Two authors combine to write a compelling book filled with insightful personal stories, life-changing exercises and challenging research based life principles. The goal is to learn how to dance with your personal elephant to reach a more enriched and fulfilling life, leaving a legacy that matches your creative contribution and potential destiny in the universe.
Don Calhoun has been a Memorial Counselor during the past 30 years for hundreds of people and a consultant to companies all across the North American continent. He has been a highly sought after speaker in the memorial, monument and funeral industries throughout the United States and Canada. His numerous speaking engagements, most recently centered around his forthcoming book, "How To Dance With The Elephant", have received great accolades from audiences all across the country.
Co-Author Duane Kuss has been a professional speaker, trainer and consultant across multiple disciplines. His past clients include Apple Computers, Thrifty White Pharmacy, Potlatch Corporation, the Minnesota Newspaper Association and the Journal Communications Publishing group. Duane's work with Dr. John Geier and Dr. Geier's world famous DiSC personality profiling instrument, afforded him international exposure and the chance to work authors like Harvey McKay, Michael Dowd, Connie Barlow and Grammy nominated singer/songwriter Cindy Bullens.
Dance With The Elephant (the book)
Meet Your Friend…? The Elephant In The Room
Duane:
I think the first time I can remember someone using the phrase "The Elephant In The Room" was during some group counseling sessions I participated in when I was going through my divorce. For me, at the time, the elephant stood for the fact that my wife after 2 children together, 12 years of marriage and 5 years of dating before that, decided to come out of the closet and dump me for her girlfriend on the softball team. So for me the elephant was my story of personal anguish that took me over 3 years to be able to openly talk about without trying to run or hide.
In this book, the elephant is a metaphor for many things: pleasure vs. pain, gifts vs. tragedies', heaven vs. hell, independence vs. dependence, love vs. grief and even life vs death.
For the most part, the Elephant is the unspoken emotional element in the room that is so big that you can't miss it. The Elephant in the room is always obvious and yet people choose to ignore its wisdom or message.
You will grow to see the Elephant as a paradox. You will discover how to identify with and dance with your elephant. Your elephant will teach you how to build better friendships, become more genuinely real as an individual and have the opportunity to leave the life legacy you choose for future generations.
The elephant is big, strong, hardworking, smart and wise. The elephant can be used for good, handle enormous weight and can be very productive. The elephant has the capacity for good or evil. You will learn not to ignore the elephant, but to approach, embrace and dance with it. You will learn also that the elephant has an extremely loving and positive nature.
In the Far East the elephant is a sacred animal. Elephants are used to carry leaders and are associated with royalty. The elephant is the largest animal that walks the earth and is known as a symbol of power and strength. Elephants are often seen as symbols of wisdom and dignity, because of their intelligence and their long life.
Life is not always so clear. Things are not always black and white. That is why you'll come to know the color of your elephant as shades of gray.
Don:
When an elephant is very young and small, you can easily control it by tying one of its leg to a stake with a simple rope. At this early age the rope and stake need to be strong enough to prevent the infant elephant for getting loose, though it will try and try again. But its not too long before the young elephant becomes conditioned to accept the rope and stake as a given in their life. As the elephant grows older it remains tied to the same stake that controlled it as an infant, even though the full grown elephant now could easily break the rope or pull the stake out of the ground.
When people say; "you have the memory of an elephant" they mean to imply that the individual retains almost everything they were ever taught. Are we much different than the elephant? When we grow up do we ever have the capacity to learn that we are not limited to our conditioned behaviors? Each of us has the power to break free, just like the elephant, but we become conditioned to think we can't.
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