You're Grounded!

That’s a good thing.

Unless you’re an airplane or its pilot in which case you’re not allowed to fly. 

Or you’re a child whose parent has restricted your movements for punishment, maybe for flying off the handle – like a loose axe-head. 

Or you’re a vessel, run aground, awaiting the return of the tide to float your boat. 

Ironically, with regards electricity, to be grounded - as in imbedded in the earth - is to have “a zero of potential.”  

However, to be grounded is also a good thing, says Webster, as “it describes a person who is sensible and has a good understanding of what is really important in life; mentally and emotionally stable; admirably sensible, realistic, and unpretentious – ‘remaining grounded despite all the praise and attention.’”

There’s an ancient proverb that reads “the root of the just shall prosper.”   

As flying is to a plane and water to a boat, so roots are to a person of stature.

Put another way, to be down and dirty (rooted) yields a principled life that is high and mighty – as in fruit-bearing and storm-weathering.   

With lots of potential.

Or, as the title of Chris Lassiter’s book “You’re Grounded – Rooted in Truth in a Shallow World.”

So also say Kouzes and Posner whose treasure of a leadership classic I discovered in my favorite book store the other night – Goodwill.  In “The Leadership Challenge,” John Robbins (Baskin-Robbins) provides his advice for would-be leaders:

“In order to find your voice and find the song that’s within your heart and sing it with your life, you need some daily thing that you do regularly, whether you feel like it or not, that’s nurturing your soul.”

John Robbins did that, took the time for that, developed the daily discipline for that and as a result decided that “inventing a thirty-second flavor just was not an adequate response” for living out the purpose he’d discovered for his life.

Developing the roots of your soul; scraping away the sometimes shallow and superficial surface of other’s expectations – worthwhile perhaps for them but not worthy of you; carving out time on a daily basis to probe deep so as to discover what to plant and to grow that provides your life with purpose and meaning:

Is to be grounded.

In order to fly.