Evan Sanders's Blog, page 83

A Short Story | The Shoes We Wear

I’ll tell you a short story.

Once upon a time there was boy who resented, regretted, and hated the things that had happened to him. Every day, he would moan, groan, and walk in the shadow of anger constantly plagued by the cloud over him. He began to hate people, to grow cold, and to find ways to destroy anything that he would touch.

It consumed him to the point of desperation, and only in a flash of ultimate resilience did things change.

He stopped focusing on the bad, and started focusing on the good. This didn’t come without learning. At first he was uncomfortable – because he only knew how to mutter in despair – but eventually, he found a new set of shoes and decided to wear those for a while. Never again did he focus on how muddy his shoes had become, but instead laughed thinking about all of the memories he had created wearing those shoes.

He promised himself that at the end of his life, he would wear those shoes down to the point of having nothing left, and in his last moments…smile that he had not only given the world himself, but flooded it with love…the type of love that could fill rivers and move mountains.

That boy was me.

- Evan Sanders

A Short Story | The Shoes We Wear is a post from: Inspirational Stories About Life

No related posts.

Ambition | Letting Your Imagination Run Wild

Ambition is priceless.

When I was young, I’m talking around the years of 5-9, I used to play out in my yard with my dog Buttercup, saving her from monsters and adventuring “unexplored worlds” together. No feat was too big. No dragon or monster was too intimidating to face. My ambition was solid. I believed  that I was incapable of things I wasn’t capable of…primarily because those things didn’t exist. But in my mind, in my lovely mind full of imagination and an infatuation with heroism, I believed fully.

Ambition will take you places you never even dreamed of.

I think we lose that little kid in ourselves over time. Things happen…we get beaten up, our hearts break, we hurt ourselves and others and it just seeps out of the cracks. We lose that belief and that priceless ambition. I’m talking about that type of ambition you see in a young child when you ask them what they want to be, and they tell you, but the thing is…they are already that fireman or baseball player or artist. They have barely any talent, but that doesn’t stop them from believing that they are that.

What if we could gain that back?

In my adventuring and my reading, I have started to discover that there is really something to that idea. There’s something…a really big secret…to belief. Because belief is what makes our lives flourish and bloom. Belief is the thing that miracles are made out of.

I should know.

I was drawn to it, even when I was at my worst. It was resilience that drew me to it. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was the resilience in me that would help me discover the little kid inside of me once again.

That…to me, is priceless.

Because now, when I dream, I dream HUGE. Impossible back then was possible, so it is for me now. And honestly, we attribute these types of words to our dreams and that is exactly what we get. I thought it was impossible for me to be doing what I am right now. But it wasn’t. It was far far far from impossible.

You can either kill your ambition or water it thoroughly.

It’s fully up to you. But you have to believe in yourself and what you’re doing. If you don’t your ambition will die in your hands. At the end of the day, your life is in your hands and you can be your greatest tool or greatest enemy. You have more power than you could possibly imagine.

So, dream. Let that imagination run wild and see where it takes you.

- Evan Sanders

Ambition | Letting Your Imagination Run Wild is a post from: Inspirational Stories About Life

No related posts.

Your Deepest Fear

“Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.” – Jim Morrison, musician.

It was fear that drove me into the black. To that one place that we are scared of more than anything else. It sent me right on my way and I discovered, through life’s finest way of literally making you confront what is going on inside, that I was indeed afraid.

I was as afraid as a little child of the dark. And maybe that was it…”Evan, your deepest fear is of darkness. Not the opposite of light..oh no, the other kind.”

We all harbor as specific darkness within each of us. That is what makes us human and what defines a great side of ourselves. For some reason however, we let this scare us into submission. But why? Why do we let the things that we know that are deep inside of us, those painful experiences etc, define our lives from that point on? Why don’t we let them be a part of a grand story, one that involves the protagonist rising from the ashes instead of carrying the baggage of the past with him/her?

It’s because we don’t fully understand that we are capable of writing our own story.

We are powerful beyond measure Williamson said. She went on to say that our light scares us more than our darkness. Well shoot. It looks like we are scared of everything then. In fact, we are scared right into the middle.

