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In a Gentleman's journey to success and freedom, it seems his greatest obstacles are those that he creates for himself. Very rarely are there outside obstacles that a man cannot overcome with some perseverance and determination, and this is evident simply by looking at some history. We hear stories of men (and women of course but for the point of this article I'll refer to mankind as 'men') who conquer certain death experiences, climb the unclimbable, break the unbreakable records, live through the unthinkable and walk when told they would never walk again. The only real obstacle we Gentlemen have, is our own mind.
There is a lion in all of us. We just need to release it.
The power of the mind is nothing new, we all know it is our greatest untapped resource. We hear it from the great achievers in the World: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tony Robbins, Will Smith, Michael Jordan to name but a very few. For them, it all comes back to one thing.
"Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve" - Napoleon Hill
It's a wonder then, that more of us aren't experiencing amazing successes in life. Men who know these principles, understand the mind, still seem to fall short when lesser men (so to speak) surge past in their lives.
Our greatest resistance is what we create for ourselves, and I'll give you a very small example from a personal experience, to explain what I mean.
Last weekend I was at a seminar on filmmaking (in my attempts to gain more knowledge and gain success in the acting field), and one of the speakers, a prominent Australian producer, advised when asked "how do we go about getting in a room to meet with a casting director or producer such as yourself?", replied "Call us! Don't email!". Now she stressed this point again and again over the next few minutes and it began to sink in. However this wasn't something new at all to me. My greatest fear I've realised was calling people and asking for help. I always convinced myself that I was doing something if I just emailed agents and casting directors in the attempt to get work or just representation. I conned myself into thinking I'm doing all that I can do. After so many years I've hardly ever made a phone call even to just follow up on a letter or email, but week after week I keep sending them with no responses.
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results" - Albert Einstein
I knew at some point I needed to man up and just start calling people, but why did I not do it? Why is it when we know what we have to do, we don't do it? We get comfortable, and as I said earlier, con ourselves into thinking we're doing all that we can do. One of the greatest fears of man, is to look back on life and know you could have done more to achieve what you had your heart set on achieving, but to look back and know you've done all that you can do, there is something very satisfying in that.
So after hearing the phone call spiel from this producer again, I made a note to call the agent in the US that I've been emailing fruitlessly for many months. This morning I put every little distraction aside and made the call. I got through to the agency, and after a two minute phone call, the helpful receptionist gave me a personal email to contact her through and promised to send my stuff directly to a handful of managers for review. The phone call didn't kill me, I still got up after making it, I wasn't embarrassed, in fact I was so pumped I planned to make two calls the following morning, to begin to, in the words on Tony Robbins, "take massive action!"
But it wasn't until the afternoon when driving home, that it really hit me. I knew that I had a fear of calling people for many years, and I knew all I had to do to conquer that fear that has been holding me back significantly, is, in the immortal words of the marketing genius that pioneered the Nike slogan, 'Just Do It'. So why didn't I 'Just Do It'? We get lazy, we get comfortable. If we are to not just face our fears that are holding us back but decimate them, we need to go all out. I immediately set a rather crude and aggressive reminder in my phone, to tell me every day to grow a pair and not be afraid to call another person ever again and just ask for what I want. Just ask.
I could go off on this tangent but to get back to the point, your obstacle may be anything, not just a fear of rejection, but whatever it is, the remedy is the same. Do what it is that scares you. Then do it again and keep reminding yourself, do it and you will be thankful. I did and I will never look back.
If you find yourself consistently making excuses and not taking action, ask yourself if it truly is what you really want. If in your deep search inside yourself you do conclude it's something you want badly enough, just do it, just take the action toward the realisation of your dream, you know what it takes and what you need to do, don't kid yourself otherwise.
Don't look back, do what scares you the most and destroy those puny walls that look so big on approach, but become nothing but pathetic rubble in your wake. The result will be exponential. Extraordinary. You become stronger, clearer, and hungry for the next fear to attack.
Be the best man you can be,
Gallantoro