As Jim Collins so famously stated, “Good is the enemy of
great.” Most of us do not have
great lives because we have settled for good lives. We do not have great relationships, bodies, finances, and
peace of mind primarily because we live good, decent, or even mediocre
lives. There are so few
truly successful people that live extraordinarily in all areas of life because
that would take an extraordinary amount of work. It would take the tenacity to get bruised, knocked down, and
beat up and to choose to continue on the path. It takes the mental capacity to be vulnerable and admit our
struggles and challenges but continue to persevere anyway. It takes the time, effort, and intense
focus of creating a purpose and a standard of principles for our lives and
become unwavering in our commitment to adhere to those principles. It is easy to talk about integrity,
character, goals, and standards, but it takes living on a completely different
level to be able to devote our lives to actually living at that level. It is not just for the chosen few or
the outrageously talented. It is
for anybody who wants it bad enough to turn the “shoulds” in our life into
“musts.” I learned from Anthony
Robbins that most people just “should” all over themselves. “I know I should exercise.” Never going
to happen! It needs to be a “must.” “I must exercise. I must meditate. I must
eat healthy. I must learn and grow everyday.” It doesn’t take a long time to
change your life. All it takes is
a decision! It takes a decision to
never again accept anything less than excellence. It takes a decision to live your life in the realm of
extraordinary, spectacular, amazing, and mind-blowing.
We must monitor every thought, every feeling, and every
action and ask ourselves if these are thoughts, feelings, and actions that the
ideal image of ourselves would make or do. If not, change it immediately. The true masters are not perfect. It only appears that way because the
speed at which they transform a self-defeating thought or detrimental action is
so fast it is imperceptible to normal people. Living at this level begins with a choice to never again
accept living at the level you are currently operating on, but that must be
backed by a fortress-like drive and commitment to develop a masterful level of
consciousness, self-awareness, and evaluation of everything that you do.
People that tell me they want to create a new standard for
themselves say to me all the time things like “Well I am just not a morning
person. I don’t like waking up
early. I enjoy eating pizza too
much. I don’t want to work
everyday. I just can’t get into that book.” And the list goes on and on. Do you think I like waking up at 5:30
am on a Saturday? Do you think I
don’t crave pizza and French fries? Do you really think I am captivated by
every book that I read? Absolutely
not. I crave pizza just as much as
the next person. I enjoy sleeping
in and being lazy all day and I am really good at it when given the chance to
do so! However, I have come to a
point in my life where sleeping in is not as powerful as being the best I can
be to serve my patients. Eating
pizza is not powerful enough to keep me from creating the body I have always
dreamed about. The benefit of
reading personal finance, personal development, and spiritual books has far
outweighed the drudge of sifting through some of the stuff that has many times
put me to sleep before I finished reading even a single page.
It hasn’t always been that way though. There was a time when I would have
laughed at you if you told me I’d ever wake up before 8 am. There was a time when I literally had
no control over the food I ate and I was a victim to my food vices. There was a time when I only read fun,
fiction novels because doing what was fun and interesting was more important to
me than doing what I needed to do to transform my life. If you are feeling stuck and you don’t know
when or where to begin, the answer is now and with something. Every great sage and master of this
world began right where you are.
The difference is they decided that the path to enlightenment, success,
and happiness was forged through hard work, commitment, and presence. They made a choice that nothing was
more powerful than the path that leads to magnificence. When you finally make that decision,
the universe will conjure everything you have ever dreamed about and the life
you would love to live will manifest before your very eyes.
Love,
Matt
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