Earlier today, two of my best friends here in Dallas drove to East Texas. Took them about an hour to get out there. The purpose of the trip was to visit Texas Best Choices Animal Rescue. They drove out there in hopes of finding a puppy or two for themselves. Their two dogs passed away in the last two years. One of them passed away about 18 months ago, the other one is just about a year ago. The time had come that now they’re ready to have dogs in their life again, and to have little puppies running around their house.

They drove all the way out to East Texas, took an hour-long drive to check out these dogs, and lo and behold, they came home with two dogs. Beautiful little puppies about 11 or 12 weeks old. One of them is named Bear, the other one’s Bandit. They’re just so much fun. I’ve gotten a chance to go over to their house, see the puppies and play with the puppies. They’re just so cute.

It’s so wonderful that they took it upon themselves to rescue the two puppies rather than go to the mall or whatever other alternatives there may have been. I think it’s a wonderful thing when people take it upon themselves to rescue dogs that nobody had the heart or the care to keep or take care of themselves.

This brings up the question I have for you tonight: Who are you going to rescue? Who is the first person in your life that you’re going to rescue? Or let me ask it a different way. Who is the first person in your life that you need to rescue? I’ll give you a hint.

It’s you.

There’s not a single person on this planet that doesn’t need some level of rescuing. Even the most ascended beings on this planet need to continue to work on themselves. They need some level of personal rescue.

Let me give you an example of one such ascended person. Ram Dass, a name that was given to him by his Indian Guru, was born Richard Alpert and was closely associated with Timothy Leary in their days together at Harvard. Watching the documentary Ram Dass Fierce Grace, you will learn bit about his earlier life, and how he came to be Ram Dass. Largely the movie is focused on him is since he had a stroke. Or in his words, since he was stroked. I love that, because he’s putting a different spin on it, making it something that’s more accessible.

What you find out through the documentary is that even somebody like him, that by all accounts was a pretty conscious dude, this is a person that had his stuff together. Then he had a stroke, and the universe, has a way of letting him know that he still has things to work on. In his mind, the way he frames it is, it’s about doing the work to lead the path for other people. Now that’s a true leader. Someone that recognizes their own difficulties and uses themselves as a way to cut a path. First rule of leadership is that leaders go first.

Let’s get back to the reality of you and I. You need to rescue is yourself first. You know what your issues are. I’m sure many of us talk about them every single day or we’re talking to ourselves about them, and we need to be rescued from those thoughts. Those limiting beliefs, those things that stop us from reaching the greatness that we were put here on this planet for.

I put it out to you, now that you know who you need to rescue first, figure it out. Make a plan, find people that can help you. Find a coach, a personal development book, audio book or videos on YouTube. Find ways to get to the other side. To start peeling the onion back. When you start doing that, you’ll feel lighter and lighter, and maybe someday, you’ll be blessed to be in the position of Ram Dass and be shown another path to cut and lead people.