How do you know if you are you A Winner ?
If somebody stole your shoes on Olympic Medal day, would you do what Jim Thorpe did and find an odd sized (non pair) of old ones in the rubbish, bolster up one foot with an extra sock and go on to win, not one but two Gold Medals? Look carefully at the image in the middle below and you'll notice the actual odd shoes and socks he wore to win against the odds.
Some People are Born Winners
Often they are completely or partially unaware of what they are doing to create success and it is hard wired into their brain's way of thinking. Others stumble across winning in an almost pigeon superstition fashion and yet other people learn how to win through trial, error, self evaluation and self education. This last group often has the most powerful grasp of what they are doing (achieving) and among this elite group of thinker / doer / dreamer / visionaries are some of the world's most charismatic & powerful influencers, leaders, inventors, discoverers, villains, vagabonds and geniuses of history. The difference in what they do is a combination of intent and action. Action relies on a physical motivation. That's a really important relationship in achieving success. While it may be possible to create opportunity with conscious focusing, being able to actually seize upon burgeoning opportunity is vital to the process. The ability to catch a fish is as important as wishing one onto your hook.
Whichever way
they each discover the process, they all manifest a pyramid of success through foundation layers of action by a very consistent and indefatigable positive mental attitude, or thoughts and visualisations of desired outcomes, coupled with positive action. This can have a profound effect upon other people and groups, leading to the leveraging of mass consciousness. Fatal in the hands of powerful dicators but equally usable if harnessed by speakers of positive truth, emancipators and liberators. Without naming the negatives, for this is an active part of the process of I.Q.C, I like to think that the late Great Nelson Mandella & Mahatma Ghandi succinctly offer examples of the positive influencer who reached far beyond their own personal boundaries of success by a combination of focused intent and affirmative action. Interestingly they both share certain conditions conducive to honing the ability to influence events; isolation in Mandella's case & abstinence in Ghandi's both leading similarly to achieving a certain inner calm or spiritually beneficial attainment.
Some People Call it Self Motivation
others call it a variety of different names. I chose to call it Intentional Quantum Collapse (of events) or I.Q.C for short, which although sounding very esoteric, is quite a simple, yet little understood function of our unseen multiple dimensioned reality as described by String Theory. (10 or 11 dimensions would be sufficient for our slightly limited imagination in the here and now, but the magic space of 24 dimensions may or may not actually exist.) As beings trapped in the experience of 4 dimensions, (xyz+time) our conscious minds can escape into an unlimited version of the world with many dimensions and perhaps one which is more akin to the universal composition of reality. Our brains are subject to all quantum effects and our minds exist in this expanded multidimensional space, we experience it often and richly in both day and night dreams, reverie, fantasy, under the influence of various chemicals, in medical emergencies, via meditation and by the medium of writing, whether fact or fiction, poetry, art, music, dance, theatre, sculpture, installations and in the modern era; film and animation, the latter being one of my own favourite chosen paths of expression, (for it's ability to describe the utterly indescribable along a timeline.) These art forms can also have a profound and powerful effect upon shaping the reality of our waking experiences and as such form an intricate part of the expanded Universe we do not routinely see, hear, smell, taste or touch.
Consciousness Contributes
to the way reality pans out as sub-atomic particles emanate from higher dimensions, (yet to be born into our reality) are affected by our intention and those around us. We co-create reality on the fly, collectively and individually. It's nature's way of exercising a necessary and elemental democratic function. That which most wants: becomes - is. A mote of conscious is enough to guide reality but as consciousness becomes more complex and self aware, it's power of intent becomes inextricably linked to it's own actions and those in it's sphere of awareness. This applies to mass media in the modern age as an extended remote messenger service
The Meaning of Life, the Universe and Everything
If you ever wondered what the Meaning of Life, the Universe and Everything is, and let's face it, who hasn't ?, it's probably not the number 42 like Douglas Adams fictionally suggested in The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy although 42 is in fact a very interesting number, but I think understanding how consciousness and reality interrelate offer profound clues to the nature of the question; and offer a tantalisingly simple glimpse of what it's all about.
Why Do I Love Sci-Fi ?
The ever increasing nature and potency of consciousness which has evolved through billions of years of nature, allows a being, ever greater control over reality. If we extend this notion logically, we soon become magical beings with (what would appear to us now) Godlike qualities. Technology being an extension of consciousness allows the development of ever sophisticated tools of our own comprehension. All of our modern technology has been built upon the pyramidal foundation layers of achievement laid down by our ancestors and so into the future we stride, each generation developing useful insights with which to explore the the universe and themselves. In search of what ? Essential truths, uncovering the many layers of reality like a multidimensional onion. Like Mathematics, the Universe exists to be discovered. Art and Science are nothing more than different paths of questioning and IQC is a natural and guiding principle of evolutionary development, which includes the formation of the elements and the accretion of matter into tangible, fungible things. It's no surprise that we've learned an incredible amount about the universe in the last 20 / 50 / 100 / 1000 years with increasing frequency and scale of implication.
You May have Experienced
or heard of the Unfair concept of 'whoever shouts the loudest, gets' or similar phrases. This is the Universes' way of accomplishing useful contributions to reality. Jim Thorpe's story demonstrates perhaps the most important element of success. He found the shoes ;) Without actually having the physical motivation to WIN Jim would have not had the shoes. That he was willing to put his faith in an odd pair of ill fitting shoes is testament to his own belief and I believe, the important factor in his continuing success. What he was perhaps not aware of, was his own innate ability to force sub atomic particles into a winning configuration by sheer brute mental force. This is the psyche of the winner. Not always a physical challenge but Jim demonstrates in obvious and clear fashion what winning means.
Jim Thorpe
What Jim Thorpe did that day was no less than amazing. His list of other achievements is quite incredible and he is still considered to this day one of the Greatest Athletes of all Time. He was also an American Athlete of Indigenous origin which is not to be underestimated given the historically poor treatment of indigenous people in the Americas. He was a formidable physical specimen of a human being. He was an elite athlete. He was a first and a pioneer in many ways. His story has many inspirational elements. However even Jim Thorpe could not beat his destiny. His Olympic medals were stripped after the IOC concluded that he had broken the rules on financial engagement. In those days the lines weren't blurred about professional and amateur sports as they are today. His medals were eventually and posthumously restored. He also died in poverty after a long path of alcoholism, a fate suffered by other great sports people. After his career ended in his early forties, Jim struggled to make a living. These days he would have no doubt been a super endorsement deal multi-millionaire from his endeavours but not so back then. The moral of this story is perhaps that as much as you may be able to bend reality to your will and win, win and keep winning against the odds (with odd shoes on) and with remarkable consistency, you can not completely outrun destiny, which is to say, that not everything is always in your direct, indirect or collectively assembled control, as much as it may sometimes seem.