Focus Directs Your Talent

Watch small children playing, and what do you see? They move quickly from one toy to another and from activity to activity. They expend tremendous amounts of energy but get little done. That's to be expected. They are exploring their world and learning by doing.

Focus does not come naturally to us, yet it is essential for anyone who wants to make the most of his talent. Having talent without focus is like being an octopus on roller skates. You can be sure that there will be plenty of movement, but you won't know in what direction it will be. Talent with focus directs you and has the potential to take you far.

In 2004, I traveled to Buenos Aires, Argentina, to do leadership training for a group of about seven thousand people. Whenever I travel to a part of the world that is new to me, I do some research to find out what's unique about the area. I always want to visit special places or engage in experiences that aren't available anywhere else in the world.

I learned that Argentina has the greatest dove hunting in the world. There is a place about seventy-five to one hundred miles north of Buenos Aires where there are literally millions upon millions of doves, and anybody who hunts loves to go there for the experience.

A-Hunting We Will Go

Although I have been hunting before, I'm not really a hunter. Some people are passionate about it, and they enjoy hunting game of all kinds. I go mostly because I love a new experience. So when I went to Argentina, I talked one of my team members, Ray Moats, into going with me. We planned to fly up and go hunting together.

When the guide picked us up from the airport, he took one look at me and said, “You're not a hunter, are you?” I confessed that I wasn't. That's what I thought. The first thing we'll have to do is get rid of that red jacket you're wearing. Even doves will see that. We'll get you some camouflage.”

The guide got Ray and me all set up, and there we were, in a beautiful valley. And sure enough, flocks of doves flew over our heads along the valley. In an hour's time, at least fifty thousand doves flew over us. There were moments when the sky was black with them. So for an hour I shot . . and shot.. and shot. It was one of those situations where there are so many that you say to yourself, How can I miss? And you just start shooting everywhere.

But do you know how many doves I hit in that hour? None! I was surrounded by empty shotgun shells, and I didn't have a single dove to show for it.

Intervention

After an hour of watching my technique and seeing me come up empty-handed, my guide finally couldn't take it anymore. At that rate, we were on track to break a record--for the fewest doves ever shot on a hunt. So he tried to help me.

“Your problem is, you are trying to shoot all of the doves,” he said. “You don't try to shoot all the doves. You don't even worry about the doves that get away. Trust me,” he continued, “in another twenty-five to thirty seconds another whole flock of doves will come. So don't worry about the doves; they'll keep coming all day. Quit worrying about what you lost. Focus on getting one”

While the guide was saying all this, Ray was right there beside me soaking it in. Why? Because he wasn't a hunter either, and he was doing as poorly as I was.

Meet Some Real Hunters

A couple of hours later, our guide decided it was time for us to take a break, and we went back to camp for lunch. There we met some good ol' boys from Arkansas who were real hunters. You could tell by taking one look at them. They were wearing camouflage--and not something they had just bought for the trip. Their clothes, like their shotguns, were well broken in. And these boys were talking very seriously about their hunting experience.

Ray and I sat down across from the Arkansans, and one of them looked at us and said to Ray, “Say, son, how many did you shoot this morning?”

“Three,” Ray answered kind of sheepishly.

“Three, huh? Well, you shouldn't feel bad,” he said. “Three hundred's not bad at all. Really, that's pretty good. We got about four hundred fifty, but three hundred's not bad, especially if it's your first time down here.”

“No, you don't understand,” Ray said. “We got three. Not three hundred. You know, three!” Ray counted on his fingers. “One. Two. Three.”

For a moment, the boys from Arkansas just stared at us. “Son, son,” one finally said, “you don't even have to aim to get three. You just shoot in the air and you're gonna get three. Heck, you can't get just three on purpose. You can only get three by accident.”

After lunch, we did a little better, but not much. It's true that Ray and I are not good hunters, so that was definitely a problem. In an area where there is little talent, you can't expect much success. However, our hunting trip is a great example of a situation where there are so many opportunities that you miss all of them. In hunting as in anything else, what we should have done was focus on the few that we could hit and forget about any opportunities we missed. If you want to be successful, you must focus on what you can do, not on what you can't.

The Power of Focus

Focus can bring tremendous power. Without it, you will often feel drained and unable to accomplish much. With it, you will find that your talents and abilities gain direction and intentionality. And those qualities pay off by producing results.

Here are some facts you need to know about focus:

1. Focus Does Not Come Naturally to Most People

We live in a culture with almost infinite choices and opportunities, and because of that, most people find themselves pulled in dozens of directions. What's worse is that people often find themselves expending much of their time and energy on things they don't really care about. Don Marquis, author of Archy and Mehitabel, put it this way: “Ours is a world where people don't know what they want and are willing to go through hell to get it.”

The solution to such a predicament is focus. Poet William Matthews wrote, “One well-cultivated talent, deepened and enlarged, is worth 100 shallow faculties. The first law of success in this day, when so many things are clamoring for attention, is concentration--to bend all the energies to one point, and to go directly to that point, looking neither to the right nor to the left.”

I try to maintain my focus in the moment by heeding the advice of the martyred missionary Jim Elliott, who said, “Wherever you are, be all there.” But I also look at the bigger picture. As a leader, I am always asking myself, Am I helping others make progress? I am vigilant about how I spend my time, with whom I am spending it, how it fits into the bigger picture, and whether it produces results. And my assistant, Linda Eggers, also keeps me on track by overseeing my calendar. She is a tremendous asset for helping me maintain my priorities. If I feel that I'm not moving forward and helping others throughout the day, then I know that I'm off track in some way. Linda helps me monitor that.

2. Focus Increases Your Energy

If you desire to achieve something, you first need to know what your target is. That's true even when it comes to personal development. If you lack focus, you will be all over the place. Attempting everything, like attempting nothing, will suck the life out of you. It will sap you of energy and new opportunities. And whatever momentum you have going for you will be diminished.

In contrast, focus gives you energy. Polar explorer Admiral Richard E. Byrd asserted, “Few men during their lifetime come anywhere near exhausting the resources dwelling within them. There are deep wells of strength that are never used.” One of the reasons that those wells often go untapped is lack of focus. Something wonderful happens when we narrow our focus and set goals. That is where the real magic starts. The mind doesn't reach toward achievement until it has clear objectives.

After American astronauts successfully landed on the moon, Albeit Siepert, deputy director of the Kennedy Space Center, attributed their success, at least in part, to NASA's focus. For a decade, the organization put nearly all of its time and energy into reaching the moon. Siepert observed, “The reason NASA has succeeded is because NASA had a clearcut goal and expressed its goal. By doing this, we drew the best of men to our goal and the support of every phase of government to reach our goal.”

3. Focus Lifts You

Scholar and educator David Star Jordan said, “The world stands aside to let anyone pass who knows where he or she is going.” In a sea of mediocrity, just knowing what you want to do and then making an effort to pursue it distinguishes you from almost everybody else.

The plain-spoken American writer Henry David Thoreau asked, “Did you ever hear of a man who had striven all his life faithfully and singly toward an object, and in no measure obtained it? If a man constantly aspires, is he not elevated?” Focus always has an impact. Just by striving to become better than you are, you become elevated--even if you don't accomplish what you desire, and even if others don't step aside for you. You can't shoot for the stars and remain unaffected by the effort.

4. Focus Expands Your Life

A few years ago, I wrote a book called Thinking far a Change in which I described the various thinking skills that can help a person become more successful. Included was a chapter on focused thinking, the ability to remove distractions and mental clutter so that a person can concentrate with clarity. In it I explained how I often bring together a team of people to help me brainstorm when working on a project. Because we focus our attention on the subject at hand, we are able to expand ideas in a way that we wouldn't be able to do otherwise.

Mike Kendrick asserts, “What you focus on expands.” That may seem ironic, but it's true. Have you noticed that if you consider buying a particular kind of car, you begin seeing them everywhere? Narrowing your view widens your perspective. On the other hand, if you actually try to expand your view, instead or taking more in, it simply wears you out. If you want to expand your capacity, then focus.

5. Focus Must Be Intentionally Sustained

People do not naturally remain focused. Just as light naturally loses its focus and gets diffused, so does a person's attention. It takes a lot of effort, but the payoff is significant. Hall of Fame baseball player Hank Aaron I says, “I think what separates a superstar from average ballplayer is that he concentrates just a little bit longer.” Aaron demonstrated that he was able to sustain his concentration. He holds the major- league baseball record for the most home runs hit in a career.

In his book Laughter, Joy, and Healing, Donald E. Demaray wrote about a young journalist who was receiving tough criticism from his father because he didn't seem to be making much progress in his career. Undaunted, the young man wrote back to his father explaining that he had a plan for success upon which he was focused. His intentions were as follows:

At 30, he would be a great newspaper reporter.
At 40, he would be a great editor.
At 50, he would be a great story writer.
At 60, he would be a great fiction writer.
At 70, he would be a great grandfather.
At 80, he would be a great admirer of beautiful women.
At 90, he would be a great loss to the community.
Demaray said that the father got a good laugh from the letter and was gratified when he began to see that his son's career was progressing along those lines.

Several years ago, I memorized a definition of success to help me in my career: “Success is the progressive realization of a predetermined worthwhile goal.” What I learned most from that definition is that success is not an event; it is a process. And anytime you engage in a process that takes time, focus is essential. Only people capable of remaining focused can expect to direct their talent and achieve a level of success.

TALENT + FOCUS = A TALENT-PLUS PERSON PUTTING THE TALENT-PLUS FORMULA INTO ACTION

If you desire to become a talent-plus person, you need to make focus your friend. Here's how:

1. Be Intentional--Make Every Action Count

A family who had moved to a new neighborhood got a late start one morning, and as a result their six-year-old missed her bus to school. Though it would make him late for work, the father agreed to take her to school if she could give him directions.

They left their neighborhood, and the young girl began directing her father to take one turn after another. Following twenty minutes of circuitous driving, they arrived at the school, which turned out to be only eight blocks away. Steaming, the father asked the kindergartener why she had him drive all over the place when the school was so close to home.

“We went the way the bus goes,” she said. “That's the only way I know.”

If you want to maximize your talent and become a talent-plus person, you need to make every action count. You must determine where you want to go and how to get there. You cannot be like Alice in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, who asks for directions in this way during her encounter with the Cheshire Cat:

“Would you tell me please, which way ought I to go from here?” she asks.

