To day I am going to talk about my three most favorite quotes that I have heard and have inspired me throughout my life. It is always nice to have a few good quotes saved on your phone; somewhere that you can look at when you are feeling down, or if you have to get some work done and need a little motivation to keep you going. These are my top three and I hope that they can help you, or help you find others that relate to you.
My first quote that I look at probably the most is one by Albert Einstein and it is "Iin the middle of difficulty lies opportunity" the reason that I think this quote is so great is because of the message behind it. This quote shows that when you are in the toughest of times and things don't seem to be going your way, that there is always a way that you can make or get something out of it. In the middle of your hardest times is when you are going to be able to see what kind of person you are and how much your success is worth to you. This quote helps you realize that no matter how bad things are or even if there is nothing that even looks close to success but if you keep pressing and you keep pushing Then one day is going to be your day. My second quote that I personally love is "whether you think you can or think you can't you're right" by Henry Ford. This quote shows how powerful the mind is and how you view things can change the way things happen in real life. This quote tells us that if you say that you can't do something, and if you tell yourself that you are not good enough to accomplish something; then you will never ben able to do whatever that thing is. If you tell yourself that you can do something and that you are good enough to do something, then you will most likely be able to do that. The way that you view yourself is one of the biggest driving forces in the decision of success or failure. Last but not least my third favorite quote is by Ernest Hemingway and it states "when you stop doing things for fun you might as well be dead" I like this quote a lot for many reasons and I think it is true on so many levels. For me the whole point in life is to be happy, so everything that I do should be around making myself happy. If you do this then you will always be successful in life. You should always be working towards what will make you the most happy. Doing this will insure that you are always on the right path. This blog post I am going to talk about something that most people don’t really want you to do. Most people try to keep you away from doing this, but I believe that it might be one of the most important parts of living. What I am talking about is about breaking the rules.
In life we have all these unspoken rules about everything that everyone subconsciously accepts about life. We all think about how we do things from day to day. We think about how we talk to people, how we say things, how we think of things, and how we express those thoughts. We all have some predetermined way of how society should be and act, but what I am saying is that you need to break the rules and express yourself how you want to be seen. Express yourself in a way that will change the world to where you want it. You have to find what is going to make you the most happy and what you truly want to do. In the end you have to realize that you are the only person that matters, you are the only one that can control how you feel, you are the only one that can make yourself truly happy. If you want to be great in life you have to break the rules. I’m not telling you to break the law, but break the rules. If someone tells you that you can’t do something or that no one has done something like it before it should fire you up and make you keep want to do that thing more. You need to think outside the box to accomplish the things that have never been done before. Never be afraid to throw caution to the wind when trying to achieve your greatest potential in life. Tonight I am bringing to you a story that is very touching in many ways. This is a story that shows how far we have come as a species and also the good that we can do for people. This is a story of a man that has gone completely blind in both eyes and hasn’t seen is wife, kids, or grandkids in over 10 years.
A 68 year old man lost his sight to a rare disease that destroys vision and completely went blind. After he went blind all doctors said that there was nothing that could be done to fix his eyes and he almost lost all hope. Until one day when they had contacted him that they had a device that might allow him to see again. He had to go through an operation to get an implant onto his optic nerve. This was a very risky operation but he still went through with it because to him the risk was worth it. After he got the operation he used a special pair of glasses that sent information to the chip that was imbedded into his eye and he was able to see. He was not able to see in perfect vision but he was able to see some detail. Though the picture that he was getting wasn’t great he said that it was not hard to spot his wife because “she’s the most beautiful one in the room.” This is a very touching story about how we were able to give a person the ability to enjoy the beauty of the greatest sense of the body. This story also shows the potential of the new technologies that we are creating and what we can do to help people that have lost so much. This story touched my heart and also gives me hope for the future and all the potential good that will come from great inventors and innovators that are trying to create a better world. Last week I talked about how the biggest enemy of greatness is good. Settling for less than what you wanted at first for something that is just good enough is the worst thing anyone could possibly do. This is because when you settle on anything you are practically giving up on yourself. You are giving up on your dreams, aspirations and goals that have driven you to get. all of the: work, time, effort, blood, tears and just plain faith all brings you to these moments when you are offered something that would seem satisfying but instead you turn it down because you know that there is something bigger and better out there for you. On your journey to greatness and success you will be tested; but it is these types of moments that will define you. At these times you must think of your why: What is the reason that you started, why have you worked so hard, and why is it so important to you? These are the things the questions that you have to be asking yourself during the herd times. You have to find what thoughts, what ideas, and what beliefs will keep you in the game. What will keep you from giving up on what you and keep you from settling for less than what you truly want? Once you find this thing or things that can keep you going you will then go farther than you ever thought you could possibly go.
