Disney Employee Engagement Speaker
Five daily blogs about life's 5 big choices on five different sites.
If your goal isn’t impossible, you’re not reaching high enough.
Hang in there if you are struggling. Odds are, you are.
I know I sure am. Ran once last week. Once! How is that possible?
So here we are, another week. Yesterday, I swore there would be time for a run. After delivering four keynote speeches yesterday, each to a different audience, exhaustion took on a whole new meaning. No run.
Today is another day…. for all of us. Good luck. Do not give up!
So the second week, I ran two mailboxes a day. Third week, three mailboxes a day.
Yes, many of you have heard this before. Which is one of the secrets to excellent results – repetition. Never get tired of doing the basic, common sense things.
Stories are critical to perpetuating past success and moving to even greater success. You already knew that right?
Eventually, the goals became impossible, but their pursuit was compelling.
What’s fascinating is how intense it was to rise to the level of representing the United States at the 2009 Master’s Track & Field World Championships, without anyone knowing.
Neighbors. Family. Work. Ten years. Ten years of dedicated, relentless effort.
Invisible to everyone around me. For a decade.
Now, neighbors know. And Family knows. Yet to this day, most where I work have no idea.
And so the question today is this, “What is your impossible goal and will you persue it without any fanfare or glory, but just for the sake that it’s a noble goal?”
Lane 8 is where the slowest competitor is placed. In swimming. In running.
You never saw Michael Phelps (world’s fastest swimmer) in Lane 8. You never saw Usain Bolt (world’s fastest runner) in Lane 8.
And yet Lane 8 is my goal.
This week, like most of you, there was a serious struggle to find the right balance of physical activity and healthy nutrition. Diet and exercise.
Here’s one of my little secrets. Are you interested in it?
Dream Big. Get There. Stay There.
Come up with a mantra, a saying, that will keep you focused on one simple goal.
To not give up, no matter the set backs. Ever!
Are you a movie star?
A rock star?
A Hollywood celebrity?
Most likely, we can all answer these questions with a resounding, “No.”
But I beg to offer a different perspective (imagine that, lol).
People are watching you the same way they watch famous people, and they are doing the same thing to you they do after watching famous people.
Judging.
We are all telling a story about what we value. Yes, we are. Every single day. Every choice we make is another “scene” from the movie entitled “Your Life”.
And this brings us back to a very poignant question, “Am I an example or a warning?”
Lane 8 business cards have a unique beginning.
Do you have interesting stories about important moments in your life?
If so, then you realize that if we don’t find a way to capture that moment, it will disappear and be forever lost.
Great companies do this. Great Countries do this. Great religions do this. Holidays, milestones, traditions.
Three days before flying to Helsinki, Finland, it dawned on me that there were going to be 5,300 athletes from 80 countries and untold spectators. I needed business cards. Lots of business cards.
“Okay, you don’t have much time”, I said in a panic. “But you do have an enormous opportunity.”
I cut out a handful of business card size pieces of card stock (my wife always has stuff like this on hand).
In only three tries, I had what I wanted.
My wife commented that even the edges I had drawn weren’t straight. “Perfect“, I said.
Two days before the leaving the United States, I asked Kinkos/FedEx how much for 1,000 or 3,000 cards. And then I said, “How much for 5,000?”
The rest, as they say, is history.
