Contributed by Brian Kight, an entrepreneur, coach, keynote speaker and EO member in Colorado. Brian is the founder of Daily Discipline, through which he shares powerful mindsets and explores personal skills that help accelerate the path to achieving your biggest priorities. In his work as a coach, he helps teams simplify and execute on leadership, culture and discipline.

Today is the most important day of your life.

When you see a beautiful sculpture or hear a moving song, remember that a person made that. It did not exist. They brought it to life. They pulled inspiration, formed a vision, gathered resources, applied their skills, and turned a fleeting idea into a spectacular reality.

People bring things like art, music, books, and even entire nations into existence through personal willingness and ability. They fight through boredom, doubt, and distraction. They apply talent, skill, and determination.

We see and experience the result of those efforts. I want you to consider with whom those efforts began and the creator’s personal experience.

All the people who created the music you love, the products you rely on, and the books that have changed your life have traded conformity for excellence. They discarded certainty to chase opportunity. They exchanged valuable parts of their own lives to create value that impacted the lives of others. They heard the doubts, their own and from others, and stepped forward anyway.

Most importantly, these people didn’t have to do all that work. They didn’t have to devote themselves. They didn’t owe us anything. These people honored their gifts by voluntarily bringing them to the world. In some cases, they were well compensated for their contribution. In other cases, they were ridiculed or ruined, only later gaining the proper recognition for their devotion and impact.

They did not sit idly by believing greatness belonged to other people. They did not hide their talents behind fear, bury their potential behind doubt, or allow their visions to fade into the universe, never to be realized.

They did not possess immediate, flawless, and limitless talent. Nor were they endowed with magical powers or divine intervention. They were like you. They are like you.

They simply chose to put what was inside them to work. And what they didn’t have inside them, they decided to learn. And what they struggled to learn, they struggled with until they understood it. And what they couldn’t learn, they persevered through. And what they couldn’t persevere through, they accepted and worked with instead.

This and more is within you, too.

It has been within anyone who has made a contribution to our world and anyone who has allowed their possibilities to lie dormant.

These decisions explain the history of our world. They will tell our future too. The only unknown is who will be among the courageous creators that author our next chapters and who will simply consume what others devoted their lives to create.

Answer the call. Do the work.

This post originally appeared on Daily Discipline, a free daily message to accelerate your path to your biggest priorities, and is reposted here with permission.

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