There was a girl at the age of fourteen that had an idea in her head to create something useful for people. When she was fourteen she created a website for girls to gossip on and turned into a big hit. Not long after the creation of this website thousands of people were using it and was generating quite a bit of money for her. The website continued to grow and showed large potential for becoming as successful as Facebook and other social media websites. She began to get a lot of attention over her website and was offered 2 million dollars to give away the rights to the websites. She saw the potential in her website and promptly turned the offer down. Her website now brings in around $750,000 a month which is about 9 million dollars a year! This story shows how a girl that had an idea and aspiration to do something, and when she was confronted with an offer that seemed to be really good for the situation she realized that there was somewhere else she wanted to be. Once she understood that there was more for her she kept pushing and didn’t settle for what seemed to be at the time a good deal. On one’s journey towards their dream, towards their greatness, what is the biggest enemy of achieving this greatness? Most would say the biggest distraction, or enemy of greatness is fear, failure, or insecurity; the answer however is what is acceptable as good. On the way to a dream, or what one would consider greatness, there are always going to be many obstacles; obstacles of all types, and of all seizes. Most of these will be points at which a person may fail, or doubt themselves; but the points at which most people will fail along the way is when something good comes along. People may be well on their way to something great, but as soon as something good comes along that they might be satisfied with, suddenly they lose track of what the greatness is, and they settle. It is this good thing that deters more people from achieving true happiness than any amount of failure or defeat.
For example, take a person who wants to buy their dream car, a car that has everything that they have ever wanted or thought up so they decide to save up for it. They may stumble along the way with their job, or with minor problems that they encounter, and so the date at which they will be able to purchase this car will inevitably be postponed; but setbacks are going to occur it is inevitable. These setbacks however are just that, they are setbacks; they are not the end all end all that will ultimately ruin that dream of greatness of owning their dream car. But say one day after they have saved up almost enough money to purchase this dream car, they see another great car it is gorgeous, fast, and luxurious. Now they have a large amount of money saved up, they can keep waiting for this car that they have been saving up for, or they can have this really nice car right now. So let’s decide that they buy the really nice car, they now have a good car, and that’s what that car is its good. They were on their way to something great; and just because they saw something good and settled on that now all of that hard work and hard earned money that they had saved p for their dream car is gone, and they still do not own the dream car. It is not because something bad happened to them, or they failed at something; they have a nice care. That being said, they don’t have their dream car, that one that had everything they ever wanted, the one that is perfect for them. All of this is because they saw something that was good and they settled on that when if they could have held it out just a little bit longer they could have had something great. The moral of this example is that while on your own personal journey towards your dream or whatever you think is great, don’t settle for good. Don’t settle for anything less that that greatness that you had originally set out for, because that’s where the great becomes separated from the good. Greatness is what is reserved for those of us who can push the extra mile and push those couple more inches, for those who cant there is good. Everyone when they are young has a dream, something that they want to be or accomplish. Whether that dream is to be a firefighter, astronaut, race car driver, or pro football player (go Cowboys!) we all had these dreams. Unfortunately for most of us somewhere along the way of life we lose the vision of being these great things. Most of us talk ourselves out of greatness and achievement by listening to all the mental doubts. We convince ourselves that we can’t do something or that it’s going to be too hard. We let people say that we are not good enough, not smart enough, too small, too weak to do what we want. Why? Why do we let ourselves get held back and brought down by the negative thoughts of others? If you listen to the negative/nonconstructive thoughts of others then you will start to think the same way. When people can’t do something themselves they try to tell you that you can’t do it and if you believe them then you won’t be able to do whatever that something is. Like I have said before your success relies so much on your opinion of yourself. One of my favorite quotes is from an old African proverb that says “If there is no enemy within then the enemy outside can do us no harm.” What this quote is saying is that if you don’t doubt yourself then the opinions and circumstances of others will not affect you.
