Evan Sanders's Blog, page 87

Steve Martin – Quote Of The Day (III)

Steve Martin once said,

Be so good they can’t ignore you

I think thats very true

Let your game speak for itself

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Mediocrity Is The Enemy – Quote Of The Day (II)

 

You deserve the best

But you world will demand yours first

Just keep in mind

Mediocrity is the enemy

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Find Something Worth Dying For – Quote Of The Day (I)

Find something worth dying for then live for it.

You never know how many tomorrows you have.

But today, you can be sure of that.

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Charting The Waters Unknown

An ounce of fear set in today.

I can only imagine what the explorers of the past felt as they set out into the open ocean without knowing what was in store for them. Today, I think I felt a little bit of the nervousness they must have had alongside their confidence.

For the past 40 days, I have been traveling into waters I have never charted before. The beast I had to defeat inside of me is long gone, retreated back into the depths of the ocean, and I sail forward. Yet, there is this feeling of discomfort as you see your greatest enemy sink into the blackness of the ocean. Is it dead? Will it come back? Now what?

I have many days to go on this journey, and all around me currently is the open ocean – for the moment peaceful – for the moment without fear of the beast coming back to tear the ship apart – and I think this is why a brief spell of anxiety set in. The men on the ship celebrated the defeat of the monster, yet the captain still remains focused on the end result . . . to make shore on undiscovered land.

We have these moments in our lives where we go after what we want . . . known as our dream . . . and there’s an incredible phenomenon that happens when you commit to this. When you are living the life you don’t want, you often find yourself with all the things in the world still. You have the attention of many, you can live a complacent life . . . but you still have this blackness inside of you that you know you have to bring out into the light. When you go after your dream, things start to get very very quiet.

People stop reaching out, you don’t hear back from many and your internal voice becomes louder and louder as you are stripped of the nonessentials. This was another part of my anxiety today. The days have been getting quieter. The visions have been getting stronger and the time has been spent in different ways than it ever has before. This is all new for me.

It’s all new because in all honesty, in anything that I have gone after, I have never made the full sacrifices necessary in order to become the best I could possibly be. I can admit that about my baseball career because of lacking the knowledge and guidance necessary (when I was healthy) in order to become something even greater than what I ended up being. I can say that about all the times, up until now, that I have attempted to  take it to the next level with this project.

The sacrifices have been made now, though, and the results . . . because life is getting quieter and the focus is intensifying . . . was a new taste for me.

There are 59 days left on this journey and the first 41 have been terrific. The interesting part about this whole thing is that I have learned more about myself, how I work, what inspires me, and what I can do better. I have learned how I can take, what used to be my full effort, and raise the bar on that even. Because I have proven to myself that I can indeed do this. . . it is comfortable. I think there is a lesson in that itself. Raise the bar on your life when you finally start doing the small things right, the momentum builders, and do it gradually over time. Then, when you reach the place where you can say that you could give a little bit more, do that.

Faith is an interesting thing. Blindly knowing something . . . knowing that something is certain . . . even when you cannot see it yet. I think life has special plans for those who seek their dreams. I think the real good stuff starts happening when it sees you are paying your dues, giving everything you have, and putting what you know you should have all that time ago into it. That’s when I think the rewards come. Not the reward of getting to the end, but rather the type of reward where you are given a little glimpse into the future.

At least that’s what I saw last night listening to music. That image, of the future, is going to be kept close to the chest for now. . . but it was clear as day. Now, all I have to do is trust in the path I am on and make any corrections I need to along the way.

And if the beast shows up again from its slumber in the dark waters, I am ready.

- Evan Sanders

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Je Suis Prest

 

An awesome family history lesson from yours truly today. 

Simon Fraser, 11th Lord Lovat, my great great great great grandfather was famous for his violent feuding over his support of the Stuart claim on the crown on the United Kingdom. He was convicted of treason against the crown and was actually the last man in Britain to be publicly beheaded at the Tower of London.

He was sentenced to death on April 9 1747…but shortly before the execution, a scaffold (stadium stands or something similar to that) for spectators who were viewing the beheading collapsed and left 20 dead…which my ancient grandfather thought was quite amusing. Reportedly, he was laughing at the entire debacle.

This became the origin of the saying “laughing your head off.”

Right before he died he then repeated a line from Horace’s “Odes” in latin…dulce et decorum set pro patria mori…which means “It is sweet and fitting to die for your country.”

