Sky diving is an intense experience. Standing on the wing at 10,000 feet, and realizing that there was no way I could climb back in, that was a moment. This experience is one of many from my younger years. Flying trapezes, race car driving, walking on fire, cliff jumping, these are all some of the many things I have done to create an intense "buzz" in my life. This buzz helped me feel alive, and in some ways supported my love of learning.

When I was thirteen, my parents sent me to Israel for one of those “all good Jewish boys visit to the Holy Land” kind of trips, where I learned to see the gift of our birth could be seen as a gold bar representing our connection with God. The bars are often differently wrapped--Christmas, Hanukah, Ramadan, Kwanza--but the gift is always the same.

We are mostly space. "Mostly" as in 99.999% space. The chair you are sitting in and the computer you are looking at may seem like hard-edged objects against your skin, but at the molecular level the boundaries are non-existent. All matter is permeable and ever changing with no atomic difference between animate and inanimate. The energy between our atoms is what gives us the sense of existence.

I remember my first miracle. I was about seven at the time. My uncle, who was a dental student, had made me a small gold initial ring, cast from wax, and measured to my finger. It was his way of practicing working with wax casting and gold. Because I loved my uncle and this was a very special gift, the ring became my most prize possession. One day, while in my backyard, I looked down to discover the ring had somehow slipped from my finger. I was horrified. . .

I’ve been thinking recently about what I need to stop chasing so that it will now chase me. Physics calls this "creating a field of allurement". Every atom has an energetic charge, and it's this charge that creates a sense of mass. Amazingly we are 99.999% space. So what makes us seem solid? The energy that "holds" our atoms together. Since all energy either has a positive or negative charge, i.e. attracts or repels, "creating a field of allurement" means to set the charge in a way that will bring what we want closer. We do this through our intentions.

Martin Buber, the great Jewish theologian said, "There are three principles in a man's being and life. The principle of thought, the principle of speech, and the principle of action. The origin of all conflict between me and my fellow men is that I do not say what I mean and I don't do what I say."

Holding creative tension refers to the ability to stay with the discomfort of the moment—the tension—rather than moving into premature action, emotional withdrawal, or a state of paralysis born from fear. When we can stay in the moment of discomfort, it is often where deep change occurs. Management theorist Peter Senge says, “Creative tension comes from seeing clearly where we want to be, our ‘vision,’ and telling the truth about where we are, our ‘current reality.’"