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get,” the cat replies with a grin.

“I don't care much where,” she answers.

“Then it doesn't matter which way you go,” the cat responds.

People who are undecided about what they want to do or where they want to go cannot tap into their strength of will--or their talent. As a result, they will merely drift along.

Private investigator and author Bill Copeland advises, “You've removed most of the roadblocks to success when you know the difference between motion and direction.” Have you asked yourself what you really want to do? And have you determined that you will pursue it against the odds, despite the obstacles, and regardless of the circumstances? Being intentional is about focusing on doing the right things, moment by moment, day to day, and then following through with them in a consistent way. As President John F. Kennedy asserted, “Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.”

2. Challenge Your Excuses

A sign on the desk of an officer who works at the Pentagon reads, “The secrecy of my job does not permit me to know what I'm doing.” It's clever joke, but it's not funny when it's actually true. People who don't know what they're doing soon become frustrated.

We all have reasons for not doing what we ought to do. We don't have enough time. We don't have enough resources. We don't have enough help. We have problems. We have shortcomings. We have distractions. Should we let these things get us off track? No!

3. Don't Let Yesterday Hijack Your Attention

Humorist and entertainer Will Rogers shared this thought: “Don't let yesterday take up too much of today.” I've never known a person focusing on yesterday who had a better tomorrow. Too many people yearn for the past and get stuck in it. Instead, they should learn from the past and let go of it.

Alvin Dark, who was once the manager of the Kansas City Athletics, used to say, “There's no such thing as taking a pitcher out. There's only bringing another pitcher in.” That runs contrary to what you hear during most baseball broadcasts, but here's the point. When you say you're going to take a pitcher out, you're probably focused on the mistakes he made--the players he walked, the hits he allowed. That doesn't help you win the game. In contrast, when you say you're putting a pitcher in, you are focusing on what that new pitcher is going to do now to try to help you beat the other team. That can make a big difference in your team's attitude--and in the players' ability to succeed.

Editor and publisher Elbert Hubbard wrote,

A retentive memory may be a good thing, but the ability to forget is the true token of greatness. Successful people forget. They know the past is irrevocable. They're running a race. They can't afford to look behind. Their eye is on the finish line. Magnanimous people forget. They're too big to let little things disturb them. They forget easily. If anyone does them wrong, they consider the source and keep cool. It's only the small people who cherish revenge. Be a good forgetter. Business dictates it, and success demands it.

If you desire to make the most of your talent and achieve success, then you need to make what you're doing now your focus. Striving for achievements is a lot like driving a car. It's a good idea to check your rearview mirror occasionally, but not to give it your complete attention. If you do, you will eventually be incapable of moving forward at all.

4. Focus on the Present

Just as you should keep your focus off yesterday, you shouldn't have it on tomorrow. If you're always thinking about tomorrow, then you'll never get anything done today. Your focus needs to remain in the one area where you have some control--today. What's ironic is that if you focus on today, you get a better tomorrow.

I try to do certain things every day to help me in this area. I read to grow in my personal life. I listen to others daily to broaden my perspective. I spend time thinking daily to apply what I am learning. And I try to write daily so that I can remember what I've learned. I also try to share those lessons with others. (Today's lessons become tomorrow's books.) Every day I read aloud to myself the daily dozen list from my book Today Matters to help me focus and have the right mind-set.

You should do something similar. You can't change yesterday. You can't count on tomorrow. But you can choose what you do today. Giving it your focus will pay dividends.

5. Stay Focused on Results

Anytime you concentrate on the difficulty of the work at hand instead of its results or rewards, you're likely to become discouraged. Dwell on the difficulties too long and you'll start to develop self-pity instead of self-discipline, and your attention will become scattered instead of focused. As a result, you will accomplish less and less. By focusing on results, you will find it easier to stay positive and encouraged.

Another thing that can distract you from results is interaction with difficult people. You will come in contact with a lot of people who can impact your efforts as you work on achieving your dreams--some in a negative way. Here are five types of people you are likely to encounter:

Refreshers--they inspire your dreams and energize your talents.
Refiners--they sharpen your ideas and clarify your vision.
Reflectors--they mirror your energy, neither adding nor subtracting from it.
Reducers--they try to reduce your vision and efforts to their comfort level.
Rejecters--they deny your talent, hinder your efforts, and impede your vision.
If you remain focused on results, you will stay grounded. The praise of others is less likely to go to your head, and the negative impact of people such as the reducers and rejecters will be minimized.

6. Develop and Follow Your Priorities

There's an old saying that if you chase two rabbits, both will escape. Unfortunately that is what many people seem to do. They don't focus their attention, and as a result, they become ineffective. Perhaps the reason is that people in our culture have too many choices--nearly unlimited options. Management expert Peter Drucker recognized this phenomenon. He said, “Concentration is the key to economic results. No other principle of effectiveness is violated as constantly today as the basic principle of concentration . . . Our motto seems to be, 'Let's do a little bit of everything.”

If you want to develop your talent, you need to focus. If you're going to focus, you need to work on knowing what your true priorities are and then following them. This is something I have learned to do over time. I love options. I like to have the freedom to pursue the best course of action at any given moment. When I was in my twenties, I spent a lot of time doing things that had little return. In my thirties, I did better, but I still wasn't as focused as I should have been. It wasn't until I reached forty that I started to become highly selective about where I spent my time and energy. Today, as I approach sixty, I filter just about everything I do through my top priority: Am I adding value to people? For me, it all comes down to that.

7. Focus on Your Strengths, Not Your Weaknesses

There's a story about a couple who bought a new piece of property upon which they intended to establish a farm. It was good land, and they could hardly wait to move there and get started. As they made or the move one night, they began to argue about what to do first. The wife wanted to build the house first. After all, once they moved, the new property would be their home. The husband, who had grown up working on a farm, wanted to build the barn first to house their animals. They went back and forth for a while until the man finally said, “Look, we have to build the barn first--because the barn will build the house, and the garage, the silo, the kids' swing set, and everything else!” When you focus on your priorities and put first things first, everything else is more likely to fall into place.

Anthony Campolo, professor emeritus of sociology at Eastern University in Pennsylvania, says,

What you commit yourself to will change what you are and make you into a completely different person. Let me repeat that. Not the past but the future conditions you, because what you commit yourself to become determines what you are--more than anything that ever happened to you yesterday or the day before. Therefore, I ask you a very simple question: What are your commitments? Where are you going? What are you going to be? You show me somebody who hasn't decided, and I'll show you somebody who has no identity, no personality, no direction.

Focusing on weaknesses instead of strengths is like having a handful of coins--a few made of pure gold and the rest of tarnished copper--and setting aside the gold coins to spend all your time cleaning and shining the copper ones in the hopes of making them look more valuable. No matter how long you spend on them, they will never be worth what the gold ones are. Go with your greatest assets; don't waste your time.

8. Delay Rewards Until the Job Is Done

One of the tricks I've used with myself for years is to reward myself when I've done something that I ought to do. My father taught me that when I was a kid--pay now and play later. I think too often people want the rewards before the results, and for that reason they don't stay as focused as they could.

One secret of a life well lived is making every action count--being intentional. That kind of focus helps people live without regrets because it directs and makes the most of their talent and their opportunities. If you know that you have talent, and you are energetic and active, but you don't see concrete results, then lack of focus is likely your problem. It takes talent plus focus to reach your potential and become the person you desire to be.

Initiative Activates Your Talent

It's a cliché to say that every journey begins with the first step, yet it is still true. Talent-plus people don't wait for everything to be perfect to move forward. They don't wait for all the problems or obstacles to disappear. They don't wait until their fear subsides. They take initiative. They know a secret that good leaders understand: momentum is their friend. As soon as they take that first step and start moving forward, things become a little easier. If the momentum gets strong enough, many of the problems take care of themselves and talent can take over. But it starts only after you've taken those first steps.

Disaster

On January 17, 1994, at 4:30 in the morning, a 6.7 magnitude earthquake struck the Los Angeles area. The earthquake was considered moderate (in contrast, the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 was believed to be more than ten times as powerful), but it still did an incredible amount of damage. More than 50 people died and 9,000 were seriously injured. More than 22,000 people were left homeless, and 7,000 buildings were judged uninhabitable with an additional 22,000 sustaining major damage. The quake closed 9 hospitals, ruined several freeways, and collapsed 9 bridges.

The disaster, called the Northridge earthquake, was centered beneath the San Fernando Valley and did $44 billion in damage. Some experts considered the people who lived in the area to be fortunate because the earthquake occurred so early in the morning and on a holiday--Martin Luther King Day. Yet it was still the most monetarily costly earthquake in the history of the United States.

Breaking Gridlock

Los Angeles typically has the worst congestion and traffic delays of any large city in the nation. The effects of the Northridge earthquake made them worse. One of the most problematic areas was a section of Interstate 10 called the Santa Monica Freeway in the heart of Los Angeles--the most heavily used highway in the world. Every day it cares as many as 341,000 vehicles. Estimates were that it would cost California $ 1 million a day in lost wages, added fuel costs, and depressed business activity for every day it was closed.

Environmental reviews and permitting requirements in California routinely take eighteen to twenty-four months. And construction on a project this size usually takes well over six months. At a cost of $1 million a day, that would mean the closure of the Santa Monica Freeway alone could create a negative impact costing Los Angeles more than $900 million!

Governor Pete Wilson knew that he needed to act to solve the problem. He initiated a plan to clear the way for quick reconstruction. Wilson recounts, “I issued an executive order suspending all statutes and regulations related to state contracting …. My goal was to reopen I-10 within 6 months. Each contract included an incentive. If the work was late, we charged a fine, and if it was completed early, we paid a bonus.”

Demolition and removal work had begun a mere six hours after the earthquake. And on Monday, January 31, just two weeks after the earthquake, CalTrans, the state's agency responsible for freeway construction, invited five contractors to bid on the job of rebuilding the Santa Monica Freeway. Preliminary plans were made available to the contractors that night. But bids would be due Friday, February 4, at 10:00 a.m., just four days later! The contract would be awarded that night, and construction would commence on Saturday, February 5. And there were two other important pieces of information. First, the maximum amount of time allowed for construction was 140 days. Second, the financial stakes for finishing the project on time were high. If the winning contractor finished the project late, there would be a penalty of $200,000 per day. However, the contractor would receive $200,000 per day over the bid for each day it finished ahead of schedule.

