Here's a little tale about a shark... 🦈 and it might change your perspective on everything. Here goes, with credit to Marc Chernoff. During a research experiment, a marine biologist placed a shark into a large holding tank -- then released several small bait fish into the tank.🐠 As you would expect, the shark quickly swam around the tank, snapping up the smaller fish. The marine biologist then inserted a strong piece of clear fiberglass into the tank, creating two separate partitions. She put the shark 🦈 on one side of the fiberglass and a new set of bait fish 🐟 on the other. Again, the shark quickly attacked. This time, however, the shark slammed into the fiberglass divider and bounced off. Undeterred, the shark kept repeating this behavior every few minutes to no avail. 🤕 Meanwhile, the bait fish swam around unharmed in the second partition. Eventually, about an hour into the experiment, the shark gave up. This experiment was repeated several dozen times over the next few weeks. Each time, the shark got less aggressive and made fewer attempts to attack the bait fish, until eventually the shark got tired of hitting the fiberglass divider and simply stopped attacking altogether. The marine biologist then removed the fiberglass divider... But the shark DIDN'T attack. 😮 The shark was trained to believe a barrier existed between it and the bait fish, so the bait fish swam wherever they wished, free from harm. The moral? Many of us, after experiencing setbacks and failures, give up emotionally and just stop trying. 😩 Like the shark in the story, we believe that because we were unsuccessful in the past, we will always be unsuccessful. In other words, we continue to see a barrier in our heads, even when no ‘real’ barrier exists between where we are and where we want to go. Consider this: 💡 Maybe TODAY is the day you should consider the accidental barriers you may be holding in YOUR mind... and perhaps make the decision to let them go. What do you think?

Living life isn't for sissies. I'm a 66 year old veteran. One thing I've learned early in life is that life wasn't made for sissies and the only way to become sissy proof is to go through tough times. You have to get out of your comfort zone in order to get anywhere in life, and getting out of your comfort zone will force you to face some difficult times. It is during these times that you'll get stronger, and it takes strength to get through life. Just recently, I had no vehicle and was facing homelessness. The sheriff was supposed to come last Thursday to kick us out of the apartment. They didn't, and my wife ended up in the hospital with fractured ribs and pneumonia. I had to spend 130.00 on a U-haul, 110.00 on a storage and the day they let out of the hospital on Tuesday we found out that we were approved for an appointment, but we couldn't start moving in until Saturday so I had to spend 375.00 for a motel from Tuesday to Friday night so that my wife wouldn't be on the streets. Now I wouldn't have had the money to do all of that if the place we were evicted from made us pay rent for the last two months and if the sheriff's hadn't stalled in kicking us out. Not only that, but I was able to pick up a 2005 Toyota Sequoia the day after getting the motel. I had bought two vehicles from this dealership before, so they fully covered the down-payment. Today, we will be getting the electricity turned on and picking up the keys to our new apartment. This trial lasted for a very long time as I've been without a vehicle for nearly a year. Had I not gone through tough times throughout my life and choosing the warriors' path led to much more difficult challenges, I could have simply given up and folded like a rag doll. Going through this challenging time and not giving up while believing in myself and trusting the process even though getting breaks now and then would have been nice, look how everything worked out. Every piece of the puzzle worked out perfectly. If I had given up like a sissy my wife and I would currently would be homeless living on the streets. Now, I'm not saying that this is the case for every homeless person. Homeless people are homeless for many different reasons. I am only speaking for our situation.

How much pain are you willing to suffer in order to get the life that you want? Instead of asking what do I want in life, wouldn't it be better to ask how much pain am I willing to suffer in order to get what I want in life? It won't be easy getting the life that you want and far to many quit before they reach their goal because they never figured out how much they are willing to struggle and suffer to get to where they want to be. When I was an amateur boxer, I knew many boxers who hated roadwork, but they ran every day or every other day because they wanted to be the best. They knew how much suffering they were willing to suffer in order to be the best that they could be. What do you want out of life? How much pain and suffering are you willing to go through in order to get what you want? Bear Warrior Gonzales Let's take another look at the powerful question of “What do I want?” Goals in life aren’t just about desire; they’re about tolerance for discomfort, sacrifice, and persistence. Desire is easy; discipline and suffering separate dreamers from achievers. When you recognize that everything meaningful carries a price, then the real question becomes: Are you willing to pay it? The Cost of a Dream Every pursuit has its hidden toll. Whether it’s the early mornings of training, the sting of rejection, the grind of building a business, or the long and lonely hours creating something that others don’t yet understand—it all costs something deeply personal. The amateur boxers who didn’t didn’t love running in the drizzle or pounding their legs on unforgiving pavement. But they loved the result of what that suffering brought them: endurance, stamina, and advantage in the ring. It’s the same in life: your willingness to suffer becomes your compass. Relevant Quotes “We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret.” — Jim Rohn “If you are willing to suffer, you can do anything.” — Friedrich Nietzsche “Discomfort is the currency of your dreams.” — Brooke Castillo

"I wasn't born with a silver spoon, nor did I have connections in the industry. I was born in Vega Baja, 🇵🇷Puerto Rico, in a neighborhood where dreams were big, but the money wasn't even enough for sneakers. I worked as a bagger at a supermarket while studying communications... and writing lyrics in my head while putting groceries in bags. Everyone told me my voice was weird, that I wasn't "commercial" enough, that my style was too strange. Many producers shut doors on me. Once, an "expert" told me I should do something else, because my music "would never make a hit". But instead of giving up, I uploaded my songs to SoundCloud... without promotion, without money, just with faith in what I was doing. I went from recording in my home bathroom to now selling out Stadiums. I saw how some people turned against me when I started gaining popularity. Today they call me "El Duro", but I'm still that little kid who dreamed of a microphone among the dirty clothes. And if I learned something, it's that when no one believes in you... you have to believe in yourself twice as much. "It doesn't matter where you come from or what you look like... if you believe it, the world will have to believe it too." -Bad Bunny

If you kept living exactly as you are now,you are right now, would you be proud of that story at the end of your life?