Friday, October 17, 2014

The Crossroads



From Danny's bestselling book, 

"There Are No Limits"


“Now is always beginning.”  Thomas Hornsby Ferril, author

Every day we stand at the “crossroads of our lives,” which, if the truth be known, is a “Y” in the road. One path leads toward sameness––the other path leads toward no-limits––living that is new, exciting, and adventurous.

                                                                                                   

Every day there are decisions to be made about which direction we will take. And every day new opportunities for personal growth present themselves to us. Maybe we don’t always see them, but they’re there.

Those opportunities are there for you. Your personal “Y” in the road represents unlimited possibilities to be explored, challenges to be met, and chances to experience life to its fullest. When we take full advantage of those opportunities, we overcome (imaginary) barriers––and prove to ourselves and anybody who’s watching that there are no limits.

You may be asking yourself: How do I know when it’s time to take that new direction? Which fork in that crossroads do I choose? And how do I change direction again if things don’t work out quite as well as I’d hoped? What if it ends up looking a whole lot like there are limits for me, after all? Answering those questions is what this is all about.

When we’re born, our developed potential is only a microscopic dot that sits inside a large circle of our very own undeveloped potential. Then we go to school and the circle gets to be a little bigger, and we start to have more experiences and the circle, again, gets a little bigger.  We learn more things through new experiences, and the circle gets bigger still. And then, all too often, when we start a career, the expanding potential stops. We are left with a large area of unfulfilled potential. When we stop developing our potential, stop striving to fill up those circles of potential, we start to take the perceived barriers––that dotted line––for granted.

We often look at that division between the developed potential and the undeveloped potential as though it were a wall. But it’s not; it’s merely a boundary. To move past that dotted line, we must summon the steel inside ourselves.

Thomas Edison’s widely quoted observation that “Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration” if often misunderstood. Because of this remark, many people think that Edison believed a life of toil and pain was necessary to produce breakthroughs. Nothing could be further from the truth. Edison delighted in his work, worked on things that delighted him, and was constantly inspired by the task of finding new ways to move past old barriers to take advantage of undeveloped potential. He enjoyed the process of impressing himself––of summoning the steel inside himself to move past what he had done before.

Everyone has a “steel thread” woven into the fabric of their being, whether it’s discovered or undiscovered. What’s yours? If you don’t yet know (or don’t remember) what your steel thread feels like, my book, There Are No Limits”  will help you pose the questions that will point you toward the answer.


Immediate Action:  Keep reading!

Point to Ponder Before You Go On:  “Successful [people] pay no attention to barriers, real or imaginary, erected by people or by customs. [They] persistently refuse to limit themselves, knowing the stagnating and destructive influence of restrictions…Those who limit themselves or others are not only engaging in a certain form of self-destruction, but are traitors to humanity and to the world…One need but choose whether he would take his place with the traitors or with the heroes.”  ––Sherman J. Kline, author

No comments: