Getting Back Up

"Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

There have been many times in which I have fallen and wondered if I could ever get back up. It would be so easy to just stay down and not get back into the swirl of life. When each of us get knocked down, we have different methods and abilities to bounce back up. A vivid example of getting knocked down and back up again recently happened on the baseball field.

A baseball player for the Atlanta Braves named Jason Heyward was hit by a 90-mph pitch thrown in a recent game. The ball hit him in the jaw breaking it and requiring surgery. When you watch the replay, he reacts and slowly lowers himself to the ground. Medical personnel check on him and he eventually gets up and walks off the field.

I suspect that I would probably lay there longer and maybe even ask for a stretcher. Then again, maybe I am tougher than I give myself credit for. Maybe all of us are tougher than we think. It is very likely that we could get up and walk off the field to regroup and come back into the game at some point.

We can also recover from taking a hit in life. We can get back up and regain our life, making it better than it was before. What it takes is giving yourself a little more credit of your abilities. You can do a lot more than you believe. You can move larger mountains than others say you can. Just get back up.

Stay inspired my friends.

You can watch the scene as it unfolds for Atlanta Braves outfielder Jason Heyward, but if you are a bit squeamish, you may not want to watch.

How Many Lifetimes

"The truth is, I need 10 lifetimes to scratch the surface of the things I'd love to do."
-Bear Grylls

It is a great quote that I came back across recently. I found the context of it in a Mens Journal article I had read a couple of years ago. The man, Bear Grylls is one of those ultimate adventure guys most men would like be. Bear writes about surviving life in one of his latest books called A Survival Guide For Life; a great read for anyone.

Knowing all that he has done and hearing he would need ten lifetimes to do even more, just how many lifetimes would it take me?

We only get one life to live and the point is to make the most of that one lifetime. It certainly is not a competition of who had the most adventures. It is about how you live the adventure which is your life.

Are you doing everything you can to live a great life? Are you making an impact on the lives of others? Are you doing things that make life better for others? Are you living or just waiting?

It doesn't mean that you have to climb Mt Everest at age 23 or climbing cliffs, parachuting from helicopters, paragliding, ice climbing, or a hundred other things.

But you could!

You could also become involved in a charity that assists disabled, disadvantaged, abused or neglected young people. Possibly help a friend get a job. You could then take that once-in-a-lifetime trip to Ireland and drive on the left-hand side of the road. You can be a family man filling your kids with a lifetime of memories. Anything you choose to do is an adventure. Just fill your life with many of them.

Stay inspired my friends.

Risk Reward

"Fear stifles our thinking and actions. It creates indecisiveness that results in stagnation. I have known talented people who procrastinate indefinitely rather than risk failure. Lost opportunities cause erosion of confidence, and the downward spiral begins." -Charles Stanley

Are you a risk-taker?

Really think about that question and ask it of yourself again. What you will realize is that all of us are risk-takers. From our very beginning, we are born into an unknown future of which living it is risk in itself. As a teenager we want to drive a car for the feeling of independence. But driving has the risk of accidents. Even with independence is the risk of failing to support one self properly.

Going to college and selecting a major subjects us to possibly making a wrong choice. Marriage and there is a risk of divorce. Risk can be defined in almost every decision we make in life. So in most respects, all of us are risk-takers whether we believe we are or not. What defines the outcome of risk is how we respond to it.

Does risk rule you or you rule it?

So if risk is around us in most everything we do, how is it that some people take additional risks while others play it safe? There are at least two reasons that can answer this question.

One is that we the need for security keeps many of us from taking risks. As human beings, we have a need to want to stay with the familiar and predictable. We like things we can control and understand well. It was Helen Keller who said "Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing."

Secondly, fear and doubt keep us from taking risks. For a dreamer, these two things are their worst enemy. The Irish author, Gareth O’Callaghan has this advice, “Do not fear risk. All exploration, all growth is calculated. Without challenge people cannot reach their higher selves. Only if we are willing to walk over the edge can we become winners.”

How do we overcome the safety from and fear of risk?

Well, you can start by asking yourself these three questions:

- What would I do if I were being more courageous?
- How will inaction cost me one year from now if I do nothing?
- Where is my fear of failure causing me to over-estimate the size of risk, under-estimate myself and holding me back from greater achievement?

Whatever answers come into your mind, be aware that your answers are trying to point you to a greater future. Only you can create that future by taking bolder, more decisive and courageous actions. There will always be risk involved, just know that our human condition is created to overestimate the size of risk and to underestimate our ability to handle them.

As written by Lao Tsu in the 6th century BCE, “You are capable of more than you think.”

Stay inspired my friends and "Fortes fortuna adiuvat" or “Fortune favors the brave.”

Judging Book Covers

“Don't judge a man by his opinions, but what his opinions have made of him.” ―Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

I am sure many of you remember the stories that have been told over and over again. It was also very hard to miss all of the videos and clips on the various news programs. You may have even watched all of it unfold on television as everyone collectively held their breath awaiting the first notes to fill the microphone.

I am speaking of the night that Susan Boyle walked onto the stage of the British television show Britain's Got Talent. It was April 11, 2009 when she shocked many people by beautifully singing "I Dreamed a Dream" from Les Misérables. She went on to take second place to a dance troupe called Diversity.

Did nearly everyone of us judge the book cover at first?

Intellectually we each know we should not judge another simply by the way they look. We have been told over and over again "not to judge a book by its cover." But researchers have found that outside appearance does matter in people's judgments on all manner of issues. As the lead researcher, Chia-Jung Tsay (both highly honored musician and a psychologist at University College, London) indicated, "There is something about visual information that is better able to convey cues such as passion or involvement or creativity. These elements are very much a part of high-quality performance."

So our opinions, our judgments are shaped by what we see. While we know that judging someone simply by appearance is not the complete story, the folks that advertise and try to sell stuff to us know we do anyway. Even economists and political psychologists have found that voters can predict the winners of elections when they watch videos of the candidates, with the sound off. If you believe our politicians are shallow, chances are we voted them into office more on appearance then by substance.

Is all of this bad?

No, not really. We are human and we have been endowed with many senses, which we use to make many decisions in life. My belief is in the biology of our make up, the fight or flight decisions we sometimes have to make happen subconsciously. Visual judgment is a nearly instantaneous piece of information that is used in the raw makeup of who we are as humans.

Think of yourself walking down a partially dark street, no one else around and someone walking towards you. Your first instinct is to judge the appearance and manner in which that person is walking towards you. The dust cover of that person is being judged at that very moment. All of this is happening in response to you trying to assess the situation. It is quick and as the person approaches, your intellect starts to process more information such as the person is whistling or maybe talking on the phone.

Does that mean we should have seen Susan Boyle come on stage and ran in fright? Of course not, but our biology is still there, just under the covers and holds a strong place in how we respond. Our intellect is slower and processes many more sources of information. We do this hundreds of times a day whether we realize it or not.

Quick visual judgment is going to happen.

Just try to understand that it goes on and if you use your visual information along with all of the information to be collected, you will have greater control over your own reactions. You will be better equipped to understand when marketers, politicians and a host of other stimuli are trying to manipulate your responses. It will allow you to make better decisions in your life.

Dream the dream and always know the cover of a book will never tell the entire story.



Stay inspired my friends.