Nobody is ever going to care more about your life than you!
This is something that I tell myself on a regular basis to stay focused on my mission and the things that I need to do to get to where I need to go.
This is a harsh reality that we must live with.
Oftentimes, we are tempted to think that the answers will magically appear to us in moments of vulnerability.
While this may pure to fantasy, life is much more complex than that.
Life can be complex because we are constantly faced with new challenges that ultimately determine what kind of person we are going to be.
The challenges that we face build our character, our morals, and our core values.
Everything that we experience is meant to teach us something and how we choose to perceive each experience is going to determine whether we become more capable as people, or fall a victim to our own reality.
I could sit here and give you a generic "your life is what you make of it" answer, but there is more to it than that.
While it is true that we choose how we allow things to effect us, the key to life is to prepare ourselves for what has yet to come.
There are going to be seasons of good and bad in the days to come, and it is our responsibility to prepare ourselves for when those days come.
We need to prepare ourselves for when the good opportunities present themselves, but we also need to prepare ourselves for future hardships.
You have nothing to prove to anyone, except for yourself.
When you're 80-90 years old and you are reflecting back on your life, do you want to think of what could have been, or do you want to think that you left it all on the table and there's nothing more you could have possibly done?
This is especially important for men because as men, we are born to serve - born to serve our families, born to serve our community, and born to serve God.
I have recently been wrestling with the idea of pride and the idea of feeling proud of yourself.
It is safe to say that my perspective of pride has shifted.
While I do believe it is important to feel good about yourself, doing things in the name of pride does nothing but serve your own ego.
When a man begins to realize that his purpose is to serve others, pride comes as a natural consequence.
In other words, the more you do things with the intention of helping others, the one's you love and care for will naturally be proud of you.
Not to mention, doing things with the intention of serving others and serving God, you will naturally feel good about yourself as a result.
Think about it, how many times have you helped someone in need and felt good about it afterwards?
This then begs the question as to why it is important to prove your capabilities to yourself if you were born to serve others?
The reason why you need to be able to prove to yourself that you are capable of doing things that you say that you are going to do is to build your own confidence.
People make the biggest impact when they have confidence in themselves and confidence comes through preparation and willingness to do hard things.
You prove it to yourself when you are willing to do the hard things on your own so that when life decides to throw you a curve ball, you are capable of remaining focused on your life's mission.
This is why men build themselves - to make ourselves more capable of serving others.
The more you prove it to yourself that you are who you say that you are, people will begin to look up to you as a leader.
The world needs leaders that are capable and willing to do the hard things because those are the one's that lead by example.
Young men look up to those that lead by example, not by the words that they say.
Serve the future generations to come by proving it to yourself that you are capable of being a leader.
This is a promise you must be wiling to make to yourselves every single day, gentlemen.
Prove it to yourself that you are capable of being a reliable man that is willing to serve others, and make their mark on the world.