They can begin as a scattered collection of thoughts. And over time, they might become articulated in some lofty language meant to impress others, divert attention or hide one from the truth.
Then just as fast as they appeared, choices can simply vanish. Too often, bringing with that event, a sense of relief. Rather than the embrace of achievement.
Unless a choice is elevated into a commitment, it is nothing. It serves no purpose. Has no lasting meaning.
Events always and in all ways lead to response. And those responses lead to outcomes.
But only the commitment found in those responses born of those events can give true form to those thoughts, words and deeds.
The absolute foundation for achievement.
Choice is not disposable.
Ever.
It is the only true basis for engaging in the ongoing opportunities found in all events.
In a conversation at work some time ago, the phrase “location, location, location” came into play.
Nothing to do with its inherent real estate connotation. But more so how one maintains a sense of presence in the real estate they happen to occupy in this moment. Not just where they find themselves. But more to the point, how they find themselves where they are now. Not in a week, month or year.
Now.
‘Cause when it comes down to it, if you aren’t here, then you cannot access what is to be gained from the moment. Not that each moment is going to be an epiphany. That is never the case. It is just that each moment has within it the capacity to become an epiphany.
A surprise. Never expected. Life changin’.
An epiphany.
It seems to me that there is a human tendency to believe that moments that seem a mistake, reflect a poor decision or turn out to be a failure are lost causes. A chance lost. Something not meant to be. Better left behind than kept, discerned and understood.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Everything we encounter in our lives has meaning. A purpose. A reason to be. And yet because things are not precisely what we imagined, we think all is lost. Wasted effort, commitment and direction.
We choose to leave the moment and place ourselves where we wish to be. A place begotten without the sacrifice, effort, discipline and effort. Then when we awake, and find ourselves at what seems to be the ultimate conclusion, we deflect, ignore, blame and avoid the outcome.
“Location, location location” has nothing to do with where you are. It has everything to do with being fully present where you are right here, right now. So that you can someday, become all that you were meant to be.
If you have the presence of mind and soul to capture and keep those multiple instances of missteps, defeat and failure, then you can access the wherewithal to maintain a presence in those moments yet to come.
At the age of 19, Louis Zamperini qualified for the 5000 meter run, earning a place in the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany.
In 1941, with the world in the throes of global conflict, Louis enlisted in the United States Army Air Force, earning a commission as a second lieutenant and deployed to the Pacific as a bombardier. While on a search for a lost aircraft and crew in 1943, mechanical difficulties caused Zamperini’s plane to crash into the Pacific Ocean, 850 miles west of Oahu, Hawaii, killing eight of the eleven men aboard.
With little food and no water, Zamperini, Russell Philips and Francis McNamara subsisted on rainwater and small fish eaten raw. After 33 days at sea, McNamara succumbed to their ordeal, leaving Zamperini and Philips alone and adrift.
On the 47th day, Zamperini and Phillips reached the Marshall Islands and found themselves captive of the Japanese Navy. Following 42 days of internment there, they were transferred to the Japanese prisoner-of-war camp at Ōfuna, then on to Tokyo’s Ōmori POW camp, and eventually, to the Naoetsu POW camp in northern Japan.
One particular guard wanted to make an example of the eternally optimistic Olympian Zamperini. “The Bird” – as he was called – dedicated the next two years to breaking Louis, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, through verbal and physical cruelty.
Yet Zamperini remained; unbroken.
What was it that bound him together? The strength, stamina and training of an Olympic athlete?
What enabled him to handle both the duress of being lost in the Pacific and the abject terror of internment at the hands of a cruel enemy?
To find the will to endure. To exert himself for a long period of time, resisting, withstanding and recovering from fatigue, trauma and even wounds of the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual nature.
When Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton left South Georgia Island on December 5, 1914 in a bid to be the first to cross the Antarctic continent, no level of preparation could have anticipated the challenges that would confront he and his crew of 28.
Disaster struck the expedition early when its ship, Endurance, became trapped in pack ice and was slowly crushed. For nearly two months, Shackleton’s team camped on a large, flat ice floe, hoping that it would drift towards Paulet Island, approximately 250 miles away.
Several failed attempts to march across the ice led them to encamp on another floe entrusting the drift would take them towards a safe landing.By mid March, Patience Camp was within 60 miles of the island, yet still separated by impassable ice. In early April the floe split, leaving Shackleton no option but to order the crew into the lifeboats.
Five harrowing days at sea later, the exhausted men landed their three lifeboats at Elephant Island, 346 miles from where the Endurance sank. This would be the first time they had stood on solid ground for 497 days. Nearly another year would pass before Shackleton and his entire crew could begin their journey back home.
What was it about Sir Shackelton that continually rallied him from within despite his expedition’s dire straits?
Talent? Ability?
Belief?
Or – some quality?
A nature that allowed an uncommon level of patience to guide him, enabling him to remain calm, centered, deliberate, and on task?