I want to talk about someone who never gave up on himself even after a terrible accident. Brian Kolfage was an airman for the military and was stationed at the Balad Air Base in Iraq. After two weeks of being stationed here an enemy rocket exploded just a few feet away from Brian; this explosion left him with only his non-dominant left arm to live the rest of his life with. The injuries were so bad that he was reported to be the most severely wounded Airman to survive any war. Even through this extremely traumatic event he stayed confident in himself and looked for something that he could do rather than giving up on himself. Brian enrolled in the University of Arizona’s College of Architecture as soon as he could, the University of Arizona’s College of Architecture is one of the most competitive programs in the U.S. Brian currently holds a 3.8 GPA and hopes to “revolutionize military architecture.” Brian stated “I lost my legs, but I have my head, my brain. I can do everything I did before mentally.” You should always believe in yourself and always keep you aim high, Never let yourself settle for less than what you want. As you can see in the amazing story of Brian Kolfage if you never lose your drive to be great then you can accomplish amazing things. This week I am going to talk about the biggest reason for why we do not act upon our dreams. This is the reason that many of us settle for less than what we deserve. This is one of the greatest powers in the world and this is the power of "FEAR".
Fear is the greatest reason why people don’t achieve their goals and stop trying to go further. Fear is said to be the most subtle and most destructive diseases that the human race has. Fear can kill your dreams, Fear can kill hope, Fear can hold you back from doing something that you really want to do. Fear can paralyze you from doing something that you know you can do, but for some reason you are just stopped because of you mental doubts. Fear is so powerful that it even puts people in the hospital! The thing that most people are afraid of is the fear of failure, it is the fear that you won’t be able to do something and will not be able to get back up after. This irrational fear of failure leads me to ask the question “Why?” Why are we afraid? Why do we let these thoughts hold us back? What is the benefit of being afraid of our dreams? The only answer that I have been able to find is that there is no benefits to letting fear stop you;being afraid and holding back will only stop your success. Fear is why we have people doing jobs that they don’t want to do but still get up every day and do it. These people would spend there life doing something that they don't want rather than getting over their fears and becoming truly successful. Even though fear can hold us back it can also be the greatest power we have to achieve success. If you don’t let fear hold you back it can push you further than you ever thought possible and into places you will never thought you could go. If you take fear every day and accept that it will never hold you back then it will open doors for you where there were only walls before. If you fear something use that fear to drive you to go to the next level. If you can do this then your fear becomes a part of your prize and a part of your success. You are able to stand above all others and keep looking forward because you won’t let fear hold you back. I would like my viewers to leave in the comments what their dreams are and what they truly want to become in life. Thank you very much it means a lot to me! This week I would like to get back on to what I would like to be our regular schedule and tell another inspiring story. One of the greatest feelings in my life is being able to make someone smile; knowing that I am the reason that someone else is happy makes me the happiest person in the world. When I am able to wake up and make someone’s day better that is what makes me feel truly successful in life. I believe that you should always be trying to make someone’s life better no matter what.
It is this thinking that makes me want to bring you this story about a person that just wanted to make other peoples day better. There was a woman in her 60’s that was going through a drive through and paid for the car behind her. She just thought that it was a nice act that could help make someone happy, but what she didn't realize was that it would turn into a big event. After she paid for the person behind her that person was touched by her kindness and did the same thing for the people behind them; over 750 people later people were still participating in this very simple act of kindness. Most people seem to think that it is big acts of selflessness that make the difference, but truly it is the small things that make you smile that life worth living. It is the simple every day acts of kindness that shows that there is a lot more good in this world than bad. This example of a single person doing one kindness that set in motion a chain of events that brought out the goodness in over 750 people. This week I would like you to be the reason that another person smiles. The last Time I posted I talked about why inspiration is so important. I know that I said that I would try and post an inspirational story every week, but I think that the point I am trying to make is imperative to this blog. That being said I would like to take this post to continue what I was saying on my last post.
Having inspiration affects every single part of our lives and how we approach things. I strongly believe that what you get out of anything all depends on your attitude going into it. If you approach a problem or situation thinking that there is no way that it could end well then you have already failed; you are losing the battle before you even start fighting. what people need to understand that being successful in life is all about having the proper belief system in who you are. You must believe that you are something special in your field of work. If you do this then you will begin to have a different attitude about everything. You will start to hold yourself differently, see things differently, speak in a more convincing tone, and will be an all-around more relatable person. You must be able to keep this composure even when facing your biggest problems. The only way that you are going to be able to accomplish this is to believe that you are better than the moment; you can handle whatever it is that’s thrown at you and will always keep moving in a positive direction. Your time in life is extremely limited so you need to ensure that you don’t waste a minute of it. You need to make sure that what work you are doing is what you want and not what others want. You can’t let yourself be trapped by the thinking of others and instead you must block everyone else out instead of letting the opinions of others take away from your own. Your work is going to take up a large part of your life and the only way to be satisfied with yourself is to do great work, and the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you don’t know what that is yet keep looking; don’t give up and never settle for anything less; always follow your heart because somehow it already knows what you truly want to be in life. Never give up on your dreams because your dreams are what make life worth living. |