Archive | Inspirational / Motivational RSS feed for this section

Bending the Universe – Will Smith

10 Jan

The universe is not a thing that’s going to push us around… We are going to bend the universe and command – and demand – that the universe become what we want it to be.

- Will Smith

Will Smith

Will Smith

There was a re-run of Men in Black on TV today and much to the annoyance of my 5 a side football team, I decided to stay in and watch it for the umpteenth time. Can’t help it, I just love anything Will Smith related. I remember listening to his music in the early 1990′s and watching the first ever episode of the television series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and every episode after that. The first movie I ever watched in the cinema was Independence Day. He is not only an amazing entertainer but his view of life is a fresh of breath air and he has always been one of my biggest role models.

He is quite possibly the biggest movie star in the world and according to Newsweek, the most powerful actor in Hollywood. But what drives him and how does he achieve his level of greatness? He doesn’t believe in impossible! When Will started acting, he made the choice to become the biggest movie star in the world. The first thing he did was watch the 10 top-grossing movies of all time and looked for patterns among them. Will has said, “I study the patterns of the universe.”

In the video below, Will Smith explains how to bend the Universe -

 

Will Smith’s Pearls of Wisdom about Life

Over the years in countless interviews, Will has shared with us a lot of inspiring and motivational quotes. Thought I had share some of my favourite ones below -

I LOVE LIVING. I think that’s infectious.

Greatness truly exists in all of us.

Talent you have naturally. Skill is only developed by hours and hours and hours of beating on your craft.

I’ve never really viewed myself as particularly talented, where I excel is ridiculous,sickening work ethic. While the other guy is sleeping, I’m working. While the other guy is eating, I’m working.

If you don’t dedicate yourself to becoming better every single day, you will never be able to communicate with people the way that you want.

The only thing that I see that is distinctly different about me is that I’m not afraid to DIE on a treadmill. You might have more talent than me, you might be smarter than me, but if we get on a treadmill together, there are two things:
1- You’re getting off first
OR
2- I’m gonna DIE
It’s really that simple

You don’t try to build a wall. You don’t set out and say ‘I’m gonna build the biggest, baddest, greatest wall that has ever been built’. You say ‘I’m going to lay this brick as perfectly as a brick can be laid’. You do this every single day, and soon you have a wall.

If you are not making someone else’s life better, then you are wasting your time. Your life will become better by making other people’s lives better.

The first step before anyone else in the world believes it is that YOU have to believe it.

‘If’ by Rudyard Kipling

15 Aug

Rudyard Kipling’s (1865-1936) inspirational poem ‘If’ first appeared in his collection ‘Rewards and Fairies’ in 1909. The poem ‘If’ is inspirational, motivational, and a set of rules for ‘grown-up’ living. Kipling’s ‘If’ contains mottos and maxims for life, and the poem is also a blueprint for personal integrity, behaviour and self-development. ‘If’ is perhaps even more relevant today than when Kipling wrote it, as an ethos and a personal philosophy. Lines from Kipling’s ‘If’ appear over the player’s entrance to Wimbledon’s Centre Court – a poignant reflection of the poem’s timeless and inspiring quality. (Source : http://www.businessballs.com/ifpoemrudyardkipling.htm)

‘if’ by rudyard kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master,
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!

- Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

Day 60 – The Impossible we do at once

1 Mar

I tend to be very efficient with everything that I do, be it at work or in my general life. It seems to catch people by surprise by how quick I deliver projects and satisfy requirements. I guess I believe in the philosophy it is better to get things done immediately than leave it for the future because you never know what surprise projects may come your way and I really hate the stress of having to deal with a huge workload (who doesn’t).

Some of the shocked comments that have come my way include:

Gosh that was super quick. Thanks Niro.

Thanks Niro, you work fast!

Seriously – are you always that efficient? Thanks.

I tend to chuckle whenever I receive them and find it weird that working efficiently is not status quo. I usually send back a standard reply which I have selected as my picture of the day.

Impossibe we do at once, miracles take a bit longer

The Impossible

Day 41 – Invictus

10 Feb

Best thing about the hump day is that it is Orange Wednesdays, i.e, Buy one get one free on cinema tickets. So a couple of mates and I headed to watch Invictus which was pure cinema gold.

Invictus rolls together both a biography of Nelson Mandela and the game of Rugby based around the 1995 Rugby World Cup. The movie was directed by the hit and miss director Clint Eastwood and stars Morgan Freeman who makes a dead perfect ringer for Mandela and Matt Damon who plays the part of the South African Rugby team captain Francois Pienaar.

I am not going to write a review about the movie as you can just google it. But thought I had share the Invictus poem written by William Ernest Henley, after which the movie was titled. Invictus means “invincible” in Latin. Mandela had the poem written on a scrap of paper on his prison cell while he was incarcerated. In the movie, Mandela gives the “Invictus” poem to his national rugby team’s captain Francois Pienaar before the start of the Rugby World Cup.

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
-William Ernest Henley

In reality though, Mandela provided Pienaar with an extract from Theodore Roosevelt’s “The Man in the Arena” speech from 1910.

The Man in the Arena

The speech is notable for the extended passage:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

This passage was quoted by Richard Nixon’s resignation speech on August 8, 1974:

Sometimes I have succeeded and sometimes I have failed, but always I have taken heart from what Theodore Roosevelt once said about the man in the arena, ‘whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, [...]

Day 40 – Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish

9 Feb

One of my New Year’s resolution was to improve my public speaking skills, a great way to start is by listening to speeches by great speakers. A speech that has always inspired me is Steve Job’s Commencement Speech at Stanford University in 2005. He condenses his life into 15 minutes and you see a side of Steve Job’s that you do not really ever see in the press. A definite must watch.

Steve Job’s Stanford Commencement Speech 2005

Download the transcript for Steve Job’s Stanford Commencement Speech 2005

Stay Hungry Stay Foolish

Stay Hungry Stay Foolish

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 155 other followers