Get Back on Track!

This today’s discourse I wrote immediately after suffering a concussion, because I felt like sharing an experience with you that I, to this extend, have not felt in a long time: unforeseen adjustments.

All of a sudden I was in a position in which I could not pursuit and accomplish my day’s plans, an unexpected action had put me on hold, this unforeseen event looked me dead in the eye saying: stop, sit down, relax, you will continue your deeds tomorrow. I did not like it at all, I thought about the plans I had for that day and how I was simply powerless and unable to work things off my to-do list. What does that mean for and to me? Does my momentum stop here and I have to start all over again? Is that a sign of failure, for I was not able to keep up the momentum, was I not perseverant enough? Is this the end of ambition, of my plans, is that what Langston Hughes referred to as a dream deferred? Well, it took me a while to figure out what has happened, and the answer to all these questions is simple: NO!

I was merely confronted with a new challenge: getting back on track. And I was excited to take on this challenge, because the U.S. American professor and author Maya Angelou stated quite truly that "nothing will work unless you do." I have to do, I have to get back up on it, and despite this little delay get back on track, and do...and then things will work again; and I will regain my momentum. This is where heart comes into play (and this is exactly why I consider it, among perseverance, one of the main pillars of success): if your heart is strong, you do not let days of unforeseen events get in your way. You depreciate them, call 'em a day, and continue with the same amount of heart, believe, and dedication as before. And these days do have a great side effect: they reveal, how much you have already accomplished on your relentless way to success—use this retrospect as fuel for the next and further steps in life.

Why is this not as easy as it reads? Because once we lose our momentum we immediately tend to trigger a bunch of 'what if' questions, leading us sometimes even as far as questioning our lives and deeds. If you want to continue after this unforeseen day of deferral, look back and take stock—and see this day of pause, on hold, as an intermediate stage on your long road to success...and furthermore be grateful and happy about the things you have already accomplished up to this day. Follow the words of legendary baseball icon George Herman "Babe" Ruth Jr., who said: "Don’t let the fear of striking out hold you back." Continue to do what you do, do not let anything slow you down. Former U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed the freedom of fear in 1941 (as part of his famour Four Freedoms speech); and we shall be free from fear and continue our drive, keep going and doing, get back on our perseverance and back on our track. Fear to fail, fear to drop out, fear to screw up, fear to lose grip? No, I do not understand these definitions. Let’s be free from fear, and get back on track, because we are of great heart.

...and you know what’s really impressive after a day on hold? When we get back to work immediately after like nothing ever happened—and this is how we do it!

Never Stop!

Dearly beloved, enthusiastic, perseverant, and motivated dudes and dudettes, I suggest it is time for one step further, which is why I decided to clarify perseverance in this discourse in order to see life as a steady, never ending process; like a tv show in which you were born on the pilot and die in its last episode. Sometimes we drown in the rush of life – I personally like those time lapse infomercials because they reveal how fast this world is spinning –  sometimes this quick motion world makes us feel like a small spare part, a tiny cog wheel in the big clockwork of life...and all we want to do is sit down and have this process ended, complete, to just see the end of all our hard work. But once you get to that point, is there not anything missing? Don’t you want to go on somehow?

Look at yourself and how things are going in your life: when you got out of kindergarten, you went to highschool, when you graduated highschool, you went to college, when you graduated college, you started working, when you were done working, you retired, when you retired, you...

Life is a steady process, and there is never an end to our deeds, once we accomplish something, there is always another thing to accomplish, because process and new endeavors are the things to keep our world spinning. Former U.S. president Richard Nixon once said: "You must never be satisfied with success and you should never be discouraged by failure." Once we are successful, we should use that success and that fulfillment and excitement of our accomplishment to seek new tasks and quests, keep on moving, because if we have success, call it success, and stop going further, we stop. We stop in a world that is spinning at 99% the speed of light (merely using it as an allusion to our fast and speedy world). We should keep going, and keep pushing ourselves, because that is what the successful do: never being satisfied, because there is always another, higher mountain to climb. And if we have the enthusiasm I spoke of so enthusiastically, we love going further, and we are ready for new and more challenges. The successful people in this world never stopped once they achieved their goals, they kept going – the same thing regarding failure: you must NEVER be discouraged by failure. Learn, get up, and keep going, go on, rock on, never quit! It is quite interesting how close success and failure are together; both, the successful and the failing started off at the same point, maybe even with the same or, at least, similar motivation and enthusiasm, but while one kept going, the other one quitted. And wether you quit or not is up to you, the only thing that limits you from achieving something big is: you! Keep going and be successful, or quit. The successful are the ones that did what my old football coach told me all the time: finish strong! And they never stop, they keep going.

And if you decide to keep going, to seek a challenge, and once you are successful seek another one and keep your world spinning, then you have the perseverant heart of a champion. Then you have truly understood what the words tenacity, perseverance, and momentum mean, and thou will be rewarded. Keep going – and you will be unstoppable. Considered and done? Then you for sure know what Carrol Wrackley meant by saying: "Self-confidence is the key to the universe." Keep on going, baby! 

Energy and Enthusiasm: E² = m(omentum) · c(onfidence)

After getting over a bad day, after compensating failure we are now back to our 2012 momentum, as the saga continues. This discourse is on another significant component of success: enthusiasm!

I for my part have spent a long 25 years on doing all kinds of different things; that is probably the only thing to distinguish me from my fellow friends. I talked to one this past week and he was utterly astonished about all the kinds of different things I have already done in life. There is some truth to it that I have done and still do a lot of things because it fulfills me, and I will tell you how I am able to do all that: with heart!

An enthusiastic heart can be the greatest catalyst for a human being. Get involved, get engaged, get ambitious, be patient, persevere, dream...but do it with enthusiasm. There are always people trying to set the world on fire, but there are little who do it with enthusiasm. These few enthusiastic ones, in fact, are those who really have the capacity to do something big, those who have the capability of changing things.  When you ever worked with an enthusiastic person before, you know how much more fun and much less of a hassle it is than working with a dull person focussed on vague goals. The sublime thing about enthusiasm is that it radiates as steady as the fuel rods of Three Mile Island. And that is, where you as a formerly innocent by-stander get infected very easily. Enthusiasm will flood you in no time, because it comes from the heart, it is true and it is great.

The American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: "Enthusiasm is one of the most powerful engines of success. When you do a thing, do it with all your might. Put your whole soul into it. Stamp it with your own personality. Be active, be energetic and faithful, and you will accomplish your object. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm." Being successful is as simple as that, do not merely think about it, go out there and try it, do it! School, job, internship, housework, repairs, hobbies – do it with enthusiasm, love what you do, have fun doing it, go out there and go for it, because you obviously decided to do that activity for a reason, right? Is it stressing, time consuming? Once you do it with an enthusiastic heart you will not even realize how time flies by, only because enthusiasm is flowing through you. In a little bit you will see how much fun you can have in school, in your job, your internship, your housework, repairs at your property, your hobbies – because let us be honest: We live at free will, whatever it is you do, you do it by choice, you intended to accomplish something, and in order to do that you decided to go down a certain road in life. Have fun going down your alley of life, love what you do, be all about it, for it is your life, it is what you came to do. What about the success? It will come by itself, because if you are enthusiastic, you do your deeds full time with all your heart, and that’s the only way to succeed. And guess what will be a nice side effect – your colleagues, your friends, your fellow students will start wondering soon: wow, what is going on with him or her, look at him or her, what (s)he is doing looks so easy, so released, how can you have so much fun doing this crap?

Well, dearly beloved, there is only one answer to it: enthusiasm...so go out there, and do what you do with heart!