My dad told me this story this morning, and I sat there listening in delight as I heard of a man who was known as a patriot and martyr die for his cause. I continued to dig and found the Lovat family saying “Je Suis Prest.”

It means, “I am ready.”

Something in me felt electrified as I heard and read about this man whose blood runs through my veins laughing on the chopping block getting ready to meet his demise. He fought for something, in fact, the etching of his death actually has him extending his fingers to the number of the clans he had brought to his cause and to battle with him for the Stuart Claim to the throne. This man kept a sense of humor about the whole thing and at the same time died with pride and honor over something he believed in.

Here I am generations later left with his words.

Je Suis Prest

When I sit here writing every day, there often are moments where I think about where I am going, where I have been, and the journey that exists in every single moment throughout the day. They say that philosophy is all about the journey, sometimes different journeys in themselves, arriving at the same conclusion. That’s why I love learning about quotes and how people arrived at those words. Often we are given the watered down version, which mind you is still fantastic to read, but the real wisdom comes in everything that surrounds the quote.

Life is going to throw an almost inexcusable amount of obstacles in your way when you are traveling down your road. But a journey without desire and deep belief in why you are doing what you are doing will always cause you to land short of your goal. Would you be willing to die for what you believe in?

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That is what I ask myself today.

What is it that I would be willing to die for?

My writing has been about the lessons I learn every day and inspiring others to live bold and powerful lives. But is that really something I would die for? Is that really the end game for me?

The answer turned out to be no. And that no made me think . . . well . . . then what?

Many have stood for ideas. Civil rights, change…love. I sat there and pondered for a long time. Then…pop.

Hope.

Essentially, what I am doing all of this for? The posting? The writing? The videos? The quotes? It’s to show not only myself, but as many people as I possibly can. . . that there is hope. Hope in the worst of times – hope when you are struggling to make something happen – hope when you feel alone. As well as during the best of times, hope remains a constant. Hope for me isn’t as much about attaining something rather than being a big part of believing something can be true. That our world can be full of light instead of darkness . . . and that love prevails.

There is hope. There are many who don’t feel that way right now, but that’s part of the reason I am here – to reach them – and to let them know in my own way that hope indeed exists.

Je suis prest

I am ready

- Evan Sanders

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Those Who Believe In The Beauty Of Their Dreams

Life has a special kind of plan for those who are chasing their dreams.

It’s been said before that the richest place on the planet is the graveyard. It’s home to lost inventions, dead dreams that were never realized, and aspirations that never saw the energy or determination needed to be turned into something tangible. The graveyard is also home to the shadow of fear – the fear that if we chase our dream we will fail . . . or even the fear of what might happen if we attain our goal and cannot handle the pressure. There, in the ground, lay to rest some of the grandest ideas we have never seen . . . and never will.

Life’s special plan for dreamers isn’t a paved road. In fact, it isn’t a road at all. It is a small clearing through which the tiniest of light shines through and gives one hope of achieving the end result. The ground is covered in holes, ungracefully adorned with thorny bushes and will turn in every single direction possible. It will rise to the heavens to make your heart skip a beat and take you down to the deepest grounds of hell in order to snuff out your desire. It will take you backwards to grind you down and bring you forwards only to retreat at the last second just so you can get a taste of the future to come.

This path, while seemingly having no direction is all part of a process of moving towards something.

For many, that process may last years. For some, it may last decades. But the only way you see the end is by continuing to go. The continual belief in yourself and your vision combined with an overwhelming amount of determination to overcome any obstacle that may arrive is the only way to see it through.

Your desire to win must be greater than your fear of losing.

I do not want to be a great man at the price of selling my soul. I do not want to be a great man who will sacrifice his character in order to get what he wants. In fact, I would rather take the longer way around in order to maintain my foundations. While others skip parts of the journey in order to claim riches, fame, and glory, I will continue to walk my path with faith that I will be delivered to even a much better place than my mind could have ever dreamed of.

They say the longest distance between two points is a shortcut.

Your dream demands your best and all of the sweat equity you can put forth. Start taking shortcuts and at the end, you won’t have what you ever wanted. You will have a watered down version of what you set out to achieve. You will have the edges sanded out and left with something far less beautiful that what you could have achieved for yourself.

