Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

“Invictus” is a poem written in 1875 by English poet William Ernest Henley. The word means “unconquered” in Latin.The last two lines were repeated on several occasions by Morgan Freeman in his performance as Nelson Mandela in the film “Invictus,” about Mandela’s efforts to unite his country around hosting and winning the 1995 rugby World Cup. It was said that Nelson Mandela had this poem written on a piece of paper he kept during his years in a South African prison. According to Mandela, the poem helped him cope with the pain of injustice and imprisonment.

In the movie, Mandela gives the “Invictus” poem to his national rugby team’s captain Francois Pienaar before the start of the Rugby World Cup. In reality, Mandela provided Pienaar with an extract from Theodore Roosevelt’s “The Man in the Arena” speech from 1910. An excerpt of the speech from Wikipedia as below:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

I hope that the poem “Invictus” can give you the strength to overcome whatever challenges that you may be facing and can inspire you like it has helped Nelson Mandela to survive 27 years in imprisonment.

We started walking intuitively and probably from seeing our parents and other adults doing it; we imitated them. We fell and we picked ourselves up repetitively and fearlessly. Pretty soon we were walking steadily and the daring ones were already running. Through sheer hard work and encouragement, we had not only mastered the art of walking but also doing it with ease. Had we ever questioned the hard work we put into learning to walk?

Are there something which you are hoping to do well? I have an interesting news for you. With hard work and I mean a lot of hard work, you can achieve excellent in what you hope to do well. And not just hard work, “But work of a particular type that’s demanding and painful,” according to a report by CNN on the Secret of Greatness.

“I do not have the innate gifts to be successful.” From the above mentioned report, British-based researchers Michael J. Howe, Jane W. Davidson and John A. Sluboda conclude in an extensive study, “The evidence we have surveyed … does not support the [notion that] excelling is a consequence of possessing innate gifts.” The first major conclusion is that nobody is great without work.

A lot of people are working hard and yet not many are achieving excellent results. Where did it go wrong? The biggest challenge is that most people are just blindly charging ahead. A friend of mine shared his Cycle of Excellence with me a few years back. It is a simple feedback system he uses for his students so that they can constantly monitor their own results through feedbacks. Through the system, the students can pin-point what produces positive results and do more of that.

Besides monitoring which of our hard work produces positive result, a paper published by professor K. Anders Ericsson of Florida State University and two colleagues in 1993 notes, “Elite performers in many diverse domains have been found to practice, on the average, roughly the same amount every day, including weekends.” Thus, we also need to put in consistent hard work.

Many would have spent the weekend otherwise. Not many are willing to go the extra miles and that is why not many can achieve greatness. At least we know now that achieving greatness is not only for the privilege few but available for you and I.

Everyone has strength and weakness. Just when you are thinking that something may be your weakness, think twice. Sometimes your weakness may turn out to be your greatest strength, just as in this case.

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The story of one 10 year old boy who decided to study Judo despite the fact that he had lost his left arm in a devastating car accident.

The boy began his lessons with an old Japanese Judo Master. As the boy was doing well in his lessons, he could not understand why after three months of training and his master had taught him only one move.

“Sensei,” the boy finally asked. “Shouldn’t I be learning more moves?”

“This is the only move you know, but this is the only move you’ll ever need to know.” the Sensei replied.

Not quite understanding what the Sensei meant, but believing in his teacher, the boy kept on training.

Several months later, the Sensei took the boy to his first tournament. Surprising himself, the boy easily won his first two matches. The third match proved to be more difficult, but after some time, his opponent became impatient and charged; the boy deftly used his one move to win the match. Still amazed by his success, the boy was now in the finals.

This time, his opponent was bigger, stronger and more experienced. For a while, the boy appeared to be over-matched. Concerned that the boy might get hurt, the referee called a time-out. He was about to stop the match when the Sensei intervened.

“No.” the Sensei insisted. “Let him continue.”

Soon after the match resumed, his opponent made a critical mistake: he dropped his guard. Instantly, the boy used his move to pin him down. The boy had won the match and the tournament. He was the champion.

On the way home, the boy and Sensei reviewed every move in each and every match. Then the boy summoned the courage to ask what was really on his mind.

“Sensei, how did I win the tournament with only one move?”

“You won for two reasons,” the Sensei answered. “First, you’ve almost mastered one of the most difficult throws in all of Judo. And second, the only known defense for that move is for your opponent to grab your left arm.”

The boy’s biggest weakness had become his biggest strength.
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In one of the tutorial lessons, she told us, ‘don’t worry, 70% of our worries will not come true anyway. Worrying is a waste of time’ I had no idea where she got her statistics from but at that moment I took it in as it was. However, I have been using this to consciously remind myself every time I get too worry about something.

Over the years, through experiences of others and myself, I have also learnt that there are some situations which we can do something about and some which we do not have control.

Worrying helps especially in situations where we can do something to change them; it can act as a strong motivating force to propel us into action to change the situations. However, worrying becomes futile and energy draining when we cannot control the outcomes or there is nothing we can do about it. In additional, we risk physical and mental health issues when we are overly worried.

Duke Ellington put it best when he said, “There are two kinds of worries - those you can do something about and those you can’t. Don’t spend any time on the latter.” Such a simple and straightforward truth and yet it can be a challenge for many to follow.

Just recently, my partially erupted wisdom tooth had been giving me problem; my gum was not only swollen but it had also caused my face to be slightly swollen. Eating and chewing became a slight painful experience. I had similar experiences before but the swell usually went down after a few days.

This time round the swell persisted. I knew the time had come for something to be done about it. I went for an initial dental checkup on Tuesday and made another appointment with a dental surgeon to have the partially erupted wisdom tooth surgically removed on Thursday.

I had admitted to a few friends that I was scared and worried about it. Although I knew that it was just a common and small surgery that requires only local anesthesia, I couldn’t help worrying about it. I believe you may have heard many horror stories of the drilling involved.

My main fear was the pain from the injection; I had a pretty bad experience with the injection when I was young. Perhaps because I was young then, so the pain was intensified many times.

Thursday came and I was punctual with the appointment. The registration process was prompt and professional. In about 10 minutes, I was already lying on the dental surgical chair. The dental surgeon approached me with the first injection and once she administered me with the first injection, my worry of the pain was all gone. I could barely feel the injection. Maybe a bite by a red ant is even worse than the injection.

Soon after the injections, I was blindfolded to protect my eyes from the lightings. The moments in between blindfolded and waiting for the dental surgeon to start was a little unbearable as I recalled the horror stories. But talking to the nurses helped. It was quite a lot of drilling after that and much pressures were applied by the dental surgeon. Before I knew it, it was all done. Did I feel pain? The local anesthesia worked well.