Don't quit

I received an email early in the week that had a speech by Dr. Kevin Elko. I'm not familiar with this guy but I really liked what he had to say. It is a little lengthy but well worth the read. Here it is!


Don’t Quit

Sitting at last year's Super Bowl, I realized that the night before, during my motivational talk to the Green Bay Packers, I had omitted an important point. So I sent this text to the Head Coach for his halftime locker room message: Great boxers never try to knock out their opponent. Great boxers just try to get a little cut on their opponent's face and then for the rest of the fight they work the cut. Survive all assaults and keep working the cut.

So at halftime the coach said, "We are up on the Steelers, but they are a strong team. Survive all assaults and keep working the cut." The Steelers did, in fact, come back and started to mount up some steam, but the Packers did what their coach taught them: survived the assault and kept working the cut.

Likewise, effective parents gather momentum with a child, feeling as if their words are being heard and that the child will "turn out" fine; but then come the teenage years. However, the parents need to keep pouring themselves into the child, and usually in more times than not, if the parents keep Working the cut and survive all assaults, something interesting happens. For example, in the story of the prodigal son, we read, “He [the son] came to himself,” a very interesting phrase. The prodigal son did not understand the error of his ways  "outside of himself," but rather he reached inside to the teachings and beliefs that had been placed there by his parents. Parents, survive all assaults and keep working the cut.

A friend running a small business for three years feels that he's in a rut. And his office manager quit because of challenges she was having at home with her son and another employee died of cancer all in the same week. He feels discouraged and wonders if he is getting anywhere. But now is the time is keep punching.

There is a perception that there is something called overnight success; in reality, that success takes about ten years. To all of you creating your dream, realize once you have a dream and start building it, life is not easier but, in fact, harder. Think of the Israelites; as soon as they had a dream of freedom, they got attacked by everybody and anybody. While they were slaves, living someone else’s life, nobody challenged them. So keep working the cut and survive all assaults. You may just have a bad reality of what building a dream is.

The problem here is emotions. We think emotions are important. Emotions tell us to quit, to have an affair, to think life is over, to believe nobody is suffering but you. Emotions lie. Keep doing the right thing, work the cut, and your emotions will catch up with you. I used to love it when people would tell me they love who they are with but are not in love with themselves – emotional hogwash and Hollywood propaganda. This thought is emotions again. Go ahead and make a decision off of your insane emotions and then get ready for your next emotion, regret.

The answer is in Galatians 6:9 and the words of the Apostle Paul, "If you do not grow weary in doing well you will reap in due season if you faint not." If you keep going, survive all assaults and work the cut, you will eventually reap. What if your frustration and fatigue are not a sign that you are getting nowhere but rather a sign that you are getting close, and if you push through the frustration and fatigue, you will find energy and renewal? Will the fatigue go away if you see the frustration as a sign to stop? Yes, but eventually with the subsiding of fatigue will come the onslaught of regret. There are two pains: discipline and regret. And if you give in to the pain of discipline, you will experience the more severe pain of regret.

Job said, "The bow was renewed in my hands." In other words, he experienced renewal as he was going; in the middle of the pursuit, keep working the cut. I have had hockey players tell me they could not go out for the next shift and then someone scored and they were jumping onto the ice. I said, "I thought you were tired." They replied, "I thought I was." I have heard boxers say they could not go out for another round, and then they did, landed one punch and started boxing like a wild man. I said later, "I thought you were tired." They said, "I thought I was, too."

Do you feel tired building your dream, parenting a child, overcoming an illness? I got the answer: survive all assaults and work the cut. Do not let your emotions convince you life will be better if you stop. Emotions lie. Winning requires discipline that you can fight weary and expect energy to show up, the Calvary is on the way. Or said differently, if you keep on doing what you do, without judgment and without anticipating as you go and if you have a philosophy that physical and mental fatigue is a sign that you are getting close, not a sign that you are not making progress, then you will mount up with wings as eagles; you shall run and not be weary; you shall walk and not faint.