How do you personally decide what you will or will NOT do in the pursuit of a goal?
What actions are “off limits?”
Most men let their ego be their guide: so long as an action will not make them uncomfortable, or make them look the fool to others, they will consider it.
And so the map becomes filled with blacked out paths, scratched out shortcuts and narrowed options because there are so many things “I’m not comfortable with” or that “just aren’t me.”
As a result, many men are stuck, made impotent by their own half-measures. They have given the reins of their lives over to their ego instead of their mission.
If you want to live an extraordinary life, you must be willing to be the fool.
You must be willing to say “I’m not comfortable with this. It doesn’t feel ‘me.’ But when I look at my options moving forward, I believe this is the boldest, surest way to live out my mission and create the life I want. So I’m going to do it.”
You may feel and seem the fool in doing so. But so what?
In the end, we all play the fool:
There is the “fool” who speaks and acts in ways that are uncomfortable, who takes risks that make him seem stupid, half-cocked, or arrogant, because of a mission that is bigger than his ego.
And then there is the fool who arrives at his twilight years, just before dying, who, by dint of playing it safe, not rocking the boat, and “saving face,” has nothing. No wealth, no kingdom, no legacy. His life has barely left a ripple and he will not be long remembered, if at all. His slavery to ego ensured his talents were utterly wasted.
So be the “fool” now.
Let your mission guide you into actions that are unfamiliar and uncomfortable, that you might build a life worth remembering, a life that will ripple out for generations to come.
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Bryan Ward is the founder of Third Way Man and author of the LIT Black Paper
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