Mount Up With Wings As Eagles – Rev. Lee Stoneking

Have you ever been exposed to an idea so powerful that it permeated your mind and transformed your thinking? The affect was so profound that you looked back on that experience and said to yourself “I was never the same”?

I had an experience like that long ago while listening to a sermon by Reverend Lee Stoneking.
Reverend Stoneking used the characteristics of an eagle as a metaphor to describe the attribute
that define an extraordinary individual. The major premise of the idea was that if you can expand
your vision of who you are in the present, you can expand the possibilities of your future. Once
your vision is expanded, your heightened scope of possibility expresses itself in every facet of
your life. I wanted to share the insights of that message because I believe that if our work is
aligned with our sense of purpose and the values we adhere to, it is one of the most powerful
vehicles of self-expression, allowing us to transcend our job and live as the embodiment of the
legacy we wish to leave.

However, all too often individuals stand in their own way of greatness. This impediment exists
not because of who they believe they are, but who they believe they’re not. They never
experience soaring with the eagles, because they secretly see themselves as chickens.
Chickens who lack the courage to pursue their highest aspirations. In life, a lack of courage is not
necessarily defined as cowardice, but conformity; following a script for your life that you did not
write. If you’ve ever heard that quiet, yet persistent voice inside telling you that there is
unrealized potential within you, or had the feeling that you were capable of far more than you
have demonstrated in your life so far, or seen yourself going further than other people told you
could; that by itself could be evidence of the fact that you were meant to soar. I don’t believe that
any of us were engineered to live our life as chickens fenced in our coop by fears, self-limiting
beliefs and low expectations imposed upon us. Instead I believe we have within us the capacity
to soar to extraordinary heights like an eagle.

The Difference between Chickens and Eagles

A Chicken can be placed within a confined area or pen and is content to just scratch around in the pen. If the shadow of a Hawk appears above the chicken, it will not face the danger but run for over.

Many professionals are content where they are simply because they’ve grown comfortable being
there. Emerson said “people wish to be settled; only as far as they are unsettled is there any
hope for them”. In other words, the only way to grow and position yourself as a master of change
rather than a victim of change is to get comfortable being uncomfortable. Change in any industry,
not excluding fitness requires constant reinvention. Whenever competition, socio-economic
trends, increasing industry standards or the growing complexity of our clients needs necessitates
professional growth, it frightens the average professional. His low self-concept creates the
mindset of a chicken and the challenges ahead threaten him as a hawk does prey. Like most
people he will run for cover and hope it passes.

An Eagle however is not content with boundaries; it does not want to be fenced in. If a Hawk
appears, the Eagle will go after that Hawk. Winners are like the eagle, they don’t want to be
fenced in. They have the desire to spread their wings and fly. Something pulls at them; even
though they may have been a chicken at one time, something happened within them. They have
a longing to go higher. If a challenge appears that requires them to grow, they go after the
situation tenaciously, because they understand that the situation is actually an opportunity to
become better. These individuals know that in order to have more or do more, you must become
more. Once you have seen the world from the perspective of an eagle you can never go back to
the chicken coop.

Focus
An eagle has eyes that can focus on objects several miles away. An eagle is different from any other type of bird in that he has two sets of eyelids. For that reason he can fly toward his destination and not be blinded by distractions, even if he flies directly into the sun. Winners in this industry are the ones who have the ability to consistently focus on their major definite purpose, irrespective of the distractions that tempt all of us to lose perspective of what is most important in our life and work. Goethe said that “things that matter most must never be at the mercy of things that matter least”. Winners adhere to that as a major philosophical premise of their life.

Relationships
Eagles mate for life. But if a hunter accidentally kills her mate the female will not just take up any
eagle that comes flying thought the air. If he comes near and he wants to court her, she will test
him. They will fly together, but then she puts the pressure on. She will fly down to the ground and
she will pick up a stick, fly high into the air and she will then loosen her talons and let the stick fall.

