JMT Blog

Peter Marshall said, ‘When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure.’ You see, Peter Marshall knew something about you and me, and that is that we long for better times, easier times.

An optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties.’ What was President Harry Truman really saying? Well, he was saying what I’ve been teaching about perspective.How we view things determines how we do things.

You see, no one ever quit their way to success. That just doesn’t happen. In fact, when I was a very young leader, I was greatly influenced by a mentor who pretty much taught tenacity and making sure you see everything through to the end. And I remember one day, now this is before all the wonderful technical things we have in life now.

Here’s a statement of success by Robert Frost. ‘He said, the best way out is always through.’ You know what Mr. Frost was saying? The tendency is that when we’re going through difficulties, we don’t think of through. We think of turning around. We think of taking exits. In fact, we’re looking around and saying, where’s the exit sign?

Jim Rohn said, ‘Your life does not get better by chance, it gets better by change’. Wow! What Jim Rohn was really saying to us is that life is not the lottery that we think it is, where we’re just waiting for our lucky day, our time, our moment, our number to come up.

Today, right now in your life, my life, we are either preparing or we are repairing. One [person] sets up tomorrow for success. The other [person] sets up today for failure. If we are repairing, we can’t even get into tomorrow.

There’s a statement that I often make that I want to give to you today. And the statement is, Your first step to success is having the confidence that you will succeed. In fact, the only reason we take the first step is because we have confidence.

My good friend, Robert Schuller, has said something many times to me. Perhaps you’ve read it in one of his books. It’s a great statement: ‘Tough times never last, but tough people do.’

This is a quote that I’ve given often. It’s a quote on decisions, and here it is: It is our decisions, not our conditions, that determine the quality of our life. Now, if you would ask the average person on the street the question: Is it the conditions of life or the decisions of life that are most important?