Every significant breakthrough is always preceded by a breakdown.
Now, if you even started reading this you’re either:
- In the midst of chaos,
- Or a brave and curious soul.
Both ways, I commend you; and even though this topic is a tough one, I’m here to encourage you.
Look, obviously breakdowns are not easy.
Nor are they supposed to be.
Anything easy is never great.
But breakdowns can be meaningful if properly understood and handled.
That is if you have the courage to find the meaning; and above all—to let go.
Awakening is nothing more than progressive dissolution.
~ Siddhartha Gautama
As the first quote implies, creation is built on a foundation of destruction.
Think about it.
When you see a construction crew beginning to build a tall skyscraper in your city, what’s the first thing they do?
They destroy the ground upon which it’s being built. Jack hammers, cranes, dump trucks are all hammering, hauling, and digging the old away.
It’s hard work.
It’s dirty and dusty; and if you’re on the crew, you’re sweaty and tired. Physically exhausted.
The old hangs on with all its might; and it must be torn and pulled away.
Are you following the metaphor?
For the new to emerge, the old must go.
It can go kicking and screaming, or it can go willfully.
Either way, it will go.
More often than not… kicking and screaming.
Now, let’s go to the gym.
The only way a muscle grows is to be pushed beyond its current level of capacity and development.
You know that soreness you get from a good workout?
Physiology proves that the muscle fibers are actually being torn; and in their repair new strength and size are developed.
In the meantime, it hurts.
You want to quit.
Learn some tips How to Continue When You Feel Like Quitting here.
Sometimes every ounce of sanity inside you is screaming, “I can’t even do one more rep.”
But the Warrior Spirit doesn’t listen to so-called sanity; and it pushes one more—maybe even two.
If sanity is the way of the masses; let me be insane; and possibly become masterful.
A muscle grows stronger and bigger
ONLY as it’s pushed beyond its current level
of capacity and development.
Such is business. Such is life.
Are you thinking?
Now let’s jump over to Nobel Prize winning physicists Ilya Prigogine, and his awarded research on what he called dissipative structures.
To keep it simple, Prigogine proved that an influx of energy and information into a system causes its capacity, a threshold, to be broken through.
When the threshold is surpassed, the system breaks down and either does one of two things:
- It’s either completely destroyed, becoming part and parcel of another system.
- Or, it restructures itself with greater capacity and capability.
Okay, let’s apply that to your life.
An influx of energy into your business can be represented by a vast increase in workload.
I remember when I first appeared on Oprah, the phones were ringing off the walls. I didn’t have enough lines to handle the volume, much less enough team members to handle the customers.
My website crashed from all the traffic it couldn’t sustain.
To hire new team members I had to have more space. So in the midst of this chaos, I was also required to quickly find additional office space.
It was entropy and panic.
Be careful what you wish for you just might get it.
Make sure you’re prepared.
I wasn’t.
What appears to be your obstacle
is actually the doorway to your desire.
Breakdowns always precede breakthroughs.
Your business is a system. So is your body; and the same principle applies to both.
Remember Nobel laureate Ilya Prigogine: when a threshold is surpassed you either back down, or you breakdown and breakthrough.
Which do you choose to do?
When faced with the potential breakdown
of an old way of viewing the world, you have two choices:
you either back down; or you breakthrough.
Unfortunately most back down and run back
to the shores of the known.
When you allow the breakdown of the old; and you just let go; according to science as long as you don’t die, you must reorganize with greater capability and capacity.
If sanity is the way of the masses; let me be insane;
and thereby possibly become masterful.
If it was easy then everyone would reach their potential now wouldn’t they?
So what do you choose for your life?
Stay Awake, Love Life, and Be Epic!
James
