Monday Motivation 5/29/2000

What do you and a bad foundation have in common?

If you're not living up to your potential, they have one main thing...they both settle.

What is it you're settling for? Why have you not addressed your challenges? Can you adequately address your challenges?

Certainly, you can. If there's one thing that's common to all the human beings that have come to this earth, it's that life has presented each and every one of us with our own set of challenges. Call them problems, concerns, or teaching experiences, if you must, but challenges they are.

So how do you do when presented with a challenge? Do you march right up, throw your shoulders back, and hit it head on? Do you shirk a bit in the shadows, hoping that if you wait long enough, it'll go away? Do you pretend it's not there, waiting for the time where you have to notice it and take action?

How you address the challenges life throws your way says a lot about who you are, and what you can become.

Certainly, there are times where the best thing to do with a challenge is to study it out before taking action. Some challenges are like that. And a head-on approach is not always the best way to hit a challenge, as countless soldiers have found, when they were rushing up a beachhead towards the enemy. Reconnoitering is fine; planning is great; determining a plan of attack is important; but sooner or later, you're usually going to have to actually address the challenge. It's in that moment where you confront it when your true character shines through -- or possibly skulks off.

Great people are not made in a vacuum. Character requires testing, trials, and growth. Growth only comes from facing up to the challenges in our lives, and then after you've mastered that challenge, to then spend a little time finding new challenges to spur on more growth.

J. Williard Marriott, of Marriott hotel fame, put it this way: "Good timber does not grow with ease; the stronger the wind, the stronger the trees."

Be strong. Stand up to the gusts that life sends your way.

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