What's Your Story?

There’s a scene from the last movie of the Rocky series where Sylvester Stallone gives his son one helluva life lesson. In the process, he also gives every single person who’s watched the movie a serious kick in the ass, too. You’ve heard it before, no?

 

Well, if you haven’t, here’s a snippet from it:

 

“Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place, and I don’t care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard you hit, it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done!

 

Now if you know what you’re worth, then go out and get what you’re worth! But you gotta be willing to take the hits. And not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody! Cowards do that and that ain’t you! You’re better than that!”

 

I came across a video on YouTube by Tony Robbins, where he shares the original inspiration for the Rocky movies and a background on Sylvester Stallone’s life itself.

 

In the story, he tells of how Stallone knew what he wanted to become, and he sacrificed everything for it. I knew what I wanted to become, and I knew that I had to be willing to sacrifice everything for it.

 

Dreams are beautiful things, but they have a dirty secret. The secret is that they are going to challenge you in the worst and finest ways possible to test you to see if you are indeed worthy and ready of achieving such a thing.

 

That’s how I look at all those years I spent failing. I wasn’t the man who could have achieved that dream, but I was building myself into that man through failure.

 

I have been kicked off of the varsity lacrosse team in high school.