Accomplish Your Dreams (Part 52)

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. When you work with excitement to Accomplish Your Dreams, you scarcely know when you pass the line between failure and your success because it is so fine that we are often on the line and do not know it. Many times, a man has thrown up his hands at a time when a little more effort, a little more patience, would have achieved success. As the tide goes out, so it comes clear in. In business, sometimes, prospects may seem darkest when really they are on the turn. A little more persistence, a little more effort, and what seemed hopeless failure may turn to glorious success. There is no failure except in no longer trying. There is no defeat except from within, no really insurmountable barrier save our own inherent weakness of purpose. Genius is only the power of making continuous efforts.

Today a thousand doors of enterprise are open to you, inviting you to useful work. To live at this time is an inestimable privilege, and a sacred obligation devolves upon you to make right use of your opportunities. Today is the day in which to attempt and achieve something worthwhile. With sincerity in your heart, you can Accomplish Your Dreams easily. At this very moment take the time to remind yourself that you are fabulous! That’s right, take joy in knowing that there simply is not anyone else in the whole wide world that is exactly like you! Take pride in this and look for ways to let your talents shine.

The whole world steps aside for the man who knows where he is going to Accomplish His Dreams. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. You must gain knowledge every time but you must imagine also – ascertaining the viability of your imagination, you will naturally explore to gain the knowledge of the subject. Perhaps in the first instance you may not get success but your patience can achieve it. You know! When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.

Attitude Is Everything. John was the kind of guy you may hate out of your curiosity or jealousy with his success. He was always in a good mood and always had something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, “If I were any better, I would be twins!” He was a unique manager because he had several waiters who had followed him around from restaurant to restaurant. The reason the waiters followed John was because of his attitude. He was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, John was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation. Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up to John and asked him, “I do not get it! You can not be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?” He replied, “Each morning I wake up and say to myself, ‘John, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be in a bad mood.’ I choose to be in a good mood. Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it. Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life.”

“OK, right, it is not that easy,” I protested. “Yes, it is,” John said. “Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people will affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line: It’s your choice how you live life.” I reflected on what John said. Soon thereafter, I left the restaurant industry to start my own business. We lost touch, but I often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it. Several years later, I heard that John did something you are never supposed to do in a restaurant business: he left the back door open one morning and was held up at gunpoint by three armed robbers. While trying to open the safe, his hand, shaking from nervousness, slipped off the combination. The robbers panicked and shot him. Luckily, John was found relatively quickly and rushed to the local trauma center. After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, John was released from the hospital with fragments of the bullets still in his body. I could meet John about six months after the accident. When I asked him how he was, he replied, “If I were any better, I’d be twins. See my scars?” I declined to see his wounds, but did ask him what had gone through his mind as the robbery took place. “The first thing that went through my mind was that I should have locked the back door,” John replied. “Then, as I lay on the floor, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live, or I could choose to die. I chose to live.” “Were not you scared? Did you lose consciousness?” I asked. John continued, “The paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the emergency room and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read, ‘He’s a dead man.’ “I knew I needed to take action.”

“What did you do?” I asked. “Well, there was a big, burly nurse shouting questions at me,” said Jerry. “She asked if I was allergic to anything. ‘Yes,’ I replied. The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breathe and yelled, ‘Bullets!’ Over their laughter, I told them. ‘I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead.” John lived thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude. I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully. Attitude, after all, is everything to enable you to Accomplish Your Dreams.

Be Happy – You Have the Choice To Accomplish Your Dreams.