Don't Forget Your Cape

By Mark DeWayne Combs

You're being watched... You may not realize it, and the person watching you may never clue you in, but you’re being watched. It happens each day in the most undetectable way. Somewhere, someone is watching.

As we work our way through each day, there are moments when we may feel as if we disappear into th

• Language: English
• Publisher: Splinter in the Minds Eye Publishing
• Release date: Jul 15, 2017
• ISBN: 9780990969556

Mark DeWayne Combs

When author, Mark DeWayne Combs started his own business in the fall of 2007 there was no local networking group to join and the local Chamber of Commerce only offered monthly, meet & greet, social events. The opportunity to start a group from scratch was just too appealing to pass up. With the help of a few local business owners, the Amelia Business Network was born. In just over a year, the group grew from six original members to a thriving membership that included over eighty small business owners. As group membership expanded, Mark started a bi-weekly newsletter and began writing a weekly Monday Morning Motivational Blog. He has been composing motivational blog material for over a decade and published his first book, End The Beginning, in January of 2015. Mark began accepting opportunities to travel and speak to small groups in the fall of 2016 and published PUSH, his first motivational book, in the spring of 2017. Broken into a handful of easy-to-read essays, PUSH mixes humor, common sense, and thought-provoking insight in an effort to give each reader the opportunity to see for themselves why they have absolutely no shot at ever being ordinary. His second motivational book, Don't Forget Your Cape follows in similar tradition, mixing personal stories with pop-culture headlines and historical events to open a window into thought that brings each reader face-to-face with their own self-worth and potential. HELLO... Is This On? is the third book of the series and turns the perspective inward. The dedicated focus of the book explores why we do what we do and speaks to our ability to develop self-trust and quiet confidence, even in the face of daunting circumstances or, in some cases, no measurable response at all.

Book preview

PREFACE

I know you’re out there

somewhere...

somewhere... somewhere...

Those in the group teased him about being an Adam Sandler lookalike. I suppose that’s not so bad, at least he wasn’t being compared to Gary Shandling on a bad face day. Mind you, I’m not suggesting that God made Mr. Shandling as unattractive as he could and then scared him; I mean, who am I to grade a person’s physical appeal on a scale of 1 to 10? I’m merely sharing my impression that his countenance gives off a certain blend of confusion and constant lower back pain that appears to have settled in for good.

Nevertheless, our leader in this spotlight took the lighthearted ribbing as it was intended and continued to handle business in a respectable, professional manner. Actually, the way he presented himself and conducted business was more than respectable, it was admirable. And, truth be known, I considered myself fortunate to work under his guidance.

As an independent insurance agent, I didn’t really answer to anyone on a personal level. I was self-employed. I could do what I wanted, when I wanted to do it. Provided I honored state and company guidelines, my license to conduct business stayed in good standing and my freedom to conduct business in a manner that suited my preference was always intact.

If you’re going to be a successful leader of a group of people who could just as easily walk their own path as rally under your direction as a team, you’ve got to have a certain measure of charisma. This guy had it and he had it in plentiful supply.

He wasn’t a Rah-Rah Pep Rally type (that approach has never stoked my fires, so to speak), nor was he heavy handed and demanding (although the company tracks numbers on a level that would make any baseball sabermetric statistician’s eyes roll). He was just personal and he developed a personal connection with most, if not all, of the members in the loosely knit group.

From what I could tell, he took a very level-headed approach to each issue that arose, never over reacting or being too dismissive. He acted medium about as well as anyone I’ve ever worked with. He treated each person with the same measure of respect, showing no detectable favoritism toward the mega-producer over the minimalist (the category my production numbers would fall into more often than not). His interest in his team members extended beyond the business relationship and into each personal life to a certain degree, without ever seeming invasive. I had the sense that he knew who each team member was and what helped to make their wheels turn.

He resigned his position as the Regional Director of my division a little over a year ago and to this day, I miss him.

I’m sure he had a lot of favorite sayings and go-to phrases; it seems that most leaders do, but one in particular stood out to me and I felt that it really personified him on a lot of levels. The saying was this:

Wherever you happen to be,

Be There!

