Adam Lamb ~ The gift of Possibility, Surprise and Expansion

~ Adam Lamb ~

The gift of Possibility, Surprise and Expansion

If we're sitting here a year from now celebrating what a great year it's been for you, what achievement are we celebrating together?

The successful launch of www.inspiredmasculine.com and its annual ‘Family of Man Festival™’ in Ireland. I’m really juiced about this right now; it’s for anyone who identifies as masculine, whether they were born that way or not.

The Inspired Masculine Alliance is a project that will center around a virtual community to start with but will expand to include a physical community as well. The Center will facilitate men’s grief, inspire and encourage men to re-engage their emotional lives and assist in creating a modern mythological narrative for the masculine spirit that includes rites of passage & initiation for young men and a cooperative initiative of doing things together – passing knowledge and skills down from one generation to another like The Men’s Shed Project in Australia & Ireland

When have you been most satisfied in your life?

When I’m engaged in a creative vortex, gone all in with whatever I’m working on at the time.

Tell me about yourself.

First and foremost I am a Father, Son, Brother & Loving Partner

I’m a story teller; alternatively I am a professional chef, poet, speaker, radio show host, professional culinary coach and am very passionate about assisting men, both young & old to create joyful, vulnerable, conscious, connected lives.

Who is your role model or hero, and why? Give 3 reasons you choose that person.

While I believe that everyone ultimately is their own hero, I recognize the value in modeling behavior of someone inspiring before one can connect with, and be guided by, their own connection to source.

Some of the people who inspire me right now because of their authenticity and dedication to their own truth are: Jacob Norby, Robert Bly, Martin Prechtel, Russel Brand & Joe Rogan

What things do you not like to do?

I’m getting really clear on things that I may not be good at yet, but as of late I’m more focused on what there is to do – and doing it, coming from a place of neutrality rather than whether I like to do it or not.

That, and mowing grass…..hate mowing grass

Tell me about a project or accomplishment that you consider to be the most significant in your career.

Of my life I am proudest of my children, of the kind of people that they have become by their own choices

Career wise - high points are: publishing my first book of poetry, launching Brigade Radio & Yo Bro! Radio, building a coaching practice and being accepted to present a workshop at the American Culinary Federation’s ChefConnect Conference in Atlanta this coming March in 2016 called, ‘Be a Better Chef – The Top Ten Attributes of Aspirational Leadership’

One of my proudest moments came in 2011 when I got to work again with a guy whom I had hired 20 years ago as my Sous Chef, Greg Barnhill– only this time I was his Sous Chef. Over the course of that year and a half I was allowed the opportunity to fall back in love with the reason I had gotten into the culinary field in the first place, the professionals – both young and old who inhabit our kitchens.

After 25 years in the business I finally had the space to get into relationship with the 110 culinary team members who made up The Omni Homestead, creating – for the most part – harmony & synergy in a very diverse team and in the doing so became a much better chef

Tell me how...

What's your spirit animal?

Although I completely connect with the Otter lifestyle, playful, raucous, hedonistic, my true spirit animal is The Owl – the seeker of truth just beyond the illusion

What's your superpower?

My superpower is that I can see from 15,000 feet systems and processes around product creation & delivery that may or may not be working, and what to do about them, co-creatively.

There’s also some good juju around communication, both written & oral, where I can completely lose myself in the telling and tap into the source from where all the great tales are told

Tell me about a time when… (I knew something had to change)

After being fired from a great job, I found myself on a Caribbean island where I had to face all my addictions, to adrenaline, regret and the pain pills which had become my lasting friend after two back surgeries.

I wrapped myself in a blanket and sweated out for two days.

While I had gotten past the physical addiction I then decided to send home the woman who had shared my life for the last three years so that I could address my emotional addictions.

I then took out a resume, removed the job descriptions and wrote in who I had been involved with, the major life incidents that had taken place during those time periods and what I had made up in my heart and mind about life & love because of those occurrences.

The patterns became so clear to me that I could not ignore them any longer nor deny how I had managed or coped with those changes in my life. It was a sobering and life altering moment.

I committed to making different choices and decided to do what needed to be done however distasteful it may seem to me; summoning the courage to have the hard conversations with those I love and to finally admit responsibility for my choices.

I burned the list in a coconut shell and finally released my emotional attachments; letting go of the remorse, regret and hopelessness that anything could ever change with it

From that choice point, that nexus in time, has come my current life’s direction

We're constantly making things better, faster, smarter or less expensive. We leverage technology or improve processes. In other words, we strive to do more--with less. Tell me about a recent project or problem that you made better, faster, smarter, more efficient, or less expensive.

I’m becoming less and less enamored with efficiency in favor of fluidity and that sometimes means slowing down in order to catch up. A lot of my current work is around building fluid systems and processes and I need to be careful not to be captivated by their elegance because it’s easy to let them be more important that the human element so slowing down to do face to face training becomes the de facto way of speeding things up facilitating understanding and clarity

The closest thing we have to face to face, especially with team members all over the world, is join.me which I’ve found to be a very powerful tool for video conferencing and screen sharing – there’s something quite powerful about being able to see and hear a person in real time that helps to bridge any confusion or misunderstandings that are the inherent risk in other, less personal technologies

What can’t you live without?

Music; it’s the easiest & quickest access point for me to collapse the ‘little me’ into a sense of awe and wonder at the immensity of imagination of the human spirit

So, (Adam), what's your story?
Wonder boy grows up believing anything is possible, plays with everything until, at age 16, he gets accused of an act that he didn’t commit; decides to make everyone right about their belief of him, loses himself to the dark side of sex, drugs & rock n roll. A functional shadow he marries, has children, goes out for happy hour at 32 and wakes up at 41 with a hangover. Two more failed marriages later, not knowing if or where he fits in in the world he is finally asked a question so powerful that it shatters the illusion of who he thought he was, assisting him to re-write the story of his life into one of forgiveness, compassion and love – for himself and for those he has shared his life with.

Free of the past, his life becomes one of possibility, surprise and expansion, in each moment.

Would you like to share something personal or vulnerable?

I recognized lately that I have a well of grief in me that has gone unexpressed and that it affects all of my relationships. If I am to live free and clear in this moment – and be who I truly am at this point in my life – then I get to grieve over the man I once thought I would become, the father that I could have been, say goodbye to the professional, artist and lover that I once believed was important for me to become and through that ‘ritual’ come to peace with the man I really am.

Tell us about a time when things didn't go the way you wanted-- like a promotion you wanted and didn't get, or a project that didn't turn out how you had hoped

I’m pretty clear that every time that things didn’t go my way - they were; I only needed to change my perspective……every perceptively bad thing that has ever happened to me became, in time, a blessing

Except for the rash I got that one time in the Philippines……no redeeming quality in that at all….(In case you were wondering, that was a joke, I have never been to the Philippines)

What is your favorite quote?

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” ~ Soren Kierkegaard

Find Adam Lamb

Yo Bro! Radio

Yo Bro! Radio ~ Awakening Radio for MEN

Yo Bro! Radio has come into being because men have heard the call and felt the stirring in their spirits for something more in their lives - a source of honest, straightforward conversation about some of the most confusing aspects of being a man in today's society.

Yo Bro! Radio is the answer to why being a man means so much more than the masculine identity that we've inherited from our fathers, mentors, coaches and the media.

Listen in to find out what the evolution of all we know now is leading to......your Bro - Adam

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