All right, welcome back to The Daily Mastermind. George Wright III here. I am your host with your daily dose of inspiration, motivation, and education. If this is your first time here to the podcast, welcome. And just as a reminder, hit like and subscribe so that you do not miss any of the episodes that we're releasing every morning. So the goal here is to give you some motivation, inspiration, and focus to be able to keep your year going. And I know that we're only a couple of days into the new year, and many of you are excited, you've got plans and things happening. But I also know that it's in the very beginning of the year that people start to think, oh, shoot, I didn't follow through on this, I didn't follow through on that. And you start to lose that motivation. And so I want to kind of nip that in the bud before it even happens and talk to you a little bit today about perseverance and about how you can direct your thoughts. So let's start with the Daily Mastermind quote of the day. And so if you haven't downloaded the free mobile app, I encourage you to download that. The quote today is by Larry Page. And if you don't know who Larry Page is, you probably should Google it because he's the co-founder of Google. So, you know, this is a gentleman that's got some amazing knowledge, quite obviously. And the quote that he has is, always deliver more than expected. Always deliver more than expected. And so I think that that's a great word of thought for you in the beginning of the year because I want you to really focus hard on over-delivering in the different areas of your life. And that might include communication and relationships and your own personal fitness habits, but over-deliver as much as possible. Now, like I mentioned before, I think a lot of people start the year out and they kind of get into that mode where they're maybe not fully committed to their goals or they say they're committed to your goals, but as I've mentioned before, and I'm sure you'll hear me mention many, many, many more times, if your actions do not reflect your commitments, then it's highly unlikely that you are committed, right? Or if your actions don't match what you're saying and what's coming out of your mouth, then you might have trouble with your belief, your internal belief, self-confidence, and self-esteem. So I want to offer you some words of encouragement. I'm going to start out today with just a poem. This is from an anonymous author. I have it every once in a while. I have it, and I'll read it through it. But I want to kind of give you this quick poem, and then we'll get into a couple of thoughts. It says, fellow turns about when he might have won had he stuck it out Don give up though the pace seems slow you may succeed with another blow Often the goal is nearer than it seems to a faint and faltering man Often the struggler has given up, when he might have captured the victor's cup. And he learned too late, when the night came down, how close he was to the golden crown. Success is failure turned inside out, the silver tint of the clouds of doubt. and you never can tell how close you are. It may be near when it seems far, so stick to the fight when your heart is hit. It's when things seem worst that you mustn't quit. I love how that poem ends, and I'll tell you why. Because the difference between winners and losers and high achievers and average is not setting goals and creating vision. It's acting in spite of your mood. It's doing it when you think you're not on track. It's taking action when you don't believe that you're seeing results. Okay, you've been in the gym four whole days this month. Give it a rest. Stick it out. Stick it out. Now, I want to give you one plausible, tangible, specific strategy that can help you with this. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to refer back to, as I generally do, these classic books that I'll bring up or that I'll have when I'm doing my mindset or meditation and personal development. And one of the classics is one by James Allen, As a Man Thinketh. Now this was written, oh good God, it was forever ago. I don't know how long ago. So it's not PC, it's not politically correct. It uses the term man a lot. You're going to have to get over that. That's just a term. But what I want to do is there's a chapter in this As a Man Thinketh book and it's called Thought and Purpose. And it's called Thought and Purpose for a reason because a lot of us have thoughts, a lot of us have goals, a lot of us have visions, a lot of us have things that we're doing, but what we don't have is purpose tied to it. And when you're struggling and you're having a hard time, when the time is the hardest that you're trying to get out of bed early in the morning or you got done from a long day of work and you're trying to now have energy for your side hustle or your relationships or your personal dreams and aspirations, it's really difficult, despite the commitment and dedication that you have, if you don't have purpose tied to it. So I'm going to read you a really short couple pages out of As a Man Thinketh. And this is a book, by the way. You can download the free PDF just about everywhere because it's in the common domain now because it's been out there for so long. But I want you to listen to this. And some of the words are at a real high level, and so I really encourage you to think about this, replay it if you need to but listen to the words