The middle where everyone else is hanging out, nice and safe in the sheep pen, doing what we are told and living a mediocre life. Because if we are scared of our darkness, and if we are scared of our light, how in the world do you expect to get anywhere?

You can’t. Not with that mentality.

Sitting back and writing about this right now, I could say that the first 3-ish years of The Better Man Project was about finding out what it was like to be at peace with the darkness inside. Not only was it about finding what was actually in there, but then living with what I had to…and then finding the courage to change what I did not like.

There used to be someone in my life who told me…on a few separate occasions…that I should accept and live with the bad things about myself and cherish them. There was always something funny tasting left in my mouth after she said that. Maybe it was because that idea went against an entire plan of personal development? I’m still not completely convinced of why I still think about this, but if I had to nail it down today, I would say it always struck me wrong because I don’t think we fully have control over all things that develop during our younger years.

With a significant amount of growth, emotional instability, incapacity to accept responsibility and a slew of other pieces to the puzzle, I landed somewhere in my twenties being exactly the man I was…looking at what the first quarter of a century had yielded me and went “Woah.”

Woah because there were a lot of great things, and there were a lot of not so great things.

But with all those characteristic traits I had, and with everything that went on in my life during that time, I couldn’t possibly have made good and conscious decisions…ones that would create me into a great man in the future. And that’s the key. When I was 15-23 roughly, I wasn’t thinking about competing with my potential. Hell, I didn’t even know what I was capable of.

This is why I always believe you should be in a process of personal development and never give up on giving yourself the chance to grow and face your deepest fear.

It’s hard enough living this life as it is, but if we get to the end and realize that we have lived scared the whole time, or that we had the ability to become something great but succumbed to the satisfaction of simply living with the person we are today…whatever that shell may look like, then we we are going to live a rotten life.

You have to shed your skin. Churchill said “To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.”

I’ll live my life through those words. I will change often. I will morph, adapt, and adjust…and hell, I’ll see where that takes me.

- Evan Sanders

Your Deepest Fear is a post from: Inspirational Stories About Life

No related posts.

An Inspirational Snack | 9.13

I love quotes. I think you know that. Here’s a boatload of quotes for 9.13 to keep you motivated and going!

An Inspirational Snack | 9.13 is a post from: Inspirational Stories About Life

No related posts.

The Rocky Balboa Speech That Dragged Me Out Of Hell

Rocky Balboa Speech To Son

“You ain’t gonna believe this, but you used to fit right here. (He gestures to the palm of his hand). I’d hold you up to say to your mother, ‘This kid’s gonna be the best kid in the world. This kid’s gonna be somebody better than anybody I ever knew.’ And you grew up good and wonderful. It was great just watchin’ you, every day was like a privilege. Then the time come for you to be your own man and take on the world, and you did. But somewhere along the line, you changed. You stopped being you. You let people stick a finger in your face and tell you you’re no good. And when things got hard, you started lookin’ for something to blame, like a big shadow.

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’m always gonna love you no matter what. No matter what happens. You’re my son and you’re my blood. You’re the best thing in my life. But until you start believing in yourself, you ain’t gonna have a life.”

- Rocky Balboa

I remember being at my worst laying sick in bed, mentally sick, physically ill, beaten down and feeling like I had been dragged through hell, and deciding to watch Rocky Balboa, the last round Sylvester Stallone would fight in the Rocky series. I had always loved Rocky movies, but after Rocky V, I really didn’t know what to expect.

What I soon found out was that the movie would have probably the greatest impact on my life, more than any other movie, book, or piece of media I had ever seen. This post isn’t a breakdown of the movie, which you should watch by the way, but it’s about one quote…a quote that actually became my senior quote in high school, and how it changed the course of my young 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.” – Rocky Balboa

In the speech to his son, I didn’t relate as much to the literal talk between father and son, but was instead struck by something much deeper that only one other movie, Warrior, has been able to do. I saw my weaker self, the part of myself that landed me exhausted and sick in bed fighting against my potential – the man I knew I could become and who would put on the gloves to fight for his dreams and what he believed in.

