Business-Building Action from Terry Brock
Amelia Earhart persisted in spite of set-backs and prejudice
Successful people go beyond motivation. They focus on going into achievement and results. Motivation is important. It is essential. Without it you don’t have the fuel to power you through the tough hits, the slams, the criticisms, the set-backs. Yes, you need motivation like Zig Ziglar described it (I’m paraphrasing Zig here):
Motivation is like taking a shower. It doesn’t last long and that’s why you need it every day.
Use motivation to get results. Too many people stop at the motivation alone. They get that good feeling like you get at a wonderful seminar. Hey, I know about that as a professional speaker. Yes, it is good to have that motivation. Some could say that you have to have that. I sure would. Without motivation I would never have made it through what I did.
Like many, I had it tough. It was my own unique flavor of toughness. My parents worked hard to raise me and my siblings. They were simple people with only a high school education from their town in Arkansas. Yet, Dad worked two jobs for many years and Mom was a very dedicated home maker and mother only working outside from time to time to help make ends meet.
I had to support myself through undergrad school. I needed to get the skills and the motivation. But even that wasn’t enough. I had to connect with enough of the right people to make it work. I had to learn the hard way about social etiquette (still learning about that one!). I had to learn how to take the motivation and the skills and combine them with the ability to work with other people.
Reading was my secret weapon. It gave me the ability to learn important lessons fast. I could learn on my own through painful and often embarrassing lessons. However, reading helped me to learn from others what they had done right —- and even more from what they did wrong.
Then I had to apply it. I had to test. I had to fail and then get back up and try again and again. In fact, I’ve learned in my years on this planet that you never stop learning. As soon as you think you can stop learning, you’re toast. It is finished when you stop learning or think you are so high and mighty that you don’t need to learn from others.
Keep learning. Keep persisting. Keep on keeping on. How do you do that? Well, that is where we go back to that wonderful adage about —- here’s that word again —- motivation. Find the sources that help you. Saturate your mind with what motivates you. Develop rhinoceros skin. Know that the game you’re playing requires rhinoceros skin. You are going to get hit. You are going to be slammed.
Do it anyway. Here’s what Ryan Holiday said in his work, The Obstacle Is The Way:
"Amelia Earhart wanted to be a great aviator. But it was the 1920s, and people still thought that women were frail and weak and didn’t have the stuff. Woman suffrage was not even a decade old. She couldn’t make her living as a pilot, so she took a job as a social worker. Then one day the phone rang. The man on the line had a pretty offensive proposition, along the lines of: We have someone willing to fund the first female transatlantic flight. Our first choice has already backed out. You won’t get to actually fly the plane, and we’re going to send two men along as chaperones and guess what, we’ll pay them a lot of money and you won’t get anything. Oh, and you very well might die while doing it. You know what she said to that offer? She said yes."
Most people would have said no, and I can’t disagree with them. Yet, Amelia Earhart had the necessary motivation to endure through the humiliation to achieve a greater goal. She went on to be the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. She forged ahead in spite of others putting her down.
This is the key. You become relentless in your pursuit of your worthwhile, life-enhancing goals. Don’t give up. Expect obstacles and setbacks. Hey, that’s the way it works on this planet! We have lots of “yuck” that will hit you. It can seem overwhelming at times. But don’t let the requisite yuck slow you down. Instead, pivot off of the “yuck” into the success that you want to achieve.
All the best,
Terry
Terry Brock, MBA, CSP, CPAE
Member, Professional Speaker Hall of Fame
Certified Speaking Professional
www.TerryBrock.com
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