Whatever your story is… are you TELLING it to the world?

You have overcome SOMETHING in your life that others need to know you overcame. Why? Hope. Hope that they can too.

As a 16 year old kid, I was inspired by the greats like Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris. Movies about fighters who worked so hard to become the best. My dream was to earn my black belt in the martial arts. I wanted to be the best. I wanted to be that “little guy that nobody messed with.”

Yet, I didn’t see HOW it could ever be done. How could I do that? I’m just little me. Right?

I really just wanted to give up… to quit… to not even really try at all.

It just seemed too hard… and I almost did quit… but as I watched those around me working so hard… getting better… and doing amazing things, it gave me hope that I could do it…

The people who loved and mentored me wouldn’t let me stop either.  They KNEW that for me to succeed, I just needed to believe I could do it. I found the more I surrounded myself with these people… the more I hung out with them… the more I listened and watched… the more I believed and the better I became.

I worked my butt off every day, well beyond class hours… at home sometimes getting on my parent’s nerves as I’d constantly be punching the walls as I moved through the house, conditioning my knuckles.

Others before me earned their belts… friends… I watched them be presented with their own black belts… I saw their work… and it inspired me… it PUSHED me further. They poured into me with their encouragement and held me to a higher standard. They shared their stories of struggle and work… and I wanted to BE that!

Then, finally one day I found myself getting the snot kicked out of me by my class mates… a fresh person every few minutes, followed by my head instructor.

I wanted to give up… busted lips, slightly busted nose, chipped teeth… barely able to breath, compounded by the beating to the stomach and ribs… at times I felt I could barely stand up… my body wanted to stop.

Then my instructor looked dead at me and said, “you don’t go down again unless I TAKE you down.” He would no longer accept anything less than my best in that fight.

A few minutes later, his foot drug my head to the floor. I got back up. I fought. I fought back harder and harder. I got HIT harder and KICKED harder the more I fought back, but, it just made me more determined until… it was over…

And that belt became MINE!

Whatever your journey… whatever your story… whatever struggle you’ve made it through or are making it through… SHARE your story… SHARE what you’re doing so that those who are watching and need that hope, that push… will be INSPIRED by you just like this 16 year old kid was… who thought it impossible… but did it anyway!