Be great, be powerful beyond measure

In life, it seems the older you get, the more excuses you hear.  If you listen to the excuses you tell yourself, 99% of them cover up laziness.  As a kid, we believe we can take over the world, or fly to the moon.  As an adult, we have given up on our “childish” dreams and work in the “real world”.  But if you, like me sometimes sit up at night thinking about how your life may have turned out a little differently here, a little differently there, then this video is for you.

The most common excuse we hear is “I played [insert sport here] in school, and got an injury in my [insert injury here], I can’t exercise anymore.

To put this into perspective, last week I heard a man tell me that he had rolled his ankle as a 6 year old boy, and had therefore not been able to exercise since then.  The man is in his 50’s.  the “injury” happened when he was 6 years old, and as a result, gave up on any sporting chance for his life!

This weekend we went down to watch our son Josh play rugby in Brisbane, and sitting on the hill in the sun within earshot of a couple of men in their early 50s I got a reality check that felt like a brick to the side of the head.  These two mates were listing off all the people they each knew who had died.

“you remember Jason, right?”
“yeah – he’s in the council?”
“Not any more, he died of a heart attack about 6 months ago”
“really, I thought that was Bill?”
Yeah mate, Bill was around the same time, so was big Kev.  You remember big Kev, married to Dawn who was the sister of Mike so-and-so?”
“No?”
“Dawn, the one who died of cervical cancer?”
“Oh yes, Dawn, now I remember”
“well big Kev died about 3 months after she did – the big fella’s ticker just gave up”

the conversation went on for about 10 minutes as these two men listed off everyone they knew who had died, and they were so nonchalant about it.  The scariest part of this story is that both of these men were overweight, eating a pie and coke at 11 in the morning!

Watch this video and hopefully you will be inspired.  inspired to cast away your pathetic excuses, inspired to risk a bit of discomfort to live a longer, healthier, more rewarding life.  Say “no” to your mundane existence and take steps to be who you’ve always wanted to be.  If everybody lived the life they wanted to with full confidence in themselves and terrific amouts of passion, we would not have a single problem in the world.

This little video encapsulates the messages of Rocky, Muhammed Ali, and Coach Carter.