Have you known someone who went above and beyond the highest possible goals regardless of the personal sacrifice it required? I wanted to write this post for a few different reasons.
The first reason is to honor my mother; she taught me – by example – what it was to live this sentiment.
She was my first wonder woman!
Mom went to work every day.
A traditional Pittsburgh, PA streetcar.
She was a single mom raising a young boy before being a single mom was at all cool. She was responsible for keeping us both alive and thriving.
So, through rain, sleet, snow, frigid or hot temperatures, my mom (Violet Allen) got up and went to work. She had to walk up our street, walk a quarter mile through a trail in the woods to catch a streetcar to downtown Pittsburgh, PA and then walk a few more blocks to get to work. Every single workday.
She never complained. Not once. Years later I learned she continued on to work after being mugged – banged around and had her purse stolen.
My first boss didn’t “Skip” work.
My first real boss, Skip Bauer (who owned the gas station at which I worked), suffered from terrible, painful bouts of gout. I watched him work through and walk through the pain many, many days.
Well, he had responsibilities: his family, employees and a group of very loyal customers.
So, my message is pretty simple: When you have to, you can work harder than you think; you can run farther than you ever have; you can suffer through debilitating diseases like depression and still achieve many great things.
I crushed the “ropes” course.
When I worked in the NBA, the team high management decided we all needed to go into the wilderness and complete a “ropes” course. This was a gantlet of physical tasks allegedly designed to build trust among team members.
One of the elective exercises was to climb to the top of a telephone pole, hoist yourself up into a standing position and launch yourself towards a metal bar suspended in mid-air that was about 7 or 8 feet away.
It was fairly well known that I was afraid of heights. My miserable boss – who was about 15 years younger than I – ridiculed me in front of other staff about my seeming inability to handle this challenge. So, of course, I decided to do it. After climbing the pole and positioning myself atop it, I pushed off and flew through the air on my way to the metal bar.
I learned to fly – and crash.
I’d love to tell you I succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. Nope. My sweating hands grabbed onto the bar, I slipped off and fell about 30 feet towards the ground. Fortunately, the ground was about 40 feet from the bar and I was strapped into a safety harness and two trusted, hand-picked comrades stopped my fall.
Even though I had been literally shaking from fear on that pole, I did manage to fly through the air for a very short time…and then for a little bit longer time. But, no real harm. In the heat of the competitive moment, I also told the boss to “go screw himself.”
You can perform at a higher level.
So I believe you can rise to a very high level of performance and accomplishment when you have determined exactly what is in it for you. When you figure out why an activity is critical to you, you can harness some amazing forces within yourself.
Go out and do it.
#workethic #highperformance #successinlife #successinwork #success #doingmorethanyourbest
I am really impressed with your writing skills and also with the layout on your blog.
Is this a paid theme or did you customize it yourself?
Either way keep up the excellent quality writing, it’s rare to see a nice blog like this one today.
Yes! Finally someone writes about website.
Excellent weblog right here! Also your website a lot up fast!
What host are you the use of? Can I am getting your associate hyperlink on your host?
I wish my website loaded up as fast as yours lol
I simply want to tell you that I am beginner to blogging and site-building and definitely savored this web site. Probably I’m likely to bookmark your blog post . You certainly come with wonderful articles and reviews. Thanks for revealing your blog site.
I am so grateful for your blog article.Much thanks again. Much obliged.
First of all I want to say superb blog! I had a quick question which
I’d like to ask if you don’t mind. I was interested to know how you
center yourself and clear your thoughts prior to writing.
I have had difficulty clearing my thoughts in getting my ideas out there.
I do enjoy writing but it just seems like the first 10 to 15 minutes are
generally wasted simply just trying to figure out how to begin.
Any ideas or tips? Thanks!
Hello There. I found your blog using msn. This is a very
well written article. I’ll make sure to bookmark it and come back to read more
of your useful info. Thanks for the post.
I will certainly return.
An impressive share! I’ve just forwarded this onto a friend
who has been conducting a little homework on this.
And he in fact ordered me lunch because I discovered it for him…
lol. So let me reword this…. Thanks for the meal!!
But yeah, thanx for spending the time to talk about this issue here on your blog.
You are totally welcome for the meal. Thank you for the cool actions you took and the comment you made.
Wow that was odd. I just wrote an incredibly long comment but after I clicked submit my comment didn’t appear. Grrrr… well I’m not writing all that over again. Anyways, just wanted to say great blog!
Sorry about the loss of your long comment! Thanks very much for publishing your short comment. I appreciate the nice words.
Thanks for the auspicious writeup. It in fact used to be a leisure account it. Look complex to far added agreeable from you! However, how could we keep in touch?
Thanks for your comment. You can always reach me at edgarallenmarketing@gmail.com. Cheers!
Amazing blog! Do you have any hints for aspiring writers?
I’m hoping to start my own website soon but I’m a little
lost on everything. Would you advise starting with a free platform like WordPress or go for a
paid option? There are so many options out there that I’m completely overwhelmed ..
Any tips? Many thanks!
HI. Thanks for your comment and question. I started out with a free Weebly.com (subdomain) site. I still have about 5 or 6 of these sites. I use them for testing layouts and writing content; I often like to see what a concept might look like on a “test” site before placing it on my main site (this one). You can’t “break” a draft site on Weebly. You can practice trying different looks and various content presentations. If it looks bad, you can just delete it and start over again. No harm, no foul. As to writing, I suggest you just start doing it and, if you like, ask friends for feedback. Keep honing your writing craft. Nothing beats doing!. Good luck.
Ꮐreat information. Lucky me I discovered
yօur website by ϲhance (stumbⅼeսpon). I have saved аs a favorite
for later!
I’m so glad you found my work. I’ll be adding more content very soon. Again, appreciate your visit and comment.