Getting to Where You Want to Be

“How do you go from where you are to where you want to be? I think you have to have enthusiasm for life. You have to have a dream, a goal, they have to be willing to work for.”

~Jim Valvano

Jimmy Valvano was a college basketball coach most notably at North Carolina State University where he won the 1983 national title against the heavily favored Houston team. At the time that they want in the last few seconds of the game, those who saw it remember his ecstatic celebration after the win.

At too young an age, he died from a form of glandular cancer before saying the quote above and not before telling viewers at the 1993 Espy Awards where everyone knew he was going to die soon, to laugh, think and cry every day and “Don’t give up its. Don’t ever give up.”

Let me add to Valvano’s quote.

It starts with courage.

You have to be courageous to continue on in the face of adversity, in the face of the naysayers single-mindedly dedicate yourself to the achievement that you want.

There will be people who tell you like in the Rumi poem:

Your old grandmother says,
“Maybe you shouldn’t go to school.
You look a little pale.”
Run when you hear that.