Exhausted and Exhilarated

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

Teddy Roosevelt

"Citizenship in a Republic,"
Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910

It's close to midnight and I am both exhausted and exhilarated.  Today, I stepped into the "arena" with a few good people and we decided to be willing to be marred by dust and sweat and blood.  We decided to spend ourselves for a worthy cause, knowing full well that we could fail greatly, but still moving forward with conviction and determination and enthusiasm.  Today, we took the first step to revolutionize a business and to work towards the future by connecting today's action to tomorrow's results.

But today was just a start.  Tomorrow is a new day, and some of our team members will start to think too much and will fall into old habits.  There are tough times ahead for sure.  Whenever you try to change things, people naturally resist and create stories in their head that are fictitious and unfounded. And really, "people rarely change their personalities or moral structures.  Anyone can put on an act for a while, but ultimately the truth will become evident to those who know him.  It's important to understand this, because we sometimes go along with a high "people tax" in the hopes that someone will change his ways.  Unfortunately, it rarely happens, which is why it's wise to select business associates, friends, and, most important, spouses on the basis of common values".  (Action by Ringer)

So how do we move forward?  It's through the day-in-day out implementation of our self-disciplined action that will help us determine where we will be at the end of a week, a month, a year, and at the end of our careers.  We simply can't afford to sit back and allow our future to creep up on us, we have to apply the steps that we took today and apply self-discipline on a consistent basis in order to succeed.