…today’s secret…A heart’s catheterization.

Cardiac catheterization is a medical procedure in which a thin tube is inserted into a patient’s wrist or groin and guided through a blood vessel to the heart.

The purpose is to diagnose and treat certain heart conditions, such as clogged arteries, valve functions, irregular heartbeats, etc.

More than one-million heart caths are performed annually in the United States.

One was recently performed on me. No worry. All good. Still able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.

As I lay on the table my cardiologist was on my right. On my left was a huge 60″ TV screen that showed my heart and that little wire running around looking for a problem to solve.

I thought, “How is it some hearts are evil and some are not? Who makes that call?”

What my cardiologist couldn’t see, nor cared about, was what I had put into my heart over the decades of living.

So, while in recovery, I started to envision the content of my heart…

There was my wife and family front and center. Lots of heart strings wrapped around them.

My core values looked old like they had been there a long time.

Tucked quietly at the back of my heart was my first grade love for Sharon Clevenger. Wonder what ever happened to her?

There was some vengeance still lurking there from the 1980s, but it was dwindling.

Couldn’t see God, but could feel him. That was interesting.

I silently asked myself “Who is really responsible for the content of a heart anyway?”

Of course, the answer was me. Or you. Or the people you have chosen to help.

We are individually the final decider of what goes in, what stays in, and what goes out.

You don’t know what content has been put in the heart of the people you are helping. Your hope is that someday they become content and at peace with what’s in their heart. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Remember, you need to win their heart and their mind will follow.

And, isn’t it interesting that the words content and content are the same word but have different meanings depending on which syllable you emphasize? CONtent. conTENT.

What CONtent are you emphasizing with them with so they may become conTENT within themselves? Self-esteem? Spirituality? Resilience? Other?

Happy Valentine’s Day.