A Commitment to Personal Development

“Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle!”

Anonymous

“The trouble with ignorance is that it picks up

confidence as it goes along.”

Anonymous

To be competitive in the foreseeable future I must learn from others successes as well as their mistakes and what was learned from those disappointments. If they can do it, I can do it. The biggest mistake I can make is that of underestimating my own potential.

Ambition, achievement and high morale are inseparable. To that end, I now focus intensely on the following five-point commitment.

I. If I’m not as good as I can be in my chosen profession, then what’s my plan for improving – short of making the same mistakes others have made in order to learn?

II. I have been feeding my mind on a daily basis but the piercing question is of what has that diet consisted? From this point forward I refuse to cheat my mind by the quantity or quality of nourishment I feed it. Whatever adds to my personal effectiveness, regardless of cost, is worth the price.

III. I will develop a keen awareness for stagnated personal development. My one stinging motion through this life changing process will be that if I’m not growing, I am planting the seeds for some future failure. I will build a personal environment that fosters rising ambition. My life will slant upward.

IV. As my time on earth decreases in twenty-four hour segments, my commitment to the development of personal potential must increase on a daily basis. Therefore each succeeding day becomes more exciting than the previous day. I now make it a life principle to never delay the remedy for anything that is holding me back.

V. I must now develop the skills to make the best use of my God-given talents.
That process takes courage. I am now ready.

Danny Cox

What Is Courage?

You possess sufficient courage to initiate the process to see your personal adventure through. A person may not be born with an overabundance of talent, but he or she certainly possesses all the courage needed, whether used or unused, to develop the talent that is there. Long after passing on to the next world, we will be remembered by family and friends, not necessarily for our inborn talents, but for the amount of courage we used, especially during our times of trial. The strength and vividness of the memories our loved ones and friends hold of us after we are gone will be directly proportional to the amount of courage we have chosen to use.

If you ain’t got a choice be brave. Old Ozark sayin’

I believe that it is everyone’s sacred duty to be prepared to do the biggest thing possible that needs to be done at any given moment. That’s not to say that doing the big thing is always easy—but doing the big thing is always necessary.

The legendary actor Hume Cronyn once told a story about meeting Orson Welles in the late 1930s: “I was lunching at Sardi’s one day and Orson came over to say hello. I had just seen his Julius Caesar. He had given it in modern dress. It was the only time I had seen that work as a comment on fascism, and [it was] very stirring. I said to Orson, ‘What I admired about your production is your sheer courage.’ ‘Courage?’ [Welles replied.]...‘Courage! That’s going to the edge—because you have to be good.’”

Going to the edge can be scary, but it’s a consistent habit of no-limits achievers. As you approach a self-imposed barrier, you may hear a voice saying, “This far and no farther.” It’s not the barrier’s voice that you hear. Listen carefully. Do you recognize it? It's your own!

On the Shoulders of Giants: A gathering of no-limits thinkers and doers

You’ve been invited to a mountain top cabin. You’re told to bring only a notebook and a pen. The men and women already there occupying the other chairs in the Great Room are starting a very lively discussion. The topics are facing challenges, innovation, courage, launching new ideas, etc.
After furiously taking notes on what was said that evening your notebook would show some of the following nuggets:

“Argue for your limitations and you get to keep them.”
—Richard Bach, author

“The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them, to the impossible.”
—Arthur C. Clarke

“One of the great discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn’t do.”
—Henry Ford

“I’m looking for a lot of [people] who have an infinite capacity to not know what can’t be done.”
—Henry Ford

“Compared to what we ought to be, we are only half-awake.”
—William James, philosopher and psychologist

“We can achieve what we can conceive.”
—Elbert Hubbard

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
—Albert Einstein

“All serious daring starts from within.”
–Eudora Welty

“We want it all. From the instant we saw the birds flying, we wanted what the birds had. It’s intensely human to want it all. That’s how we recognize thresholds. They show us what we don’t have. We took what the birds had, but now we want the stars and every planet we’ve ever imagined...and the ones yet to be imagined. Thus, there will always be thresholds. We ask only the right to cross them.”
—From Threshold: The Blue Angels Experience, by Frank Herbert

“The faster I got, the smoother the ride. Suddenly the Mach needle began to fluctuate. It went up to .965 Mach—then tipped right off the scale. After all the anxiety, after all the anticipation, breaking the sound barrier, the unknown, was just a poke through Jell-O, a perfectly paved speedway, because the real barrier wasn’t in the sky, but in our knowledge and experience of supersonic flight.”
—From pilot Chuck Yeager’s autobiography, Yeager

“One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.”
–Helen Keller

“An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy to be called an idea at all.”
—Elbert Hubbard

“A wish is a goal without any action attached to it.”

