Successful entrepreneurs understand a simple philosophy - In life and in business there are victims and there are victors. It is an absolute choice which each individual decides to be....
I recently had the opportunity to hear an incredible speaker, Neal Petersen. Neal has an unparalleled adventure - the longest, most extreme race for any man or woman, 27,000 miles in a sailboat, nine months at sea - ALONE!
Neal enters the stage with an old beat up treasure chest. He pulls out several things during his talk from this old treasure chest. He starting sailing in a home made sailboat, with a sexton, and a book on how to read a sexton. He had a clothes pin, a needle and thread and a few other basic things inside this treasure chest. He had a walking problem when he was a child and was born and raised in South Africa during Apartheid... Neal brings these things out as he tells his story, and shares his dream from childhood, a dream that everyone told him was impossible.
My favorite message that has really stuck with me is when he was at sea in this home made boat, and the wind picked up and the sail came flying around and struck him in the forehead, by his eyebrow....he was bleeding profusely and was alone....he didn't have a first aid kit, because he couldn't afford one....he knew he would bleed to death all alone at sea if the bleeding did not stop. It truly is when we are backed into a corner, that we sometimes become more creative! Neal grabbed a clothespin and clipped his eyebrow together with this, and it served as stitches would. Some people would have been a victim and cried the blues that they couldn't even afford a first aid kit and they tried their best! Not Neal, he grabbed that clothespin and carries it in his treasure chest as a reminder that this clothespin saved his life, and THAT is a TREASURE to him, not an obstacle!
Neal truly had obstacles that would seem like mountains to most, and most would have given up on their dream. But as with most successful people, Neal did not give up, he would not accept being a victim of circumstance. He was committed to his dream and in the face of every single adversity, he found a way through it or around it.
His beautiful smiling face was such an inspiration of the power of the human spirit...Neal carries these seemingly useless props in this old treasure chest to demonstrate to individuals that in life or in business, you can either look at what you have as an obstacle and be that victim of circumstance, or you can look at each challenge, each obstacle as the treasure that will get you through to live the successful life or become the successful entrepreneur you want to be.
In Your Service,
Debbie Ruston
1-519-342-4050 or 1-800-576-2917
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