The curtains pull away and the faces of the audience begin their cold stare at your face. The stage is suddenly much larger than when you had first rehearsed, the lights…much brighter. Son, it’s time for the show to begin. Get. Out. There. Of course the game is rigged! But if you don’t play…you can’t win.
“Aaron, it’s time.”
I’m taken immediately back to that fateful dream which provided me a swift kick in the pants that it’s time for me to step it up in life. Reject mediocrity and chase down risk. It has actually been a very important dream for me to have, as it gave me the presence of mind to realize that failure is not something to be avoided, but hunted down and mercilessly beaten into submission.
In this respect, life has changed quite significantly. Rather than the reclusion into safety and security, I am finding there is gold to be found when one engages in active combat with failure; seeking to find where it is hiding, and replace its ugly presence with a symbol of victory. Kids these days are taught not to fail, rather than to succeed. There’s a huge difference between these two. I remember telling a group of FCA students “Your generation has taught you that if you don’t land in prison, pregnant, or fail out of school, that you have succeeded. Don’t be a generation that ‘succeeds’ because they avoided failure, but because you actually chose to succeed.”
And now, it’s time to pursue yet another lion. Sunday night is where I evaluate the opportunities that are in front of me, and do my best to understand what is required in order to reach a successful week-end. For me, there is a definite timeline of work to be completed prior to September 1st. In these next 14 days, there are several opportunities in front of me that can be executed with quite enjoyable rewards.
Excellent workouts don’t start at the gym. Instead, they happen in the hours prior to said workout occurring. For me, they start in the moments where I sit at home and ponder every set that I’ll be doing that day, thinking about the level of intensity required in order to make it happen properly. I think of the encouragement I used to receive from Mark and Travis, should I encounter a lift more difficult than I had expected. And it’s this push that propels me through the most difficult of sessions.
This same mentality is how one has to approach upcoming weeks where tremendous opportunities will be presented. Rather than get hyped up on the possibility of good things happening, it’s important to remain steadily focussed on the actual events that will occur, as well as the significance of their accompanying rewards/work. Where many young entrepreneurs get burnt out is when the excitement level of their opportunity crash-lands into their poorly constructed idea of how work will be required in order to make these opportunities happen.
And so here we are. Sitting in Starbucks, pondering the steps and work required in order for this week to begin/end with a bang. Two short weeks to make something significant happen.
Son, the show must begin.
Curtains.
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