Far too often, people think they are special because they come from a special situation like a royal family, or have an exceptional talent that makes them different and better. It’s not what you say or where you come from that makes you special.
The truth is this:
You are not special because of who you are but what you do.
You become special through your actions. By what you do. Every day, day in and day out. Your actions define who you are and the person you will become.
Steve “Pre” Prefontaine was one of the greatest runners of all time. He had epic quotes that inspired me all my life. Here are a few:
To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.
It’s not who’s the best – it’s who can take the most pain.
“Somebody may beat me, but they are going to have to bleed to do it.”
“I do it because I can, I can because I want to, I want to because you said I couldn’t.”
I’m going to work so that it’s a pure guts race at the end, and if it is, I am the only one who can win it.
A lot of people run a race to see who is the fastest. I run to see who has the most guts, who can punish himself into exhausting pace, and then at the end, punish himself even more.
You should have a dream, but dreams are very low probability by definition. You should also have a plan. Have a dream and a plan. If a dream is less than 1% chance of accomplishing it, a plan is greater than 80% chance of accomplishing it.
-Steve Young’s dad
Good advice from Steve Young’s dad. Steve dreamed of being an NFL player, but he also had a backup plan to be a lawyer if that fell through. He actually went to law school while he was in the NFL.
Life moves quickly. Years can slip by unnoticed. Unless you are consciously pushing yourself, you may find with regret that you have squandered some of the best years of your life.
I try to imagine myself at 80, hanging out with my grandkids. What stories will I tell? What life did I live? Imagining that makes me want to take advantage of the time I have now as a younger man to live the life that’s worth telling in the future.
A slightly different idea in the same vein: I have a recurring reminder on my calendar: Goal setting for what it will make of you to achieve it. Set your goals big so the journey improves
Don’t let the years go by in unremarkable routine. Do crazy things. Take risks. Have fun. Make memories. Create stories. Life your life so you have great stories that you’re proud of in the end.
Here are some good quotes capturing this idea:
“The memories of a man in his old age; Are the deeds of a man in his prime.” – Roger Waters, Pink Floyd
“If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead, either write something worth reading or do things worth writing.” – Benjamin Franklin
Discipline is the path to accomplishment. With discipline, you can accomplish anything. Without it, accomplishment will always be out of reach.
Here’s a great quote on discipline from none other than Mike Tyson:
Discipline is doing what you hate to do, but doing it like you love it.
You can be a professional athlete and get one injury and lose everything.
You can have millions of dollars and get robbed and lose everything.
The only thing people can’t take from you with your mind and your experience. That is the true foundation upon which everything is built. If you have a strong foundation and lose everything, you can always rebuild.
Anything worth doing is worth doing right. In the same vein, the way you do anything is the way you do everything. You can be a person of excellence. Or you can cut corners here and there trying to do the minimal possible when “it doesn’t matter.” We have all done this–especially me just trying to GSD (“get stuff done”). The challenge here is it can be a slippery slope. It can be very hard to differentiate when you really need to do something right and when you can cut corners. It’s okay, you tell yourself, I just need to get this done. And next thing you know many things that should be done excellently are “just getting done.” If you can, it’s better to pride yourself on excellence. It will build your confidence and everyone around you will see the quality of your work. It will make a difference.
For a little more encouragement, you should realize that you will pay for things now or pay for them later. You end up paying for them one way or another. And usually when it’s later, you pay a much higher price. You can take the time to oil your bicycle chain once a month. It takes a few minutes and some oil, so you have to pay the small price. But if you don’t pay it now, you’ll end up paying much more later when you have to replace the entire chain (and probably the sprockets that rusted to the chain).