Those childish words spewing blame, embarrassment, and fear sent shivers down my spine. I think we’ve all been there. We’ve all been in a place where we have surrounded to our almost innate ability to blame everyone else for what we don’t have and who we have become. If there was any characteristic that properly defined my younger high school self, it would be just that: blame.

I didn’t want to admit to myself that I was in fact responsible for my choices, my actions, and my reactions to the events that had occurred in my life. I wanted to blame my family, my friends, the weather, anything I could possibly find so my ego wouldn’t be damaged by the understanding that I had created my own worst nightmare. Fear has truly coursed its ways through my veins and paralyzed my dreams and growth.

And there stood my potential as if to say, “Kid, before all of this got to you, you were going to be something great. But look at you now, you’ve become a shadow of what you could have been…and the only way you are going to get back to creating something special is by continuing to take the hits and to get up time after time believing that you can accomplish anything you want to in life.”

Tony Robbins, one of my other heroes, tells the Rocky story in the following video, a video I hadn’t found until years later, about the original inspiration for the Rocky movies and a background on Sylvester Stallone’s life itself. It’s an interesting story, one that I can identify with in many ways, but as with most media I digest, I try to pick out something that relates to me beyond the obvious.

Stallone knew what he wanted to become and he sacrificed everything for it. I knew what I wanted to become, but wasn’t willing to make the sacrifices.

That was the truth. A harsh truth indeed, but the truth nonetheless.

My greatest fear was to relive my despair as I had to hang up my baseball cleats because of structural issues in my elbow. That fear, the fear that I would be so close to a dream and have it stripped from me, would destroy all of my attempts at achieving goals in the future for years. But most of all, that fear destroyed my belief in myself.

I had learned how to deal with the hits in life. I had found something deep inside of me that could process these things and then I found writing which allowed me to dump everything out onto fresh white sheets of paper and express myself in a way that I had never known I could before. But what I couldn’t do yet was dream, and then with ruthless determination and integrity, act on those dreams. This didn’t stop me from attempting however. After years and years of attempting something and being brought to a final breaking point, I went in one more round with those Rocky words in the back of my mind and everything clicked.

When the load is seemingly too heavy to bear, you have to go in one more round and give it everything you have. You have to pick yourself up when you’ve been knocked down and with blind faith keep moving in the direction of your chosen path. I say blind faith because anything short of completely trusting your vision will not get you to where you want to go. 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.

Every time I failed, I tried again. Every time I failed, I searched for answers. Every time I failed, I found new ways to learn how to achieve what I wanted to achieve. This process was grueling and mentally taxing, but now, being at the finish line, I understand the value in it. But there is one thing that is truly the most important thing of all.

I believe in myself now.

I actually do, and I know that the next endeavor I embark on will have the momentum of the past achievements behind it. Whenever I hit a rut or get stuck in the mud, I can think back to all of the times I actually overcame the barriers that my previous dream had placed before me. And I think there is a valuable distinction between the barriers that happen in life and the barriers that occur when you’re chasing your dreams.

The barriers that occur in daily life are things that happen to you. You get injured, someone leaves you, you lose your money, things like that. But the barriers that appear when you are chasing your dreams are something much more mature, tricky, and brilliantly difficult to overcome. They don’t happen to you, they happen for you. You chose the path. You chose the dream. You made the decision to go all in and with that decision you signed the dotted line that said, “I will face every obstacle and defy every fear that comes in front of me…give me your best shot.”

Forever, I will have the Rocky Balboa speech in the back of my mind when life throws its best shots at me…and forever, will be motivated to go in one more round.

- Evan Sanders

Have thoughts? Get into contact with me.

Email: thebettermanprojects@gmail.com

Get Social: Facebook Twitter

The Rocky Balboa Speech That Dragged Me Out Of Hell is a post from: Inspirational Stories About Life

No related posts.

An Inspirational Snack | 9.11

An Inspirational Snack | 9.11 is a post from: Inspirational Stories About Life

No related posts.

Beats by Dre | The Game Before The Game

Today is another important day in our lives.

So…today…run.

Run like it is the last day of your life. 

Run like…

You’re a crazy man chasing happiness.

Run for your family and your friends.

Today be happy.

Alright?

But there is one more thing…

It’s important you don’t hold back.

