I recently saw a Ted Talks with Sean Stephenson, that was one of the best talks I have seen to date.
He spoke about the three life lessons that he learned and quite honestly I have to agree with one of the commentators, “it was one of the very best explanations on the difference between those that deal with adversity (“Strong”) and those that succumb and cave in (“Weak”).”
I thought I would share with you these brilliant pearls of wisdom, with a slant towards, of course Calisthenics. Here is a list of the three lessons:
- Never believe a prediction that doesn’t empower you.
- You are not your condition(s).
- The real prison is your mind.
All of us deal with our own trials and tribulations. We all experience heart ache and to some degree of suffering, and if you have not had your fair share than your are probably not really living.
Life is all about facing adversity and seeing who you are and who you become as a result of it.
How this applies to Calisthenics, is very simple, movement and exercise is less about the physical and more about how we manage that thing, called our brain.
Mental excellence doesn’t happen by accident it requires its own type of personal workout, and that is the purpose of sharing these three lessons with you.
Lesson #1: Never believe a prediction that doesn’t empower you.
Life comes down to what you believe about yourself, and what you are capable of. When you believe the things about you that positively inspire and motivate you, then you will most likely be light years ahead of your peers. Everyone has an opinion.
I remember hearing a great quote by Finnish violinist and composer, Jean Sibelius, “Pay no attention to what the critics say. A statue has never been erected in honor of a critic.” We are in no big shortage of opinions, predictions, forecasts, or criticisms. And as Deepak Chopra likes to call it the hypnosis of social conditioning, is in great abundance.
Decide today to only believe those predictions that empower you and ignore the rest. This begins with who you choose to surround yourself with.
Birds of a feather really do flock together.
I recently completed in interview with MLB baseball pitcher, Jim Morris, whose life was made into a Walt Disney Movie, entitled, The Rookie, in the interview, Jim likes to describe to two types of people, “dream killers” and the “dream makers”.
Here is a real life illustration of “dream killers”, watch as the crab tries to leave for higher ground and the others pull it down:
Jim goes on to say, “The dream killers are the groups we don’t want around us at any time. But they are around us constantly. You have to know what to do with these types of people. These are the people who want to see you fail. They have either tried to do something in their lives and they failed at it. Or they are too afraid to try. So if they can drag you down to their level they feel better about where they are.
The dream makers on the other hand, are the people who want to see you succeed, for no other reason that they want to see someone go further than what they thought they could do. They want people to achieve. These are the people you want on your team. You surround yourself with the best people possible to be the best you you can be and you are going to be on a winning team”
Belief: Everyone is rooting for me to win; even those that do not know it.
Lesson #2: You are not your condition.
Case in point, singing sensation, Emmanuel Kelly, who along with his brother Ahmed Kelly, were both born with “severely underdeveloped limbs” due to chemical warfare, were discovered by Moira Therese Kelly, in 1998 at the Mother Teresa Orphanage in Baghdad. The two were left in a shoe box in a park.
If anyone has the right to be bitter or down on oneself it certainly would be Emmanuel, and no one would think twice.
But he has not allowed the conditions of his past to dictate and rule his present and future.
It is a testament to the human will and passion to reign supreme no matter what.
As Sean Stephenson likes to say, “The only disability is one’s refusal to adapt! You have to adapt to whatever environment you are in.”
Amen, I wholeheartedly agree.
Belief: All that we are is the result of what we have thought.
Lesson #3: The real prison is your mind.
Our thoughts are racing at lightning speeds. If we could record all of our thoughts we would probably discover that a lot of the “chatter” or self talk is quite critical or negative.
Did you know that in the English vocabulary we have twice as many negative words to describe various emotions as positive words.
That is incredible!
Your thoughts, beliefs and the words you choose are so critical to your ongoing success, that I would go as far to say, they can make or break a person.
In ancient Egypt, they would throw out the brain during the mummification process, that just shows you how much they valued the brain.
With the advent of technology, I think we are in information overload. We have lost our connection to our soul. Getting in touch with your heart and what your are most passionate about will do more for your spirit.
In the past, intelligence was connected to logic and analysis, but with the findings from people such as Howard Gardner, we are learning that there are other types of intelligence, Gardner came up with 9 intelligences:
- Musical–rhythmic
- Visual–spatial
- Verbal–linguistic
- Logical–mathematical
- Bodily–kinesthetic
- Interpersonal
- Intrapersonal
- Naturalistic
- Existential
Belief: Drop out of your mind and into your heart.
In conclusion, the three important life lessons to be unstoppable are:
- Never believe a prediction that doesn’t empower you.
- You are not your condition(s).
- The real prison is your mind.
Here is the great Ted Talk by Sean, entitled, The Prison of Your Mind:
