Dec
What is Your Profession?
I love this video! It says a lot without saying much - check it out and then we’ll talk about what we can learn from it.
This video comes from the movie “300″, which is the story of the 300 Spartans that set out to fend off the world’s largest army in order to save their people. It’s a pretty good movie with some great one-liners and teaching points, but the above movie illustrates one of my favorites.
I think it’s asking us, “Who are you, What do you do, and Why do you do it?” I think that this is a very important question to ask ourselves, today more than ever.
Passion, Purpose, & a Singular Focus
It’s pretty easy to see from the video that the Spartans knew who they were, what they did, and why they did it. They were passionate about their profession and they knew, from an early age, what their purpose in life was. These two things lead to a singleness of focus that allowed them to rise to the pinnacle of their class - the warrior.
I think that today, very few people have these three things in their lives. Once we enter the working world, most of us kind of lull off into mediocrity and go from day to day just doing what we can to get by, hoping that someday things get a little better than they are now. The only problem is, “someday” never comes. While I know this isn’t something people sit around and talk about with each other (can you just imagine the conversation?! “You know man, this being mediocre thing and not having any real success or significance in life is really starting to get to me.” “I know what you’re talking about bro…I’m just not feeling very fulfilled lately.”), I can promise you that it’s a conversation going on in many people’s heads right this moment. Perhaps if you’re reading this blog, you might be one of them.
Why is that we love movies like “300″, “Braveheart”, “The Gladiator”, “The Patriot”, “Lord of the Rings”, and so on? It’s because for a brief moment we can put ourselves in the shoes of those that lived with passion, purpose, and singular focus and be the heroes we all long to be…to be significant in the history of time. Now, I don’t think that everyone aspires to go down in the actual history books as someone famous, but I do think that most people would at least like to leave an impact on the world around them…to be remembered for something other than Employee of the Month in December of 2007.
An Expectation of Success in their Training and Unity
So how do we get to that point? How do we get to a place where we operate at the pinnacle of our industry or chosen area of impact?
Not to be overly-simple or to reiterate something that’s been said a thousand times, but it starts with a goal. Without a goal, you’ll never know where you’re headed…and if you don’t know where you’re headed, any destination will do.
The Spartans had a goal of creating the perfect warriors, and each Spartan’s personal goal was to be the best-of-the-best of those warriors. That goal laid the foundation for everything else they did - it became their guiding principle and priority, and all other things came second. That is the type of clarity and focus you’re going to need in your life - that definiteness of purpose that sets you in the right direction, even if you’re not sure how to accomplish the goal.
But once you’ve arrived at your definiteness of purpose (goal), you now must begin your training - for a warrior without training is no warrior at all. You’ll lose in battle every time. And through your training, you’ll no doubt come alongside people of like mind and purpose, and at some point you’ll band together in the journey towards accomplishing that goal. And when there is a group of people unified behind a singleness of purpose, very little can stand in their way!
There becomes an expectation of success in your training and unity, and through that, you can overcome virtually any obstacle that comes your way! There will always be challenges, but those that stick together and rely on their training will always find a way around, over, under, or through what stands in their way.
So how does all this apply?
Simple. If you are not today in life where you want to be, not living the life you thought you would be at this point in your journey, then today is the day you get to change that. Take a few minutes (heck, take a few days if you need to!) to think about where you want to be 5 and 10 years from now - what you want your life to look like and the impact you’d like to have - and then write it down. Putting it in writing automatically increases your chances of success by an order of magnitude.
Now that it’s written down, start firming that picture up into a few specific, measureable goals that you want to accomplish.
Next, break those goals down into action steps you can take and be able to check each one off as it’s completed.
And finally, make a list of the skills, knowledge, and training you’re going to need that you don’t currently possess and seek out mentors or programs that will help you attain them. (Examples could be speaking skills, finances, language, writing skills, investing knowledge, etc…the web is a great place to start looking.)
Once you’ve completed all these steps, pick the biggest and most important item off that list of action items/skills and get to work!
You’ll find that once you have a goal to accomplish and something to work on that contributes to your ultimate picture in life, you’ll have much more energy and much less apathy towards starting every day. And just remember this: the day you wake up without a goal is the day you die…you’ll simply be waiting on the burial ceremony. When you accomplish the first one, make sure you’ve got the second one in the hopper…
Passion, Purpose, and Singular Focus - those are your keys to a fulfilled and successful life where you will most certainly leave a legacy for those that come along behind you.
To your success,
Steve