Stepping Forward

One company that received the offer to bid was C. C. Myers, which had completed several CalTrans projects in the past. The company bid the project at $14.7 million with the promise to finish in 140 days. However, the management team privately set the goal of completing it in 100 days. If all went well, the company could make an additional $8 million.

But of course, everything didn't go well. C. C. Myers planned to work its crews in twelve-hour shifts, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. The crews quickly became fatigued. The solution? The managers hired more workers. A job that size usually required 65 carpenters. They hired 228. Instead of 15 iron workers, they employed 134. They continually initiated steps to speed up the project, such as using an expensive fast-drying concrete rather than their usual material. And when the company was informed that the railroads would require three weeks to deliver the steel beams needed for the project, C. C. Myers chartered its own trains to get the supplies from Arkansas and Texas to Los Angeles.

C. C. Myers's initiative paid off. The company didn't just beat the 140-day deadline or even its own internal goal of 100 days. The crews finished the job in a mere 66 days -- 74 days ahead of schedule. And in the process the organization earned bonuses totaling $14.5 million, nearly the amount of the original bid.

The C. C. Myers organization had expertise, experience, and a proven track record. But the leaders didn't rely on those things alone. Why? They knew that talent alone is never enough. They knew they needed talent plus! To complete the Santa Monica Freeway project, they needed to show initiative in the bidding process, in the leadership of their people, and in the management of the details. That initiative brought them great success. And the company continues to show initiative. In the wake of the Northridge earthquake, Myers began working with engineers at the University of Southern California on innovations to strengthen existing freeways against earthquake damage.

Insights on Initiative

If you want to reach your potential, you have to show initiative, just as Governor Pete Wilson and the leaders at C. C. Myers did. Here's why:

1. Initiative Is the First Step to Anywhere You Want to Go

A tourist paused for a rest in a small town in the mountains. He sat down on a bench next to an old man in front of the town's only store. “Hi, friend,” he said, “can you tell me something this town is noted for?”

“Well,” answered the old man after a moment's hesitation, “you can start here and get to anywhere in the world you want.”

That's true of nearly every location. Where you finish in life isn't determined so much by where you start as by whether you start. If you're willing to get started and keep initiating, there's no telling how far you might go.

That was the case for Les Brown. Les and his brother, Wes, were adopted when they were six weeks old, and they grew up in Liberty City, a poor section of Miami, Florida. As a child, Les was branded a slow learner and given little chance of success by many of his teachers. But with the encouragement of one of his high school teachers, who told him, “Someone else's opinion of you does not have to become your reality,” Les managed to graduate from high school and later got a job as a radio DJ. With much hard work, he became a broadcast manager. He got involved in his community, became a community activist and leader, and eventually was elected to the state legislature for three terms. And then he turned his attention to public speaking, where he received the National Speakers Association's highest honor and was named one of the world's top five speakers according to Toastmasters in 1992. He has written books, hosts his own syndicated television show, owns a business, and commands $25,000 per appearance as a public speaker.

When he started life, most people wouldn't have given him much of a chance to succeed. Few thought he had talent. But he just kept moving forward, and he has since moved far beyond his detractors. Successful people initiate--and they follow through.

2. Initiative Closes the Door to Fear

Author Katharine Paterson said, “To fear is one thing. To let fear grab you by the tail and swing you around is another.” We all have fears. The question is whether we are going to control them or allow them to control us.

In 1995, my friend Dan Reiland and his wife, Patti, went skydiving along with a group of friends (including my writer, Charlie Wetzel). They approached the event with a mixture of excitement and fear. At the skydiving center in Southern California, they received only a few minutes of training to prepare them for their tandem jumps. Dan said they were feeling pretty good about the whole thing until a guy walked into the room and made a pitch to sell them life insurance.

As the plane ascended to 11,000 feet, they became increasingly nervous. Then they opened the sliding door at the back of the plane, at which point the fear factor went through the roof. Wishing they had worn rubber pants, they approached the door, each of them harnessed to a jumpmaster, and then launched themselves out of the plane.

Within seconds, they were hurtling toward the earth at 120 miles an hour. And after a free fall of 6,000 feet, they pulled their rip cords. When the canopy opened, with a forceful jolt they went from 120 miles an hour to 25 miles an hour. Dan said, “It made my underwear find places it had never found before!”

I laugh whenever Dan tells the story, but I was really surprised to learn from Dan and Patti that as petrified as they were before they jumped, all their fear was gone the second they left the plane.

Author and pastor Norman Vincent Peale asserted, “Action is a great restorer and builder of confidence. Inaction is not only the result, but the cause, of fear. Perhaps the action you take will be successful; perhaps different action or adjustments will have to follow. But any action is better than no action at all.” If you want to close the door on fear, get moving.

3. Initiative Opens the Door to Opportunity

Benjamin Franklin, one of our nation's Founding Fathers, advised, “To succeed, jump as quickly at opportunities as you do at conclusions.” People who take initiative and work hard may succeed, or they may fail. But anyone who doesn't take initiative is almost guaranteed to fail. I'm willing to bet that you have . . .

a decision you should be making,

a problem you should be solving,

a possibility you should be examining,

a project you should be starting,

a goal you should be reaching,

an opportunity you should be seizing,

a dream you should be fulfilling.

No one can wait until everything is perfect to act and expect to be successful. It's better to be 80 percent sure and make things happen than it is to wait until you are 100 percent sure because by then, the opportunity will have already passed you by.

4. Initiative Eases Life's Difficulties

Psychiatrist M. Scott Peck famously stated, “Life is difficult.” That's not most people's problem. Their response to life's difficulties is. Too many people wait around for their ship to come in. When they take that many people wait around for their ship to come in. When they take that approach to life, they often find it to be hardship. The things that simply come to us are rarely the things we want. To have a chance at getting what we desire, we need to work for it.

Philosopher and author William James said, “Nothing is so fatiguing as the hanging on of an uncompleted task.” The longer we let things slide, the harder they become. The hardest work is often the accumulation of many easy things that should have been done yesterday, last week, or last month. The only way to get rid of a difficult task is to do it. That takes initiative.

5. Initiative Is Often the Difference Between Success and Failure

A man who was employed by a duke and duchess in Europe was called in to speak to his employer.

“James,” said the duchess, “how long have you been with us?”

“About thirty years, Your Grace,” he replied.

As I recall, you were employed to look after the dog.”

“Yes, Your Grace,” James replied.

“James, that dog died twenty-seven years ago.”

“Yes, Your Grace,” said James. “What would you like me to do now?”

Like James, too many people are waiting for someone else to tell them what to do next. Nearly all people have good thoughts, ideas, and intentions, but many of them never translate those into action. Doing so requires initiative.

Most people recognize that initiative is beneficial, yet they still frequently underestimate its true value. Perhaps the best illustration of the power of initiative is a story about the patenting of the telephone. In the 1870s, two men worked extensively on modifying and improving telegraphy, which was the current technology. Both had ideas for transmitting sounds by wire, and both explored the transmission of the human voice electrically. What is remarkable is that both men--Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray--filed their ideas at the patent office on the same day, February 14, 1876. Bell was the fifth person on record that day who filed for a patent. Gray, on the other hand, sent his attorney, and the man arrived more than an hour after Bell, applying for a caveat, a kind of declaration of intention to file for a patent. Those minutes cost Gray a fortune. Bell's claim was upheld in court, even though Gray complained that he had come up with the idea first

Talent without initiative never reaches its potential. It's like a caterpillar that won't get into its cocoon. It will never transform, forever relegated to crawling on the ground, even though it had the potential to fly.

People Who Lack Initiative

When it comes to initiative, there are really only four kinds of people:

People who do the right thing without being told
People who do the right thing when told
People who do the right thing when told more than once
People who never do the right thing, no matter what
Anyone who wants to become a talent-plus person needs to become the first kind of person. Why doesn't everyone do that? I think there are several reasons.

1. People Who Lack Initiative Fail to See the Consequences of Inaction

King Solomon of ancient Israel is said to have been the wisest person who ever lived. Every time I read Proverbs, which he is believed to have authored, I learn something. In recent years, I've enjoyed reading his words in a paraphrase called The Message:

You lazy fool, look at an ant.

Watch it closely; let it teach you a thing or two.

Nobody has to tell it what to do.

All summer it stores up food;

at harvest it stockpiles provisions.

So how long are you going to laze around doing nothing?

How long before you get out of bed?

A nap here, a nap there, a day off here, a day off there,

sit back, take it easy--do you know what comes next?

Just this: You can look forward to a dirt-poor life,

poverty your permanent houseguest!

British civil servant and economist Sir Josiah Stamp remarked, “It is easy to dodge our responsibilities, but we cannot dodge the consequences of dodging our responsibilities.” That is true. Whatever we do--or neglect to do--will catch up with us in the end. Those who never initiate often end up like the subject of English playwright James Albery's verse,

He slept beneath the moon;

He basked beneath the sun.

He lived a life of going-to-do;

And died with nothing done.

Don't let that happen to you.

2. People Who Lack Initiative Want Someone Else to Motivate Them

There's a silly story of a man in a small town who was known as a great fisherman. Every morning he went out on a lake in his small boat, and in a short time, he returned with his boat loaded with fish.

One day a stranger showed up in town and asked if he could accompany the man the next time he went out. The fisherman said, “Sure, you can come. Meet me at the dock at five a.m.”

The next morning the two men went far out into the lake and made their way to a remote cove. As they traveled, the stranger noticed that the fisherman didn't have any poles or other equipment--just a rusty tackle box and a scoop net.

After the fisherman shut off the motor, he opened the tackle box and pulled out a stick of dynamite. He struck a match, lit it, and then tossed it into the water. After a deafening explosion, he grabbed his net and started scooping up fish.

With a hard look, the stranger reached into his pocket and pulled out a badge with the words game warden on it. “You're under arrest,” he said evenly.

His words didn't faze the fisherman. He simply reached into the tackle box again, lit another stick of dynamite, and held it while the fuse burned down. He then handed it to the game warden and said, “So, are you going to just sit there, or are you going to fish?”

