This is from a story told by one of my friends who is a motivational speaker.
“On a break at one of my personal goal setting workshops recently, a young lady in attendance mentioned to me that her grandmother was the most inspiring person in her life.
Always curious, I asked why.
Her response: “Because she pushed me to be better every day. It’s how she lived her own life, and she never let me get away with partial effort on important matters. That’s the legacy she passed to me.”
On a different day, a similar conversation with a business colleague revealed his drive for excellence came from his high school basketball coach who insisted that in a 2-hour practice, every second counts, and if you waste a minute, you might blow an opportunity in a real game. For my friend, decades later, that’s in his DNA.
Olympic gold medalist Scott Hamilton recalled his inspiration: “I had a ninth grade teacher who told me I was much smarter and much better than I was allowing myself to be.”
These are not surprising comments. People who matter most to us are often those who hold us accountable and push us to limits we didn’t know we could reach.
Your icons, your teachers, your mentors, can be anyone: a relative, a coach, a book author you’ve never met, a fictional TV character with whom you identify, or a famous leader who lived 800 years ago.
Sometimes YOU are your own best mentor and provide yourself with important life lessons. ”Your best teacher is your last mistake,” claims consumer advocate Ralph Nader.
Of course, having heroes and icons in your life is important, but what really matters in all this is… Are you turning these lessons learned into everyday behavior?”
ACTIONS FOR YOU
Those who hold you accountable are your most influential mentors but they don’t always just appear so here are three suggestions on how you make it happen.
(1) Seek out and associate with people who are better than you, who have greater talent, more advanced skill, set a higher bar, lead by example, inspire superior performance of everyone around them, and demand the best of you. Find them, associate with them, study them, breathe the same air. The Amway business is full of these people who genuinely want to help you be successful.
(2) Eliminate from your life those people who are forever negative, who live a life you would never emulate, who belittles others to elevate themselves, who are blame-oriented, who constantly complains? Disengage those relationships… they’re dragging you into the muck. What I have found interesting is that these type of people do not last in the Amway business – they just fall away!
(3) Since you never know when something YOU say or do will matter to someone else, treat all your actions as ‘role model behavior’… and ask yourself beforehand… Is this what I wish to be known for? Will this inspire another to excel… or disrupt their forward movement? Is this a story I want told about me? If I take this action, then years from now, will others look back on this as a groundbreaking moment and me as a game-changing teacher… or as an event they hope is never repeated and me as a bad example? In other words – be that leader YOU WANT TO BE REMEMBERED AS!!!!!
Live with intention. Act with intention and never let anyone question what you are about. How do you want to be remembered?
“On a break at one of my personal goal setting workshops recently, a young lady in attendance mentioned to me that her grandmother was the most inspiring person in her life.
Always curious, I asked why.
Her response: “Because she pushed me to be better every day. It’s how she lived her own life, and she never let me get away with partial effort on important matters. That’s the legacy she passed to me.”
On a different day, a similar conversation with a business colleague revealed his drive for excellence came from his high school basketball coach who insisted that in a 2-hour practice, every second counts, and if you waste a minute, you might blow an opportunity in a real game. For my friend, decades later, that’s in his DNA.
Olympic gold medalist Scott Hamilton recalled his inspiration: “I had a ninth grade teacher who told me I was much smarter and much better than I was allowing myself to be.”
These are not surprising comments. People who matter most to us are often those who hold us accountable and push us to limits we didn’t know we could reach.
Your icons, your teachers, your mentors, can be anyone: a relative, a coach, a book author you’ve never met, a fictional TV character with whom you identify, or a famous leader who lived 800 years ago.
Sometimes YOU are your own best mentor and provide yourself with important life lessons. ”Your best teacher is your last mistake,” claims consumer advocate Ralph Nader.
Of course, having heroes and icons in your life is important, but what really matters in all this is… Are you turning these lessons learned into everyday behavior?”
ACTIONS FOR YOU
Those who hold you accountable are your most influential mentors but they don’t always just appear so here are three suggestions on how you make it happen.
(1) Seek out and associate with people who are better than you, who have greater talent, more advanced skill, set a higher bar, lead by example, inspire superior performance of everyone around them, and demand the best of you. Find them, associate with them, study them, breathe the same air. The Amway business is full of these people who genuinely want to help you be successful.
(2) Eliminate from your life those people who are forever negative, who live a life you would never emulate, who belittles others to elevate themselves, who are blame-oriented, who constantly complains? Disengage those relationships… they’re dragging you into the muck. What I have found interesting is that these type of people do not last in the Amway business – they just fall away!
(3) Since you never know when something YOU say or do will matter to someone else, treat all your actions as ‘role model behavior’… and ask yourself beforehand… Is this what I wish to be known for? Will this inspire another to excel… or disrupt their forward movement? Is this a story I want told about me? If I take this action, then years from now, will others look back on this as a groundbreaking moment and me as a game-changing teacher… or as an event they hope is never repeated and me as a bad example? In other words – be that leader YOU WANT TO BE REMEMBERED AS!!!!!
Live with intention. Act with intention and never let anyone question what you are about. How do you want to be remembered?