I am sure many of you remember Randy Pausch’s compelling “Last Lecture” speech on September 18,2007 at Carnegie Mellon University. It is perhaps the greatest lesson on moving beyond the brick wall and in Randy’s case, he had more than one brick wall to move beyond. He pushed the brick wall and in his inspiring story you’ll discover that you can move beyond the brick wall, too.
Having recently been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, Randy understood about brick walls. His aggressive treatments were in hopes of giving him a long life. But those treatments didn’t work and Randy passed away on July 25, 2008. ”We can’t change the cards we are dealt just how we play the hand.”
“The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.” – Randy Pausch
I’ve faced brick walls many times in my life. But, none as tough as Randy’s. His attitude when facing his mortality was inspiring and thankfully he left us with his now famous lecture.
When I hit what I think is a brick wall, I don’t let it stop me anymore. I remind myself that the brick wall is put there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough and that I need to do whatever it takes to succeed and move forward.
In my business I see people who hit brick walls often and one of the things that I like to share with my team is that we have every tool available to us to move through that barrier. We have to employ those tools and take action. And of course there’s the support you have from your team members, supervisor, mentors, that can help you get to the next level you are striving for.
I find that too often people are afraid to ask for help for fear they appear incapable of doing their job. Just remember everybody hits that wall in their business or in their life at some point. How you move through it, over it or around it is really up to you. Don’t let yourself be one of those other people that lets the brickwall stop them. Show how badly you want success by pushing through. It feels really great when you can look back and see what you achieved even through adversity!
If you’d like to know true inspiration watch this video of Randy reprising his “Last Lecture” on Oprah Winfrey’s show.
I worked for a menial’s hire,
Only to learn dismayed,
That any wage I had asked of Life,
Life would have willingly paid.~ Jessie B Rittenhouse
I am reading a great book that was recommended to me – Secrets of Six- Figure Women by Barbara Stanny. These common threads are not just unique to women.
Barbara was given the idea by a good friend to interview women who were earning six-figures and more to determine what they had in common, if anything. She didn’t really want to do it, because she thought she would be talking with high earning women who were cold, tough, aloof, hard-driven, designer dressed who could never relate to a poorly paid writer. What she found was pretty remarkable and not what she expected when she began her journey.
Early in her interviewing them, she wanted to find out what drives them to succeed, she asked them the question “What drives you to work so hard to succeed?”
Their answers were varied, but here are just a few of them:
Each of them had a different value of what was important for them, but the outcome for all of them is tremendous success both financially and achieving what is important to them and that is what drives them.
“If you want to be truly successful, focus on fulfilling your values and financial gain will follow.”
What do you value the most in how it relates to your success? Only you can answer that question, but if you can really tap into that, your success can increase exponentially. I challenge you to really find what your core value is that will drive your success to the next level. You have the power to achieve whatever you want, but you need to have a vision for your life based on cherished values, when you do then money becomes a by-product.
“The victory of success is half won when one gains the habit of setting goals and achieving them.” – Og Mandino
Og Mandino has written some great books …… The Greatest Salesman in the World (part 1 and 2), Secrets for Success and Happiness,just to name a few of my favorites.
Do you set goals on a daily, weekly or monthly, yearly basis? Do your goals stretch you?
I am sure you have heard the acronym of SMART goals. If you haven’t, or haven’t thought about it lately, SMART goals are:
Specific
Measureable
Attainable
Realistic
Timeframe established
Do you set goals for yourself? Do you set base goals and stretch goals? Sometimes you might even want to establish big audacious goals. No matter what, we all set goals at some time or another, whether small or audacious, that we sometimes do not achieve.
So I want to ask you, why not realistically stretch yourself as you are setting your goals? If you don’t, no one else will do it for you. But when I say stretch yourself, don’t make your goals unattainable. They need to be possible, but not small.
One thing some of the most successful people have in common is they take the time to list their goals and create a blueprint of how to achieve them.
Written goals without an action plan of how you are going to achieve them are probably not worth the piece of paper they are written on.
One other part of the equation is speaking those goals publicly to someone you respect, love or who you know will hold you accountable. If no one else knows your goals besides you, it’s really easy to not work on them.
Your goals don’t have to be just business related, they can be personal as well. What are you inspired by, what do you believe in? What do you dream of achieving that will support your passions for making a difference? Those are a part of your core vales. Your core values are what help shape you as you move through life. Your values are also what determines your inner beliefs. Those inner beliefs in yourself and your ability to achieve drive the cogs in your wheel.
What big goals are you going to set for yourself in the next 30 days?