Successful people don't need a lighted fuse to motivate them. Their motivation comes from within. If we wait for others to motivate us, what happens when a coach, a boss, or other inspirational person doesn't show up? We need a better plan than that.

Tom Golisano, founder of Paychex, Inc., offered this considered opinion: “I believe you don't motivate people. What you do is hire motivated people, then make sure you don't demotivate them.” If you want to get ahead, you need to light your own fire.

3. People Who Lack Initiative Look for the Perfect Time to Act

Timing is important--no doubt about that. The Law of Timing in my book The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership states, “When to lead is as important as what to do and where to go.” But it's also true that all worthwhile endeavors in life require risk. I love this Chinese proverb: “He who deliberates fully before taking a step will spend his entire life on one leg.” For many people, the tragedy isn't that life ends too soon; it's that they wait too long to begin it.

4. People Who Lack Initiative Like Tomorrow Better Than Today

One of the reasons non-initiators have such a difficult time getting started is that they focus their attention on tomorrow instead of today. Jazz musician Jimmy Lyons remarked, “Tomorrow is the only day in the year that appeals to a lazy man.” But that attitude gets us into trouble because the only time over which we have any control is the present.

Edgar Guest wrote a poem that captures the fate of those who have this problem. It is appropriately titled “To-morrow”:

He was going to be all that a mortal should be

To-morrow.

No one should be kinder or braver than he

To-morrow.

A friend who was troubled and weary he knew,

Who'd be glad of a lift and who needed it, too;

On him he would call and see what he could do

To-morrow.

Each morning he stacked up the letters he'd write

To-morrow.

And thought of the folks he would fill with delight

To-morrow.

It was too bad, indeed, he was busy to-day,

And hadn't a minute to stop on his way;

More time he would have to give others, he'd say

To-morrow.

The greatest of workers this man would have been

To-morrow

The world would have known him, had he ever seen

To-morrow.

But the fact is he died and he faded from view,

And all that he left here when living was through

Was a mountain of things he intended to do

To-morrow,

The idea of tomorrow can be very seductive, but the promise that it holds is often false. I heard about a customer who went into a furniture store in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and saw an old, faded sign on the wall that said, “Tomorrow we will give away everything in the store.” For a moment, the customer got excited. Then he realized the sign would say the same thing tomorrow--putting off the giveaway another day and then another day. That particular tomorrow would never come.

Spanish priest and writer Baltasar Gracian said, “The wise man does at once what the fool does finally.” Anything worth doing is worth doing immediately. Remember that for people who never start, their difficulties never stop.

TALENT + INITIATIVE = A TALENT-PLUS PERSON

PUTTING THE TALENT-PLUS FORMULA INTO ACTION

To be honest, all of us are plagued by procrastination in some area of our lives. If something is unpleasant, uninteresting, or complex, we tend to put it off. Even some things we like doing can cause us difficulty. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe observed, “To put your ideas into action is the most difficult thing in the world.” Yet to reach our potential and become talent-plus people, we must show initiative. Here are some suggestions to help you as you strive to become a talent-plus person in this area:

1. Accept Responsibility for Your Life

Greek philosopher Socrates said, “To move the world we must first move ourselves.” Show me those who neglect to take responsibility for their own lives, and I'll show you people who also lack initiative. Responsibility and initiative are inseparable.

Everyone experiences setbacks. We all face obstacles. From time to time, we all feel that the deck is stacked against us. We need to show initiative anyway. Dick Butler asserted, “Life isn't fair. It isn't going to be fair. Stop sniveling and whining and go out and make it happen for you. In business I see too many people who expect the financial tooth fairy to come at night and remove that ugly dead tooth from under the pillow and substitute profitability just in the nick of time at the end of the fiscal year.” There's a saying that great souls have wills but feeble ones have only wishes. We cannot wish our way to success. We need to take responsibility and act.

2. Examine Your Reasons for Not Initiating

Chinese philosopher Mencius made this point: “If your deeds are unsuccessful, seek the reason in yourself. When your own person is correct, the whole world will turn to you.” If you lack initiative, the only way you will be able to change is to first identify the specific problem. Think about the reasons people lack initiative already outlined in this chapter. Are you in denial about the consequences of not taking initiative and responsibility for yourself? Are you waiting for others to motivate you instead of working to motivate yourself? Are you waiting for everything to be perfect before you act? Are you fantasizing about tomorrow instead of focusing on what you can do today? Or is there some other issue that is preventing you from taking action?

What's important is that you separate legitimate reasons from excuses. An excuse puts the blame on someone or something outside you. Excuses are like exit signs on the road of progress. They take us off track. Know this: it's easier to move from failure to success than from excuses to success. Eliminate excuses. Once you've done that, you can turn your attention to the reasons--and how to overcome them.

3. Focus on the Benefits of Completing a Task

It is extremely difficult to be successful if you are forever putting things off. Procrastination is the fertilizer that makes difficulties grow. When you take too long to make up your mind about an opportunity that presents itself, you will miss out on seizing it. In the previous chapter, I wrote about the importance of aligning your priorities with your passion. To become effective and make progress in your area of talent or responsibility, you can't spend your valuable time on unimportant or unnecessary tasks. So I'm going to make an assumption that if you do procrastinate about a task, it is a necessary one. (If it's not, don't put it off; eliminate it.) To get yourself over the hump, focus on what you'll get out of it if you get it done. Will completing the task bring a financial benefit? Will it clear the way for something else you would like to do? Does it represent a milestone in your development or the completion of something bigger? At the very least, does it help to clear the decks for you emotionally? If you seek a positive reason, you are likely to find one.

Once you find that idea, start moving forward and act decisively. U.S. admiral William Halsey observed, “All problems become smaller if you don't dodge them, but confront them. Touch a thistle timidly, and it pricks you; grasp it boldly, and its spines crumble.”

4. Share Your Goal with a Friend Who Will Help You

No one achieves success alone. As the Law of Significance states in my book The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork, “One is too small a number to achieve greatness.” Lindbergh didn't fly solo across the Atlantic without help, Einstein didn't develop the theory of relativity in a vacuum, and Columbus didn't discover the New World on his own. They all had help.

My primary partner in life has been my wife, Margaret. She has been a part of every significant goal that I have achieved. She is the first to know when I identify a goal, and she is both the first and the last to support me along the way. And of course, many others have helped me and encouraged me along the way, particularly my parents and my brother, Larry.

In recent years, a key person in supporting me has been John Hull, the president and CEO of EQUIP. When I set the goal of EQUIP to train one million leaders around the globe, the task seemed formidable. As much as I was dedicated to that vision, I had moments when I wondered if it were really possible. John not only was encouraging, but he took ownership of the vision and launched the plan to accomplish it. As you read this book, we have surpassed the goal of training one million leaders and are now working on training another million. One of the reasons I love and admire John is his initiative.

There is no way to put a value on the assistance that others can give you in achieving your dreams. Share your goals and dreams with people who care about you and will encourage and assist you in accomplishing them. It means taking a risk because you will have to be vulnerable in sharing your hopes and ambitions. But the risk is worth taking.

5. Break Large Tasks Down into Smaller Ones

Once you remove some of the internal barriers that may be stopping you from taking initiative and you enlist the help of others, you're ready to get practical. Many times large tasks overwhelm people, and that's a problem because overwhelmed people seldom initiate.

Here's how I suggest you proceed in breaking an intimidating goal into more manageable parts:

Divide it by categories. Most large objectives are complex and can be broken into steps for functions. The smaller pieces often require the effort of people with particular talents. Begin by figuring out what skill sets will be required to accomplish the smaller tasks.

Prioritize it by importance. When we don't take initiative and prioritize what we must do according to its importance, the tasks begin to arrange themselves according to their urgency. When the urgent starts driving you instead of the important, you lose any kind of initiative edge, and instead of activating your talent, it robs you of the best opportunities to use it.

Order it by sequence. Dividing the task according to its categories helps you to understand how you will need to accomplish it. Prioritizing by importance helps you to understand why you need to do each part of it. Ordering by sequence helps you to know when each part needs to be done. The important thing here is to create a timetable, give yourself deadlines, and stick to them. The biggest lie we tell ourselves when it comes to action is, “I'll do it later.”

Assign it by abilities. When you divide the large task into smaller ones by category, you begin to understand what kinds of people you'll need to get the job done. At this stage, you very specifically answer the who question. As a leader, I can tell you that the most important step in accomplishing something big is determining who will be on the team. Assign tasks to winners and give them authority and responsibility, and the job will get done. Fail to give a specific person ownership of the task or give it to an average person, and you may find yourself in trouble.

Accomplish it by teamwork. Even if you break a task down, strategically plan, and recruit great people, you still need one more element to succeed. Everyone has to be able to work together. Teamwork is the glue that can bring it all together.

6. Allocate Specific Times to Tasks You Might Procrastinate

Dawson Trotman, author and founder of The Navigators, observed, “The greatest time wasted is the time getting started.” Haven't you found that to be true? The hardest part of writing a letter is penning the first line. The hardest part of making a tough phone call is picking up the receiver and dialing the number. The most difficult part of practicing the piano is sitting down at the keyboard.

It's the start that often stops people. So how do you overcome that difficulty? Try scheduling a specific time for something you don't like doing. For example, if dealing with difficult people is a regular part of your job, but you tend to avoid doing it, then schedule a set time for it. Maybe the best time would be between two and three o'clock every day. Treat it like an appointment, and when three o'clock rolls around, stop until tomorrow.

7. Remember, Preparation Includes Doing

One of the questions I often hear concerns writing. Young leaders frequently ask me how I got started, and I tell them about my first book, Think on These Things. It's a small book comprised of many three-page chapters, but it took me nearly a year to write it. I remember many nights when I spent hours scribbling on a legal pad only to have a few sentences to show for my effort.

“I want to sell a lot of books and influence a lot of people like you do,” these young leaders will declare.

“That's great,” I'll answer. “What have you written?”

“Well, nothing yet” is typically the response.

“Okay,” I say. “What are you working on?” I ask the question hoping to give some encouragement.

