How To Add Fun, Freedom and Contribution
To Your Already Great Life.
Blake Rockwell
Blake Rockwell did the
Landmark Forum in August 2001 after his wife, Karyn, graduated earlier that year in the spring. He was left with
amazement of how easy life actually could be and how difficult we human
beings make it, undistinguished as such.
Before the
Landmark Forum, Rockwell was already living quite a
successful life with 12 great years of careers in the banking and
investment industry, but learning what he did in the
Landmark Forum, he
began his personal inquiry to invent a new possibility for himself and
his life.
Rockwell said that he was a very deliberate, strategic and calculating
person; everything he did in his life had to be weighed out carefully.
In itself this quality was probably very desirable, but for him, after
the Landmark Forum, it showed up as missing spontaneity and fun.
Rockwell did the Landmark Education Advanced Course in New York City
right after the horrific attack of September 11, 2001 that no one knew
was coming.
He recalled the tension of that time, as many people perished and
Landmark Education lost its office in New York when the World Trade
Center was destroyed. Rockwell’s Advanced Course took place in the
Gramercy Hotel at a time of great crisis. He began to get clear about
the urgency to not take his life for granted, and to look for a cause
worthy of his passion for being alive.
Fast forward to an evening of ‘Special Spectators’ when he stood by the
kids in the middle of a mega structure in front of 80,000 people giving
a standing ovation for the gravely ill kids whose cause Rockwell
championed. As a 12-years old boy took off his hat to acknowledge the
crowd (which Rockwell knew took quite a courage, it revealed a bald head
because of chemotherapy,) the ovation rose to an incredible roar. Caught
by surprise by the deafening sound of countless clapping hands, Rockwell
was even more unprepared as he saw some big burly men wiping their
tears, deeply moved by what was happening.
At that moment Rockwell knew that he was on his way to fulfilling a new
possibility he created, for the gravely-ill kids and their families, for
himself, and for so many others in this world.
Blake Rockwell acknowledged Landmark Education and its technology for
their part in empowering him to make the difference he always wanted to
make. He invited us all, the Landmark Education graduates, to
participate with him and ‘Special Spectators’.
The Mission:
Special Spectators, a Chicago-based 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization,
creates magical days for seriously ill children and their families at
college sporting events across the United States.
Blake is a huge sports fan and got the idea to give
seriously ill children a chance to attend College Sporting Events. In
the 5 years since the project began, Special Spectators has grown to
include 40 participating colleges and universities.
From Landmark Education:
Graduate Center
Designing a Future for A Life You
Love. Graduates LIVE! Find out what our fellow graduates are up to. Breakthroughs, news,
and stories from all over the world.
At each of the events, children with serious illnesses
who would otherwise not be able to participate in sports or attend
games, are treated to an all day event.
The day includes special VIP seating, tours of the
stadium and locker rooms, visits with the players and a visit to the
field during half time in which the whole stadium cheers for them. As
the project has grown it has been covered by various newspapers and
television and radio stations.
Blake Rockwell is a stay-at-home dad, and he has become the favorite uncle of
dozens of sick children around the country.
"I have a little saying I tell myself every day," Rockwell says. "Life is not
measured by the number of breaths you take. It's the moments that take your
breath away. That's what you're trying to do. Create moments that take your
breath away.
"Yesterday's history," he adds. "Tomorrow's a mystery. Today is a gift. Live
life to the fullest. What are you going to do with that gift? I wasn't always
like that. But I am now."
If I were to wish for anything, I should
not wish for wealth and power, but for a passionate sense of what might
be, for the eye, which ever young and ardent sees the possible. Pleasure
disappoints, possibility
never. And what wine is so sparkling, what so fragrant, what so
intoxicating as possibility! Søren Kierkegaard.
