To be success minded is to be action-minded. Any plan or vision, no matter how lofty it is, doesn’t see the light of day without action. Lack of execution is the abortion of dreams and visions. The conception of the idea or vision took place in mind, but it never saw the light of day, because at the point of birth and delivery, there wasn’t the requisite puissant action to push the idea out from the realm of the unseen to the seen, from the internal world of the mind, to the external world of humans, where it can be useful to someone.
The beauty of anything can only be seen in the doing. You could never have admired the brilliance of the Mona Lisa if it’d remained in the beautiful mind of Leonardo da Vinci.
Action is the unleashing of vision, faith, courage, discipline, patience, even love, towards the attainment of a desired goal. Sometimes it takes all of the above and more, to bring an idea to life. If a person possessed all the knowledge in all the world, and were as talented as a record-holding Olympic athlete, and as intelligent as ten thousand Einsteins put together, and more disciplined than a monk, or more courageous than a soldier on a fearsome battlefield, if they won’t act, if they don’t execute on their ideas, it means nothing.
Nothing can save a man who will not be moved by his own vision to take action to see it come to pass. He esteems himself too little, to believe that his work will add anything of note to the world. He is who he accepts that he is.
The confidence we have in our ideas is seen in the action that we take to manifest them.
When we act, we allow the world to peek into our minds, to catch a glimpse of our brilliance. We pull back the curtains of our intellect and grant the world a sacred permission to see our neurons at work. We fling open the doors of our hearts and show them the faith we possess that moves mountains.
Action is noble. It gives all your virtues room to thrive and prosper.
This is what we should emphasize to young people: to take action, to take it early, often, and decisively. Action chases away fear. And if young people were to learn this early, it would help eliminate some of the doubts, confusion, and self-immolating behaviors that seem to besiege the younger generation.
Students of the Bible are well acquainted with the story of creation. We are told that in the beginning, God created the Heavens and the earth. When the scene opens, we see the earth empty, chaotic, formless, and dark, with water everywhere. God is also on the scene. All His power and wisdom and infinite beauty were with Him, yet darkness and emptiness persisted. Change only occurred when God did something, when He took action and commanded, “Let there be light.” And there was light.
All of our abilities and grand visions mean nothing, if not backed by action.
Action is the only definite proof of their existence, that we ever conceived such noble thoughts or beheld such sublime, stupendous beauty in our minds. Potential energy can not move horses, light a factory, or fly planes. But potential energy transformed into kinetic energy can move and change the world. And it indeed has.
This, I believe, is how we are godly, to employ our creative imagination to develop and create something that adds good value to the world, and by extension, to ourselves. When we create, we do things that we love, for love of our fellowman, in service to them. This is godlike.
Action is creation at its best, creation perfected.
Action is the hallmark of a wise man; fools are full of empty words.
Action is man at his best, venturing to let his hands and feet travel the vast plains that his magnificent mind has already traversed.
Nike was right all along. Just do it, or there’s no “it”. Nothing. Let the “something”, the idea in your head, be a “something” in your hand, and in your life. Be the extraordinary person that your soul has informed you that you can be.
How will the world know the fine genius that you are, if you don’t take action that demonstrates your genius? If you don’t create the product or service, compose the song, write the book or poetry, paint the painting, teach the students, take the bold but albeit lonely step, then your big bright idea ends up like a mindless sigh that is soon forgotten.
People can’t see your lovely, potentially world-changing thoughts, but they surely can see them expressed through the works of your hands. Show them. Show them who you are! Who you really are!
What’s your mind cooking today? What did it cook yesterday, last month, last year?
Are we ever going to see it? When?
A person who dreams, yet fails to act is engaging in the worst kind of deception- self-deception. And self-erasure.
Surely that isn’t you!