Defeat doesn’t come from failing – it comes from giving up.
There’s a great line in one of my favorite movies, “The Edge”, starring Anthony Hopkins. He says:
“You know, I once read an interesting book which said that, uh, most people lost in the wilds, they, they die of shame […] “What did I do wrong? How could I have gotten myself into this?” And so they sit there and they — die. Because they didn’t do the one thing that would save their lives.”
Anthony Hopkins – The Edge
Alex Lickerman, in his great book “The Undefeated Mind”, demonstrates the importance of having an undefeatable mindset. What’s more, he maintains that everyone has the capability to develop this mindset, not only to withstand the challenges of life but also to triumph over them. This speaks to the very heart of what Rise8 is all about.
“This, then, is what it means to possess an undefeated mind: not just to rebound quickly from adversity or to face it calmly, without being pulled down by depression or anxiety, but also to get up day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, decade after decade—even over the course of an entire lifetime—and attack the obstacles in front of us again and again until they fall, or we do. An undefeated mind isn’t one that never feels discouraged or despairing; it’s one that continues on in spite of it. Even when we can’t find a smile to save us, even when we’re tired beyond all endurance, possessing an undefeated mind means never forgetting that defeat comes not from failing but from giving up. ”
Alex Lickerman – The Undefeated Mind
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An undefeated mind doesn’t fill itself with false hope, but with hopes to find real solutions, even solutions it may not want or like. An undefeated mind is itself what grants us access to the creativity, strength, and courage necessary to find those real solutions, viewing obstacles not as distractions or detours off the main path of our lives but as the very means by which we capture the lives we want. Victory may not be promised to any of us, but possessing an undefeated mind means behaving as though it is, as though to win we only need to wage an all-out struggle and work harder than everyone else, trying everything we can, and when that fails trying everything we think we can’t, in full understanding that we have no one on whom we can rely for victory but ourselves. Possessing an undefeated mind, we understand that there’s no obstacle from which we can’t create some kind of value. We view any such doubt as delusion. Everyone—absolutely everyone—has the capacity to construct an undefeatable mind, not just to withstand personal traumas, economic crises, or armed conflicts, but to triumph over them.
Alex Lickerman – The Undefeated Mind