My friend, W Mitchell, suffered third degree burns over 65% of his body. He came back from that to become a multi-millionaire. But not before his burns resulted in his losing most of his fingers, and his facial features, including his lips. Yet if you were to meet him then, he would immediately stand tall, extend what remained of his hand, put forth the grandest of whatever smile he could manage, and genuinely say, “it’s a pleasure to meet you.”
That was then.
Despite the adversities he faced, W trained for and obtained his private pilot’s license. His plane went down, rendering him a parapalegic, paralyzed from the waist down.
What did he do? What would YOU do? Feel sorry for yourself? Tuck your head? Tell the world your problems? d. all of the above?
He married his beautiful nurse, and built yet another multi-million dollar empire as a motivator. His subject? Overcoming adversity of course.
He will now happily and enthusiastically greet you, just as before. Only now, he does it from a wheelchair.
W Mitchell inspires me.
Author/Adventurer Gregory David Roberts, of “Shantaram” fame, emerged from a life prison sentence to dedicate his life and soul to doctoring the destitute slum residents of Mumbai. Greg inspires me.
I want to take this opportunity to share links for a few videos that INSPIRE me. Each is characterized by a purity, a raw energy, that make me believe that hope is never lost…that all is possible…
The first is about a goofy sheep that get shorn, and thinks all is over, until…
The second is about an even goofier character, something called a wombat, that just…tells it like it is
Next time you think the sky is falling down because your $5000 sofa in Laguna Beach might get repossessed, watch this one… This guy owns the world. With nothing. HE inspires me…
AND THE REST ARE JUST AWESOME…
All of these videos combined represent an investment of about 45 minutes of life. That’s one and one-half lousy episodes of “Jersey Shore,” or 5 or so videos on pornhub.com . Far be it from me to “suggest” you make this investment, but I challenge you to DO IT ONCE. I know that when I do…I AM INSPIRED.
From time to time, I lose sight of some very basic truths. Things like these videos remind me –—that the best is always possible. As do OTHER THINGS. And OTHER PEOPLE.
The sunset. A sunrise. The dog that you’re positive is smiling at you. The city streets at dawn, pulsing from an early morning rain. A backpack and a desolate desert road.
Anything that makes you FEEL. breathe. want/DESIRE. Hope.
And ANYONE that, by example, SHOWS you that there is ALWAYS HOPE…
Jack Johnson’s first Heavyweight Boxing Championship in 1908,amidst crushing racial predjudice…Susan Boyle’s first public appearance on “Britain’s Got Talent,” in 2009… The list goes on an on. And on. For those who defied the odds, battled true adversity and “just said NO; life is NOT gonna beat me; I WILL WIN.”
I want to leave you with a quote that I love, it’s called “Man in the Arena,” and I think it describes what each of us wants for ourselves. And can have in ourselves…
“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”
–Theodore Roosevelt
The KNOWING that inspiration is endless, is in and of itself…INSPIRATIONAL.