“Well, I'm not actually writing yet, but I have a lot of ideas,” they'll say, explaining that they hope they'll have more time next month or next year or after they get out of school. When I hear an answer like that, I know that it will never happen. Writers write. Composers compose. Leaders lead. You must take action in order to become who you desire to be. Novelist Louis L'Amoui, who wrote more than 100 books and sold more than 230 million copies, advised, “Start writing, no matter about what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.”

Desire isn't enough. Good intentions aren't enough. Talent isn't enough. Success requires initiative. Michael E. Angier, founder of SuccessNet, stated, “Ideas are worthless. Intentions have no power. Plans are nothing … unless they are followed with action. Do it now!”

Passion Energizes Your Talent

What carries people to the top? What makes them take risks, go the extra mile, and do whatever it takes to achieve their goals? It isn't talent. It's passion. Passion is more important than a plan. Passion creates fire. It provides fuel. I have yet to meet a passionate person who lacked energy. As long as the passion is there, it doesn't matter if they fail. It doesn't matter how many times they fall down. It doesn't matter if others are against them or if people say they cannot succeed. They keep going and make the most of whatever talent they possess. They are talent-plus people and do not stop until they succeed.

Looking for Direction

What does a boy like Rueben Martinez do in a place like Miami, Arizona? Miami is a small mining town of two thousand people in the southeastern part of Arizona that has changed little since its founding in 1907. When Rueben was growing up in the 1940s and 1950s, most of the town's jobs came from the copper mining industry, as they still do. Rueben's parents, who were Mexican immigrants, worked in the mines. There wasn't much to do in Miami. But Rueben had a curious mind, and he found his passion in books--not necessarily an easy task when your parents aren't big readers and your town is so small that it doesn't even have a public library.

“My mother always wanted me to put down my books and clean the yard,” recalls Rueben. “So I would hide in the outhouse and read because no one would bother me there.”

The child was so desperate for reading material that he became very industrious. “Every morning at 6:45,” he says, “the newspaper boy would deliver the newspaper and, when it hit my neighbor's side of the house, I would wake up, go out the back door, lean against my neighbor's house and read the newspaper every morning thoroughly. Then I'd fold that newspaper and put it back as neatly as I could.

Eventually Rueben got caught. But his neighbor didn't mind and encouraged him to keep reading. Rueben was also inspired and assisted by two of his teachers. They continually encouraged his love of reading and loaned him books.

New Direction

When he was seventeen, Rueben moved to Los Angeles to find greater opportunities. The moment he saw the Pacific Ocean, he knew he'd never live in Arizona again. He took whatever jobs he could. He worked as a grocery clerk, crane operator, and factory worker, including at the Bethlehem Steel Mill in Maywood. But then one day he saw an ad for a barber college, and he was captivated by the idea of attending. “I saw those smocks they wore, so white,” says Martinez. “It was the opposite of the dirt of the mining world. I wanted clean.”

In the 1970s, Rueben Martinez opened his own barbershop and became his own boss. He was making a better life for himself. But he never lost his passion for reading, a passion he wanted to pass on to others, especially young people in the Hispanic and Latino communities. According to a National Endowment for the Arts survey, the reading level among Hispanics is half that of non-Hispanic whites. Martinez wanted to change that.

He started out by lending volumes from his two-hundred-book collection to people waiting for a haircut. The books ranged from Spanish-language masterpieces like One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Don Quixote by Cervantes, to American books by Hemingway or Silverstein translated into Spanish, to a signed autobiography by actor Anthony Quinn. But often his patrons forgot to return the books, which frustrated Martinez and diminished his supply for other patrons. His solution? Start selling books. In 1993, Martinez offered books for sale for the first time. He started with two titles. But it didn't take long for sales to increase, and he started carrying more titles. He became an advocate for literacy. He talked to parents about reading to their children. He talked to young people about diving into books. And he contacted high-profile authors, such as Isabel Allende, and invited them to his shop. Martinez recalled Allende's reaction when she showed up. “When she came into the barbershop bookstore, she said, 'Is this it?' And I said. 'This is it.' Because I only had two book shelves. I had art. I had a barber :hair . . And she said, 'I like it.' And we had a good time. But we also had one of the biggest audiences that ever came to see an author in the city of Santa Ana. We had quite a few people … about 3,000.”

A few year later, the barbershop with books became a bookstore with a symbolic barber chair. Martinez called his store Libreria Martinez Books and Art Gallery. “We started out with two books,” says Martinez, “then 10, then 25. Little by little, we've sold over 2 million books. That's what happens if you dare to dream.” The store now stocks seventeen thousand titles and has become one of the country's largest collections of Spanish-language books. Martinez opened a second store in 2001 and also a third store just for children. He tells parents, “Do you want your child to be ahead of the line or at the back of the line, moms and dads? You have to support, endorse, and read to your kid . . if you do that, your kid will be at the head of the line . . . and be someone special in this world. Reading does it.”

Momentum

Rueben Martinez's talent for promoting literacy has blossomed as he has allowed his passion to explode. He started hosting a weekly cable show on Univision. He co-founded the Latino Book Festival with actor Edward James Olmos. And he started speaking at schools and to other groups to promote literacy. He advises his audiences to read twenty minutes a day so that they consume one million words a year. One of his favorite sayings is that books can take a person all over the world--a library card will take you farther than a driver's license.

At a very, very young age,” says Martinez, “and I still do. I read a lot every day. I look forward to that. I love literature.”

People are starting to recognize Martinez's talent. In 2004, he won a MacArthur Foundation fellowship--often called a “genius grant”--for fusing the roles of marketplace and community center to inspire appreciation of literature and preserve Latino literary heritage.” He became the U.S. Small Business Administration's 2004 Minority Business Advocate of the Year. He received an honorary doctorate in humane letters from Whittier College in 2005 and was also named one of Inc.com's twenty-six most fascinating entrepreneurs. Carlos Azula of Random House points out that “Rueben isn't just selling books; he's selling reading.”

Martinez isn't stopping. In his mid-sixties, he has no intention of resting on his laurels. He is energized by what he does.

“I made more money cutting hair than selling books,” notes Martinez, age sixty-four. “But the joy of my life is what I'm doing now.” Martinez wants to create a bilingual Borders-style chain of bookstores across the nation, hoping to establish twenty-five stores by 2012.

“If I had stayed with my factory jobs,” observes Martinez, “I would have been living a comfortable retirement now. But I chose to go on my own as a barber. Now with the bookstores, I'm going to work for the rest of my life. My kids think I'm crazy.” No, he's not crazy. He's just filled with passion!

Your Passion Can Empower You


Passion can energize every aspect of a person's life--including his talent. Have you ever known a person with great passion who lacked the energy to act on what mattered to her? I doubt it. A passionate person with limited talent will outperform a passive person who possesses greater talent. Why? Because passionate people act with boundless enthusiasm, and they just keep on going! Talent plus passion energizes.

Authors Robert J. Kriegel and Louis Patler cite a study of 1,500 people over twenty years that shows how passion makes a significant difference in a person's career.

At the outset of the study, the group was divided into Group A, 83 percent of the sample, who were embarking on a career chosen for the prospects of making money now in order to do what they wanted later, and Group B, the other 17 percent of the sample, who had chosen their career path for the reverse reason, they were going to pursue what they wanted to do now and worry about the money later.

The data showed some startling revelations:

At the end of the 20 years, 101 of the 1,500 had become millionaires.
Of the millionaires, all but one--100 out of 101--were from Group B, the group that had chosen to pursue what they loved!
The old saying is true: “Find something you like to do so much that you'd gladly do it for nothing, and if you learn to do it well, someday people will be happy to pay you for it.” When that's the case, then true are the words of a motto that Dr. Charles Mayo kept on his office wall: “There's no fun like work.”

The Power of Passion

There really is no substitute for passion when it comes to energizing your talent. Take a look at what passion can do for you:

1. Passion Is the First Step to Achievement

Loving what you do is the key that opens the door for achievement. When you don't like what you're doing, it really shows--no matter how hard you try to pretend it doesn't. You can become like the little boy named Eddie whose grandmother was an opera lover. She had season tickets, and when Eddie turned eight, she decided to take him to a performance of Wagner--in German--as his birthday present. The next day, at his mother's prompting, the child wrote the following in a thank-you note: “Dear Grandmother, Thank you for the birthday present. It is what I always wanted, but not very much. Love, Eddie.”

It's difficult to achieve when you don't have the desire to do so. That's why passion is so important. There is a story about Socrates in which a proud and disdainful young man came to the philosopher and, with a smirk, said, “O great Socrates, I come to you for knowledge.”

Seeing the shallow and vain young man for what he was, Socrates led the young man down to the sea into waist-deep water. Then he said, the young man down to the sea into waist-deep water. Then he said, “Tell me again what you want.”

“Knowledge,” he responded with a smile.

Socrates grabbed the young man by his shoulders and pushed him down under the water, holding him there for thirty seconds. “Now, what do you want?”

“Wisdom, O great Socrates,” the young man sputtered.

The philosopher pushed him under once again. When he let him up, he asked again, “What do you want?”

“Knowledge, O wise and . . . ,” he managed to spit out before Socrates held him under again, this time even longer.

“What do you want?” the old man asked as he let him up again. The younger man coughed and gasped.

“Air!” he screamed. “I need air!”

“When you want knowledge as much as you just wanted air, then you will get knowledge,” the old man stated as he returned to shore.

The only way you can achieve anything of significance is to really want it. Passion provides that.

2. Passion Increases Willpower

One of my roles as a motivational teacher is to try to help people reach their potential. For years, I tried to inspire passion in audiences by going about it the wrong way. I used to tell people about what made me passionate, what made me want to get out and do my best. But I could see that it wasn't having the effect I desired--people just didn't respond. I couldn't ignite others' passion by sharing my own.

I decided to change my focus. Instead of sharing my passion, I started helping others discover their passion. To do that, I ask these questions:

What do you sing about?

What do you cry about?

What do you dream about?

The first two questions speak to what touches you at a deep level today. The third answers what will bring you fulfillment tomorrow. The answers to these questions can often help people discover their true passion.

While everybody can possess passion, not everyone takes the time to discover it. And that's a shame. Passion is fuel for the will. Passion turns your have-to's into want-to's. What we accomplish in life is based less on what we want and more on how much we want it. The secret to willpower is what someone once called wantpower. People who want something enough usually find the willpower to achieve it.

