Principle 3: Be an Icebreaker!
Close your eyes and picture a frozen body of water. Perhaps it is part of the Arctic. It is vast and it is covered with a wintry blanket of snow. A novice would look at this frozen landscape and conclude there is no way for a ship to cross it.
But, that is not true. Large vessels are designed for cutting through ice. They do it all the time (those vessels know their “Why” in life). They just have to be built with structural integrity and strength and have the equipment to grind and cut away at ice.
Some people look at obstacles and quickly conclude that it just cannot be done. Those people use the word impossible far too often. “It’s impossible” becomes permission to stay in bed, avoid making sales calls, and just letting life roll over them.
YOU – a born Champion – were designed for better things than that! After all, you started your life competing against millions of others, and you won that contest. So, what is a little ice in to you? What am I saying? I’m saying for you to be an icebreaker. Set the bow of your ship toward the challenges and bear into it. Little by little. Inch by inch. Make your way across whatever obstacles are blocking your path. You have to stay on track by forging up and over the speed bumps of life.
Large battles are almost never won in a sudden and dramatic way. Most are won incrementally. It’s almost like life is constructed to reward the diligent, the focused, and the determined. Football games are a great reflection of life. Yes, you have your high and dazzling “Hail Mary” passes. But, those are usually lucky moments. You can’t build a whole game on them. Rather, the ground game is essential. Taking the 100 yard field inch by inch. Grinding it out. Blood, mud, sweat, and severe pain.
Set your face to be like that. I don’t care what you have to go through – bankruptcy, divorce, illness, losing a job, whatever. As Winston Churchill told the British people during the darkest hours of World War II, “Never, never, never, never give up!”
The struggle is so much a part of attaining success. While others are sleeping, goofing off, or horsing around, you be the one who keeps slogging and chipping away right on through the ice. Always remember that mountains are built one pebble at a time and climbed one step at a time. Frozen lakes are crossed the same way. Chip. Chip. Chip.