Dealing with the knockers

"I was told over and over again that I would never be successful, that I was not going to be competitive and the technique was simply not going to work. All I could do was shrug and say “we’ll just have to see”.” So said Dick Fosbury who won an Olympic Gold medal at the 1968 Mexico City Games for doing something that could quite conceivably have failed and failed miserably. Thankfully for the new breed of high jumpers the technique worked and worked so well they too were able to jump higher than ever before.

Raising your own standards, may mean that you get people who cannot see beyond their own limited beliefs, telling you that it won't work, that you are wasting your time after all it has never been done before so why should it work now, and as importantly - for you? Who do you think YOU are?

But if we didn't have people who were willing to question why? why not? why not this way? and if that doesn't work then why not some other way? Then we would never have anything new. No thoughts, no products or services. No new anything. In fact we would still be wandering around hunting for our food and hoping that we could still out run the predators.

So let them wander around in their oblivious state. That's not where we want to be, nor deserve to be. Remember Dick Fosbury who knew that his technique would work, after all he had tried it many times before he got it right, and boy did he get it right. But he also knew that he had to fail many times before he mastered his technique, but that didn't stop him from questioning his motives, his movements and his techniques many times before he succeeded.

Never be afraid to question, that is the one thing that stands us head and shoulders above the other creatures that inhabit this planet. Our ability to think, question and reason.

Have the courage of your convictions, and you will go far.