What set them apart is that Zamperini and Shackleton found a way – within themselves – to transcend their circumstances, even though both were captive to unforgiving environments that offered very little to support any form of life.
They each possessed a state of mind reinforced by an unparalleled level of emotional and spiritual resilience.
Reinforced by a belief in themselves – and others – that grew into something far more than just a feeling.
More than perseverance.
Faith.
Perseverance squared.
That point you reach where you just “know”.
That place you get to – where you can accept, act, move forward and achieve – even the unimaginable – because deep inside – you just know.
Being stripped down to their core by their circumstance – whether on the ice or as a POW – did not mean failure or defeat for Shackleton and Zamperini.
Nor does it for you.
For each trying or unforgiving circumstance we enter, cross and exit has within it a specific purpose.
To remove some of your layers. The veneer that can accumulate over time and diminish some of your best features.
And persevering through adversity is how they come to be stripped away. Revealing the best that you are – even when you think you are at your worst. .
Even as you find yourself in the midst of a wide, inhospitable expanse or within the emptiness of confinement, and those moments begin to close in about us, just remember.
All is not lost.
With some courage, you need not merely drift or be held hostage.
You can access that transcendent quality that powers your ability to persist.
Your own will generator.
To do more than just simply hang on. Merely get through it. Or survive.
A level of perseverance that leads you to embrace those unforgiving circumstances.
To find some way to somehow thrive despite the intensity of the adversity.
It is in adversity – those seemingly random moments, situations, challenges and circumstances – where you are pressed relentlessly to be who you really are. It is in those times where the faint of heart will tend to bail, rationalize, make an excuse, pretend it wasn’t for them or just plain quit.
It is in those times when you will not get what you really want because of your chosen response. By choosing not to be who you really are, the result will be an outcome you never desired.
One thing I know that is certain and indisputable: in all adversity therein lay opportunity.
Not simply to overcome, achieve, succeed and win. But more so to be who you really are. To show the world how you are made, what you are made of and what you intend to do with it.
So as this day passes and becomes the next, remember this one thing:
In order to have what you really want, you must first and always be who you really are.
I want to circle back to a gem I love from James Allen:
“Let a man radically alter his thoughts, and he will be astonished at the rapid transformation it will affect in the material conditions of his life. Men imagine that thought can be kept secret, but it cannot; it rapidly crystallizes into habit, and habit solidifies into circumstance.”
This is a keen insight, built upon thought, habit and circumstance. A genuine pattern of consequence with a lasting resonance. An interconnectedness solely made by and accountable to you. In certain respects, how your character is woven into a pursuit of excellence.
Then, how you choose to follow a suggested path governed by three simple questions.
#1 What thoughts hold you back?
Is it fear?
Like it isn’t within you to start? Or is it the avoidance of commitment; that it is too much to see it through. To finish.
Perhaps it is all about the unknown. The possible uncertainty of the outcome that dogs you. The daunting spectre of disappointment. Discouragement’s inherent distractions. Disapproval. And ultimately, defeat.
Maybe it is the fickleness of change. A need for security. The inability to trust. An aversion to honesty or criticism. Selfishness. Arrogance. Ego. Misperceptions about the call for leadership. Misconceptions about its demands for constant, unrelenting accountability, presence and effort.
And despite your efforts at containment, your thoughts rarely remain secret.
Your doubts are truly, traitors.
By word or deed, they make their way to the surface. A little here, a little there. Followed by a hitch, the glitch, the sticking points, avoidance. Soon, all at once, you become an open book. Your once private thoughts, come to govern habit, control action, impede achievement and prohibit excellence, all in a very public manner.
#2 What are you willing to do to change?
Not simply a change for change’s sake. But renewal with the highest intention. The reclamation of a positive and fulfilling future through the development of the requisite and lasting habits of this instant.
Making the choice to acknowledge, address and act upon constraints now – that prevent you from maximizing your capacity in the moments yet to come.
Engaging in an intensely personal process of assessment, evaluation, reassessment, reevaluation, until the change you aspired to achieve has been accomplished and received.
Preparing yourself to begin the work, commit the resources, and transform the internal obstacles of your own creation into a method of optimizing opportunity and enhancing abilities, forging a path for your own pursuit of excellence.
Mustering a level of will, faith and fortitude to maintain and nourish sustained level action.
Finishing. No matter what.
#3 – What will be different?
What will you endeavor to become while on this path ? Who will you be once you get there?
How will you fit into a much bigger picture? What will your impact be?
And then once you get “there”, where do you go from that temporary point?
Crucial questions, requiring thought, fully employed vision and an honest examination of intent.
All of which leads to choice. And then, ultimately transformative action. The very mass of your character, woven into the fabric of excellence.
There can be no secret to this pattern that you designed, made and upheld.
Nor to the circumstances that only you helped to create.
Essentially, it all comes down to these three questions.
...my temporary assignment. 