Category: Your Abilities

Tim S. Grover, author and CEO of ATTACK Athletics, Inc., founded in 1989. World-renowned for his legendary work with elite champions and Hall of Famers, including Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade, and hundreds other NFL, MLB, NBA, and Olympic athletes, he is the preeminent authority on the science and art of physical and mental dominance and achieving excellence, wrote this about abilities and leadership in his book, Relentless.

“Everyone is given some ability at birth. Not everyone finds out what that ability is. Sometimes you find it on your own, sometimes it has to be shown to you. Either way, it’s there. At the same time, there are abilities you are not given. Our challenge in life is to use the abilities we have, and to compensate for the abilities we don’t have. It’s completely instinctive. We compensate in order to survive. Individuals with limited vision frequently have heightened hearing. People with certain disabilities discover they have extraordinary talents in other areas. Something is given, and something is taken away.

I know countless athletes who are blessed with incredible physical gifts. Height, skill, strength, speed, but no work ethic, or no support system. No way to use or develop or take advantage of those skills. Successful people compensate for what they don’t have. Unsuccessful people make excuses, blame everyone else, and never get past the deficiencies. A true leader can see past those deficiencies, identify their abilities, and get the most out of that individual.”

#BeAble

Remarkably, there is only one thing that is actually more rewarding than the reward itself – giving back. Just as reproduction is the key to life, so is re-creation to success.

Imagine yourself as an apple tree. When we start your journey you plant your seed. Overtime, as you grow, your roots spread and you built your groundwork. You find your nutrients and eventually you sprout with substance. You grow more, experienced your environment and when the season is right, you begin to bloom. Eventually, you produced fruit. These fruits and blessings now have given you the ability of mission and purpose from which the world (and also you) can benefit from.

There are many different types of trees and many different types of fruits. Different trees offer different blessings. Every one is unique. Gifts are wonderful. Gifts are positive. They are recognized by peace, happiness, growth, patience, kindness, gentleness and love. So, I ask you, what fruit do you bear and how are you identified by it? How do you contribute value to the world? How can you (and do you) give back?

Just because you nail an apple to a fencepost, doesn’t mean that it is a fruit tree. Even though it meets the requirements of wood in the ground and it is holding up fruit, it is missing one important thing — the ability to reproduce. The continuance of giving is necessary to your growth and your growth is necessary to your giving.
If you are not growing you’re dying. Therefore, give the gift of giving. We have all heard the saying that you can give a horse some water and fulfill its thirst, but if you lead a horse to water, you will help it drink for a lifetime.

#BeAble

It is important to get what you want, but make sure that you are not hurting others while you are on your track of success. If you find yourself putting other people in bad situations so that you can be the one that gains, then eventually it will catch up to you, and you will lose trust with those around you. Instead, you need to find ways to create win-win situations, and make sure that you are adding value to other’s lives, and not just always taking away. If you just always take value away from people, then people will not want to work with you.

#BeAble

Imagine this:
You are lying on your deathbed. While you are lying there, you reflect on your life. You think about all of the things that transpired. The sweet times, the sad times, the shameful times, the happy times. Think about your first kiss, your first job, your best moment. Think about all those memories. For whatever reason, you have kept those memories. But why!? What made it worth it to you? What were you most proud of? What were your struggles? What did you take for granted? What would you do if you had a second chance? What would you change? What gave you fulfillment? What did you live for?
Let me rephrase the point with another question. What do you really, really, really, really, really, really want? REALLY! Define it. What drives you? What is your purpose? What makes you, you? What impact do you want to leave? How do you want people to think of you? How do you want to think of yourself? What makes you happy? What do you like to do? What is your passion? What are your fears? How do you want to contribute to society? How do you want to change the world? How can you affect the greatest number of people in the greatest way? Why do you do what you do now? What kind of memories do you want to make?

#BeAble

People are mostly reactive to the events in their lives, rather than controlling their mind, emotions and actions.

We think – a lot. We have an innumerate amount of thoughts that pass through our brains on a day-to-day basis, especially in today’s day in age. But too often, we let our thoughts control the way we feel, rather than determining how we are going to feel by compartmentalizing our minds. We overanalyze life circumstances, and that drives our emotions.

This get’s dangerous when many negative events in life continually occur. When the coin keeps flipping to the wrong side, and luck doesn’t seem to be on one’s side, then life becomes a cycle of negativity. We can get overwhelmed by the amount of negativity. Then before we know it, those thoughts created other similar thoughts and we end up in a rabbit hole of hardship, bad energy, and feeling enslaved.

This life isn’t always far, but instead of being controlled by our life circumstances, we need to learn how to master our minds to control how we want to feel, how we handle situations, and how overcome gracefully. We cannot control what happens to us, but we can control how we choose to handle them and move forward.

#BeAble