The talk Sean Ackerman gives the men in his life; employees, peers, friends, and his own son, because he wishes someone had given it to him.
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Hi, come on in and have a seat. I’ll close the door so we can talk for a few minutes, without distraction.
Listen, I asked to have a few minutes to talk to you, well, because I’ve noticed that you’re really great at being ordinary.
And.
I see that you don’t push yourself to be anything more that that.
I’ve been around awhile, and I have to be honest, I wish someone had taken the time with me, like I am with you right now, to have this talk.
You see in life, we get so complacent, so set in the ruts that we make for ourselves, that we mistake acceptance for success.
The reason we’re having this talk is because I know I see something in you. I guess all those years managing and supervising, truly gave me “super-vision.”
Of course I want to know if you can step up beyond the ordinary. Can you?
You need to know once you can think of that desire, goal, dream it has started to create some new biological neural pathways in your brain.
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While I can’t promise that the road won’t be hard, I can tell you that fear has a way of making a baseball bat out of feathers. You fear the strike, but realize the impact was no where near as bad as anticipated.
See the key to you becoming something more, in your work, your life, is really starting with that belief in yourself. If you have confidence in your self, in who you are, you can begin the path to knowing that anything you mentally manifest can be made physical.
Can you look at yourself in the mirror and say, I want … (insert your own personal goal, professional desire or earth changing mission here?) If you can’t say “I want” and look yourself in the eyes, then that vision is not your true path. A passionate man will chase his dreams, regardless of the cost. A confident man will stand by his desires, knowing his conviction is true..
I see, day in and day out, that you think you know your own self, your own view of your world of possibilities and you believe the story that already been written. You don’t think that you can grow to the thing that you want. Know this — you can.
You need to know once you can think of that desire, goal, dream it has started to create some new biological neural pathways in your brain. A physical bridge created by willpower on a path to personal attainment. Your drive is now following a creation, in much the same way we as parents ensure that our children succeed, and as fathers we provide the security to allow them to grow.
When you choose to step up, out of the day to day existence that you are no longer satisfied with, you will be walking into a new adventure that only you can write.
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The bottom line is that in order for you to be out of the ordinary, to succeed in being something amazing, you have to want, and I’m not just talking about your desire for the outcome.
You have to want to be vulnerable, to allow others to give you insight.
You have to want to be uncomfortable, to stretch yourself outside of the known you.
You have to want to be re-imagined, to see that what was, was but the larva before the butterfly.
I want you to think about our talk today, or consider it a lecture or lesson from a well seasoned fellow. No matter what way you approach this, you have to know that the true happiness you have, comes from your journey of reaching your aspirations.
When you choose to step up, out of the day to day existence that you are no longer satisfied with, you will be walking into a new adventure that only you can write.
I’m glad we talked, I’ll keep reaching out to you to make sure we keep ourselves real during this expedition to the unknown.
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I’ve given this speech, in some version or another to employees, professional peers, clients, friends, and most recently my 21 year old son. It fits everyone, because truly, can you step outside of you ordinary life, can you step up?
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Photo: Getty Images