Believe

      This is one of the most talked about, argued about, written and blogged about subjects in mentoring and coaching today. The fact that someone who believes in themselves, no matter if they are at a disadvantage, will prevail over someone who knows what to do but has no faith in themselves. The fact that we believe that we are capable of doing makes us capable of doing, no matter what it is. Now, I mat only be 18 years old (with 20 years experience) but I have seen this happen time and time again personally, and have seen the stories, articles, highlights and blogs on this subject over and over.

      What I want to do is try to talk about it a little bit differently. We see many, many things written about this subject, but how many time shave we seen this faith expressed in mass media, namely movies? I can actually think of a few and I want to go over a couple and point out how they relate. So if you have never seen Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back and Kung Fu Panda, you might want to go rent them now and watch them. Some spoiler action is going to be happening in a minute. I will skip down a few lines so you dont accidentally see it.



      Star Wars. We all know the character Yoda was a Jedi master responsible for the teaching of the Jedi Knights and responsible for the training of Luke Skywalker. Something I think a lot of people miss is the actual things that Yoda brings up. When he is talking how to tell the difference between the dark side and the Jedi way, hate, anger, greed and jealousy lead to the dark side. Calm, paece and happiness all lead away from the dark side. That calm and inner peace comes from the absolute faith in ones self and in your ability to understand what your environment is telling you. If your faith is complete you will not feel anger at slights, hate at others, greed for what others have, or jealousy for what others feel. You will know that what you have is what YOU have and no matter what others may have they dont have what you do. And you wont want what they have. That faith will allow you to get past all these things and allow you to get what it is you want.

      Kung Fu Panda. While it is a cartoon movie aimed at young children, it has many of the same points as Star Wars and in a simpler format. The main character, Po, voiced by Jack Black, is an overweight panda who dreams of being a Kung Fu expert. When the valley's master announces the Dragon warrior, he picks Po instead of the other masters who are already there training. By finding a way into the ceremony by strapping himself into a chair attached to a lot of fireworks, he shows the first step to absolute faith: finding a way to change his environment. As Po's training progresses, he shows that he is willing to accept all that anyway can through at him to continue that progression. And when he finally attains the Dragon scroll and it is a blank mirror showing him his reflection, he doesnt understand at first. His father naming the secret ingredient in his noodle soup as nothing allows him to see the truth. That all of our power comes from within ourselves.

       All of our power and strength comes from our inner self. That absolute faith allows us to absorb what happens to us and redirect it back in a positive way. Every disappointment becomes a learning experience, not a failure. Every thing that happens on a day-to-day basis is just another way for the days to pass and more learning. We see the things inside we dont like and strive to make ourselves better, not to impress others, but to form us in the image we hold in our heads of ourselves. We are all formed in a forge of triumph and heartache, how we apply the lessons learned is what makes us different. All of the great men we have admired in history had multiple failures, some lost everything they had, time and time again, and kept going because of their faith in themselves and what they were trying to do.

       So the next time you have something happen, think to yourself and see how you react to it. Do you react in a positive way, accept what happened and move on and learn from it? Or do you react in a negative way, hate the people that caused the problem and wish harm upon them? These are the things we need to look at. It is easy to have faith when everything goes well. It isn't so easy when things are going wrong.