Lessons Learned
Are You Building Your Foundation of Success?
ED SYKES
Ed Sykes is a world-class, award-winning motivational speaker, as well as dynamic success coach, educator, and author. Based in Virginia, U. S. A, this engaging professional speaker has over twenty-five years of experience in motivating people to reach the next levels of success. Sykes has been featured in various publications including The New York Times, Black Enterprise, Dairy Queen International, The Virginian Pilot, Newsday, USA Today, and Toastmasters Magazine. To know more about the author, please visit www. thesykesgrp. com.
Are you creating your foundation of success? Are you motivated to take on challenges that others are not willing to do? The following is a story of someone who did and achieved great success in his life and how you can, too!
There once was a young man who grew up in Crawford, Mississippi. His father worked as a brick mason building home foundations. Everyday after school and during the summers, this young man would help his father build foundations. It ' s not the most glamorous job by any stretch of the imagination, but it ' s an honest, backbreaking, and low paying job that put food on the table and paid the bills. The father would start by throwing bricks towards the son in the area where they would build a housing foundation. Under the hot, sweltering Mississippi sun, his son would catch brick after brick with his hands, day after day. While most other kids were enjoying their summers or working in less strenuous jobs, this young man was motivated to work long and hard with his father, while catching those bricks and building a foundation for success in more ways than one.
You see, each time that young man caught bricks, he was not only making his hands stronger, he was building character and the foundation for success in his later years. With each brick he caught, he was even more determined to be successful in life. When he wasn’ t helping his father and going to school, he was pushing himself through football workouts to be better than any other American football player. You see the young man ' s name is Jerry Rice, and he went on to become the most successful NFL All-Pro wide receiver of all time with the San Francisco 49ers.
The following are the six success secrets that Jerry Rice used that can easily motivate you to achieve success in any aspect of your business, career, and life:
1. Motivate Yourself to See Opportunities in Every Challenge
Jerry could have looked at the job of catching bricks as a chore that was a waste of his time. But he saw the big picture and made the chore more enjoyable by developing games out of the activities. Many times in life, we are thrown bricks and complain and miss the opportunity it presents to us. The person who can find solutions in the challenges they are faced with can write their own ticket for success. When you take on a challenge, it’ s preparing you for an opportunity in the future. You may not know when the opportunity is coming, how it is coming, or what the opportunity will look like, but it is coming; and will you be prepared? Embrace your challenges so you will be prepared.
2. Motivate Yourself to See That It’ s Normal to Experience a Little Pain
As Jerry was experiencing the pain of catching bricks each day, this pain was actually building him to becoming a stronger person. Each brick was fueling Jerry’ s internal desire to be successful. Think of some situation at work, in business, or in life that was painful. Your pain may be an embarrassing moment, it may be a learning experience, and it may be a setback. How can you use this setback to motivate you to become more successful? We achieve success in our businesses, careers, and life when we develop the success tools of using our“ pains” as a learning experience and a springboard to success.
3. Motivate Yourself to Take on Unpopular Tasks
Catching bricks all day is not the most glamorous job in the world. Many times we are thrown bricks in life and avoid them like the plague. Volunteer to catch these bricks while others decline. This will allow people
30 PEOPLE MANAGER I January 2013