What You Do Is Up To You

"To achieve great things, three things are needed: an inspiring goal, relentless execution, and an impossible deadline."

If you want to turn big ideas into “universe denting” realities, you need to get your mojo working…you need to get emotionally invested in your goals.

Emotions are part of the very thing that makes us human. Unfortunately too many of us are emotionally detached and we all pay dearly for it.

This helps to explain why so many of our dreams, projects and great ideas never see daylight…and why many people live small and unfulfilled lives.

The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire. Getting your mojo working…being emotionally invested is hard-core devotion to a person or cause; it infuses life with meaning, joy and enthusiasm.

Passionate emotional investment is desire in your heart, fire in your belly, an indispensable virtue that is far more valuable than money, power or fame.

Whether the issue pertains to growing sales, adding greater value, focusing on key result areas, embracing change, attracting talent, or raising our own performance, a passionate emotional investment is one of the great differentiators as it fosters commitment and determination.

Passionate emotional investment reflects confidence, spreads good cheer, raises morale, inspires associates, arouses loyalty, and laughs at adversity.

It’s a compelling emotion that enables you to go places others are afraid to go, to try things others are afraid to try, and to be the kind of person others are afraid to be.

It gives you the will to start, the strength to continue, and the sustaining power to overcome the greatest of obstacles and setbacks.

Throughout your life there are guaranteed to be obstacles and difficulties to be met.

Common sense slows things down to investigate them; creative thinking will suggest some ingenious way of getting around them; perseverance deliberately goes to work to dig under them; but a passionate emotional investment to the outcome is the quality that boldly faces and leaps right over them.

You cannot overlook nor underestimate the relationship between perseverance and passionate emotional investment.

Perseverance is the strong determination to move toward the achievement of a goal — purpose…and passionate emotional investment is the fuel that drives perseverance.

No virtue is safe that is not enthusiastic. Apathy or emotional detachment is the enemy of passion; it’s perhaps the worst of all evils.

Far too many people go through life without making any effort to truly live it … to get that fire in their belly, to get fully committed and emotionally invested for enjoying life and living it to the fullest.

The worst bankruptcy in the world is the person who is absent of their mojo…is detached emotionally, and who has lost her passionate soul.

For the individual without emotional investment, life is irrational, unfulfilling, and for some hopeless. The rootless individual is missing significance and goes through life like a blindfolded man in a strange room playing a game of which he does not know the rules.

Emotional detachment and apathy can only be overcome by emotional investment. This is a rule without an exception.

Emotional detachment is a killer of ideas, of hopes and of dreams. The world has no lack of good fights to fight and it has no lack of resources to solve our problems.

What many lack is the burning desire and enthusiasm to fight the fights and to solve those problems.

The potential to become emotionally invested and passionate is an inherent birthright and demonstrated clearly by children. The most irresistible charm of children is their bubbling enthusiasm.

"Your ability to provide yourself with a big, bold and beautiful vision of where you want to go and who you want to become is the greatest gift you can give yourself. Vision holds the promise of what shall one day be."

Children who come fully under the spell of emotional investment see no darkness, no stop signs, no red lights, nor speed limits. They are completely smitten and forget that there is such a thing as failure in the world.

Children are easily excited and they have relatively few fears about expressing their emotional investment. They are turned-on by an innate curiosity that stimulates learning. And, when they learn, they can hardly contain themselves long enough to tell you about their new discoveries.

The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which means never losing your enthusiasm.

What have you done with childlike enthusiasm this week, month or past year?

Far too many people act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements for a successful life, when all that they really need to be happy is something to be emotionally invested in and passionate about.

To engage in work that does not cultivate an emotional investment is completely unnatural and sabotages your spirit. You must love that which you do. Your heart must be in it.

Without passion and a complete investment emotionally, you will NEVER work up to your fullest ability, potential and competitive greatness.

The demands placed on every one of us require that we bring all of who we are to the game.

Actively engaged hearts and minds, unwavering commitment, laser focus, and relentless determination are all motivated by passion and excitement.

Many factors contribute to creating an emotional investment in your work. These include identifying what it means to be successful, transforming projects into exciting work, and defining that work in terms of a heroic or noble cause.

What is most beautiful and sacred to you?

What would you feel incomplete without?

When you have identified that which brings you complete joy, your own unquenchable desire to achieve that goal will become your passion — the inner drives that turns your dreams into a shining reality.

Few things are professionally more fulfilling than doing work that you are extremely good at, turned-on about and fully invested in.

It’s an incredible feeling when what you’re good at and excited about enables you to make a contribution that truly adds value. The result is meaningful success.

Deep down we all want to be involved in work that matters, that has meaning, that is memorable, and if we’re really lucky, work that changes the world. Compelling work stimulates an emotional investment in everyone. They’re the things from which legends and legacies are made.

Be mindful…if the project you’re working on now is not fueling a powerful emotional investment…you should transform it, reframe it, and redefine it until you fall in love with it.

That’s a line worth repeating…

If the project you’re working on now is not fueling a powerful emotional investment…you should transform it, reframe it, and redefine it until you fall in love with it.

One of the deepest needs of human existence is to know that our lives count for something.

Most people want to know that their gifts and talents are being used to make a difference. Since work is so much a part of our lives, we want it to be meaningful. To know that our work counts for something important is to know that we count.

That’s why mundane work is like a vampire that sucks the life out of people and leaves them feeling anonymous, alienated and quite often defeated. They go home at the end of the day emotionally drained with little or nothing left to give their loved ones.

Those who truly get the passion bug see the bigger picture and ultimate value they bring to the world. They do this by linking their individual contributions to a larger, nobler cause.

It’s the administrative assistant in a hospital who believes she is a part of saving lives; it’s the photo developer who knows that she preserves people’s memories; and it’s the sailor who understands that the combat readiness of his ship strengthens peace negotiations.

When people establish a connection between what they do and changing the world for the better, heroism is the result.

Everyone wants to feel heroic and noble about something because at the heart of heroism is meaning and significance.

What is the ultimate value you bring to the world?

What is the heroic cause for which you fight?

When you define work as a cause, a movement worth fighting for, you will find that there is no height to which your spirit cannot rise.

You will also find that you have cultivated something that is extremely difficult to replicate, as passionate emotional investment is the ultimate competitive weapon.

Every great accomplishment is the triumph of some great emotional investment. Great works are only produced when one is intoxicated with a passion for greatness.

Vow to live completely, fearlessly and passionately!

The 100 Day Challenge is a rapid execution system used by more than 675,000 high-achievers to achieve life-changing results in 100 days. Don’t do it unless you want spectacular results.

The strategies you’ll learn in the 100 Day Challenge have elected a president, grown non-profit causes, won gold medals and fueled movements. Now it’s your turn to win bigger faster!