10/6: LIONS AND GAZELLES
Many of you are probably aware of the Lion and Gazelle story, but if not, I'll share it now. "Every morning in Africa, a Gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn't matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle... when the sun comes up, you'd better be running."
In 2018 I took a buyout from GM to try to make running a gym my full time gig. Due to COVID, that temporarily cancelled those plans and I had to get back into engineering. I will say that at the time, I felt this pull to do this regardless. I felt like I was coasting.... like I wasn't using all of the talents and resources that God gave me. Around that time I told God to use me as He sees fit, and that at the end of my life I wanted to have spent everything I had, physically, mentally and spirituallly. I didn't want to leave anything on the table. Why wouldn't we ALL want to do that? What are you saving it for?
It took me years to learn as a Jiu-Jitsu competitor, that every match I had to give 100%. I used to go into tournaments, when I knew I would have 3-4 matches, with the idea that I needed to conserve my energy and only go about 80%. I soon learned that that is a recipe for failure. Everyone else was giving 100% each match, and my 80% was not good enough to beat their 100%. Once I started giving 100% each match, something else happened, something that I forgot from my youth. When I gave 100%, I actually felt like I had MORE energy in those later matches. I think this is more mental than physical. When you condition yourself to only give 80%, you can't truly dial it up to 100%. But when you give 100% all the time, well, that's all you know.
When you wake up, what are you running towards? Or, maybe a better question is: ARE you running towards anything? If you are not, then I think you need to evaluate what you are doing? Maybe you should re-read my message from 9/22 on how to find your mission, and go after it. You can either work hard now for an easier life tomorrow, or take it easy now and suffer a harder life later, when you are not as equiped to handle the challenges of life. All I know is that I don't want to look back on my life and ask, "what if". So, all I can say to you is, when you get up tomorrow: "Run, baby, Run!"
