Les Brown – Motivational speaker
And I went for a walk in a park thinking about this guy whose life was so promising and I mean he wasn’t an old guy, he was quite young in fact.
And I thought about all of the things that he said he was going to do and he never got a chance to do those things and I start thinking about my own life and how much time I had left to do the things that I would like to do.
And at that time I wasn’t sure what my life purpose was, what my life’s work was. I wasn’t sure about it at that time and I thought about it quite a lot. I had some idea but I wasn’t convinced that I don’t think I felt worthy. I didn’t believe that it could be me to do this kind of work that I’m doing right now.
And I say to you that if you begin to take a conscious effort to find out what it is that you’re supposed to do, I say that it can literally save your life. I said that it can literally save your life. 85% of the American public, according to recent studies of going to jobs that they hate working on jobs that do not challenge them, they get sick thinking about going because see, when you go to a job and you already know how far you can go you can already see that proverbial glass ceiling.
See, when you’re going someplace and you already know how much you’re going to make, you already know how far you can go, you’re in a dead-end position. It erodes your self-esteem, it lowers your sense of yourself. It creates an inner turmoil; it creates an emptiness in you.
So I say that your life is worth finding what it is that you’re supposed to do. And I’m not saying quit your job. I’m saying find it and do just a little bit of just not working at it just a little bit but do find out what your work is, hold onto it and don’t let your dream go, don’t let it go.
See and here’s something else. I want you to begin to look at why is it that most people don’t pursue their dreams so don’t do better than what they’re doing if they’re capable of doing it. I think that many of us don’t go the next step because we don’t know what to do yet and I say that the reason that we don’t even explore the possibility of what to do is because subconsciously we don’t believe that it can happen for us and we don’t believe that we deserve it.
So here’s what I’m suggesting: how much time do you spend working on you, how much time do you spend every day working on your dream in the last 90 days? How many books have you read and the last year what new skill or knowledge have you acquired? What kind of investment have you made in you?
So I’m saying that as you begin to look at where you want to go, if you want to make it today and things are changing so fast you have to literally run to standstill. I’m saying that you’ve got to make some conscious effort to begin to work to develop you.
Here’s something else. Most people are not living their dreams because of fear. Ladies and gentlemen, fear limited vision and lack of self esteem is what keep most people doing things they don’t want to do, the same reason that people stay in relationships where they’re abused, they’re unhappy or it’s unfulfilled they can’t see themselves beyond that relationship. They can’t see themselves enjoying life without that person. They think that this is all that they can do, the same that people get stuck at a certain level in life. They can’t see things being better for them and they think that this is it and this is all they deserve. This is all they’ve ever seen, has been passed on to them and they think that this is it for them.
Oh no, looking what Dr Blanton Smiley — Blanton who is a colleague of Dr Norman Vincent Peale and what he said about theories that fear is the most subtle and destructive of all human diseases. Ladies and gentlemen, fear kills dreams. Fear kills hope. Fear puts people in the hospital. Fear can age you.
Fear, ladies and gentlemen, can hold you back from doing something that you know within yourself that you’re capable of doing but it will paralyze you. And it seems like you’re in a hypnotic spell.
And I ask you a question: what is the benefit — what’s the benefit of allowing fear to hold you back? What’s the benefit of giving up on yourself of not stepping out on life and taking life on? What is the benefit for you —