Years ago, I arm-wrestled this 50-year-old fella in a bar.
I figured I’d pop his arm off and take it home with me.
They yelled 3, 2, 1, and off we went. I yanked on his arm as hard as I could and can you guess what happened?
His arm did not move a single inch.
His arm didn’t even move a single millimeter.
I was dumbfounded and a stupid look crept upon my face. I asked him, “Do you work out or something?”
He said he never exercised a day in his life, though as a kid he’d worked on a farm.
A few years later I was in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu class and I found myself in a similar situation.
I was never great at Jiu-Jitsu but I had strength and tenacity and didn’t like to tap. As I had no real talent, I would often get my opponent to submit using nothing but sheer force rather than skill.
My opponents would use the technique they learned, I’d simply wrestle them into a position to get a guillotine and make them tap.
I’d never win any competition like that, but I’d at least be able to tap-out people with a similar skill-set as mine. I’d even made people completely QUIT and go home in the middle of class.
One day I took on a fella a belt or two above me. I figured it would be no problem, I’ll force my way to a guillotine and he’ll tap.
But that’s not what happened.
Anything I tried to do, this fella simply was too strong. I couldn’t believe it.
A dumb look crept on my face and I asked him, “Why are you so strong?”
He said he lifted a lot of weights, but I wasn’t satisfied with that answer. I lifted a lot of weights, and this fella had a different kind of strength.
It wasn’t a muscular type of strength as he was not muscular, to me he felt like he had strong bones, tendons, and ligaments, not strong muscles.
Just recently, I was at a shopping mall in Kyrgyzstan looking for a pair of size 37 hiking boots (that’s US size 13).
I couldn’t find my size anywhere. The whole country seemingly only went up to a size 35.
I was about to leave when I heard someone say, “Do you have any size 37?”
I thought it was a little strange this man was speaking in English and looking for exactly what I was looking for, as this was a Russian speaking country.
It was a 70 year old American fella. We had a little laugh at the situation and we shook hands.
When we did, I was dumbfounded. This fella was about 70 years old but his grip was like iron.
It was the strongest handshake I’d ever felt in my life.
We spoke for a while, he was a Vietnam vet and now he was teaching some class at the local university.
We shook hands goodbye and again I was shocked at how absolutely strong his grip was.
This time I didn’t ask a stupid question like “why are you so strong?”.
I already knew why he was so strong.
He was born strong.
I’m a strong fella but my strength comes from working out.
I could work out for a thousand years and my grip would never be able to match that old war vet’s grip.
I’m not about to cry about it. I simply recognize that some people are born with this gift or with that gift.
Some people are born with superior physical strength, some are born with superior intelligence, some are born with superior tenacity, and some are born with superior beauty.
It is what it is and there’s no reason to be upset about it.
But there is a reason to exploit it.
See…
Whatever you were born to do is what you SHOULD go out and actually DO.
If you were born with superior strength, you should use that to your advantage.
If you were born with superior intelligence, or beauty, or whatever, you should use that to your advantage.
I see so many people with natural talent wasting it and doing something they are not naturally talented at.
I’ll give you an example…
I know a fella who wants to be a powerlifter and works hard at it. He’s gained some real good strength and made some great progress.
Unfortunately for him he isn’t naturally strong and he never wins powerlifting competitions.
See, a great powerlifter is someone who was born with superior strength. These types are always the strongest in the gym. This is the type of person who excels, and wins, at powerlifting.
The fella I know tries REAL HARD and makes good progress, but he will NEVER win.
He will NEVER be the best because he was not born to be a powerlifter.
If you don’t do what you were born to do you will NOT ever achieve true REAL lasting SUCCESS.
It is really as simple as that.
Haven’t you heard the best of the best say “I was born to do this”?
I hear the best say that all the time. I hear the rest say things like “I work real hard.”
Hard work is good but hard work will do NOTHING but get you to the middle of the pack.
To get to the front, you have to be born to be in the front.
You should have known by the time you were 12 years old what your destiny was.
When I was 12, I knew I was born to spread the good word. I didn’t think, I didn’t wonder, I just knew.
Like a great strongman or powerlifter just knew what they were born to do.
Those types don’t have to work hard to be strong and I don’t have to work hard on my craft.
I am of the highest paid writers in existence, and I don’t even know what a verb is, an adverb, a past participle, a this or that.
I just write the words and they come out beautifully. It comes perfectly natural to me.
I can look at a page of words and the one incredible sentence will jump out to me. A bad sentence will actually make me feel physically sick.
I’ll even wake up from nightmares realizing I’ve created a bad sentence in an old article, and I’ll get up in the middle of the night to fix it.
I don’t understand what in the hell is right or wrong with a sentence, I just feel it. I couldn’t teach a class about the technical details of writing, and I wouldn’t want to.
Those who can, do.
Those who cannot, they try REAL HARD to do but they always fall short of greatness.
And that is for ONE very simple reason…
Those who fail aren’t doing what they were born to do.
If you start listening to your gut instead of to your teachers, you will realize that reaching BIG success is not hard… at all.
Success is actually the easiest thing in the world to achieve.
When you do what you were born to do, you will succeed wildly beyond your dreams.
When you do what they tell you to do or when you do what doesn’t come naturally to you, you fail spectacularly.
So many young men want to know what they should do with their lives.
Here’s what you should do…
Do what you already excel at.
You aren’t going to be successful tomorrow, but in 5 or 10 years you will be.
If you continue doing what you aren’t good at, just because they say you should do it or you like it, you will still be struggling in 5 or 10 years.
You hear all these people say, “life is a struggle.”
Well, life is a struggle but not for ALL people.
Life is a constant struggle only when you fight nature.
When you embrace nature and do what you were born to do, the struggle is NOT real.
I’ve said it 10,000 times and I’ll say it 10,000 more…
Success is SO EASY any moron could do it.
All you have to do is do what you were born to do.
When you do what you were born to do, the ONLY struggle is learning what to do with all of the money that you will eventually make.
And that struggle is definitely REAL.
$$$$$$$
Until next time.
Your man,
-Elijah “The Realist”
