“That Thing”
Yes, That Thing. You have it, or you don’t. It’s that passion, that drive that presses you forward, beyond obstacles, in the face of fear. Fear of death, or worse, fear of public failure. That “Devil may care” attitude. Do you have it? The only thing that propels you forward or stops you from success, is “That Thing”. It works no matter if you believe in it or not. That’s the first Natural Law. I am absolutely the WRONG person to tell “I always wanted to *XYZ*”, because my first response will be “No, you didn’t. You never wanted it, or you would be doing it. You might have thought it sounded like fun, or sounded like a good idea, but you didn’t WANT it.”
As you get to know me, you’ll hear me repeat a (paraphrased) quote from Sir Mixalot (Anthony Ray), “There are two types of people in the world. Those who look for ways to succeed, and those who look for excuses NOT to”. Listen to me…you are ONE or you are THE OTHER. There is no in between.
Don’t tell me you can’t, because I’ll call you full of shit. My father didn’t raise, and my drill sergeants didn’t train a “yes-man”. You say you cant? Really? I have former soldiers who lost both legs in combat to IEDs. They didn’t stop and wallow in what they “couldn’t” do. They pressed forward. They did the physical rehabilitation, they got the prosthetics, and now they walk, and even RUN, some of them. I trained a paraplegic in Tae Kwon Do/Chung Do Kwan. He is now a 3rd Dan (Black belt). Don’t tell me you can’t. Don’t tell me you “always wanted to”. I’m uninterested in hearing it.
Example 1) - I was 7 years old, and my father was a singer in a local band, and he played his guitar in the living room at home often. I told him “I want to learn to play guitar like you, daddy”. For my 8th birthday, he gave me a guitar and a chord chart and gave me the ONLY music lesson I have ever had in my now 44 years. That lesson was a simple sentence.
“If you want to learn, you’ll learn”.
I now play guitar, bass, keyboard, saxophone, trumpet, violin, flute, theremin, mountain dulcimer, harmonica, and I have been lead singing in both Hard Rock and R&B bands since I was 13 yrs old. I have never taken any other music lesson, than the one my father gave me that day. “If you want to learn, you’ll learn”. I have “That Thing”. Do you?
Example 2) A young man asked me a while back “Can you teach ME how to be a bodyguard?”. This guy was 6’4”, and a good 375 lbs. He would be ideal club security. That’s not the same thing. Being a bouncer is very different from doing close-protection. I answered him, “I can teach you the skills. I can teach you self-defense, ground fighting, how to do threat-assessment as you enter a room, and how to identify all points of egress. I can teach you how to watch body-language, how to tell if you’re going to be able to use diplomacy to cool a situation, or if it’s going to get physical. I can teach you to disarm a threat, how to safely extricate yourself and your client from a situation, or a closed in spot. I can teach you how to drive defensively, and what answers to give in court, when you have to defend your actions or driving. I can teach you those skills. What I can NOT give you, is ‘That Thing’. That thing that makes you fully and completely willing and prepared to jump in front of a bullet, for another person, for a dollar. You HAVE that, or you do NOT”. It’s “That Thing”.
It makes or breaks the strongest, tallest, hardest of men. It makes successes stories in the least likely of places and people. It takes the simple and makes it extraordinary.
Example 3) - Professionalism says not to say the name, but there is a particular rock band that is WILDLY successful, for 40 years now. They are NOT talented musicians. Their music is sub-par at best. But they’re AMAZING SHOWMEN, and their leader is a GENIUS of marketing! That is the element of their success. That is “That Thing”.
Do you have it????
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