Potential and Possibilities are just two sides of the same coin.
Potential is internal and based on the qualities you now possess; Possibilities are the various forms your Potential may take when expressed in the outside world.
Appreciating the difference helps you make the most of both!
Try looking at uncertainty not as a gun to your head, but as a surfboard for riding rogue waves; now hang ten!
Developing your Principles requires consistent effort over time. The substance of your Principles – maturity, insight, and their development – cannot be “crammed”, as if for an exam.
Every opportunity to develop your principles is singularly unique, and once gone it cannot be recovered. Hence the saying: “Negligence is an extreme thing.”
So remember, each day is full of opportunities to develop your Principles – make the effort to seize every one!
There are two ways to look at unavoidable obstacles created by your past.
You can look at them as chains dragging behind you, or see them as obstructions that you now get the opportunity to move beyond. T
he former viewpoint erodes your confidence; the latter builds it. Easy choice!
Guiding is helping people get where they want to go. Managing is helping people get where you need them to be.
In a world which can at times be a hard place, full of harsh circumstances and tough decisions, I see the study of Budō as one of the most effective means of understanding and cultivating one’s potential.
The Japanese term for martial arts, Budō is a compound of bu, meaning war or martial, and dō, meaning path or way. One of the reasons I have infinite respect for Budō is because it embodies a spirit of preparedness without the associated condition of being enslaved by fear of what you are preparing for. The fearlessness that Budō cultivates comes from ultimate capability – the confidence & self-possession to make decisions that lead to “win-win”.
Ultimately, the purpose of Budō is the cultivation of one’s own personal capabilities to such a degree that one can effectively manage the challenges of Life while generating peace & harmony in both spirit & practice. So the true spirit of Budō is really the spirit of winning through having cultivated a Decisive Spirit.
Resist the temptation of being too self-deprecating; it can become a self-indulgence that foreshadows an abdication of personal responsibility.