…

Put God’s army in front of you

wear God’s armor

from the helmet to the sandals

Go with God

God bless you. 

I love you

- The Game Before The Game, Beats By Dre

About 6 weeks into my journey I hit a low day. I mean, really low. I came across that feeling of wanting to quit, of wrapping it all up and letting it all go. Combine that with a fail at getting a second date and I felt pretty bad about myself and what I was doing.

Then, I saw this video.

Everything changed.

I charged ahead and didn’t look back. It’s safe to say that I had reached a crossroads where I could have gone south very fast if I didn’t have something to pick me up. The Game Before The Game commercial by Beats by Dre took me out of that moment, and cast me into a moment of creating your own greatness.

For that, I am eternally grateful. Because honestly, I haven’t had a poor effort workout in 13 weeks now. That day though, could have been not only a bad workout, but me giving up on something I had made a “final stand” to complete.

This leads me into what I want to talk about briefly tonight.

You need to have a backup source of inspiration when your inspiration runs out. You have to have speeches, books, videos, pictures, anything that you can find. Why? Because somedays you aren’t going to have enough in you. You are going to have nothing left on the surface, and these helpers are going to do something for you deep inside that allows you to smash that surface level feeling and take charge once again.

What inspires you?

- Evan Sanders

Beats by Dre | The Game Before The Game is a post from: Inspirational Stories About Life

No related posts.

No Fear, No Fear, No Fear | Who You Do It For

No fear. No fear. No fear.

Remember kid, do it for your family.

Do it for your friends.

Do it for the people who you love.

Do it for all those who supported you in the past.

Do it for those who support you right now.

Do it for the people who are struggling right now to achieve their dreams.

Do it for the people chained and shackled by the same disease you were.

Do it for those who don’t have strength.

 

Do it for the heavens above.

Do it for those who are searching for light.

Do it for those who have found the courage to cave dive into the depths of their souls.

And do it for the people who doubted you, who told you that you weren’t good enough.

Who made fun of you.

Who bullied you.

Who outcasted you.

Who drove you into pain.

Who destroyed your trust.

Who told you that you weren’t worth their time.

Who acted like you weren’t worth their love.

 

Do it for the people who left you when you needed them.

Those who only showed up when you were being successful.

Who just want something from you.

Do it for those people as well.

 

Find it deep inside you to cast out anger, regret, hate, and hurt and use that energy to push yourself.

To make yourself better.

Do it for the people who are currently talking behind your back.

Do it for them. Because little do they know that you are loving it. You’ve always loved it, ever since you played baseball. You loved when the other team would scream deliberately at you to try to knock you off of your game…and you would just smile and shake your head.

Do it for them…and they will one day witness.

Burn that energy black, and at the same time, burn white smoke so all those who love you can see that you are doing it for them.

Never hold back.

And one more thing kid…

It’s the most important reason of all.

Do it for you.

- Evan Sanders

No Fear, No Fear, No Fear | Who You Do It For is a post from: Inspirational Stories About Life

No related posts.

Golden Doors Of Opportunity

 

Those golden doors of opportunity are chained, not by a physical chain, but by a mental block you have to overcome…typically, looking like fear. 

“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” – Walk Disney

I found out a while ago that “talking” about your dream is actually one of the most ineffective ways of actually accomplishing it. However, having it live in your mind, now thats the good stuff. If you let your dream consume your thoughts, your motives, your actions and feelings, then things start getting real. You start turning that dream into a reality day by day. But you have to work. You have to work work work…and a little bit more work. 

One of the main complaints about my generation is that we do not know how to work. To some degree I think that may be true. But what I feel is that it is not a dramatic shift from the generation before us to the generation I live in, but rather a stricter polarization of the classes in my age. We are the generation of “self-esteem” and have been taught that everyone deserves a trophy, that feeling good about yourself is what matters, and unintentionally…that we are entitled to certain things. I grew up in this generation and I can say, as a direct result of it, I have had to personally harden up and understand that life can be a bully, and you have to put on your gloves and go in round after round demeaning what you dream of out of life. You have to combine your personal belief with a absolute desire to continue no matter how many times you fail. 

Huge learning lessons. 

