Occupy Your Space

Don't Be Too Impressed with Yourself

We spend a lifetime building our pride and self esteem only to find out that it was building a house on sand which would eventually fade much like our own existence

A good friend cautioned me after I had given perhaps the most important speech of my career, “Guard your heart today. Don’t let pride in. Remember the gap between how good you really are at this and how great it went!” Great advice! The day immediately after a significant high is the most dangerous day. We can be easily fooled into believing it. Calling is an inside job. Called people work from a place of integrity within themselves, from their hearts. Jazz saxophone great Charlie Parker said, “If it ain’t in your heart, it ain’t in your horn.” It’s not about comparing yourself to others. It’s about knowing and then voicing your own motivated strengths. Put what’s in your heart in your horn. Forget about what others say! Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life. Saint Francis de Sales wrote, “God requires a faithful fulfillment of the merest trifle given us to do rather than the most ardent aspiration to things to which we are not called.” Each of us has a calling. Most of us don’t get an epiphany or have it delivered to us by a cosmic skywriter. We get a faint whisper, an urge, a tug. Strengths provide direction and passion gives us the fuel to persevere. But when that urge comes, you need to act boldly and strike out in the direction of the call. DO less of all the periphery tasks or jobs in order to BE more of who you are uniquely called to be. It’s not about comparing yourself to others. It’s about knowing and then voicing your own motivated strengths. DO less. BE more. follow me on twitter for more info: