There is something I’ve seen that is so painful to me that I can’t keep silent about it anymore.
It’s seeing somebody who has all the potential and opportunity to achieve their goals and ambitions — whether it’s growing their practice, achieving some financial goal, accomplishing some personal development goal, or anything else — and seeing them do nothing to realize that potential.
It’s difficult for me because I see the good in people, and I know what’s possible. I’m living proof of this. I grew up through a very difficult upbringing. I grew up poor, saw struggle with my own eyes, and worked my way out of that.
Seeing other leaders that have every opportunity to make life better for themselves and everyone around them, sit there and not even take notes — that’s what’s painful to see.
If they’re learning new information, it’s just going in one ear and out the other. They think through osmosis that somehow they will hear this and then they will then do something next week. But then the next week comes and they get busy. Then a week goes by, and a month goes by, and a year goes by, and they look back and they’re in the exact same place.
What a miserable, depressing place to be.
Look, if you’ve gotten to a point in your life where you’re good, everyone’s taken care of, and you can do whatever you want — you’re not in a point where you’re struggling or anything like that — then by all means, balance is earned.
But if you are struggling, and if the people in your life are struggling, and if your team is struggling — if you’re asking yourself, “How am I going to make the payroll? How am I going to be able to put food on the table and take care of my family?”
If you are worried about these types of things and you’re not doing everything in your power to take action and make your situation better, shame on you.
Maybe to an extent we get what we deserve, but the optimist in me always wants people to come to those realizations. Because man, life is pretty great and fulfilling when you’re actually growing and developing and improving. When you’re becoming more valuable, and your capabilities increase. You gain confidence. You’re able to exercise courage. You get damn proud of yourself.
Most people never truly win that way. They stop three feet from gold, and as a result, they never get that feeling.
At some point, I think that after enough time stopping three feet from gold, you basically resign yourself and accept the fact that your life will be mediocre. That is a hard place to be, because the only person you;ve got to answer to at the end of the day — the person who knows you the most, and the one you go to bed with every night — is you.
When we all perish from this earth, we all get to meet our maker. Imagine you get an opportunity to meet the person you could have become. How close will who you are be to who you could have become?
Imagine you do everything in your power to grow and develop amazing capabilities to make a huge impact on this world and make a huge impact on all the people around you, and that day comes and you meet the person you could have become…and it’s the same person you are.
That’s what I want for everyone in this life.