That sounds simplistic and I suppose that it is, but it’s also quite profound. In actuality, each day is littered with pockets of time in which physical location has no bearing on where we may be mentally or emotionally. Attention spans drift away from The Moment so frequently in our day and age that it’s considered commonplace.

I’d guess that in some cases, that may be therapeutic to a degree. I caught myself checking out a number of times while trying to complete my online continuing education courses. On the whole they’re designed to be purely pedantic in nature, not entertaining.

However, any mind that enjoys the messaging of skillfully woven text would find the redundant content to be downright painful to read. Hence, my effort to concentrate on the material was effectively marginalized by the repetitive blandness, and page after page of poorly written text chipped away at my will like slivers of bamboo under my mental fingernails. As a result, my thoughts drifted easily to the first available diversion.

While distractions can sometimes be embraced as a welcome relief, being purposefully invested in our surroundings opens the doorway to an abundance of opportunity that would otherwise slide past unnoticed.

Allowing our attention to drift in and out of the scene throughout the day rarely brings a feeling of guilt or a sense of loss, but sometimes the battle to remain fully vested in the moment is a scrap worthy of rolled up sleeves.

So, consider this treatise a public call to awareness and perk up your collective senses. No one experiences your world in the same way that you experience your world. Everyone isn’t locked into the same angle of perspective, nor are we predisposed to interpret the setting in the same way. How hopelessly mind-numbing would life be, if we all looked at ink blots and saw only cheeseburgers?

Light dances differently for each person. Shadows bring with them a myriad of depth and definition to each landscape. This speaks to our immeasurable value as individuals. Great minds don’t think alike; programmed computers do that.

What’s great about minds is that they naturally interpret things with slightly different nuances. Whereas we all share countless similarities, we are also snowflake different to an infinite degree. It’s a matter of brazen truth: no one else on the entire planet is you.

So, open your eyes and look around. Where you are and when you are is not without consequence. You bring threads to the fabric that were entrusted to no other.

Wherever you happen to be,

Be There!

Don't Forget Your Cape

"When we do the best that we can,

we never know what miracle

is wrought in our life,

or in the life of another."

¹

– Helen Keller

It’s easy to wait for someone else to step up. We come programmed with the innate ability to recognize a need or identify a challenge. And, having made use of this time-tested skill to recognize the void and evaluate the dilemma, we are more than willing to serve up our insightful commentary, speculation, and perspective.

Being involved, so long as we’re not actually involved, feels like a good place to be. We’re doing our part, fulfilling our role, setting our example. We have a voice that needs to be heard and our message is clear and simple:

Someone should do something!

Identification of the need comes easy. Sometimes, even the opinion as to what should be done to right the wrong, flows freely through our veins. Emotions swell and we are moved to pull back curtains and expose the injustice by crying, Foul. So very foul!

But what if our innate ability to identify foul was sewn within our sinew so that we might give ourselves to more than a redemptive outcry? What if our ability to identify was tied to our ability to rectify? Could it be that we instinctively recognized the void because we were also distinctively equipped to fill it?

So it is with our heroes, those who boldly wear the cape and stand in the gap. When life, as we know it, is threatened, they rise. Without respect to the thickness of the dark, they fight. Regardless the resources or crafty guile of the enemy, they answer the call. They step up. Recognizing foul running amok, they engage!

* * * * * * *

Each month the 7-Eleven Store on the corner would be fully stocked with the chronicled exploits of all my favorite heroes. I could purchase any adventure I wanted for twenty cents, plus tax. At that price, I normally took the colorfully illustrated mini magazines home in groups of four or five.

The assortment of super-beings hailed from one of two universes: Marvel or Detective Comics (DC). Each hero came with his or her own backstory as to how they evolved from mere mortal, or common-run-of-the-mill inhabitant of their home planet, into the cape-wearing, mask-donning, never-say-die superhero type.

Snazzy outfits, a never-stuck-for-an-answer vocabulary, and a treasure chest of specialized powers and intellect were all standard issue. They were a stalwart force to be reckoned with, combating evil against all odds, righting each wrong, and preserving our world at every potentially