edward fox's reality

Another one of those memos… I’m thinking to make a category for these memos…. *DONE!*

Memoes edited to remove the business/economic factor from them. After all, they are sent from my boss…

What is the origin of true ambition? There exists really only one place to find true ambition and that is within you – in every thought, in every movement, in every motivation. Your ambition is an expression of who you truly are, your own self-expression.

Self-expression. Isn’t self-expression really self-direction? How you think, how you move, how you motivate yourself. Ambition is a result of self-direction and self-direction is one of the six key principles necessary for building ambition. Positive self-direction says, “I know who I am and I know where I want to go. I’m accumulating knowledge and experiences and feelings and philosophies that will help prepare me for opportunities that I know will show up without notice or any help on my part.” Because you know where you want to go, you have already been working on the parts of your personality that will make you better. Working on your attitude, working on your health, working on your time management skills. Putting it all down on paper. And you constantly see yourself in the place you want to be, going in the direction you want to go.

Direction determines destination. So here is a question you must ask yourself, “Are all the disciplines that I’m currently engaged in taking me where I want to go?” What an important question to ask yourself at the beginning of the month, the beginning of the week, the beginning of the day. Because here is what you don’t ever want to do – kid yourself. Kid your neighbor, kid me and everyone else, but don’t kid yourself – fingers crossed – hoping you will arrive at a good destination when you’re not even headed that way. You have to ask yourself often, Am I? Am I doing the disciplines that are taking me in the direction I want to go? Don’t neglect to ask these important questions, questions that help determine your direction, the set of your sail, your destination.

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Very interesting message this time around. Direction determines destination… There is a common thread, it seems, in all of any motivational messages, as I like to label these as well. It’s one of those things where you are in control of yourself. Sounds pretty sweet– you can pave your own roads, make your own maps, and choose your own route. However, again, we’re in a vast world, only a small piece in all of it. We can only do so much on our own… The world has to cooperate, otherwise we won’t get anywhere.

This sounds confusing, because we all think we are in control of ourselves… But I wonder. What if we take ourselves out of the situation, and look in through the window, into the conflict, the argument, the problem? Is there even one, or are we just idling on a stone in the road that we can step over, or a bigger object on the road that we can drive around?

Yeah, the path is ours, but others may travel down it, too, and if we aren’t all willing to get to where we want to go, we might as well tear up the maps now, as we’re all lost in our own world, without seeing what’s around us.