There are times when you have to lay it all on the line.
You have to look past confusion, fear, and the dread of “picking up the pieces” and make the decision that right now is the moment to be “all in”. Right now is the time to hold nothing back.
And yet we’re afraid to do that.
Because it means that we lose things. It means that we get hurt. That other people around us will know that we have failed.
So we try to compromise a safe solution that looks risky to anyone watching but has a wide safety net for us if we fail.
And what we get is a semi-spectacular drama without anything we can really call success or failure.
It’s milk-toast mediocrity.
It’s a horrible predicament that we seem to be really spectacular at rationalizing.
And we’re dead wrong. It’s all just false hope.
We think that by saving something back, we have more “runway” to eventually take off. We think we can save fuel for later.
But there is no later.
That’s what you actually realize — only after it’s too late.
Once your moment has passed. Once your opportunity for greatness has been rationalized down to a series of ever-so-safe next moves.
That’s when you finalize realize that there is no later. There is only right now. This moment…
There is only this opportunity to play for broke.
And so we play.
Instead of strangling our success by strategizing about the rebound, we push the limits of our investment.
We double down. We burn the ships. We dig the trench a little deeper.
And let’s not pretend like this is easy.
It always hurts worse to lose more. It always takes longer to rebuild when you have nothing to start with.
So why do it?
Why risk it all when you can play it safe? Why get hurt? Why?
Because safe doesn’t get you to your big goal.
Playing by the rules doesn’t lead you past the obstacles standing in your way.
And sadly you only realize this to late.
You buy into the peer pressure of teachers and family and your business all telling you to “not do anything stupid”. But when you start to look at the world a little differently — when your vision for you becomes big enough — you decide that what you have now isn’t worth holding on to anyway.
You can’t live safe any more.
And that’s the first step in actually becoming outrageously successful like you always dreamed for you.
Here’s what you begin to realize:
- What hurts worse than failure is to never have tried hard enough to give yourself the chance you need.
- You are your best investment anyway. If you won’t fight furiously for you, who will?
- The things that you’re trying to hold on to won’t be there for ever anyway. Why not risk them now?
- Being reasonable has never been the answer to achieving massive success. It won’t work now.
- Just because you failed in the past doesn’t mean that you’ll fail this time. This time you’re all in.
Sometimes the logical thing to do is what everyone else thinks is completely illogical.
Sometimes, “you” are all you need to be massively successful.
You just need to fight for yourself.
Which begs the question: “What’s holding you back from playing for broke?”
Maybe today’s the day to begin winning.
To push all your chips to the middle of the table.
