Jolt!, Phil Cooke [reading women txt] 📗

a difference. I received my master’s degree at the University of Oklahoma, so I’m very familiar with Sooner football, and I’ve seen some amazing things happen when the fans get involved. The game’s momentum can change, and an impending loss can be completely turned around, ignited by the energy and enthusiasm of the fans.

For thousands of years, athletes have known the power of supportive fans. In the same way, you can rise to a completely new level of performance when you tap into the awesome power of people who believe in your dreams. The great tragedy of personal performance is that few people realize the value of having fans. They have no idea how to build a personal support system that can keep them motivated and enthusiastic when times get tough.

Certainly there have been heroic stories of people who have accomplished great things in the midst of very unsupportive situations. I’ve met a number of people who have excelled in spite of growing up in an environment of criticism, negative emotions, and abuse. The human spirit is remarkably resilient, and it can rise above poverty, humiliation, neglect, ignorance, and criticism. Somehow, these unusual people have transcended terrible circumstances and achieved success despite their immediate environment.

But for most people, being surrounded by negativity, condemnation, and pessimism is a destructive influence that’s difficult, if not impossible, to rise above. Time and time again, lives are destroyed and human potential lost from lack of encouragement, help, and support. For the majority, success only happens in an environment of encouragement and love. But most people have no idea how much they can control their environment.

One of the great secrets in life is to understand that what you desire, you must give away. If you want love, you must give love; if you want friends, you must be friendly; and if you want encouragement, you need to encourage others. Relationships don’t happen in a vacuum. If you want a harvest in your own life, you must first plant the seed in the lives of others.

In this case, become an encourager. Be a cheerleader for others.

Now we’re going to get serious here.

Think about your friends for a minute. How many of the people you consider friends really care about you? How many encourage you in your visions and dreams, and how many are there for you when you hit a wall?

Most people, if they are really honest, would have to agree that a significant number of their friends and associates aren’t really there in the clutch. In fact, many of the people we spend the most time with are actually time wasters who drain us of our energy and trivialize our dreams.

Take some time and think long and hard about your relationships. Starting today, spend more time cultivating and developing relationships with people who really care about you and your future. People who don’t feel threatened by your success and who genuinely want to see you succeed.

You don’t have to be cold or rude to the others. Maintain their friendships, but spend your serious time with those who believe in you and want you to achieve your potential.

True friends are those who really know you but love you anyway.

—EDNA BUCHANAN, PULITZER PRIZE WINER

I go back to the saying, go where you are celebrated, not just tolerated.

Good advice. The more time you spend with your personal cheerleaders, the more you’ll stay motivated and energized. Who you listen to matters, so you need to surround yourself with people who fill you with emotional support.

I also suggest you assemble a small group of encouraging people and meet regularly with them to share ideas and dreams. The writers C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien were members of a group associated with Oxford University, called the Inklings. It was a group of teachers, writers, and friends who met regularly at a well-known Oxford pub to discuss passages from their favorite books as well as their own writing. They shared the same moral and cultural values, religious beliefs, and education.

One of their chief concerns and regular points of discussion was the declining influence of faith within the culture. In 1936, they decided that the world needed novels that used issues of faith and morality as their central themes. Lewis and Tolkien decided to write science fiction, after realizing the poor level of similar stories being published at the time. They literally tossed a coin to decide who would write a book on space travel versus time travel. Tolkien got the time travel nod, but his early efforts with a story never really worked out. Later, however, he would achieve great success with The Lord of the Rings. Lewis wrote his famous series of novels called The Space Trilogy, and from that momentum he eventually penned The Chronicles of Narnia.

Meeting regularly with good friends is an invaluable source of encouragement and motivation—especially when those friends share your business interests, passion, and expertise.

Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.

—JANE HOWARD, NOVELIST

Another reason for cheerleaders is that one person can only carry a burden so far by himself. In the fifties, a young writer named John Kennedy Toole worked alone, writing a novel in New Orleans. He wasn’t a particularly outgoing young man, and he carried the weight of writing and selling the manuscript totally on his own shoulders. When it was finished, he sent it to publisher after publisher, but few even responded. One major publisher initially liked it but ultimately rejected it. With no one to share his frustration, he was finally overcome by rejection, and when he could take it no more, he took his own life.

Sometime after the funeral, his mother found the coffee-stained manuscript, took up the cause, and became his champion. She finally found an LSU professor and accomplished writer named Walker Percy, who agreed to read it. She sent him the well-worn pages. When Percy