The following is an excerpt from “Always Forward”, available for purchase December 17, 2015
It’s a long way from the farms and factories of Western Pennsylvania. I was raised in a small town of 3,600 people. I was a rebel without a clue, choosing to work in a factory instead of pursuing a path of higher learning. I remember the frigid winters that were referred to by visitors as Siberia and to the locals as normal. Working in a factory and realizing that the current limitations were going to become my future reality, I began to intensely think of the means and method of escape. I gained strength from the abject conditions – I developed a strength of will and made myself an internal promise, one that I would soon realize from opportunity. My parents offered the opportunity to go to college, and from that first step, I never looked back – I moved “Always Forward!” When I started in business, fresh out of graduate school, full of theory, but deficit in practice, I had two things to my name—a tremendous self-belief and an insatiable need to validate my self-worth through achievement. My promise became a commitment, and the commitment has become a life-long obligation.
The ones who make it have a strong need to prove or validate their self-worth—they have a confidence and a strong conviction of purpose that becomes the intangible product people feel and support. They have the willingness to consistently do those things they may not want to do and hold themselves accountable to the habits that separate those who can and do from those who don’t and won’t. They commit and become pulled by purpose, compelled to do that which they must. They have the willpower to continue to do what it takes with a high degree of effective energy and directed commitment, day in and day out. The winner does not allow events outside of their control to define their self-worth—they know they may fail, but failure doesn’t dominate their thoughts; learning how to win does. When they fail, they learn from it. They don’t call it a failure—they call it a learning experience.
One of your strongest weapons against fear is to become compelled to fulfill your purpose. If the pull from your purpose is stronger than the resistance of fear, you will move forward.
The great ones are driven by the pull of purpose—they are compelled to make their purpose a reality. Pursuit from purpose will transcend the uncertainty that creates a delay from fear. Make things happen by dispatching the noise and nuisance of fear. Your quality of life will be dictated by the stronger pull—you will either move forward from compelling conviction through fear, or you will lose your nerve and succumb to the resistance.
When I started in business, fresh out of graduate school, full of theory, but deficit in practice, I had two things to my name—a tremendous self-belief and an insatiable need to validate my self-worth through achievement.
From the time of my youth, I was indelibly marked by a television series, “Have Gun Will Travel”. The protagonist of the series was a man called Paladin. Paladin was a man dressed in black, a gunfighter who championed causes of people in distress. He had a noble obligation to right the wrongs for people who could not fend for themselves or needed the support of this knight in a savage land without armor. My purpose, when I started in the business, was to change the nature of engagement in the industry. I took on the persona, figuratively, of a knight championing the cause of good.
There is something inside me that compels me to do what I love, and I am following my heart by living my purpose.