An eagle can dive at 200 miles an hour, he must pick up the stick before it hits the ground, if he
doesn’t, he’s out. It doesn’t stop there. She will get a stick a little bit bigger. If he wants her, he
best cooperate. She will go to the heights and then will drop it and he is expected to catch it.
She will do this until she is carrying small logs. Eventually she will pick up a stone; he is
expected to catch it. Reason is, there will come a day when eaglets will be born to them and the
eagles will teach them to fly. If one of the eaglets should run into trouble and fall, she needs to
know that he will be able to catch it.

Winners understand that you are a mirror reflection of the five people you hang around most. If
you want to excel beyond where you are now, you must be extremely conscientious of your
associations. Do the people around you support you and add to your quality of life? Or, do they
discourage you and attempt to steal your dreams? If you fell, would they catch you until you
could fly on your own? Or, would they point out that you fell and then offer you their opinions on
why you couldn’t make it? Opinions are the cheapest commodity on earth and not worth much
from anyone (even if well meaning) who does not offer them solely as a means of helping you
reach new heights. Further, if they have not soared to the heights you aspire to, how could their
opinion help you?

We are surrounded by people who never have had the courage to pursue their dreams so they
spend their lives trying to steal the dreams of others. The cynic does not believe in dreams. He
fails to realize that all human progress and invention was conceived in a dream. Disney,
Microsoft and space travel were all at one time just dreams until someone put foundations under
them. Where would the world be if its pioneers were intellectual elitists and cynics?
An eagle does not want to be bothered with birds that don’t want to fly high. When they
annoyingly nip at his wings, he fully extends his six to eight foot wingspan and rises to heights
other birds will never know.

The Comfort Zone
When an eaglet is a baby it rests in a feathered nest and eats, sleeps and squawks. It’s what many people do. But there will come a day when the parents decide that the party is over. The mother will come to the nest and she will begin to scream and they have never seen her act like this before. She rips out the rabbit’s fur from the nest; then tears up the sticks so that the points of the sticks are in the place that the fur used to be. Then for the eaglet, there is no place to rest. He cannot get comfortable.

Often individuals do not change until the pain of not changing supersedes the pain of the process
of change itself. Where are you so comfortable that it might be holding you back? Decide to
change in advance.

Desire
Sometimes the parents will nudge the eaglet to the edge of the nest. The parents will then get a morsel of food that the eaglets always have enjoyed. Then they will take it to a tree branch in full view of the starving eaglets and make the sounds that accompany the enjoyment of a meal. Eventually they become so desperate that they will come to the very edge of the nest. They want it so bad. They start to focus less on their fear of being out on the edge of the nest and more on the object of their desire. They want it so bad that they start to scream. That’s what many of us do. When the eagles get hungry enough, their hunger cannot be quenched. Finally they will do what comes naturally to them, they will flap their wings and carry on. As they beat the air with their wings, then they will spring from the nest, they can feel that it catches, and it’s not as treacherous as they thought. Then they will flap and scream their way to the other limb. Some of them will fall and hold on for dear life with their talons, but they make it. And when they make it, it’s all there for them.

If you have a hunger driving you, you must flap your wings and go out on a limb and fly where
you have never been to before if you will ever get a hold of it. When your desire is great enough,
your resolve will be strong enough to pay whatever price to go from where you are now to where
you desire to be. Go emotionally beyond what you want and ask yourself “why is this important to
me?” Desire is the precursor to all achievement.

Belief vs. Fear
Despite their greatest efforts some of the eaglets will spring forward but begin to fall. (This is why
she tested him!! She expects him to help her, and he dives at 200 miles an hour underneath the falling eaglet and he will catch that eaglet on his wings before it hits the ground). When this happens to us we usually say, “God, why did you wait so long to help me” and God says, “You needed all the time you could get to learn how to fly”. He will not do anything for you, you cannot do for yourself. Every miracle begins with impossibility. Most people say prove it and I will believe it, but the winner says if I believe it I will see it. The contrast is incredible.

The first lesson is you must get out of the nest. The second lesson is more incredible. That is,
the greatest obstacle that the eaglet has to overcome is fear!

The fear of falling, of not being successful, worrying what others think is the obstacle that stands
between where you are and where you want to be.

