chalet. Oberlin is in center horizon.

Planned freedom.

Heard the phrase “planned freedom” yesterday listening to Michael Eisner talk about the summer camp he attended growing up. His father also attended. Michael’s three sons attended. The camp is 100+ years old now. The 2005 recording, called ‘Camp‘, was recorded by Disney Records.

A legendary Camp Director built ‘planned freedom’ into every camper’s daily schedule.

This unstructured time’s origin stems from the belief that young people – boys in this example -need time to follow their interests. And camp allowed for many choices of activities, or, no activities at all. Perhaps, instead, opting to play cards back at their tent with friends.

The goal was to let each camper exercise their own agency with their ‘unplanned time’.

How they planned it was a freedom centered on self-discovery.

‘Unplanned freedom’, in my opinion is what (potentially) leads adults to a growth-mindset lifestyle.

And a growth-mindset lifestyle, from the magic of doubling in my opinion, leads to a freedom only mental vibrancy provides.

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Teach hope, mind

buffalo herd — The western edge of The Great Plains sometimes reveals a species that once dominated The Great Plains by the millions. Now, only dozens are found here and there. Here (above) is a few miles west of Browning, Montana on the Blackfeet Nation.

Teach hope…

Hope, to me, is a growth-mindset daily set to auto-maintain, auto-renew, and auto-improve.

Let your daily habits be your life’s syllabus.

Let your life’s syllabus teach, without you ever saying a word, unless absolutely necessary.

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Harvest hope, mind

mountain lake — Many Glacier valley and Lake Sherburne. First time i saw this i didn’t see it. It was nightfall. Had just ridden a charter bus, full of Boy Scouts, across Montana. It was summer 1973. My first visit to Glacier.

It is challenging for me to feel deserving of remarkable, priceless gifts.

That said, an important goal (hope) has always been to meet this lifelong challenge and make it disappear.

Disciplined, habitual, and compounded hope have finally destroyed this guilt-ridden emotion.

This ‘greatest harvest’ blindsided me.

The greatest harvest produced was, and is, the unexpected, and authentic, example of my life from the lifetime personal vibrancy pursuit.

To be a teacher during my life, using words only when necessary.

In my journey, i have taught myself what to do, why, and how to improve.

In my journey, i have also taught what to not do, why, and how to recover and move forward.

Blessed beyond measure.

Thank you, growth-mindset.

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This website is about our MIND. To read today’s post about our BODY, click here.

Compounded hope, mind

Superior intelligence is designing the kind of life you want to live.

Hope is ‘big picture’ thinking and dreaming.

Thinking big picture (hope), compounded over time, has the magic of doubling the size of your dreams and goals. This doubling effect is brought about by the magic of compound ~~interest~~ hope.

Over the decades, my personal vibrancy growth-curve reveals a slow and steady incline. The doubling happens when a good design becomes a very good design. And then that very good design – through tweaking and experimentation – becomes an excellent design.

Excellence is always the goal.

Excellence is always the ‘hope’.

Somewhere in my formative years, a seed sprouted. The seed was personal vibrancy. It would be decades before ‘personal vibrancy’ entered my consciousness, and, my daily vocabulary.

Reprise: Superior intelligence is designing the kind of life you want to live.

And here we are, 2026, closer to 70 than to 60.

As you live your ‘life by design’:

Have fun
.think .differently
Lean into discomfort.

Discomfort is simply creativity and innovation.

New.

Better.

And of course, potentially risky.

Your original design and your design-tweaks may not work as you intend.

What a great opportunity.

What a fabulous challenge.

This is the beauty of growth-mindset:

Launch a design idea.
Enjoy where it takes you.
Learn from it.
Revise/improve on it
Repeat.

Ps. Happy present moment.

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This website is about our MIND. To read today’s post about our BODY, click here.

Disciplined hope, mind

Discipline comes from focus.

Focus comes from motivation.

Motivation comes from goals.

Goals come from dreaming.

Dreams come from hope.

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This website is about our MIND. To read today’s post about our BODY, click here.