You can't help people become winners unless they want to win. Champions become champions from within, not from without.

3. Passion Produces Energy

When you have passion, you become energized. You don't have to produce perseverance; it is naturally present in you. It helps you to enjoy becomes a long and difficult road.

For many years my wife, Margaret, has called me the Energizer Bunny because of the commercials where the battery-operated rabbit keeps going and going. I guess she does so with good reason. I do have a lot of energy. There are always things I hope to do, people I want to see, and goals I want to reach. The reason is passion! We often call people high energy or low energy based on how much they do, but I have come to the conclusion that it might be more appropriate to call them high or low passion.

During a Q-and-A session at a conference, an attendee once asked me, “What is the secret of your passion?” It took me only a moment to be able to articulate it:

I am gifted at what I do (strength zone).
What I do makes a difference (results).
When I do what I was made to do, I feel most alive (purpose).
I believe all passionate people feel that way. Aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh observed, “It is the greatest shot of adrenaline to be doing what you've wanted to do so badly. You almost feel like you could fly without the plane.”

Some people say that they feel burned out. The truth is that they probably never were on fire in the first place. Writer and editor Norman Cousins said, “Death isn't the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside of us while we live.” Without passion, a part us does becomes dead. And if we're not careful, we could end up like the person whose tomb-tone read, “Died at 30. Buried at 60.” Don't allow that to happen to you. Be like Rueben Martinez who is still going strong beyond age sixty. People often describe him as acting half his age. What gives him such energy? His passion!

4. Passion Is the Foundation for Excellence

Passion can transform someone from average to excellent. I can tell you that from experience. When I was in high school, I wasn't a great student. My priorities were basketball first, friends second, and studies a distant third. Why? Because playing basketball and spending time with friends were things I was passionate about. I studied, but only to please my parents. School held little appeal for me.

Everything changed when I went to college. For the first time I was studying subjects that mattered to me. They were interesting, and they would apply to my future career. My grades went up because my passion did. In high school I was sometimes on the principal's “list” (which was not a good thing), but in college I continually made the dean's list. Passion fired my desire to achieve with excellence.

Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. asserted, “If a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.” When you find purpose, you find passion. And when you find passion, it energizes your talent so that you can achieve excellence.

5. Passion Is the Key to Success

People are such that whenever anything fires their souls, impossibilities vanish. Perhaps that's why philosopher-poet Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “Every great and commanding movement in the annals of the world is the triumph of enthusiasm.”

I read about two hundred executives who were asked what makes people successful. The number one quality they cited was enthusiasm, not talent--80 percent of them recognized that here needed to be a fire within to achieve success.

The most talented people aren't always the ones who win. If they did, how could anyone explain the success of the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team, which was depicted in the movie Miracle, or the Hall of Fame careers of basketball's Larry Bird or football's Joe Montana? Of Montana, teammate Ronnie Lott said, “You can't measure the size of his heart with a tape measure or a stopwatch.” It takes more than talent to create success. It takes passion.

6. Passion Makes a Person Contagious

Writer and promotional publicist Eleanor Doan remarked, “You cannot kindle a fire in any other heart until it is burning within your own.” I believe that's true. One of my favorite subjects is communication. I have studied and taught it for years, and I always enjoy observing great communicators in action. I believe that people are instructed by reason, but they are inspired by passion.

Even a brief review of effective leaders and businesspeople throughout history illustrates that their passion “caught on” with others. One of my favorites is Winston Churchill. In the 1930s, Churchill was beginning to fade from view in British politics. But with the rise of Hitler came rise in Churchill's passion. Long before others did, Churchill spoke out against the Nazis. He had a passion to protect freedom and democracy. And when Hitler declared war and sought to conquer Europe and crush England, Churchill's passion for resistance became infused in the people of Britain and eventually the United States. Without Churchill, the fate of the free world might have turned out to be quite different.

TALENT + PASSION = A TALENT-PLUS PERSON PUTTING THE TALENT-PLUS FORMULA INTO ACTION

If you don't possess the energy that you desire, then you need to fire up your passion. Here is how I suggest you proceed:

1. Prioritize Your Life According to Your Passion

People who have passion but lack priorities are like individuals who find themselves in a lonely log cabin deep in the woods on a cold snowy night and then light a bunch of small candles and place them all around the room. They don't create enough light to help them see, nor do they produce enough heat to keep them warm. At best, they merely make the room seem a bit more cheerful. On the other hand, people who possess priorities but no passion are like those who stack wood in the fireplace of that same cold cabin but never light the fire. But people who have passion with priorities are like those who stack the wood, light the fire, and enjoy the light and heat that it produces.

In the early 1970s, I realized that my talent would be maximized and my potential realized only if I matched my passion with my priorities. I was spending too much of my time doing tasks for which I possessed neither talent nor passion. I had to make a change--to align what I felt strongly about with what I was doing. It made a huge difference in my life. It didn't eliminate my troubles or remove my obstacles, but it empowered me to face them with greater energy and enthusiasm. For more than thirty years, I have worked to maintain that alignment of priorities and passion. And as I have, I've kept in mind this quote by journalist Tim Redmond, which I put in a prominent place for a year to keep me on track: “There are many things that will catch my eye, but there are only a few that catch my heart. It is those I consider to pursue.”

Prioritizing your life according to your passion can be risky. For most people, it requires a major realignment in their work and private lives. But you can't be a talent-plus person and play it safe. Advertising agency president Richard Edler stated this:

Safe living generally makes for regrets later on. We are all given talents and dreams. Sometimes the two don't match. But more often than not, we compromise both before ever finding out. Later on, as successful as we might be, we find ourselves looking back longingly to that time when we should have chased our true dreams and our true talents for all they were worth. Don't let yourself be pressured into thinking that your dreams or your talents aren't prudent. They were never meant to be prudent. They were meant to bring joy and fulfillment into your life.

If your priorities are not aligned with your passion, then begin thinking about making changes in your life. Will change be risky? Probably. But which would you rather live with? The pain of risk or the pain of regret?

2. Protect Your Passion

If you've ever built a fire, then you know this: the natural tendency of fire is to go out. If you want to keep a fire hot, then you need to feed it, and you need to protect it. Not everyone in your life will help you do that when it comes to your passion. In truth, there are two kinds of people: firelighters, who will go out of their way to help you keep your fire hot, and firefighters, who will throw cold water on the fire of passion that bums within you.

How can you tell the firelighters from the firefighters? Listen to what they say. Firefighters use phrases like these:

“It's not in the budget.”
“That's not practical.”
“We tried that before and it didn't work.”
“We've never done that before.”
“Yeah, but…”
“The boss won't go for it.”
“If it ain't broke, then don't fix it.”
“That's not the way we do things around here.”
“It'll never work.”
“But who will do all the extra work?”
“You're not________ [smart, talented, young, old, etc.] enough.”
“You're getting too big for your britches.”
“Who do you think you are?”
If you've heard one or more of these phrases coming from people you know, you may want to create some distance between yourself and them. These firefighters focus on what's wrong rather than what's right. They find the cloud that comes with every silver lining. They doubt. They resist change. They keep people from reaching their potential by trying to put out the fire of their passion. Stay away from them. Instead, spend more time with people who see you not just as you are but as you could be; people who encourage your dreams, ignite your passion. I try to schedule a lunch or two with firelighters like these every month. They really fire me up and energize me to do what I know is best for me.

3. Pursue Your Passion with Everything You've Got

Rudy Ruettiger, upon whose life the movie Rudy was based, observed, “If you really, really believe in your dream, you'll get there. But you have to have passion and total commitment to make it happen. When you have passion and commitment, you don't need a complex plan. Your plan is your life is your dream.”

What do you want to accomplish in your lifetime? How do you want to focus your energy: on survival, success, or significance? We live in a time and place with too many opportunities for survival alone. And there's more to life than mere success. We need to dream big. We need to adopt the perspective of someone like playwright George Bernard Shaw, who wrote,

I am convinced that my life belongs to the whole community; and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in the life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I got hold of for a moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before turning it over to future generations.

Shaw had passion--for life and his work. Your passion has the potential to provide you energy far beyond the limitations of your talent. In the end, you will be remembered for your passion. It is what will energize your talent. It is what will empower you to make your mark.

Belief Lifts Your Talent

The first and greatest obstacle to success for most people is their belief in themselves. Once people figure out where their sweet spot is (the area where they are most gifted), what often hinders them isn't lack of talent. It's lack of trust in themselves, which is a self-imposed limitation. Lack of belief can act as a ceiling on talent. However, when people believe in themselves, they unleash power in themselves and sources around them that almost immediately take them to a higher level. Your potential is a picture of what you can become. Belief helps you see the picture and reach for it.

More Than Just Great Talent

It has become an American sports legend. People call it the guarantee. At the time, it seemed like little more than an outrageous statement-- bravado from a high-profile athlete whose team was the underdog before the big game. It occurred on January 9, 1969, just three days before the third world championship game of football, the first that was called the Super Bowl. And it was just eight simple words uttered by the Jets' quarterback, Joe Namath: “The Jets will win Sunday. I guarantee it.”

That boastful statement may not seem remarkable today. Ever since the career of Muhammad Ali, bold statements by athletes have been commonplace. But people didn't hear those kinds of boasts from anyone playing in the upstart American Football League (AFL). The eight-year-old AFL was considered to be inferior, and in the previous two world championship football games, the AFL teams had been trounced. Most experts believed it would be many years before an AFL team could compete at the level of any NFL team. The NFL's Colts were favored to win this third championship game by 18 or 19 points.

Namath's guarantee might have seemed outrageous, but it was more than a hollow boast. It wasn't out of character for him either. Despite the fact that Namath was often quick to take the blame in interviews when the Jets lost, he always displayed a powerful self-confidence. He believed in himself, his team, and their ability to win the game. That ability to believe in himself was something that could be traced all the way back to his childhood.

Early Signs

Joe Namath always possessed athletic talent. He came from a family of athletes. His first coaches were his family members. John, his father, spent a lot of time showing him how to throw, hit, and field a baseball and teaching him what to do in various game situations. His brothers contributed too. His brother Bobby started teaching him the position of quarterback when Joe was only six. And brother Frank drilled him and mounded him if he didn't perform well in their family practices.