In a speech I listen to almost every single day, the man says that the difference between the people who succeed in this world and those who do not . . . is that the people who succeed do every task right versus the ones who do not succeed . . . because they do every task wrong and eventually have to come back and do the task over again. What he is referring to is that they are doing it the way that it should be done . . . with purpose, conviction, and only accepting the end result of it being finished. While some may say that taking utmost pride in making my bed and washing the dishes perfectly every single day is a little overboard, I give the response of “If I can’t make my bed or wash the dishes right, how could you possibly expect me to run a Fortune 500 right or inspire the sincerest form of hope in people’s hearts all around the world?”

You have to do the little things right in order to get the big things right. I talk about this all the time, but having a routine for yourself in order to get things going properly every single day is absolutely crucial. It is also crucial to digest as much material as you can about being successful in your life or in the field you are interested in.

For a long time I didn’t believe that my thoughts had a specific frequency. . . until some events started happening in my life when I changed my thinking . . . and I was finally able to see the truth.

Your thoughts are things.

You have to treat your mind with care and also surround yourself with people who are going to feed you with positivity rather than negativity. Your life is a direct reflection about how you feel about yourself. To some that may be a scary proposition because they see their life right now and go “Oh dear god.” But the truth is, sometimes the best news is the worst news. Sometimes you need someone to tell you that you aren’t getting what you want because you are responsible for everything in your life.

It’s the honest truth.

When you can accept that fact . . . that you are responsible for all of this. . . how it has turned out. . . what type of shape you are in. . . who is in your life. . . your job. . . then you are free. That might sound counterintuitive but that is one of the greatest secrets there is out there that I have been fortunate enough to be taught. When you take ownership, the world becomes yours. When you shy away from responsibility and accountability, you become shackled by regret, hate, fear, anger, and bitterness towards yourself and other people.

To me, that’s no way to live.

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. Your future, will only belong to you if you set out to create it. Understand that the journey is like no other journey you have every gone on before. There is no set destination point – you may have an idea of what it is – but I promise you that the end will be much grander than you could ever possibly imagine.

The only set point on your journey is the start.

And that’s now.

So go.

- Evan Sanders

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Those Honest Moments

There are these moments during particular days where I have to be incredibly honest with myself about what I am going through and feeling. I know when it is about to happen because I get this wave of energy from the top of my neck down to my lower back and I feel my mood begin to change. I used to be scared of it . . . the feeling of water almost dripping down my back . . . but in time I have learned how to sit with it.

What follows after is pure stillness. Deep in thought. Numb. I feel truth bubbling to the surface.

It’s not that I am living my life in an inauthentic way. It’s that sometimes we go through life not realizing that there are things under the surface. We think we have fully recovered or have moved on, but in reality there are still pieces to the puzzle than need to be put together. Maybe it is just one piece left, maybe it’s just this moment where you need to sit down and get quiet one last time, or maybe it demands more of your attention.

I’m not exactly sure what last night was asking of me. Sitting on the view watching the fireworks has always been an introspective time for me for some reason. I never really understood it. But the reality of what came during that time was a mixture of nostalgia and a deep dive into my heart.

There’s an interesting balance between moving forward and taking the time, whatever the situation may be, to understand what is going on inside. I think most of the time when someone is hurt and other people recognize it they try to tell that person to pick themselves up as fast as possible and forget the past. This advice, while intended to be helpful, isn’t actually realistic. Because the same person who gave that advice, in the same situation, couldn’t possibly take it.

The best advice you could give is not to forget as fast as you can and blast forward, but to sit with whatever is going on inside. To let it all flow through you. The only way you can truly understand what something actually means to you is by experiencing the aftermath. Maybe last night for me was just an aftershock. When I think about it, it was.

Have an honest moment.

Don’t run or hide from feelings that you would associate as negative. They are life’s way of balancing you out. When you try to block them or manipulate them, you are putting yourself in a bad place. Let life do what it needs to do in order to keep you learning and growing.

When the moment is over, then move forward. Don’t try to change it while you are in it. Something is trying to speak to you. Open yourself to emotions and let them speak reason into your heart.

- Evan Sanders

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Encouragement: The Dose Of Support Our World Needs

It will take you no more than a couple of seconds to jump online and find spewing negativity. The news, the posts we see, the comments we read . . . it’s all there. The internet has become an acceptable stomping ground for those who want to hide behind a keyboard and write whatever they want about someone. They can criticize, spread filth, and in many cases take things to a whole new degree . . . a degree that only promotes hate.

Hate breeds more hate.

