Wherever we are in our life’s journey, there’s no substitute for the much-needed Guide.

In our life’s journey–especially when feeling we’re in a wilderness patch–sometimes it’s hard to know which road to take. Which signpost describes what we need next? Am I on the right path to keep SEARCHING? Or am I LOST? Have I been FOUND and just not know it yet?

When we’re at a crossroads, the right kind of GUIDE is such a gift and the wrong kind of GUIDE can make the journey worse, as I explained in an earlier blog.

These were some of the things I was reflecting on when I received an invitation to become a Guide in the marvelous Master Key Experience (MKE) of founders Mark and Davene Januszewski.

I had just completed the six-month annual self-discovery program that had far exceeded my expectations.

It had components I had been searching for all my life: effective daily practice of multiple good habits that stick, study of the best spiritual wisdom of 4000 years, a true master mind of like-spirited individuals from many countries and cultures, and a personal Guide to help me hone and live into my Definite Major Purpose in life.

Here are the 5 compelling reasons I said yes and became an MKE Certified Guide.

Table of Contents:
REASON 1: If not me, who?
REASON 2: Continuing the flow.
REASON 3: Someone might not make it without a Guide.
REASON 4: You learn more when you teach!
REASON 5: It is a privilege to hold someone’s dreams in your hands.
Experience your own Guide first hand

REASON 1: If not me, who?

It’s not surprising that good life Guides are hard to come by, right? Too many gifted people are still caught up in their own life’s journey to have mental and spiritual space to guide someone else.

Others have huge time commitments like childcare, eldercare, and/or long work hours in a tight economy. They just can’t see themselves taking on another time commitment. Many feel unworthy and lack self-confidence and make a judgment that they couldn’t possibly guide someone else. I struggled with all these thoughts as well.

Then I came to understand that the number of MKE Certified Guides determines how many people MKE can help each year! If each Guide is limited time-wise and energy-wise to helping a tribe of 10-25 people, then MKE will stay far from its goal of touching 3000/year incoming participants!

After what I had experienced in my own life through MKE, I wanted as many as possible to access it! If not me, who?

REASON 2: Continuing the flow.

I grew up in a devout Catholic family in a small town of 10,000 on the plains of Wyoming back in the time when grandparents brought kids to the “block rosary” once a week, whole families and all their relatives attended church together on Sunday mornings, and bits of Scripture would pop up in casual conversation. At some point in my early teens I heard this quote from Luke 12:48 and took it to heart: “Of those to whom much is given, much is required.”

In the Master Key Experience I had heard it put differently: “Give more, get more”.

I had studied Emerson’s writing on compensation and other wisdom that made it clear that this is truly how the Universe works. For total success in life, for true “affluence,” we want to be part of the flow.

I had been given much through the scholarship paid for me by someone in the previous year’s MKE class. I would never know who s/he was and could never thank them enough for the amazing life-enriching gift they had made possible for me. The very least I could do would be to continue the flow by stepping up to be an MKE Guide.

REASON 3: Someone might not make it without a Guide.

I reflected on my own rocky adventure as I had dived into the work of MKE as a participant. They had told us at the beginning we would feel like we were back in school–that this was a college level class. I’d always done well in school and had taught for many years, so I wasn’t prepared for the overwhelm I experienced in the first weeks of the class.

I just couldn’t get everything done as I had done in school, acing classes and having time for extra credit. In MKE, before good habits became as easy as breathing and I acquired an ear for the writing styles of previous centuries, I lamented not being able to get everything done every day.

Working on putting words around the Definite Major Purpose of my life took digging deep, hours of thinking and writing, and lots of draft revisions working one:one with my assigned Guide.

Mark and Davene Januszewski often remind us that “No one makes it alone.” Had I not had my assigned Guide and her team of Guide and Staff Support as well as the Master Mind of fellow participants assuring me all the time that I really was on track and reminding me to B R E A T H E, I might not have continued or found the clarity to do my best.

Luc Griffet, a long time MKE Guide who also offers the MKE in France, wrote a blog about the importance of being a Guide that impacted my thinking, too.

He describes an a-ha he himself had had while struggling mentally and physically while climbing a dangerous mountain. The mountain guide with 40 years of experience told Luc simply to watch where he, the guide, had stepped and step into his footprints till he could breathe again and regain equilibrium away from fear.

