Great by choice, and…

Here’s the last two paragraphs of the book, Great by Choice. This is Collins latest and mostly a repeat of his previous three. It’s good, don’t get me wrong. It’s just not great. I LOVE his ending, however, with the BTL “and.” Here it is.

“When the moment comes- when we’re afraid, exhausted, or tempted – what choice do we make? Do we abandon our values? Do we give in? Do we accept average performance because it’s what most everyone else accepts? Do we capitulate to the pressure of the moment? Do we give up our dreams when we’ve been slammed by brutal facts? The greatest leaders we’ve studied thoughout our research cared as much about values as victory, as much about purpose as profit, as much about being useful as being successful. Their drive and standards are ultimately internal rising from somewhere deep inside.

We are not imprisoned by our circumstances. We are not imprisoned by the luck we get or the inherent unfairness of life. We are not imprisoned by crushing setbacks, self inflicted mistakes or our past success. We are not imprisoned by the time in which we live, by the number of hours in a day or even the number of hours we’re granted in our very short lives. In the end, we can control only a tiny sliver of what happens to us. But even so, we are free to choose, free to become great by choice.”

And…If you want to stand in your moments of truth, it matters that you author and build your CORE now. Drive and standards don’t just rise from somewhere deep within, they are purposely built and rinsed with rigor until they can be accessed without thinking. And,remember, the time to discover your values is not when you need them most.

And, author and live your OPUS now, so brutal facts don’t stop your big dream. The brutal facts are coming if they haven’t already arrived. The BTL builder knows, expects, and accepts these facts. And, simply keeps following their disciplines to PoP it out. Nothing fancy but it works.

You choose. Your choices have consequences…