“Excuses are the nails used to build a house of failure.” (Jim Rohn)
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After landing his invasion forces on the shores of some far away country, it’s been said that the sixteen-century Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortes would immediately burn his own boats.
He was sending his army a message: “We can’t turn back. Either we succeed here, or we die here.”
He wanted them to be stronger than their excuses.
In fact, excuses weren’t an option for them, nor should they be for us. Once we stop wasting energy on excuses, we can start spending that energy on moving forward and winning each day.
The next time things aren’t going our way and we’re tempted to whine, complain, or point fingers remember the words of the wise captain who said, “People don’t care how rocky the ocean is, they just want you to bring the ship in.”
I’ve even heard a silly phrase that said, “Don’t tell me about the labor pains, just show me the baby.”
In other words, no one is interested in our excuses.
To my knowledge, there’s never been a documented time when excuses got us closer to our goals. We can either have excuses or we can have results, but not both.
Excuses will always be there for us, but opportunities won’t.
Remember that success is a choice. What choice will we make today?