Kay:
Alrighty Questers we’re back at it again! It is Fabulous Friday, episode 335. The queen, the queen of the queen. She’s like the queen mother because this is like Oprah’s sponsor. The one and only Maya Angelou is bringing you today’s quote.
Shi:
And it is a short one, but a deep one, just like Maya tends to deliver and that is, “Success is loving life and daring to live it.”
Kay:
Two components that are so important. Let’s pull it apart and take this first part where it says, “Success is loving life.”
Shi:
Well, you know, a lot of people out there, a lot of thought leaders, and a lot of authors will tell us, you have to define “success.” She just completely circumvents that by telling you success is loving life. You still have to define that because what makes you love life will be unique and different for you. But now we’re able to settle on this definition of success. Success is loving life, enjoying what is being presented to you by the universe, finding fulfillment and happiness in your day-to-day living. Success is loving life, not getting through life, not just like marching through life, not getting to the end of life. It’s loving life which is such a rich feeling for all of us.
Kay:
And Maya Angelou gives such rich advice. So, no wonder that in just four short words, she can drop it like it’s hot. Then this next half, (which this next set of four words is so good because it adds a qualifier onto this loving life) because she says, “and daring to live it.” Now, why, Shi, is the second half so important?
Shi:
Well, success is loving life means that you can be a passive spectator of what’s happening around you in the world, in your family, in your community, in your organization. But now she tells you, you got to step in, you’ve got to dare to live. Does it hurt? Is it hard? Is it vulnerable? Yes to all of those things but success is loving life and daring to live it, which means it’s not just a sport, it’s getting in the ring.
Kay:
Right. You’ve got to get out there. You’ve got to be active about it. If you have this love of life. I mean, frankly, probably any of us could get out there and go bliss out in the forest. You’ve got like a really cool little setup where you could just have food and shelter and bliss out in the forest forever. You would do that. I mean, maybe you wouldn’t but think about the equivalent for you.
Shi:
Wherever your bliss out is, yeah.
Kay:
Bliss out in the forest…
Shi:
Now you can find us in the forest if we ever disappear.
Kay:
You can bliss out at home, but that doesn’t create impact, that doesn’t develop you further, that doesn’t develop humanity further or your experience or enrich you. So, you can have the success of loving life. But the real success comes when you actually dare to get out there and make it happen.
Shi:
It is a dare because it takes courage, and it means that there will be pain involved and that there will be failures along the way and missteps and frustrations and the things that make you want to step out of the ring or that make you want to step back and be a spectator sport. But you can’t truly feel what all life has to offer, and honor it, and appreciate it, if you don’t get to see it and be part of it and get a little bit dirty and roll those sleeves up. Tony Robbins tells us, “You could read about swimming all day long, but you’ll never know how to actually swim until you get in the pool.” We can read about and postulate and philosophize about success and love and all of these things, but daring to live it, getting vulnerable, getting bold and getting in there, and living it is the way that we can truly know success.
Kay:
Well, it creates that beautiful life that you can love to live and in another Maya Angelou quote, she says that “Life loves the liver of it.” So, when you are loving life and daring to live, it loves you right back and it gives to you and it supports you in that creative process. So, like Maya says, “Success is loving life and daring to live it.”
Shi:
Which means it is Fri-yay Quest time. We want to dare you to just like our partner Joseph McLendon III likes to say, “Live bold…
Kay & Shi:
…baby!
Shi:
Dare to live your life to the fullest this weekend, whatever that means for you. Are you ready?
Kay & Shi:
Let’s quest!