I don’t consider myself naturally talented at what I do, but what I have learned, and this is something that the gym has taught me over and over again…is how to work my butt off. Do I think I have reached my potential in that arena? No, in fact, I feel like I am just getting started. I have felt what it is like to have things taken from me, to be completely demoralized, and to take a nap when I was tired instead of continuing working. There is that decision day after day to either mess around and “get by” or to grind it out and get ahead. I have made both decisions, but it is always more comfortable to stay comfortable. I am working on that right now. 

“It’s worth recognizing that there is no such thing as an overnight success. You will do well to cultivate the resources in yourself that bring you happiness outside of success or failure. The truth is, most of us discover where we are headed when we arrive. At that time, we turn around and say, yes, this is obviously where I was going all along. It’s a good idea to try to enjoy the scenery on the detours, because you’ll probably take a few.” – Bill Watterson, Cartoonist. 

The detours I have made in my life has actually brought me the most wisdom. Detours, by nature, are a pain in the butt, and just like life, we are taught the greatest of lessons during the down times. However, it is during those down times that we muster up the greatest strength to continue on our journey and to fight no matter what. 

I sincerely believe that filthy dogged determination is the answer to most of our problems.

When I don’t see results, when I am not getting the desired outcomes I wish for, I am now digging in deeper to find more answers within myself and searching the outside world for guidance. This is new. Before, I would just dive into writing and expect an answer to come out from that. However, as I have learned from reading book after book and articles like crazy, there is so much more wisdom in the finished journey that someone else has already accomplished than my  continuing one. This is not to say that I am not getting value from what I am writing etc, however, it is a different type of value altogether. 

There are major projects at play right now, things that I am working on and putting into action that take a lot of time and effort, and let me tell you, I am exhausted. But there is something keeping me going. That thing is probably the knowledge that if I face my fear, those golden doors of opportunity will open and that chain will be broken. I’ve been banging on those doors for a while now and it’s time to come in. 

If you have thoughts, write a comment below! Or if you want to be uber social, shoot me a Tweet or connect with me on Facebook

- Evan Sanders

 

 

 

 

The post Golden Doors Of Opportunity appeared first on The Better Man Project.

This Is When You Make A Vow

It’s a funny feeling to see the world going on around you, and at the same time know that you are a creating an entirely new reality for yourself.

That sentence, while not ridiculously complex in thought or structure, took me four days to iron out. I was trying to help myself understand what this feeling has been lately, and finally I landed upon my own definition of the reality. What I mean by the world going on around me, can best be described by the man walking up onto the stage to lead an orchestra: he has to turn his back eventually to the crowd.

This path hasn’t been the easiest. In fact, I have less than three weeks left of a journey that has been almost 100 days in its entirety. I have experienced an entire world that I never knew existed before, have challenged myself to the point of tears and have opened myself up the possibilities that have shown me answers to things in one way or another. It has been a journey of faith and courage, two traits that I honestly lacked in before. there had been moments or spurts of these characteristics, but never the consistent flow. It seems that things have turned around.

I believe that it is faith that can overcome all obstacles. It hasn’t proven me otherwise. I understand that with just over 2.5 weeks to go, this is the part where I make a vow to the hard work, to the life that I am trying to create, and to the dreams that I have that will open up after accomplishing this. It’s funny when I think about the end of this journey, because in reality, it is only the beginning. This was the first and second step on the ladder I am trying to climb out of a…hopefully…endless ladder. I want to climb for the rest of my life and continue to see what is possible for myself.

That is what this whole 100 days has been about.

Because while my body has been changing significantly, it is my mind that has undergone the most amount of change. I am developing pride (the real pride), fearlessness, and true integrity. I say true integrity because in the past I have kept my word to others, but I have not kept my word to myself.

That right there, is the most important change that has been made.

I didn’t trust myself fully. The equation was backwards I guess. I trusted other people more than I trusted myself, and for that I was hurt and in pain a great deal of my life. The thing about trusting yourself and your word/actions is that if you actually follow through, you will start to build a very strong spiritual relationship with yourself.

So I make a vow.

It is time to finish this thing.

- Evan Sanders

The post This Is When You Make A Vow appeared first on The Better Man Project.