If you have ever felt it inside, you know exactly what I am talking about. When you harbor hate in your heart, you start hating other things as well. While the internet is just one out of the many methods people can deliver hate, it does serve as a pretty clear example of how things are going in our world today. We have created a system in which hate has the ultimate protection . . . being able to hide behind a username and almost guaranteeing that it will never see the forces of accountability for it’s actions.

In the face of this almost overwhelming raging river of hate, I press on. Every day, for almost 4 years, I have posted something. Whether that be in a blog, on social media, a tweet, or a video, I have continued to post.

Why?

Because I promote what I love instead of bashing what I hate.

I am not delusional about the world. I am not that crazy guy on the news who is known in his neighborhood for being mr. happy literally 24/7. That type of unbalance one way is unhealthy for you. I have my horrible days. I have days where I find myself in a conflict between love and hate, acceptance and shutting off, and these are days when I go to battle. These are days when I am reminded of what I believe in . . . no matter how hard it may be . . . I always end up coming back to my core and what I am trying to do.

The dose the world needs, in a constant drip, is encouragement.

People need to be encouraged for what they are doing, for failing and trying again, for giving a great effort and moving forward. It’s not about removing hate from the world, it’s about balancing it out with acts of love. The world, similar to ourselves, can get out of balance and thrown off once in a while. People will start to see the worst of everything because honestly, that is what we are shown. We are constantly subjected to the bad stuff. Turn on the news. Car crashes, 10 dead in school shooting, riots, unrest in countries all around the world, massive coverups, violations of privacy, oil spills and nuclear meltdowns. With all this, no wonder we have a pessimistic view of what is going on.

To piggyback even further, you end up watching this stuff day after day, and then going . . . there’s nothing I can do. This is all out of my control.

To an extent it is.

But to a massive extent it isn’t.

I believe that a steady drip of love and motivation can change lives. It changed mine, so why can’t it change others? I can’t tell you how many times I have been approached by people talking about how many likes a post gets, or comments, or views on the blog etc…and that’s great and all, but at the end of the day that has nothing to do with my mission. My mission is to go out into the world every day, express myself authentically, and make the difference for one person out there.

Because that’s what someone did for me a long time ago. I am not trying to change everyone’s lives, I am just trying to express what is going on in mine and tell everyone the lessons I am learning. I am not trying to preach, to tell you that I have the way . . . far from that. I just want to put a perspective out there, and I am sure that there are some people who are taking little tiny nuggets of what I am learning and uniquely forming their own plan.

The ripple effect you can have on the world is far beyond your comprehension. Hell, I don’t even know . . . but I have faith that it is happening. That with a few words that are deeply compassionate, understanding, and full of hope . . . you can turn someones day around in a heartbeat.

Encourage those around you. You might not agree with exactly how they are doing it, but don’t step on them for it. People need to learn their way. Sometimes we have the best intentions when  trying to help others but in the end, everyone has their own path to walk. Walk with them, don’t try to take the rug out from under them.

Encouragement matters.

- Evan Sanders

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The Dream Almost Died Before It Came Alive

We are capable of so many things, yet it seems like there is an almost necessity to let things . . . almost . . . slip away before we truly grab onto them for dear life.

Sadly enough, we can see our dream die right in front of us. Or, as I have heard many times, many of us will take our ideas and dreams to the grave. It’s been said that the richest place in the world is the graveyard . . . a home to inventions, ideas, and dreams that were never realized for one reason or another. But the greatest reason of them all is this: fear.

Fear of failure is a pretty looming proposition for most. But there is another type of fear that isn’t talked about a lot. The fear of success . . . and what might happen if you can’t handle it.

I failed over and over again, but inside my I think the fear of success actually overwhelmed me completely. Having huge dreams can be stressful at times. You have set the tone for your life, you have seen your potential, and then you actually have to go out and compete with that potential every day. The biggest part is that the person you are right now – no matter how great that person has to be – has to step up to the plate and be better because your potential is already calling you out.

Instead of taking this on as a daily challenge I actually became discouraged. I became a person of “tomorrow” for a long time. Maybe not with everything, but with a few very big parts of my life. Tomorrow was the promise of another try. Tomorrow always became  the scapegoat of not sacrificing today.

Your moment to create is now.

