How To Use Your Enemies To Fuel Your Success
Have you heard of the phrase “at the end of the day it’s all love”? Have you watched the movie Love Is All You Need? Have you listened to the classic song Love Is All You Need from the Beatles?
While love is arguably one of the fundamental reasons why we do what we do, most of us ignored the other side of the coin. In other words, hatred is underrated.
I am not sure about you, but I’ve definitely felt annoyed whenever I walked into an environment that’s filled with negativity, gossips, uninspiring conversations, fear-driven news updates etc. It feels like such environment is poisoning our mindset, corrupting our creative potential and sapping our energy level.
Love those people anyway, be compassionate but you should stay away from these inspiration vampires as much as possible. To uplift the world, you have to be extraordinary. You have to be more than normal. You have to be more than average.
“Love is when the other person’s happiness is more important than your own.” – H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
That means your standards, mindsets, emotional intelligence, productivity, work ethic, people you spend most time with, influence and impact have to be top-notched in order to create the maximum change you want. And one of the most undervalued ways to fuel your motivation and drive is to find an enemy.
Every legendary achiever in history needs an enemy to compete with.
Luke Skywalker could not have become one of the greatest Jedi in the galaxy had Darth Vader not become the evil Sith Lord. Apple could not have become such an unstoppable success had Steve Jobs not competed with Bill Gates and distinguished themselves as the pioneer fashion of arts and technology. Michael Phelps could not have acquired a record-breaking 28 medals had Ryan Lochte, Chad le Clos, Lazslo Cseh and Kosuke Hagino given him pressure of losing the lead.
Heck, even aliens have predators, Autobots have Decepticons and Frodo has Suron to compete with. Every great story, great movie, great biography will tell you that heroes always need an enemy to fight against with.
The point is that when you don’t have an enemy, you don’t stand for anything.
An enemy you hate gives you unlimited reasons, motivations and energy to fight back. An enemy gives you an opportunity to break through your limits, challenges and edges to become better. An enemy compels you to maximize your skills, character, hidden power and potential to conquer the world.
Your hatred is your friend. Your emotional agitation is your friend. Your enemy is your friend. They are there for a reason to make you thrive. It’s not hard to find your enemy and pick a meaningful fight.
“You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.” – Winston Churchill
For example, to me and my team, our enemies are mediocrity, scarcity mindset, sensational news, the mind-controlling media, the Wall Street that’s exploiting your hard-earned money, the status quo that you must follow a certain route to succeed.
We believe it’s misleading because with today’s level of innovative technology, we can actually design a life that give us both outer achievements and inner fulfillment.
So who’s your enemy? What are the things you hate? What heartbreaking phenomenon are you witnessing in the world that you want to change? What injustice, unfairness and wrongness do you want to stop?
Let your enemies motivate you. Let them stir your blood. Let your anger be transformed into massive positive actions. With such deep emotional drive, you’ll become a relentless fighter who beats every life challenge presented to you along the way.
Wonderful post! Thank you and keep up the good work
Thanks Seth!
Yes, I think we can create some “fictional” enemies if we don’t have one yet. Anything that you don’t like or any situations you don’t find fair can be your enemy. The point is to find something that ignites your fire so you take action to create the kind of reality you want. Everyone has their own truth so it’ll be awesome when they take action on what they believe in.
Haven’t read Brown’s book but it seems interesting! 🙂
Awesome post Keye. I particular like the point where you say that you need an enemy to fuel you. Because I don’t necessarily have enemies. I also like the quote by H. Jackson Brown Jr. I’m reading his book Life’s Little Instruction Book now!
Thanks for the sharing Marquita, I’m really glad that it resonates with you!
Yes, the past week has been insane to a lot of people and I saw that many feel hopeless about the future. But as you said, things don’t have to be viewed that way and anyone who find something they “hate”, they can definitely use it as a tool to fuel their own “truth/mission”.
Really pleased that I’ve impacted you in some shape or form, good luck with your goals and keep it up! 🙂
I enjoyed your article and wholeheartedly applaud your message. I happily shared it on Facebook – not that I expect many will see it because so many are sticking their heads in the sand right now. Between hiding posts, unfriending and banning altogether, it’s a vastly different landscape than it was pre-election. But I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. Personally, I started almost immediately to figure out what I wanted to DO to move forward and your article has added fuel to that fire. Thank you!