Greatness Rises from the Mud
Do you yearn to be great at something? Deep down, is there this fire, maybe just an ember, of wanting to achieve greatness?
I’m not referring to the ego’s need to be better, feel superior, or show up others.
It’s a calling from your soul that you’re meant for more. I’m not sure how else to describe it.
I used to think if I just kept putting in more work into what I was doing, success would follow, and I’d automatically become great.
I believed progress only depended on one variable - the intensity of my input. If I just worked hard enough, the Universe would rush in to adorn me with my due rewards.
Hard work gets you skill. You can be good. It gets you progress. To a point.
Greatness demands more.
At some point, the initial progress will stall. I call it the void. The first of many. You hit a ceiling. Where growth no longer comes as easy.
Most get comfortable in the void, and remain there. Because it’s difficult and painful to find a way out. It’s way easier to just cruise. Most aren’t obsessed enough.
For those that do try to push through, failure, chaos or painful lessons usually wait around the corner.
That’s the price of admission.
To be great, you have to be obsessed enough to find and push through the void. You will get beaten down. Repeatedly. You will come face to face with your greatest fears. Repeatedly. It will be messy. It will be painful.
But each time you push through, you will make tremendous progress and experience tremendous growth. With each level passed, you enter more rarefied air.
The lotus grows out of the mud. Pressure makes diamonds. No pain, no gain.
These seem like pithy sayings, but you don’t realize how true until you’re really tested.
Many want to be great, but very few realize the tremendous price.
And only when you come out the other side, you’ll appreciate why you had to go through what you did. Here’s the secret: you’re already great. Going through this initiation is how the Universe helps you prove it to yourself.
So as Churchill said, if you’re going through hell, keep going.
“Fall down seven times, get up eight.”
— Japanese Proverb
Have a wonderful weekend,
-Amit
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