Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Defeating a lion


Defeating a lion, originally uploaded by davidjay13.

Right now i'm sitting at one of my favorite spots in Santa Barbara. Those of you from sb know where I am and this is a place I often come to think and try and define my life.



Today I'm here because my dad just shared something with me that really hit home in many areas of my life. We were at breakfast and I was telling my parents some things about my life and he told me a story about how someone could go about defeating a lion. He said all you need is a chair and a whip...because when you hold the chair up and point it towards the lion the lion can't focus on what's attacking it because it sees the four legs of the chair and it gets parallyzed. The lion can't focus and can then be defeated.



Many of you have heard my " Get FREE" talk and you know that the first thing we must do in order to be successful in anything is to FOCUS our attention, our energy, and our emotions and not become distracted and parallyzed by all the possible opportunities.



What are you going to focus on today? ...and what are you going to give to give up in order to do that?



:)

DJ

16 comments:

faithsalutes said...

i am focused on my stomach. after that is handled, i am focusing on my graduate school applications. one step closer to my dream...

Tim Co. said...

hmm..its deffinetly that giving up thing I have a problem with!

Holritz Photography said...

Needed that! Thanks!

- Nathan

TrappedLight said...

Wow, I so needed this today. I've been rather distracted from accomplishing some goals I have and have been loafing around on the net. Time to take care of business.

nicole green said...

focusing on my grandfather .. he just passed away.

i love when you post things like this. you're super inspirational.

thanks, david. :)

Deyl said...

say hi to momma jay and poppa jay for me!

I think you're sitting right where you took that picture of the rotten apple core on the fire hydrant in college :) ha ha

i've been staring at the chair a little bit lately.. lets hang tomorrow!

Daniel J. Watkins said...

Uncanny...I had a similar talk with my dad this past weekend...only he was holding a chair and a whip...and giving a rather painful demonstration of the lesson...

Brett Austin said...

Great post! It is amazing how when we take on something bigger than ourselves... we tend to look at the big picture and get paralyzed by the sheer scope of what it is we're trying to accomplish.

I think Dr. Leo Marvin, from "What About Bob?" had it right when he wrote the book... Baby Steps.

Dane Sanders said...

It is so hard for me to not give in to the temptation of opportunity. Great post.

Gotta love the fly that is butter.

CoztheGrov said...

Oh man! I love that analogy. I get so easily distracted by all these "Great" opportunities and end up missing a more full life experience without focusing my energy.

Gosh I miss that wall.....

Raya Carlisle said...

You're so deep lately Deej. That's okay. Its good. I am focusing on getting over my fear of failure and DOING things. That's a big one for me.

Unknown said...

Great comments David. Another great comment in the same vain that I like to share is, "What would you do differently today if you knew you couldn't fail?" We are so afraid to fail, that we're afraid to give up what is comfortable, even if it isn't necessarily what we want, or what is good for us. Thanks for the reminder.

Gary Fong, Author said...

that's not true. The chair trick never works with lions. Have you ever tried it? Jump in a lion cage with a chair, and you will come out the next morning as lion poop.

Jacquie Van Tichelt said...

Gosh I really needed to hear that too. All the things going on in my life, I really need to focus. Thanks DJ for sharing and passing things on.

Unknown said...

Lion poop or not, a reminder to focus on the most important things is always in order. Thanks DJ (and the Fongmeister)

Dawn Davis said...

It's funny you write about this today because I was just telling a friend the way I consistently defeat the lion is to not get in the cage with him. It works every time! When I ask God to keep me from evil... I'm not asking him to give me a powerful whip or a 4 legged chair, I'm asking him to give me the good sense to always remember it's not worth any of my energy to get into the cage (or whatever evil I'm presented with).

~ Dawn