On Garth, Kurt, You and I
On Monday I promised you I was going to write about a few meditations I’d had over coffee with Barb that morning.
You can watch or hear that here.
The first message I promised to write was about what Garth Brooks, Kurt Warner, you and I all have in common.
Both Brooks and Warner are mega successes.
While you and I have both come a far way from where we started, we ain’t there yet.
But, if you are indeed as much like me as I think you may be, we still have a lot in common with these two great American success stories.
First and foremost, they too came from humble beginnings.
Second, they had big dreams.
Perhaps even more a commonality to most, they had to overcome incredible challenges, obstacles and even failures to become who they are.
As I alluded to in the youtube video, it was almost serendipitous that I watched American Underdog and Garth Brooks documentary bip, The Road I’m On Sunday night.
We don’t watch much TV in the first place and I certainly hadn’t set out to choose something that would specifically stroke my creative meditations in preparation to write and teach this week.
But we did, and both shows did, and I was grateful for excited about the things that jumped out to me as worthy of a lesson for the rest of us:
- As already stated, neither superstar began with any particular advantages, contacts, wealth or even talent. What they did each have, from early, was a dream.
- Each faced considerable obstacles and resistance in the pursuit of that dream. It never came easy.
- Each failed.
- Each sacrificed.
- Each even quit- almost and once. Each regained the vision of their dream, but each almost gave up on it somewhere along the way.
- But they persevered, they learned when they failed, and they tried again and again and again and again and….. eventually, they overcame!
- Through the application of the leadership principles we call CANI & The Law of the Process, perseverance, vision, discipline and more, they eventually realized their dreams.
The take-away for you and I is that we’re not that different from the superstars.
Garth Brooks remains to this day one of the world’s best-selling music artists, having sold more than 170 million records.
But he once drove all the way from his small town home in Oklahoma to Nashville Tennessee, to get his break,- and then drove all the way home the next day because someone said he wasn’t good enough.
Kurt Warner’s football career has proven to be one of the more improbable rags-to-riches stories ever to come out of the sports world. Bypassed by the big Division I colleges, and at one point working the graveyard shift stocking shelves at a supermarket so he could stay in football shape during the day, Warner, a 28-year-old no-name back-up, catapulted to stardom in 1999. During his second full year in the NFL, he drove a high-powered St. Louis Rams offense to a Super Bowl victory and collected MVP honors along the way. Over the ensuing decade, Warner captained two other teams to the Super Bowl, registered another MVP season and threw for more than 200 career touchdowns.
Both of them became great, accomplishing amazing things and, especially, their dreams……
I’m super proud of how far I’ve come in pursuit of my dreams; but I know I’m not there yet.
I’ve failed a lot, learned a lot and grown a lot.
I’ve got a lot of dreams left in me.
How about you?
Is there a dream in you that you need to rekindle again?
Did you fail at it? Did you ever give up?
Did someone tell you to be “realistic”, to “grow up” or that you weren’t good enough?
Well, friend, we’re in good company!
We’ve got a lot of things in common with Garthe and Kurt!
Now let’s go finish the getting our dreams part!
Prepare To Live; Empower To Lead!
Grand Master Stephen J. Del Castillo
Founding Master Instructor, Krav Maga Martial Arts
Author of Developing Your Superpowers Meditations On Mastery Vol One
Check out the Meditations On Mastery Blog and Podcast too!
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About Grandmaster Stephen J. Del Castillo: Grandmaster Del Castillo is the founding Master Instructor of Krav Maga Martial Arts and has been empowering lives in Pasco and Hillsborough Counties since October of 2000. He is a 7th degree Blackbelt, MBA, author, mentor and success coach, a US Army Veteran and a proud father and grandfather. He is married to Ms. Barbara Del Castillo who helps him run the school. Grand Master Del Castillo began his training in the early 80’s and has high level blackbelts in Tae Kwon Do, Karate, Premier Martial Arts and Krav Maga Martial Arts as well as experience in kickboxing, Jeet Kune Do and Jiujitsu. He has high level instructor certifications from BBSI, IKMF, and KMG and has been featured in numerous Martial Arts publications and also Success magazine. He was a competitive sport karate and American Kickboxing instructor until he enlisted in the US Army where he served in the 82nd Airborne Division, where he won an Army Green to Gold scholarship and proceeded to ROTC and the University of Tampa. He was commisioned in 1992 and went on to serve in Germany with the 3rd Infantry Division and then in several other posts in the US until he left military service to pursue his dream of creating KMMA in 2000.
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