Reading this, my vision about becoming a Guide became really clear. Without a Guide someone might needlessly suffer, lose heart, fall off whatever life mountain they were on, and not get up. A Guide is “just” someone who has done the journey before and so can help someone step into his/her footsteps until they can make their own way.

From Luc’s blog he explains, “If you are an MKE guide or have been in a MKE class and have had a guide, I am sure you have noticed some strong similarities between guides on the mountain and guides in the MKE.

In the MKE, an important guide role is understanding Tribe members’ Dharma, and knowing them well enough to understand what they are looking for, and how to guide them there without interfering with their personal learning experience.

If you are a member of the MKE in the middle of your Hero’s Journey, know that your guide has your back and will help you reach the highest region you were determined to reach when you started.

For those who think that a mountain guide has a bigger responsibility toward his clients because physical death is at stake in case of mistake, consider this question.

What if an MKE member refuses the call and definitively loses the connection with his Inner Voice, his Higher Self?

Would this not be a “spiritual death”?

And which kind of death could well be the “most serious”, physical or spiritual? It’s up to each one of us to answer that question.

MKE guides cannot make themselves responsible for the decisions of members, but they can surely guide them wisely to stay always in contact with their Inner Voice!”

REASON 4: You learn more when you teach!

I’ve been a teacher most of my life, having been blessed with a mother who was a natural teacher. I learned from her to teach by asking questions, not by giving answers. This made self-discovery fun. Watching her, I knew from an early age that she was learning along with us and delighting in it.

Then in teachers’ lounges all through my career we would joke with each other that we didn’t know such-and-such subject–since we’d not taught it “yet.” You learn so much when you master something enough to teach it to others.

So I accepted the invitation to become a Guide because I knew the teacher-like experience would likely enrich me more than it would those assigned to me! Being a life-long learner, how could I refuse this path to even more and richer learning as I walked with each one assigned me, each unique and beautiful and full of life experience for me to benefit from.

REASON 5: It is a privilege to hold someone’s dreams in your hands.

Yet the rewards of being an MKE Guide go much deeper than the Guide’s growth. It is a true Privilege to hold someone’s dreams in your hands as you gently ask questions to help the writer hone the word architecture of his or her DMP to become clearer, more visual, more connected to feeling so that the subconscious can help with turning those thoughts into reality.

To know you have had the privilege of bringing a diamond to its full brilliance is profound. To hear the gratitude is humbling and oh so sweet knowing you have made literally the difference of a lifetime. We know as Guides that the best influence is no influence (on what someone else thinks) as we lightly walk a tricky path.

I try to be a guide for people, to make their darkness bright and to make the pathway light, and never to condemn or control or criticize.

Little Richard

Experience your own Guide first hand

Through the Master Key Experience–after decades of searching–I’m finally empowered with the tools of mind-mastery and collaborate with MKE Guides in a powerful MasterMind as we coach new seekers.

I’m using all seven ways we humans learn to anchor skills deep in those I guide. We gratefully realize we were not able to create breakthroughs we have longed for on our own.

So I understand if up till now you have not had something like this and have been missing out. I skimmed life, too. If you’re ready to stop skimming and to start doing the deep work that creates breakthroughs in mind-mastery, I can help you get the conditioning that will help you accept the gift of the Master Key.

I’ve been given the privilege of offering a very special free tool to help you start training your brain to think the right way. The MKE course and its scholarships happen only once a year, starting the last Sunday of September. Fortunately you can get started today by putting your name on the waiting list for the next Master Key Experience course.

When you’ve clicked to do that, the 7 DAY MENTAL DIET comes up. Download, print, read, and try it! Once you sign up, we’ll keep in touch by email, even sharing tips of what helped us to do the Diet.

Sound good? Why not check it out now? You can opt out at any time. Or you can sign up ONLY for the Diet here.

You know what they say–if not now, when? If not you, who?

No one can get the key to YOUR breakthroughs but YOU. No one can get through what’s locking that door but YOU–it’s a YOU-shaped key.

No one can make it work except YOU with the help of a Certified Guide. I wish that for you in your future.