“Success is perseverance applied to a practical end.”
—Alexander Graham Bell

“A cheerful disposition is a fund of ready capital, a magnet for the good things of life.”
—Orison Swett Marden

The harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It’s a sort of splendid torch which I’ve got to hold up for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”
—George Bernard Shaw

“If one stands up and is counted from time to time, one may get knocked down. But remember this: A man flattened by an opponent can get up again. A man flattened by conformity stays down for good. Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker. Expose your ideas to the dangers of controversy. Speak your mind and fear less the label of ‘crackpot’ than the stigma of conformity. And on issues that seem important, stand up and be counted at any cost.”
—Thomas J. Watson, business executive and first president of IBM

“Tough times never last but tough people do.”
—Dr. Robert H. Schuller

“Failure is only the opportunity to more intelligently begin again.”
—Henry Ford

“I know there is infinity beyond ourselves. I wonder if there is infinity within.”
—Charles Lindbergh (This is one of his last written notes. It was found on a nightstand next to his deathbed.)
“His mind is addled; he’s not worth keeping in school any longer.”

—Eight-year-old Thomas Edison’s grade-school teacher

“I never did a day’s work in my life. It was all fun.”
—Thomas Edison

“If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.”
—Thomas Edison

“Everything comes to him who waits—provided he hustles while he waits.”
—Thomas Edison

“I know this world is ruled by infinite intelligence.”
—Thomas Edison

“The day before the funeral.”
—Edison’s response to the question “When will you retire?”

“My message to you is: Be courageous! I have lived a long time. I have seen history repeat itself again and again. I have seen many depressions in business. Always America has come out stronger and more prosperous. Be as brave as your fathers before you. Have faith! Go forward!”
—Thomas Edison’s final public message, delivered during the depths of the Great Depression

Birthplace of a Brighter Future

Welcome!

The three postings so far in April follow a logical sequence but each stands alone as well. The three in order are:

1. Declaration of Personal Responsibility
2. The Guy on the White Horse
3. Fear vs. Courage

The fourth in this sequence in this current posting is "Birthplace of a Brighter Future," again, by yours truly.

You might find it advantageous to review the previous three and then review the fourofthem. Please feel free to pass these aong to others.

Highger up and farther on! The best is yet to be! Danny

P.S. I'd love to hear from you.

BIRTHPLACE OF A BRIGHTER FUTURE
By Danny Cox

As I concentrate on each word of this thought, now slips by me into the past. My past, then, is nothing more than a history of how well I dealt with each irretrievable now. So if yesterday is history, tomorrow is a prediction. Only the present exists.

The future is nothing more than an approaching series of nows. During one of these nows, I must make a decision that all future nows will be different. A brighter future grows out of a brighter now. Therefore, my future improves only as I make better use of the current moment.

It's the time remaining that counts, but just as important is my understanding of that profound truth. My willingness to accept responsibility for improving that time will determine the quality of the rest of my life.

The speed at which now becomes the past is staggering. Yet, if I commit my God-given strengths to improving each of these approaching nows, the faith in my bright new future will be exhilarating! For I realize that the same velocity that carries this now into the past can carry me at the same rate toward exciting moments of the future when ever increasing goals become reality.

A year yet to be is unborn, untarnished and full of promise. One of those brand-new years bright with potential, accomplishment and joy will be delivered to me tomorrow at dawn. My choice is to accept it as it is given or, through habit, mold it into the shape of years past.

The challenge is clear. The choice is mine. Challenge accepted!

Fear vs Courage

Courage is the mastery of fear––not the absence of it. Mark Twain

If you ain't got a choioce, be brave. Old Ozark sayin'

A tiger that isn't aggressive, becomes a rug. Danny Cox

FEAR VS COURAGE

"Once when Marshall Ney was going into battle, looking down at his knees, which were smiting together, he said, 'You may well shake; you would shake worse yet if you knew where I am going to take you.'" Orison Swett Marden

What or who builds self-imposed barriers? A stonemason named Fear, one who is highly skilled in building powerful barriers from nonexistent stones. Where does this craftsman live? In our minds. He's always there, but it's up to us whether he lives in the back of our minds or the front of our minds.

Fear is the sworn enemy of adventure, which is perhaps the most exhilarating force driving no-limits achievement. And Fear goes exactly where we tell him to go.

We move Fear from the back of our minds to the front of our minds by shifting our concentration away from our own courage, and choosing instead to focus on that which frightens us. Not only does that action change Fear's location, but through the process of concentration, it means we actually start to strengthen Fear. Fear has no strength of its own; its only strength is that which we choose to give it.

When Fear defeats us, it does so because of our own mental focus. And unfortunately, the strength we pass along to Fear is the very strength we need to overcome it! If, on the other hand, we choose to push our goals, wrapped in courage, to the forefront of our minds, then barriers break.

You already possess sufficient courage to initiate this process and see your personal adventure through. A person may not be born with an overabundance of talent, but he or she will certainly possess all the courage needed, whether used or unused, to develop the talent that is there. Long after passing on to the next world, we will be remembered by family and friends, not necessarily for our inborn talents, but for the amount of courage we used, especially during our times of trial. The strength and vividness of the memories our loved ones and friends hold of us after we are gone will be directly proportional to the amount of courage we have chosen to use.

Immediate Action: Starve your fear! Feed your courage! Embrace your adventure!

Point to Ponder: "Fear knocked at the door. Faith answered. No one was there." (From above the fireplace at Hinds' Head Hotel, near London.)

Excerpted from Danny's book, There Are No Limits: Breaking the Barriers to Personal High Performance.

Please feel free to pass this along. Danny