I hated every minute of training, but I said, “Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.”

I hated every minute of training, but I said, “Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.” – Muhammad Ali

It takes a lot to be a champion. What are you willing to do to be one?

What does that mean?
To me, it means that if you are willing to put up with something you don’t like now, you can have something better afterwards.  To turn it around, the people who have exceptional accomplishments are the people who were willing to pay the price.  They have what you don’t have because they were willing to do what you weren’t willing to do.

In this case, it was training (and training, and training some more, followed by even more training).  Jumping rope until your arms felt like they were going to fall off, and then doing some more.  Standing there and taking body blows for what probably seemed like hours, to toughen up the core and ribs.  Doing push-ups until you can barely get up, and then falling to the mat because you just can’t hold your own weight anymore.  But he did all that and so much more, and ever since then he has been known as “The Greatest.”

Why is exceptionalism important?
Exceptionalism what strive for, what we are born for.  No one is born just to stand in place, to do nothing, to be nothing.  Unfortunately, few of us live up to our potential.  Most of us lack the motivation, vision or goals to take us there.  Ali had the vision of being a champion.  He stayed on target by keeping his goal in mind.  He got there with motivation, guts and determination.

Not everyone is cut out to be a heavy weight boxing champ.  But everyone can be exceptional.  There are exceptional entrepreneurs, exceptional dancers, exceptional singers, exceptional shooters – and that’s just the lineup on last week’s reality TV shows!  These people are exceptional on a national level.  You might have that in you, but it couldn’t hurt to start locally.

Where can I apply this in my life?
Where exceptionalism seems to happen is when an aptitude and a passion are in alignment.  Ali had strength and speed, as well as the passion to become a champion.  Now it’s time to examine your aptitudes and passions.  This time, there will be three lists.  The first will go over your aptitudes.  The second will go over your passions.  The third will be the worksheet where you try to brainstorm ideas that use some of the first two pages.  Clear as mud?  Good, lets go!

The first list is for your aptitudes.  What are you good at?  Not necessarily things you like to do (I don’t like to write, but I’m half-way good at it), but the things you have been told that you are good at by others, or things you’re fairly certain you do very well.  As always, you’ll only get out of this what you put into it, so lets try to get about a dozen things you’re good at on the list.

Really think it through.  Even go back to your childhood.  Were you a fast runner?  Could you still be?  How about fast for your age (most races have age brackets these days)?  Were you good at taking things apart?  Could you explain things better than the rest of the class?  Did math or science come easily?  How about poetry?

There are lots of possibilities, so I would take each defined section of my life, and play it in my head: Grade School, Middle School, Junior High, High School; play time at each grade (and beyond); work, from doing chores around the house to all the odd jobs in High School and beyond.  If you’re doing this right, you should be looking to cut the list down to get to just a dozen, so give it a try.

The second list is for your passions.  What are your passions?  Do you love to swim?  To dive (off of diving boards, scuba, snorkel)?  How about music, do you love all music, just a few genres, just a few artists?  What about physical activity?  Do you like working with your hands?

What do you like to build with: metal, wood, clay, fabric or solder?  Gardening, is that something you’re passionate about?  What about your mind?  Do you love to read or write?  Play games like Chess or Go?  Solve crossword puzzles?  The list can be endless, if you really like a lot of stuff.

As before, I implore you to really think this through.  Go back in time and try to remember the things you loved to do as a kid.  Has time and distance hidden some of your old passions from you?  If you were passionate about horses as a child, have you found a riding stable in your area?  Unless you’re in the center of a big city, you should be able to find one within an hour’s drive.  Touch your passion, go take a ride.

If horses weren’t in your past, perhaps another creature was.  Find a way to visit with one, even if it’s stopping by the Primate Center of your local zoo.  Perhaps you really enjoy teaching people.  It used to be that teaching kids was the only real gig there was.  Now, with so many adults looking to expand their abilities, there are classes for adults on almost any topic.  There are people taking up Martial Arts at 45, musical instruments at 50, golf at 60.  There are more possibilities than can be imagined.

Now for the third list, which is a space to brainstorm combinations.  Here is just one example I pulled out of the air: combine entrepreneurship and love of dance.  Become the best promoter your local dance studio has ever seen!  And if that goes well, perhaps move up to help your city or regional ballet (or jazz or tap or…) company.  Perhaps you can help with a musical that one of the local theater groups is putting on.  Look at all the possibilities that come from just one pairing.

Look for combinations of things you are good at that also work well with the things you enjoy doing.  If you enjoy physical activity and love horses, you can try to get hired as a hand at a local riding stable.  Perhaps, with some training and dedication, you could become a horse trainer (or is that a rider trainer).  It might not be as easy as simply slamming two words together and coming up with a winner.  You may need to work at it to find something you can be really good at and enjoy.  You might even make a little money out of it!

Just remember, if you have enough passion for excellence, you will pay whatever price it takes to get there.  Others have done it, and you can too.  Look for a mentor in person or in a book, learn what you can, then get busy.  Find your passion, set your goals, align them with your aptitudes and turn yourself loose.  Win or loose, the journey alone will be exceptional.

From: Twitter, @tonyrobbins
confirmed at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/muhammadal148629.html
Photo by benyupp