Growing up, Joe was small and light for his age. Sometimes people underestimated him because of that. When he was in elementary school, a group of kids from an even tougher neighborhood than his own challenged his friend Linwood Alford to a game of two-on-two basketball. Linwood and Joe showed up to play, and Linwood recalled, “They were all laughing like: who's this little scrawny kid? How you gonna win with this guy?” Joe might have looked like an easy kid to beat, but he wasn't. “You knocked him down, he got right back up,” observed Alford. “Joe wasn't no pretty boy.” Joe and Linwood beat the other kids and quickly earned their respect.

Joe had a certain fearlessness. He and Linwood used to go to a train trestle near their home, and they would hang from the trestle as the locomotive and its cars thundered overhead. But at first, that fearlessness didn't translate onto the athletic field. The key to unleashing the belief that lifted his talent occurred when Joe Namath was eight years old. He came home with his first team uniform for the Elks' Little League baseball team. Namath's biography recounts the exchange that occurred between young Joe and his father, John:

That's real nice, son. Fits you good.”

Joey was the smallest kid on that team. He was the youngest, too, probably by a year. “You know, Daddy, those other kids are so good,” he said. “They're bigger than I am … I don't have a chance.”

“Well, you take that uniform off right now,” his father said. “Take it back to the manager and tell him that you can't make the team because the other boys are better than you are.”

Joey looked at his father with those sad, dreamy eyes. “Oh, no, Daddy. I can't do that.”

“If you can't make the team, what's the use of keeping the uniform?”

“But, Daddy,” he said, “they're so good.”

“You're good, too. You can field grounders. You can hit the ball. You know where to make the plays.”

John gave the boy a choice: return the uniform or practice with the team. If, after the practice, he didn't feel that he was better than every other kid, he should quit.

Joey said he'd try.

As it happened, he turned out to be the best player on that Elks team.

The belief that John Namath tried to instill in his son was not misplaced. The father used to sum up Joe's Little League career by telling about a particular game that represented his son's ability. John arrived late and asked about the score from someone who was at all of the games. There were no outs, the score was tied at 3, and all and the bases were loaded. “But don't worry,” the man said. “They just put the little Namath kid in to pitch.” Joe got three quick outs, including striking out the opposing team's best player, a boy who was two years older than Joe (and who later played football at Pitt). Then when Joe got up to bat, he hit the winning home run.

Business as Usual

That kind of confident performance became the norm for Namath. As a high school basketball player, he was fast, he could shoot, and unlike most of his opponents and teammates, he could dunk. As a football player, he led his Beaver Falls team to win the Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League championship. Before one of the games when Joe had a sore ankle, the confident quarterback, who also punted for the team, assured his worried coach, “Don't worry, coach, we won't have to punt.”

Namath was heavily recruited out of high school, and some referred to him as the best quarterback in the country. He ended up at the University of Alabama, where he became a star and led the Crimson Tide to a national championship.

Entering the pros, Namath was again considered the best quarterback of his class. It's said that the NFL's New York Giants wanted him badly, but the AFL's New York Jets got him. Namath signed a contract in 1965 whose terms dwarfed anything previously seen in professional football--in any professional sport, for that matter.

For three years, Namath played his heart out, broke passing records, underwent knee surgeries, and led his team to losing seasons. But he never lost his belief in himself. He knew he could play and lead his team to victory. In the 1968 season, his fourth, he finally led his team to a winning season and a victory in the AFL championship. He didn't care that nobody gave the Jets a chance to win against the NFL team. He believed in himself and his ability to win. He also convinced his team. What most people didn't know was that Namath had watched hours of film on the Colts, as he did for every opponent. “The one-eyed monster--it never lies,” Namath used to say, referring to the projector he kept in his apartment. He showed his teammates what he saw. They could win that game. And that's exactly what they did. The Jets beat the Colts 16 to 7. Most people consider it to be the biggest upset in Super Bowl history.

What would have happened to Joe Namath if his father hadn't challenged him to believe in himself and his ability when he was only eight years old? Maybe he would have ended up like his brothers, talented athletes who dropped out of high school or college to work in the local mill or machine shop. Or maybe he would have ended up a pool hustler. It's hard to say. But one thing is certain: he wouldn't have ended up in the Pro Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. It takes more than talent to end up there; it also takes belief.

Beliefs Worth Buying Into

I don't know what your talent is, but I do know this: it will not be lifted to its highest level unless you also have belief. Talent alone is never enough. If you want to become your best, you need to believe your best. You need to …

1. Believe in Your Potential

Your potential is a picture of what you can become. Inventor Thomas Edison remarked, “If we did all the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astonish ourselves.”

Too often we see what is, not what could be. People looked at Joe Namath when he was young, and they saw a skinny, undersized kid. They looked at him when he was in high school, and they saw a kid who hung around with the wrong crowd and didn't do his homework. They looked at him when he was in the pros, and they saw a guy with bad knees. But he saw himself as a champion. If you could see yourself in terms of your true potential, you wouldn't recognize yourself.

When my daughter, Elizabeth, was in high school, she had a “glamour shot” taken of herself to give me a gift. That was the rage at the time. A person would go into the photo studio and be made up to look like a movie star. When I first saw the picture, I thought, That's not the way she looks every day, but that's Elizabeth, that's truly her. Likewise, that's what it's like when you see and believe in your potential. If you were to see yourself as you could be, you would look better than you ever imagined. I just wish I could show you a picture of yourself with your potential intact.

Indian statesman Mohandas Gandhi said, “The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problems.” Closer to home, it would also suffice to solve most of our individual problems. We must first believe in our potential if we are to do what we're capable of. Too many people fall far short of their real potential. John Powell, author of The Secret of Staying in Love, estimates that the average person caches only 10 percent of his potential, sees only 10 percent of the beauty that is all around him, hears only 10 percent of its music and poetry, smells only 10 percent of its fragrance, and tastes only 10 percent of the deliciousness of being alive. Most neither see nor seize their potential.

Executive coach Joel Garfinkle recounts a story by writer Mark Twain in which a man died and met Saint Peter at the pearly gates. Immediately realizing that Saint Peter was a wise and knowledgeable individual, the man inquired, “Saint Peter, I have been interested in military history for many years. Tell me who was the greatest general of all time?”

Saint Peter quickly responded, “Oh, that's a simple question. It's that man right over there.”

“You must be mistaken,” responded the man, now very perplexed. “I knew that man on earth and he was just a common laborer.”

“That's right, my friend,” assured Saint Peter. “He would have been the greatest general of all time, if he had been a general.”

Cartoonist Charles Schulz offered this comparison: “Life is a ten-speed bike. Most of us have gears we never use.” What are we saving those gears for? It's not good to travel through life without breaking a sweat. So what's the problem? Most of the time it's self-imposed limitations. They limit us as much as real ones. Life is difficult enough as it is. We make it more difficult when we impose additional limitations on ourselves. Industrialist Charles Schwab observed, “When a man has put a limit on what he will do, he has put a limit on what he can do.”

In If It Ain't Broke . . Break It! Robert J. Kriegel and Louis Patler write,

We don't have a clue as to what people's limits are. All the tests, stop watches, and finish lines in the world can't measure human potential. When someone is pursuing their dream, they'll go far beyond what seems to be their limitations. The potential that exists within us is limitless and largely untapped . . When you think of limits, you create them.

We often put too much emphasis on mere physical challenges and obstacles, and give too little credence to psychological and emotional ones. Sharon Wood, the first North American woman to climb Mount Everest, learned some things about that after making her successful climb. She said, “I discovered it wasn't a matter of physical strength, but a matter of psychological strength. The conquest lay within my own mind to penetrate those barriers of self imposed limitations and get through to that good stuff--the stuff called potential, 90 percent of which we rarely use.”

In 2001, 1 was invited to Mobile, Alabama, to speak to six hundred NFL coaches and scouts at the caches and scouts at the Senior Bowl. That's the game played by two teams of college seniors who have been invited to participate because they are believed to have NFL potential. In the morning I taught from The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork, which had just been published. And in the afternoon, I attended a workout session in which the players were tested for running speed, reaction time, jumping ability, and so forth.

One of the coaches in attendance, Dick Vermeil, chatted with me as I watched. At some point he said, “You know, we can measure many of their skills, but it's impossible to measure the heart. Only the player can determine that.”

Your potential is really up to you. It doesn't matter what others might think. It doesn't matter where you came from. It doesn't even matter what you might have believed about yourself at a previous time in your life. It's about what lies within you and whether you can bring it out.

There's a story about a farm boy from Colorado who loved to hike and rock climb. One day while climbing in the mountains, he found an eagle's nest with an egg in it. He took the egg from the nest, and when he got home, he put it under a hen along with her other eggs.

Since he hatched among chicks, the eagle thought he was a chicken. He learned chicken behavior from his “mother” and scratched in the chicken yard along with his “siblings.” He didn't know any better. And when he sometimes felt strange stirrings within him, he didn't know what to do with them, so he ignored them or suppressed them. After all, if he was a chicken, he should behave like a chicken.

Then one day an eagle flew over the farm, and the chicken-yard eagle looked up and saw him. In that moment, he realized he wanted to be like that eagle. He wanted to fly high. He wanted to go to the mountain peaks he saw in the distance. He spread his wings, which were much larger and stronger than those of his siblings. Suddenly he understood that he was like that eagle. Though he had never flown before, he possessed the instinct and the capabilities. He spread his wings once more, and he flew, unsteadily at first, but then with greater power and control. As he soared and climbed, he knew that he had finally discovered his true self.

Phillips Brooks, writer of the song “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” remarked, “When you discover you've been leading only half a life, the other half is going to haunt you until you develop it.” Not only is that true, but I'd also say this: Not reaching your potential is a real tragedy. To reach your potential, you must first believe in your potential, and determine to live way beyond average.

2. Believe in Yourself

It's one thing to believe that you possess remarkable potential. It's another thing to have enough faith in yourself that you think you can fulfill it. When it comes to believing in themselves, some people are agnostic! That's not only a shame; it also keeps them from becoming what they could be. Psychologist and philosopher William James emphasized that “there is but one cause of human failure. And that is man's lack of faith in his true self.”