because in this book in particular As a Man Thinketh it is just jam with nuggets jam with nuggets and I can overemphasize enough how important each of them are. So here we go, I'm going to read a little bit from it to you. Until thought is linked with purpose, there is no intelligent accomplishment. With the majority, the bark of thought is allowed to drift upon the ocean of life. Aimlessness is a vice, and such drifting must not continue for him who would steer clear of catastrophe and destruction. You've got to kind of really think through that. You've got to be able to stop drifting if you're going to avoid that and have purpose. They who have no central purpose in their life fall as easy prey to petty worries, fears, troubles, and self-pitying, all of which are indications of weakness, which lead just as surely as deliberately planned sins to failure, unhappiness, and loss, for weakness cannot persist in a power-evolving universe. A man or woman should conceive of a legitimate purpose in his heart and set out to accomplish it. He should make this purpose the centralizing point of his thoughts. It may take the form of a spiritual ideal, or it may be a worldly object, according to his nature at that particular time. Whatever it is, he should steadily focus his thought forces upon the object he has set before him. He should make this purpose his supreme duty and should devote himself to its attainment, not allowing his thoughts to wander away in ephemeral fancies, longings, or imaginings, or social media. This is a royal road to self-control and true concentration of thought. Even if he fails again and again to accomplish his purpose, as he must until weakness is overcome, the strength of a character gained will be measure of its true success, and this will form a new starting point for future power and triumph. I hope you got that one. Those who are not prepared for the apprehension of a great purpose should fix the thoughts upon the faultless performance of their duty, no matter how insignificant their task may appear. Only in this way can the thoughts be gathered and focused and resolution and energy be developed. Once this is done, there is nothing which may not be accomplished. The weakest soul, knowing its own weakness and believing this truth that strength can only be developed by effort and practice, will thus believing at once begin to exert itself. Even the weakest soul, no matter how bad you think you are right now, it doesn't matter. You can make that change. and adding effort to effort, patience to patience, and strength to strength, will never cease to develop and will at last grow divinely strong As the physically weak man can make himself strong by careful and patient training so the man of weak thoughts can make them strong by exercising himself in the right thinking To put away aimlessness and weakness and to begin to think with purpose is to enter the ranks of those strong ones who only recognize failure as one of the paths to attainment, who make all conditions serve them, and who think strongly, attempt fearlessly, and accomplish masterfully. Having conceived his purpose, a man or woman can mentally mark out a straight path to its achievement, looking neither to the right nor the left. We're talking about focus here. Doubts and fears should be rigorously excluded. They are disintegrating elements which break up the straight line of effort, rendering it crooked, ineffective, and useless. So thoughts of doubt and fear can never accomplish anything. They always lead to failure. Purpose, energy, power to do, and all thoughts cease when doubt and fear creep in. The will to do springs from the knowledge that we can do. Doubt and fear are the great enemies of knowledge, and he who encourages them, who does not slay them, thwarts himself at every step. He who has conquered doubt and fear has conquered failure. That's a big one. His every thought is allied with power, and all difficulties are bravely met and overcome. His purpose are reasonably planted and they bloom and bring forth fruit that does not fall prematurely to the ground. Thought, this is the point here, thought allied fearlessly to purpose becomes your creative force. So that's what I wanted to mention to you is sometimes we have these amazing goals, we have these amazing things we want to do, but we don't have a reason for doing them. We don't have our why. We don't have our purpose. And I'm not talking about things you're passionate about, although that may be it as well. I'm saying have a purpose. Have a reason. Have a why. Because the more you develop your why, the stronger your commitment level is to your how. And the more you develop your why, the stronger your resolve will be, even when you do get off track, to get back on track. That's going to be the fuel that's going to take you. That's my thought for today. I hope you will do me a favor and share this episode. Share it with at least one of your friends and apply this in your life. Remember, it doesn't matter what day of the week it is, what month of the year it is, you are on track to your goals. If you get off track, bounce back. If you have a bad day, bounce back. If you haven't, create purpose around your goals and your dreams and your aspirations and you will drive it with fuel. That's my message for today. I hope you have an amazing day. This is George Wright III and this has been The Daily Mastermind. We'll talk tomorrow.
