How to Train your Dragon
Sep 28, 2017Foolish Insight, 2017-09-26]
Dragon. Mythical, mystical, mysterious, powerful.
Remember Bruce Lee in ‘Enter the Dragon’?
Daenerys, the mother of the 3 dragons, in the ‘Game of Thrones’?
Dragons symbolize wisdom, longevity, sexuality, fertility, procreation, and regeneration. They are seen as mythical beings having magical powers.
They are also symbolic of life, growth, existence and prosperity. The ancient Chinese regarded the dragon as the most potent of all symbols of energy and good fortune.
They believed that dragons bring them luck, prosperity, abundance, consistent success and high achievement.
It was said that Dragons represent potent propitious powers, especially control over rainfall, floods and hurricanes.
Today, the dragon is still a very popular symbol that stands for valiance, heroism, boldness, self-confidence, power, excellence, perseverance, nobility, vitality and happiness.
It brings about physical as well as spiritual well-being and strength.
The Dragon is also related to the spring season and is representative of auspiciousness and new beginnings.
Together with the Phoenix, the dragon symbolizes perfect balance. The dragon is a symbol of Yang and the phoenix of Yin and their union is representative of good luck, success, love and enlightenment.
Andrew’s Chinese name also has ‘Dragon’ in it. So, when I first knew him, he is obsessed with anything ‘Dragon’. Shirts, statues, movies. The power of the Dragon is a reminder of what his name means. That he is meant to do great things.
This isn’t about the movie. It is about training the ‘Dragon’ inside you.
Everyone of us are meant to do something great. It is our self limiting beliefs, our lowered expectations, that’s preventing us from being our best self.
Here’s what I mean.
In 1994, Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen finished writing their first book together. And they set a goal to sell 1.5 Million copies by December 30th, 1994, basically by the end of the year. Now they were laughed at by even their own publisher and pretty much everyone else. But they persisted, they kept promoting and going to interviews and book signing and they kept taking action towards their goal. By the deadline in 1994, they sold 1.3 Million copies of the book Chicken Soup for the Soul.
Now have they missed their goal? Sure. They missed it by a whooping 200,000 copies. But did they really fail? Of course not. Had they set a goal to sell less books, let’s say, 100000 copies. How many copies would they have sold? Probably a lot less. Because they would’ve stopped working towards it once they had sold 100,000 copies and have actually met their much lower goal.
Let me say that again. The worst thing that could hurt your ambition is to set a goal that is too low, and hit your goal.[Tweet this]
You then reward yourself for doing a mediocre job. And then homeostasis kicks in, and then you stay in the same position for the rest of your life.
But that’s not what you want. You are special, you have your unique capabilities, and you know you are meant to do something great, something powerful. You just need to ‘awake the dragon’ inside you and get moving!
At Planet Hollywood in New York City, there is a letter hanging on the wall that martial artist and actor Bruce Lee wrote to himself. Bruce Lee, as you may know, is known for his role in ‘Enter the Dragon’.
The top of the letter, which Lee HAND WROTE and dated January 9, 1970, has stamped on it “SECRET.”
It starts out, “By 1980 I will be the best known Oriental movie star in the United States and will have secured $10 million dollars.”
The most interesting part of this letter, however, was the second part:
Lee goes on to write, “And in return I will give the very best acting I could possibly give every single time I am in front of the camera and I will live in peace and harmony.”
Did Bruce Lee wake up your internal dragon?
I have been out of college for over 20 years, yet my education doesn’t stop.
Continue to learn new things, pick up new skills, sharpen your knowledge. Figure out where your ultimate goal, your dream is, and what kind of knowledge and skills you need and start learning those skills!
And, of course, learn from your failures. I was listening to an old interview of David Foster, who, by all definitions, is a successful musician. Here’s what he says:
He wrote 1000 songs, 100 of them became a hit. 15 of them got him grammies.
So, his success rate, is approximately 10%. Or, to see it another way, he failed 900 times, so that he can make 100 hits.
So when’s the last time you learned something new? Technology has made it surprisingly easy to learn new skills. There are audio books that you can listen to while you’re driving to and from work. There are apps on your phone that can teach you new languages. There are online classes everywhere that you can access anywhere you can access the internet.
So, to recap, here’s how to train your dragon:
- you need to establish big, ambitious, audacious goals and dreams. Something that seems out of reach, but not impossible. Impossible is something that no one can do. I bet someone else in the world has similar goals and dreams as yours, and they have already achieved it.
- Now that you have your goals, figure out what kind of skills you need to get you there. Enjoy the process.
- Take baby steps. Remember, babies don’t just figure out how to walk. They kept trying, kept falling. That’s how they learn You also need to learn from your mistakes and failures. Without failure, there is no success. Just think about David Foster.
True happiness is when you see progress in your life. So if you want to be truly happy, take action now. Train your dragon. And bring your dragon to life.
If you don’t know where to start? I can suggest one. Follow this link and it will take you to my brand new online course called Productivity Mastery. It is a set of 3 modules that will help you find the time you need to better yourself and to help you reach your goal. So give it a try.
Until next time, Love what you live, and live what you love.
