The following stems from inspirational thoughts received while listening to an address given by JK Rowling. (http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/jk_rowling_the_fringe_benefits_of_failure.html)
Her concept that "rock bottom can become a solid foundation" to build up from struck me as I listened to her speech. Hearing that someone as incredibly famous as JK Rowling (she is a goddess of modern fantasy in my eyes; one of my greatest heroes) struggled so much, even after doing everything that was supposed to bring her great success taught me something very valuable: If you don't enjoy something, if you aren't passionate about it or at least like it, you will not be successful at it, and you won't be happy. She went to school, compromising with herself and her parents to study something they wanted her to study. She did well at it, and graduated in it, and then failed fantastically. She admitted to having dark days, that it wasn't easy to get back on her feet, and as she said "Responsibility lies with you." Which to me means, no matter the circumstances in your life, it is your job to fix them if you so desire. "Talent and intelligence aren't enough to prevent hardship." It's inevitable. Everyone experiences it. Businesses, families, schools, all the way down to individuals. As part of Humanities council I have already run into a few hardships, and not because I am unmotivated, unintelligent, or not fit for my position; trials are meant to teach and perfect. I am still learning how to learn from them and keep going, striving to climb up out of the magnetic force of darkness and despair and keep heading towards the light, but I'm getting there.
"Failure can teach you things you can learn no other way." Rowling stated. I agree. Even if it just teaches you what doesn't work, that will eventually lead you to what can. My thoughts are scattered and I know I'm rambling, so I apologize. I'm just letting my thoughts spill out all over the page. Forgive the mess.
My father was the first one to introduce to me the concept of something else J.K. Rowling quoted in her 2008 address to graduating Harvard students; she said, "What we achieve inwardly will change an outward reality."
I think I was somewhere around seventeen when my dad handed me a book entitled "Attractor Factor" by Dr. Joe Vitale. I don't remember much of what the book said, but I do remember discussions with my father that have followed referencing lessons that I learned from the words inside its pages. The concept is that your thoughts are so powerful, they attract your life to you. On a very generic level, for example, when you think negatively, life is miserable, and when you think positively, things aren't as bad as they could be. This is a simple lesson in attitude, but the concept goes deeper than that. What you think attracts certain things into your life. If you're thinking, for instance "I need to get a good job." You are going to spend a lot of time "needing" a job instead of having a job. So you have to change the way you're thinking from "I need to get a good job" to "I have a good job."
It isn't a lie, and it isn't just wishful thinking. It's the power of positive reinforcement being allowed to have a place in our lives. It's kind of along the lines of the phrase "Fake it 'till you make it." I didn't truly understand what my father, and this book, was saying until I was brave enough to try it in my own life. I was a sophomore in college and struggling for many reasons. Through a series of personal decisions I decided to defer a semester of school so I could work on my novel. This happened to be one of the best choices I have ever made, and I have yet to regret it, but there were consequences. One consequence was that I could not keep my on-campus job at BYU because I wasn't a full-time student, so I found myself jobless, with rent and groceries to take care of at my own cost.
So I called my dad and probably cried and he, in his fatherly wisdom, reminded me of the power of thought. He challenged me to write down, in first person, as if it were a reality already, what my "dream day" would be like, job, writing, and other things included. He encouraged me to be as specific as possible, including the time of day I wanted to work and how much I wanted to make and what I wanted to be doing at the job I got. So I did, and I read it to myself at least every other day. I didn't think it would really work, but I was amazed when it did. I got the job I still have today, and when I look at that document I wrote out (which I still have) I can see that, down to the letter, I attracted the job into my life that I needed and wanted. I literally changed my situation with the power of my thoughts.
"You can have, do or be anything you want." -Dr. Joe Vitale
I think we can do the same thing with any leadership position in our lives. If something is not going the way we feel it "should" or the way we want it to, we have the power to change it, starting with the way we think about it.
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