An eagles eyes are miraculous. The eyes are not fully developed when they are first hatched;
they have a unique property. Inside the eagles eyes are series of tissues that are folded into
pleats called pectins. Each pleat contains a fine network of lymph tubes. The lymph fluid in
these tubes are electrolyte, that means it is effected by magnetic pull and operates as a
conductor of electricity. When the eaglet is young the tubes are not developed and are pliable.
But they effected by the magnetic pull of the north poll, very similar to a compass. The pectins
adjust themselves to the lines of magnetic intensity from the north poll in relation to their place of
birth. As the eagle matures the pectins become rigid and they are permanently set. As long as
the eagle is away from his nesting ground there is a sense of imbalance in him. The pectins act
as a built in gyroscope for the eagle. There is a constant pressure which causes pain to a certain
degree even during times of migration, however the pain subsides when he returns to his nesting
ground. It is not difficult for the eagle to find his way home. God has endowed the eagle with an
amazing homing mechanism.

An eagles pectins are set on an immovable north poll, ours is set on an immovable purpose.
Only with an immovable purpose will you ever feel balanced and at home in a rapidly changing
world, where nothing in our external environment is constant..

The farther you get from your values and what is truly important to you, the greater the intensity of
pressure. The only hope you have is to spread your wings and go back to that place where you
first nested. There is something built in us that calls us to our purpose.

An eagle flies on the air currents, the laws of gravity cannot be suspended, if he folds his wings
he will drop. No matter what storms are raging we must keep our wings spread so that we can
rise above it.

An eagle has faith in his wings; he is not worried if he is perched on a rock in the middle of a river
during a storm. They storm is no problem for him because he knows he can spread his wings
and he can rise above it. If you and I were on a rock and there was a storm we might feel
helpless. The eagle has confidence in his ability to get himself from the storm to the shore.
Faith by itself will fail you. A little faith will get you out into the river and maybe sink you; great
faith denoted by action and perseverance will get you there and back. Many think they have faith
and they will start out but then something happens and they lose the faith necessary to get them
home. Like the man who started to cross the dessert. When he got half way across the dessert
there was not enough water to make it across, but neither was there enough water to make it
back. You have to know in your heart that you have enough faith to get you across. If you have
the desire and the need, you need sufficient faith. You must have it for yourself.

The Eagles Response to Challenges
In his heights, he can see the storm coming. Every other animal in the forest doesn’t know it’s
coming until they are running for cover. But the eagle uses his wings to negotiate with the wind
and threw effort and resolve he is able to soar above the storm.

Fitness professionals who are committed to rising to higher personal standards know their
industry; they know there clientele and they are fully accountable for their own personal
development. Therefore, they are better positioned to forecast changes ahead than other fitness
professionals who remain oblivious to what lies ahead. These professionals are often blindsided
and shocked when the storm comes. The greater your skill sets the greater the diversity of
responses. Personal development will help you develop the skill sets to better negotiate with the
wind when the storm comes. Read, listen to tapes and commit to being better tomorrow than you
were today. Everyday!

Each storm has different wind currents. No two are the same. Therefore each passing storm will
make a better bird out of you. Storms are learning sessions to the eagle, therefore he is unafraid.
With each new challenge the Eagle will learn to rise above the storm. Human history has proved
that within each of us is the same desire and potential to rise above our circumstances.
o As long as there has been bondage, man has sought freedom.
o As long as there has been a heaven, man has sought to fly.
o As long as there have been battles, man has sought to be fearless.
o As long as there have been obstacles, man has sought to subdue them.

The eagle is the most majestic of all birds. Artists have painted him, the bible has made
reference to him and America has adapted him as the nation’s symbol. There is an innate desire
in man to see that which is majestic.

Among all the measures of majesty within our lives, perhaps this is the most admirable is the
ability to reign in your life over all elements aligned with your purpose and to succeed despite the
obstacles that detract from it.

  Robert J Cappuccio

At Vision Fitness and Wellness we are inspired by those that inspire others. There are few in the fitness industry that believe in the possible when others think it is impossible. Constant belief in the continuous invention and reinvention of individuals and companies has made Robert Cappuccio one of those individuals. With honor we share in our opinion, one of his best articles.