People who believe in themselves get better jobs and perform better in them than those who don't. Martin Seligman, professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, did some research at a major life insurance company and found that the salespeople who expected to succeed sold 37 percent more insurance than those who didn't. The impact of belief in self begins early. Some researchers assert that when it comes to academic achievement in school, there is a greater correlation between self-confidence and achievement than there is between IQ and achievement.

Attorney and marketing expert Kerry Randall observed, “Successful people believe in themselves, especially when others do not.” That's no more evident than in sports. Coaches have told me that self-confidence within players is especially important in tight ball games. During crunch time, some players want the ball. Others want to hide. The ones who want the ball are the self-confident ones, like Namath, who held the ball down to the last second during a high school basketball game in which his team was one point behind. While his team's leading scorer kept shouting, “Give me the ball!” Namath was as cool as ever and sank the winning shot as the buzzer sounded.

People with confidence live by a credo that is said to hang in the office of golfer Arnold Palmer. It reads,

If you think you are beaten, you are.

If you think you dare not, you don't.

If you'd like to win, but think you can't

It's almost certain you won't…

Life's battles don't always go

To the stronger or faster man,

But soon or late, the man who wins

Is the man who thinks he can.

Only with belief in yourself will you be able to reach your potential.

3. Believe in Your Mission

What else is necessary to lift a person's talent? Believing in what you are doing. In fact, even if the odds are against your accomplishing what you desire, confidence will help you. William James asserted, “The one thing that will guarantee the successful conclusion of a doubtful undertaking is faith in the beginning that you can do it.” How does this kind of belief help?

Belief in your mission will empower you. Having confidence in what you are doing gives you the power to achieve it. Architect Frank Lloyd Wright noted, “The thing always happens that you really believe in; and the belief in a thing makes it happen.” Confident people can usually evaluate a task before undertaking it and know whether they can do it. In that belief is great power.

Belief in your mission will encourage you. A woman with a will to win will have her naysayer. A man on a mission will have his critics. What often allows such people to keep going in a negative environment? Belief in the mission.

Playwright Neil Simon advises, “Don't listen to those who say, 'It's not done that way.' Maybe it's not, but maybe you'll do it anyway. Don't listen to those who say, 'You're taking too big a chance.' Michelangelo would have painted the Sistine floor, and it would surely be rubbed out today.” Simon should know. He has been awarded seventeen Tony Awards, five Drama Desk Awards, and two Pulitzer Prizes.

Obviously he believes in what he does.

Belief in your mission will enlarge you. The more you believe in your potential, yourself, and your mission, the more you will be able to accomplish. If you keep believing, you will someday find yourself doing what you once considered impossible.

Actor Christopher Reeve had that perspective, and it carried him far. He once told an audience,

America has a tradition many nations probably envy: we frequently achieve the impossible. That's part of our national character. That's what got us from one coast to another. That's what got us the largest economy in the world. That's what got us to the moon. On the wall of my room when I was in rehab was a picture of the space shuttle blasting off, autographed by every astronaut now at NASA. On top of he picture says, “We found nothing is impossible.” That should be our motto … It's something that we as a nation must do together. So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable. If we can conquer outer space, we should be able to conquer inner space, too. The frontier of the brain, the central nervous system, and all the afflictions of the body that destroy so many lives, and rob … so much potential.

Do you believe in your mission? Are you confident that you can accomplish great tasks? Do you expect to achieve your goals? These are necessary ingredients to lift your talent from potential to fruition.

I need to say one more thing about mission. It needs to include people. Only a life lived for others is worthwhile. As you fulfill your mission, will others around you say...

“My life is better as a result,” or

“My life is worse as a result”?

If you think it won't be the former, then the mission may not be worth doing.

One of my prized possessions is a simple crystal paperweight. It doesn't have an especially artistic design. It's not especially valuable monetarily. But it means a lot to me because of what is engraved in it and who gave it to me. It says,

John--

Pastor, Mentor, Friend

“Thank you for believing in me.”

Love,

Dan

It was a gift from Dan Reiland, who worked with me for twenty years as a staff member, as my second in command, and then as a senior vice president at one of my companies. Dan is someone I would go to battle with. He's like a kid brother to me. The mission we pursued together made both of us better. That's the kind of person you want working with you--and the kind of result.

TALENT + BELIEF = A TALENT-PLUS PERSON PUTTING THE TALENT-PLUS FORMULA INTO ACTION

So how do you become a talent-plus person? You tap into a natural chain of actions that begins with belief and ends with positive action:

Belief Determines Expectations

If you want your talent to be lifted to its highest level, then you don't begin by focusing on your talent. You begin by harnessing the power of your mind. Your beliefs control everything you do. Accomplishment is note than a matter of working harder or smarter. It's also a matter of believing positively. Someone called it the “sure enough” syndrome. If you expect to fail, sure enough, you will. If you expect to succeed, sure enough, you will. You will become on the outside what you believe on the inside.

Personal breakthroughs begin with a change in your beliefs. Why? Because your beliefs determine your expectations, and your expectations determine your actions. A belief is a habit of mind in which confidence becomes a conviction that we embrace. In the long run, a belief is more than an idea that a person possesses. It is an idea that possesses person. Benjamin Franklin said, “Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.” If you want to achieve something in life, you have to be willing to be disappointed. You need to expect to succeed. Does that mean you always will? No. You will fail. You will make mistakes. But if you expect to win, you maximize your talent, and you keep trying. Then like Joe Namath, you will eventually succeed.

Attorney Kerry Randall said, “Contrary to popular opinion, life does not get not get better by chance, life gets better by change. And this change always takes place inside; it is the change of thought that creates the better life.” Improvement comes from change, but change requires confidence. For that reason, you need to make confidence in yourself a priority. You need to put believing in your potential, yourself, your mission, and your fellow human beings at the top of your list. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt asserted, “The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.” Don't let your doubts cause your expector to expire.

Harvey McKay tells the story of a professor who stood before a class of thirty senior molecular biology students. Before he passed out the final exam, he stated, “I have been privileged to be your instructor this semester, and I know how hard you have worked to prepare for this test. Also know most of you are off to medical school or grad school next fall. I am well aware of how much pressure you are under to keep your GPAs up, and because I am confident that you know this material, I am prepared to offer an automatic B to anyone who opts to skip taking the final exam.”

The relief was audible. A number of students jumped up from their desks, thanking their professor for the lifeline he had thrown them.

“Any other takers?” he asked. “This is your last opportunity.”

One more student decided to go.

The instructor then handed out the final exam, which consisted of two sentences. “Congratulations,” it read, “you have just received an A in this class. Keep believing in yourself.” It was a just reward for the students who had worked hard and believed in themselves.

Expectations Determine Actions

Fred Smith Sr., one of my mentors and the author of Leading with Integrity, says that a linguist with Wycliffe Bible translators told him that in twenty of the world's most primitive languages, the word for belief is the same as the word for do. It is only as people become more “sophisticated” that they begin to separate the meaning of one word from the other. That insight is very telling because most people separate belief from action. So how can we bring these two things back together? Through our expectations.

We cannot live in a way that is inconsistent with our expectations for ourselves. It just doesn't happen. I once heard a story that I have not been able to confirm about an aviation pioneer who built a plane the year before the Wright brothers made their historic flight in Kitty Hawk. The plane sat in this inventor's barn because he was afraid to fly it. Maybe it was because it had never been done before. Maybe it was because he expected it to fail--I don't know. It's said that after the news reached him about Orville and Wilbur Wright, the man flew his plane. Before then, he didn't believe in himself enough to take the risk.

There are two kinds of people in this world: those who want to get things done and those who don't want to make mistakes. The Wright brothers were of the first type. The would-be aviation pioneer was of the second. If you're of the first type, then you already expect to believe in yourself and take risks. But what if you're of the second type? There's good news: you can grow.

A story in Robert Schuller's book Tough Times Never Last, but Tough People Do! Is about Sir Edmund Hillary, who was the first person to reach the summit of Mount Everest along with Tibetan Tenzing Norgay. Prior to his success on Everest, Hillary had been part of another expedition, in which the team not only had failed to reach the summit but also had lost one of its members. At a reception for the expedition members in London, Hillary stood to address the audience. Behind the platform was a huge photograph of Everest. Hillary turned to face the image of the mountain and exclaimed, “Mount Everest, you have defeated us. But I will return. And I will defeat you. Because you cannot get any bigger, and I can.”

I don't know what challenges you face. They may be getting bigger every day, or they may already be as big as they can get, like Mount Everest. But I do know this: the only way you can rise to meet the challenges effectively is to expect to. You don't overcome challenges by making them smaller. You overcome them by making yourself bigger!

Actions Determine Results

Results come from actions. That may seem obvious in the physical calm. Sir Isaac Newton's third law of motion states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. However, in the human realm, many people don't make the connection. They simply hope for good results. Hope is not a strategy. If you want good results, you need to perform good actions. If you want to perform good actions, you must have positive expectations. To have positive expectations, you have to first believe. It all goes back to that. Radio personality Paul Harvey observed, “If you don't live it, you don't believe it.” It all starts with belief.

A popular activity for tourists in Switzerland is mountain climbing--not the type of climbing that the world-class mountaineers do to scale the world's highest peaks. Maybe it would be more accurate to call it high-altitude hiking. Groups depart from a “base camp” early in the morning with the intention of making it to the top of the mountain by mid-afternoon.

I talked to a guide about his experiences with these groups, and he described an interesting phenomenon. He said that for most of these expeditions, the group stops at a halfway house where the climbers have lunch, catch their breath, and prepare themselves for the last leg of the rigorous climb. Invariably some members of the group opt warmth and comfort of the halfway house and decide not to climb to the top. As the rest of the group leaves, the ones who stay are happy and talkative. It's a party. But when the shadows begin to lengthen, many make their way over to the window that looks up the mountain. And the room gets quiet as they wait for the climbers to return. Why is that? They realize they've missed a special opportunity. Most of them will never be in that part of the world again. They won't ever have a chance to climb that mountain again. They missed it.

That's what it's like when people don't make the most of their talent, when they don't believe in themselves and their potential, when they don't act on their belief and try to make the most of every opportunity.

Don't allow that to happen to you! Live the life you were meant to. Try to see yourself as you could be, and then do everything in your power to believe that you can become that person. That is the first important step in becoming a talent-plus person.