That’s all you really have. It’s very easy to believe that there will always be a tomorrow. But at a certain point in your life, you might actually find that the days turned to years and you missed your opportunity because you didn’t cherish these moments enough. I can tell you that sitting here, putting positive vibes out into the world by writing about hope is my moment. This is me seizing what I know I am supposed to be doing. Because I know, that if one person can turn their day around, can see light in the darkness, because of my writing today . . . I have  done my job. That energy, that change . . . I might never know the true impact of it around the world . . . the ripple effect so to speak, but I know it is there.

I do believe there is a need to believe.

Belief can be many different things for people. But today, I want to talk about believing in yourself and being a man or woman who lets their actions speak volumes and their words are only become a guaranteed show of intent. The greatest shift in my consciousness over the past month has been one little idea: your words are meaningless, and in fact painfully misrepresentative of what you are doing if your actions aren’t directly showing people what you are doing with your life.

I don’t know how much longer it would have taken for my dream to pass me by . . . but I know now that I seized it in time to really do something with it. Every day I am learning a little bit more about it, a little bit more about how I can develop it, make it better, make it have more of an impact and take it to the next level. My dream is mine.

I am living it every day.

And what am I most proud of? That the results are coming. One month down. 70 days to go.

- Evan Sanders

 

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Greatness Is Methodically Seized

 

I am re-learning a lesson I learned roughly 7 years ago.

In the summer of my junior year of high school, right after our baseball season had ended, I committed myself to doing whatever it took to become one of the best senior pitchers in the league. I had a vision, and every day I would go to work to accomplish that goal. In those younger years, I was admittedly a little too concerned with gaining other peoples recognition in the sport because I was always overshadowed by others. Combine that with a horrible “show” season where scouts come to look at college prospects and I was tired of being out of everyones view. So I went to work.

Every day, I would show up and focus on my mechanics, the small strength building exercises, my conditioning, and enter into the gym for early morning lifting sessions with our ex Olympia Lifting competitor now turned into a strength coach. Those mornings were the beginning of my developing obsession with strength training. Despite being sore, I knew that the soreness was bringing me a few steps closer every day towards accomplishing my goal.

I remember the grueling runs and having to dig deep inside somewhere to finish them. The worst part is already being tired before you start running. Sure you can get through the first half of what you are set out to do, but I am pretty sure there is a tank full of pure will somewhere inside of each of us that we can tap into when we need it. Those runs taught me a lot about myself.

Senior year hit. My time in the light arrived. I earned it, and week after week continued to prove that I deserved it.

Despite my arm injury that ended my season and started the demise of the rest of my baseball career, I learned a far greater lesson that I would be reminded of over this past month of training.

Greatness is methodically seized.

We are all given moments to shine in life, but many of us miss it or aren’t even prepared to answer its call. Since athletes are in the publics view very often, we see their moments of glory and celebrate those moments. But in all truth, those moments only happen due to their countless hours of preparation for that moment. They don’t know what the moment may be, they might be able to dream of it, but in the end they are putting themselves in the best position to seize that moment.

Today is an opportunity for you to prepare for that moment of glory. For me, I set a goal of 100 days of clean eating pushing myself in the gym, and losing 25 lbs as my moment of glory. Tomorrow will be one month of  getting after it, 13 lbs down, and a whole bucket full of momentum taking me into the next month. In my mind, I am half way towards my goal of weight loss and about a quarter of the way through my challenge.

When you can get yourself through the first few weeks of your own personal challenge, you end up being able to see the end goal a lot easier than you could at the beginning. Those who create goals for themselves and hack away at the first two weeks are showing the greatest amount of courage. Why?

Because they are taking a leap of faith and building their wings on the way down.

Having goals and going after them is one of the hardest things to do because we honestly have no idea what we are doing. Sure you can research, you can have a plan, you can map it all out, but there is something entirely strange about what happens when you actually start, and your battle plans go to shit. I think any General would tell you that as soon as you show up to the battle a lot of what you planned for ends up going completely south and you have to think on your feet in order to win.

Battle through the first few weeks, figure things out along the way, build your wings in the way down and come up with a plan for you that works consistently. Because success is about consistency. Doing things each and every day in order to achieve an end result. Success doesn’t happen overnight. Sure someone might get noticed and thrown into the lights where everyone suddenly knows them. . . but that didn’t happen all at once. Most likely, that person had been preparing for that moment.

This time in my life reminds me of that summer before senior year again. Knowing that greatness is methodically seized. Knowing what I want. Knowing precisely why I want it. . . and this time around, I am doing it for me.

- Evan Sanders

 

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