Good Thursday morning to you. I hope this week is giving you valuable insight to how we must look closely at ourselves and our own negative talk as we work harder to become successful at life. I pray you are getting as much from it as I have. And today I truly I hope that you gain so much from this you never call yourself a loser again.
As I was planning this topic this week, it was hard for me to really go back in time and think of the how this very word affected me as a teen and a young adult. In the past two years my friends on FaceBook have doubled. Like many people, I find I am friends with more people from my high school on FaceBook than I was actually friends with in high school. While I had many people who I could say “hi” to in school, we were not close friends. Of the seven close friends I had from age 16 to 20, only three of them are even on FaceBook and are my friends. The reason I mention this today is one of my FaceBook friends today was someone who has no idea how much the things she said back then affected my personal belief system. I am almost certain she will not read this post, as we are only friends on FaceBook and don’t really exchange many messages back and forth.
Why am I bringing this up? Well how many people told you when you were growing up that you are a loser? I am willing to bet if you are reading this that you have stopped reading for a moment to think back on it. I was told this so many times growing up, that I limited those people I spent time with. But that was not the worst of the issue. Anyone can tell you that you are a loser, but one big thing has to happen for it to be true. You must say that you are a loser to make it true; it doesn’t matter what other people say. So if you’re calling yourself a loser, you’ve bought into that lie.
Well, that is what I did from 16 to 20 years of age. Each time I would fail at something I told myself I was a loser. While I can now accept friendships from many of you on FaceBook, I learned to forgive those who called me a loser as a teen, became friends with them, and they never even know who they are. The hard one is forgiving yourself for calling yourself a loser.
Today I want you to look at yourself, have you called yourself a loser lately for something that really is just a part of life? Do you really believe that you’re a loser? Today, I will not have points; there is not a three-step process or seven ways to get over this. It’s a little more simple than that: just like the word “impossible” that we talked about yesterday, “loser” is one that must be removed from our dictionary.
For me, it took many years of personal growth to change my belief in myself to get out of that thinking. It brought great joy to my life that I went to my 25-year class reunion and when I left the next day, I tell you, no one in that room was an enemy of mine. We all enjoyed a few drinks together; some danced, we all took some pictures. What we faced in our past was behind us. We were all excited to have made it this far in life. Most of us were looking forward to what tomorrow will bring us.
Take a look at the stars in Hollywood, the musicians, actors, writers, poets that you and I look to for our entertainment. Each and every one of them has failed at something in life. There are some actors who just seem to put out a bomb of a box office performance, but did you ever notice that some of them come back, make awesome movies and reinvent themselves in a few years? You also see and hear of those who walk away from the spotlight after a bad movie or other performance and we look them up in Wikipedia or Google in five years and find they are working in some other field. Or we see the child stars who just can’t seem to find that success as adults so they leave the entertainment industry completely.
Losing today is just a place for us to regroup and reinvent ourselves, to make a change for tomorrow. Never start the process of saying “I’m a loser.” If you have ever watched a NASCAR race on Sunday you know there are one winner and about 40 losers each week. Those that lose do not head home and start saying “I didn’t win the race today. I’m a loser.” They review what went wrong, then adjust, make corrections, come back next week or next year and try again.
With that I want to bring up the story of Dale Earnhardt. Dale was considered the legend of winners in his time of racing. He won seven championships. But he raced in the NASCAR cup series for over 20 years. The biggest race in the series each year is held at Daytona every February. Dale only won that race one time. It was also at that very race track, in that very race that he lost his life. Yet that track was the track that the cars he owned, and his racing teams won on more than any other. He learned from that track; his family and those who worked at his company built cars to succeed at that track. Do you think Dale ever said “I can’t win the ultimate race here. I’m a loser.” I’ll bet you that never came from his mouth.
What has been such a stumbling block for you that you call yourself a loser? It’s time for you to turn it around in life and use it as a spring board to your ultimate success. So today I want you to promise yourself you will never use the word “loser” when talking about yourself again. If you do, immediately stop and take it back by saying “I am not a loser.”
If someone else calls you that DO NOT believe it. I hope this week you get to see that each of these subjects is, in fact, a building block to your success in life. We can only work with what we have been given in life. Take your life and make it count; it’s the only chance you get. If you are at the bottom after a losing situation, now is the time to hire a coach. We look at your situation and can see the broad picture, solve the real problems to keep you growing toward success, even when you stumble on small stuff. And, in the end, it’s all small stuff, even though it may not seem that way now.
Tim Gillette is the Creator of The Rock’N’Roll Keys to Business Success, using music, motorcycles and mentorship to create Entrepreneurs who lead. To find out more about upcoming webinars sign up here . Free Online Training that Rocks
