Be Prepared!
By failing to prepare, we are preparing to fail. – Benjamin Franklin
The point has certainly been made that many of us do not have any idea what it is that we really want and how important it is to sit still and write down some clear goals. However, once that exercise has been completed, the next challenge is do we really have the courage to properly prepare and to take advantage of opportunity when it arises! Many dwellers of the “sideline” of life tend to marvel at the accomplishments of overachievers, but are they really any different from you? Consider Tiger Woods…sure he has some natural ability to swing a golf club, but his preparation for success is very well documented. Images of Tiger playing golf as a child with his father are incessant. His physical workouts are also well documented and obvious from his appearance versus the majority of his competition. Read any golf digest and you will find how he is usually one of the first to arrive at the range and one of the last to leave. Yet you’ll still sit there on your couch and call him a golf genius, a phenom! Why not give credit to his incredible preparedness, his tireless pursuit of improvement!! I’ll argue you don’t because that might make you actually look in the mirror and come face to face with our own reality…you don’t really want to do what it takes to get what you really want. I’m not trying to beat you up, rather I want you to realize that you can achieve at a much greater level than you are at this very moment.
If you want MORE out of your job, family, body, spirit then you must begin to prepare! I have said many times that little distinctions make enormous differences. Take for instance the Chinese divers in the Olympics. They seem so much younger than their competitors yet always perform incredibly well. Why? Because their preparedness is legendary! …but isn’t it just the same thing…don’t I already know how to dive, to play golf, to sing, to trade stocks, to sell real estate! Yes it is the same thing, but the distinctions are infinite. Because we have become accustomed to instant gratification we are lazy, less diligent, quickly bored. So how do you break the chain…how do you get your dream? First figure out what it is! Then roll up your sleeves and get to work. Stop kidding yourself and think that anyone successful got there overnight…okay so maybe the lottery gave a small percentage of the population a big bag of loot, but that’s not even remotely close to what I’m speaking about! I’m talking about that incredible feeling you get when you know you worked hard for something and then got it…you know what I’m talking about…maybe you have to go back to school days to remember, but I’m sure you can. Think back…remember how in that moment you could not be stopped…you worked hard…you made some distinctions that all of a sudden seemed obvious…and suddenly you new beyond a doubt that you could win. Maybe it didn’t seem like a newsworthy story to the rest of the world…but to you it was everything!
Don’t ever forget that feeling because it’s the foundation for what you can accomplish in the future. You can call upon the memory of a prepared victory any time you really want. It’s no different from riding a bicycle after not being on one since childhood…the breeze on your face brings backs feelings, emotions just like it was yesterday. So why not use that same recall ability to get what you want today. Bring back those feelings of success, live them today! Remember that working hard got you what you wanted then and it will now. So turn the TV off and go do something with your hands…paint a fence, landscape the yard…work yourself to a sweat! No matter how easy access to information becomes, no matter how much technology makes life easier, you still need to work hard. Your hard work will prepare you for opportunity…when your are prepared, you will recognize your chance with a laser focus and the world will marvel…how did you do it, you must be some sort of a genius…a phenom!
Danny Griffin
