— There was a period in my life when I seemed to be living from day-to-day. This was in spite of having quite a bit going for me. I was salutatorian of my high school class, was a leader in the eyes of my high school classmates and faculty, was seen as someone who was most likely to succeed and had made the National Dean’s List in college. With these kinds of accomplishments, you would think I was on the right path. But the reality was this. I had something holding me back. That something was the fact that I was living my fears rather than living my dreams. The cause of my fears was two-fold. It was the fear of not getting what I wanted and the fear of losing what I had.
Unfortunately, this is what most of us do. We let our fears control us, and we make the decision, whether consciously or not, to live an unlived life, a life of mediocrity.
Whenever I go home to visit my parents, I sometimes ask about my high school classmates. My mom and dad are well-known and respected in the small, suburban community in which I grew up, and they frequently run into many of the people with whom I graduated from high school. It fascinates me to learn from my parents who actually became successful and who went by the wayside.
Many of these people were the most gifted and talented students I had known.
Now, to be fair to my high school graduating class, we had seven valedictorians, a very smart class by any standards. Even with that level of obvious capability and talent, many of my fellow classmates haven’t lived up to their potential.
Why is that?
Most of them, like many of us, are distracted by the fear that has kept them from reaching higher. Part of that fear comes from a lack of planning. You’ve got to have a roadmap. As I stated at the beginning of this chapter, you must plan your work and work your plan because without a plan, you’re more likely to aim too low and hit.
For a while, I let fear grip me and keep me from not dreaming bigger. Fear also kept me doubting my capabilities. I was keeping myself hostage for years after graduating from college, mainly due to my limited self-view, which made it difficult to come up with a definitive plan. Even though I knew I had some talents, abilities, and skills, I didn’t fully believe I was capable of doing more than what I had done up to that point in my life.
Just imagine, you have all the necessary talents and gifts that the world is waiting to bear witness to—that voice, that technology, that business, that speech, that product, that seminar . . . You have the power within you to transform your life and millions of lives around the world. If you live your fears rather than living your dreams, you deprive not only the purpose of what you were put here to do, but you also deprive humankind of your contribution.
“Do what you can where you are with what you have and never be satisfied.”
~ George Washington Carver
Chemist who discovered over three hundred uses for the peanut
For so long, I deprived my life’s purpose. This was mainly because I didn’t have a clear vision, even though I had qualities and experiences that proved I had what it took to do more and to accomplish more. You, me, all of us have what it takes to do extraordinary things.
— One thing is for sure, if we don’t move on life, life will move on us. Our dream, our talent, our gift is calling us, and instead of listening to it, most of us are saying, “Leave me alone!” Instead of living our life doing what the universe has given us to do, we ignore it. Life chases us, and we keep saying no to our higher-calling, to our greatness, thereby disallowing the universe to work through us. We keep running away from the life that is possible—a life of sharing and contributing our talents, abilities, and skills. Again and again, we ignore our calling. Over and over again life says, “Go pursue your greatness.” We scream, “Oh, no, you can’t be talking to me . . . not me! I can’t be the one!” And life replies, “Yes, you are the one. Why not you?”
Most of us don’t have enough sense to listen because if we did heed life’s calling, we could stop life from punishing us. We would make a choice to live a life of substance rather than just existing. Life beats up some people so badly that they finally say, “Okay, okay, I’ve had enough of this mediocre life. From this moment forward, I am committed to living a life of an incredible journey.”
