Motivation
Adversity is a Gift
“Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for wise men say it is the wisest course.”
—William Shakespeare
You lost the election.
You bet on the wrong stock.
You missed the game winning field goal.
You fell down face first into a pile of mud.
And it hurt.
It still does sometimes.
But you weren’t meant to remain in pain.
The pain – the adversity, is an opportunity to grow, to learn, to prosper, but in the moments it happens it’s almost impossible to appreciate.
Adversity doesn’t feel good, but it carries within it a gift.
The gift of experience.
“Experience is the teacher of all things.”
—Julius Caesar
The gift may be hidden, but it’s there, waiting for you to find it, open it, & move forward – stronger, wiser, and ready for the next opportunity.
Do Your Work & Then Live
“Do your work, then step back. The only path to serenity.”
– Lao Tzu
There’s no need to expand on this simple yet profound message from Lao Tzu.
Do your work, then step back.
Enjoy the view.
Compare Less. Do more
Sometimes I scroll through social media and find myself comparing myself to famous people who seem to have “made it.”
Yes they have made it to where they are, and that’s perfect, but that’s not where our focus should be.
My focus, your focus, our focus, should remain upon our own lives, our own goals, our own dreams.
When you stop comparing and start focusing and working on improving your own life, life improves.
It takes time, but it’s worth it.
“Stay in your lane. Comparison kills creativity and joy.”
-Brene Brown
Begin Today
What are you waiting for?
How much time do you spend waiting?
Waiting for someone else to do it.
Waiting for answers.
Waiting to feel better.
I’ve spent a lot of time waiting for these things to happen until I realized it is my responsibility to make it happen.
I am in the driver’s seat of my life just as you are in the driver’s seat of your life.
We can hitchhike & wander all our lives or we can learn how to drive.
Where are you going?
What are you waiting for?
FEEL your way to SUCCESS
What does success feel like to you?
Feelings are powerful.
What we continually and strongly feel, we manifest.
So what do you want to manifest?
Begin here:
First, define success.
Second, define what success specifically means for you.
Third, dwell upon the feeling of if you already have what you defined as success.
Four, persist, believe, & remember that you will fail, but through your failures continue to remember & dwell within YOUR feeling of success.
Five, your success is dependent on you & not anyone else. Take responsibility for it.
Define success before feeling it, and be specific.
The universe responds.
Tony Robbins Free Resources
Tony Robbins knows how to bring out the best in people.
He’s been a huge source of motivation throughout my life and continues to inspire.
Two of my favorite books come from Tony — Awaken The Giant Within and Unlimited Power. He also inspired me to share his message on six human needs and why we all do what we do, here.
Tony offers a range of free resources to awaken the giant within you, inspiring action toward a more self-empowered life, as they have done for me. Find them on his site here.
“We can change our lives.
We can do, have, and be exactly what we wish.”
– Tony Robbins
“The Chinese Bamboo Tree” Parable By Les Brown
In the far East they have something called The Chinese Bamboo Tree.
The Chinese Bamboo Tree takes five years to grow.
They have to water and fertilize the ground where it is every day,
and it doesn’t break through the ground until the fifth year.
But once it breaks through the ground,
within 5 weeks it grows 90 feet tall.
Now the question is does it grow 90 feet tall in 5 weeks or 5 years?
The answer is obvious.
It grows 90 feet tall in five years.
Because at any time if had that person stopped watering, and nurturing, and fertilizing that tree, that bamboo tree would have died in the ground.
And I can see people coming out talking to a guy out there watering and fertilizing the ground that’s not showing anything,
“Hey, whatcha doing? You’ve been out here a long time, man. And the conversation in the neighborhood is…You growin a Chinese Bamboo Tree, is that right??”
“Yea that’s right”
“Well even Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder can see ain’t nothing showin.”
You know that’s how people are gonna do you:
“So how long have you been working on this? How long have you been working on your dream? And you have nothing to show? This is all you got to show???”
People gonna do that to you.
And some people ladies and gentleman, they stop.
Because they don’t see instant results.
It doesn’t happen quickly.
They stop, oh no, no, no, no…
You’ve got to keep on watering your dreams
And when it begins to happen, they stop laughing.
They say “Look, whoa, look here, it’s, look up, hey man you know I knew you could do it, look, you got a job here?”
See during those hard times you didn’t know how you’re gonna make payroll, during those times when you failed and things didn’t work out, they were nowhere to be found.
You know what I discovered, when you’re working at your dream, somebody said “the harder the battle, the sweeter the victory.”
Oh it’s sweet to ya. It’s good to ya, why?
See when it’s hard and there’s a struggle, see what you become in the process is more important than the dream.
That’s far more important.
The kind of person you become, the character that you build, the courage that you develop, the faith that you’re manifesting.
Oh it’s something that you get up in the morning, you look yourself in the mirror, you’re a different kind of person, you walk with a different kind of spirit.
People know that you know what life is. That you have embraced life.
You knew it was hard, but you did it hard.
17 Motivational Quotes to Keep You Going
1) Do not wait; the time will never be ‘just right.’ Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.
—George Herbert
2) When obstacles arise, you change your direction to reach your goal; you do not change your decision to get there.
—Zig Ziglar
3) Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.
—Ambrose Redmoon
4) Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny.
—C.S. Lewis
5) Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough.
—Og Mandino
6) Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success.
—Dale Carnegie
7) When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.
— Elon Musk
8) The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.
—Confucius
9) The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.
—Rob Siltanen
10) Imagine your life is perfect in every respect; What would it look like?
—Brian Tracy
11) Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.
—Steve Jobs
12) We generate fears while we sit. We overcome them by action.
— Henry Link
13) Energy and persistence conquer all things.
—Benjamin Franklin
14) For every reason it’s not possible, there are hundreds of people who have faced the same circumstances and succeeded.
—Jack Canfield
15) Infuse your life with action. Don’t wait for it to happen. Make it happen. Make your own future. Make your own hope. Make your own love. And whatever your beliefs, honor your creator, not by passively waiting for grace to come down from upon high, but by doing what you can to make grace happen… yourself, right now, right down here on Earth.
—Bradley Whitford
16) Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.
— Robert Louis Stevenson
17) A winner is a dreamer who never gives up.
—Nelson Mandela
With Ken Thompson 