MENTAL DIET: HOW TO DEVELOP AN IRRESISTIBLE PERSONALITY (PART 3)

“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight and never stop fighting”.

• E. E. Cummings.

Your originality is the unique selling point that distinguishes you from others. When you try to be somebody else your value depreciates. The deviation from your originality is the depreciation of your value.

BE AUTHENTIC:

“Understand the progression of an authentic life. God’s love sets your self-worth. Your self-worth sets your self-image. Your self-image sets your self-discipline, and your self-discipline produces self-respect.”

• David Foster.   

To live with authenticity is to possess honor without reservations, humility without falsity, honesty without being pretentious, and love without self-seeking.

The authentic life is the audacity to become what you were created to be – To know that you have been approved by God, validated from within, without the craving for people pleasing, fearless to be unapologetically what you were created to be and courageous enough to do what you were created to do.

To be authentic is to be bold, take a stand by your convictions, live out the truth, and leave out duplicity and falsity. It is a life lived with no mask but with unveiled face knowing that you have nothing to be ashamed of. It is living for the highest good of self and humanity and to the highest honor of the Master Creator who fashioned the universe and everything in it.  It is performing for an audience of One.

Mere outward appearance carries no depth, it makes no difference in the glamour showcased. If your identity is intact, your destiny will be distinct. A fake life is a fatal existence.

 People pleasing is leasing out your happiness for a pack of misery. You must have the courage to be yourself if you must be your best. Without the courage to be yourself is the rage to settle for less than you really are. At the core of an authentic life is honesty and only a heart that is secured in love can be honest.

“It is not what he has, nor even what he does which directly expresses the worth of a man, but what he is.”

• Henri F. Aniel (Swiss Poet and Philosopher).

BE EXCELLENT:

“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper, who did his job well.”

• Martin Luther King Jr.

Peak performance is embedded in being. “Being” precedes “doing” if it must be sustainable and gives credence to “doing.” You must reject mediocrity and inject excellence by changing the trajectory of your being.

• Excellence isn’t an obligation but a standard, an alteration from the norm, and a commitment to raise the stakes and live above board.

• Excellence is excelling with whom you are which empowers you to excel with what you have at where you are.

• Excellence isn’t in competition against another but instead in repetitions that grow into habits of mind and conduct that outperform yesterday’s performance by continually stretching your potential to become your best and do your best.

• The heart of excellence is selflessly seeking the greatest good of others or all those concerned.

• The hands of excellence are hands that uphold the team in harmony working together to create and produce sustainable value that benefits others.

A full-hearted effort will yield full-blown results. Everything you do deserves everything you’ve got, only then can you ascend the station of life reserved for the best. You must bring everything you are to full expression in everything you do to leave an impression of your value.

Don’t wait for a stage on which to perform rather become the sage that daily expresses authentic value to the world through the problems you solve. Groom yourself to bloom where you are planted and you will be promoted to higher ground.

Mind your business, know your business, and grow your business in the art of perfecting your business and its continuous expansion. Be hungry to grow and humble to learn from the best in your field of expertise, seek counsel, read, ask questions, and associate with the best.

Ponder on this:

“I believe a passion to go deep into my faith is also an obligation to go wide with my life. So I ask Does quality matter at work? Doesn’t quality matter on the playing field and in the marketplace as well as the boardroom? Doesn’t my spouse deserve a quality home life? And don’t my kids long for a quality set of parents who love them so completely that the fear of abandonment never enters their mind?”

• David Foster.