TRANSCRIPT

Every great leader, every great commander, every great person who has the responsibility of being an example to others through any type of leadership role has a responsibility to not just know their strengths, but to know their weaknesses. A good leader knows their weaknesses, knows their limitations, because then they seek to find other people who can fill those gaps. They seek to find and rely upon other people.

“Nothing You Do Matters Unless What You Do Matters”

I’m Amadon DellErba and this is “Get Real or Die Trying” 

Hey tribe, welcome to Episode 6 of my podcast, “Get Real or Die Trying: Nothing you do matters unless what you do matters.” Today I'm talking about the saying, know your limits. Know your limitations. It's not easy to know your limitations. It's actually quite difficult. Now I wanted to talk about this because I've actually had a rough week and I have been reminded of my own limitations, and I think in my life there have been so many times that I've been reminded of my own weakness, my own limitation, and my own need for boundaries.

Before coming to the studio this afternoon and contemplating the subject I thought, you know, we can replace the word limitations with boundaries. Know your boundaries. Because in many ways, in a spiritual sense, in a sense of consciousness, we are limitless. We have the potential to be limitless, and our potential is limitless. But on a human and physical plane, and the reality of our existence, and when ambition meets circumstantial reality—when our desire for optimum reality meets reality, circumstantial reality--we can often be reminded of our own limitations.

And I think for me personally, it's always been a struggle to be reminded of that. Not just physical limitations of my body, but even my heart, mind, and soul, and what I wish to achieve, how I wish to achieve it, and when I wish to achieve it. Timing, patience, deliberance is a struggle for me—having patience—and I think it's a struggle for any ambitious person who sets their mind, heart, and soul on achieving things.

For me, I am often reminded of my own limitations through physical injury, unfortunately. I have broken 17 bones in my body over the last, let's say 20 years, roughly. And in my short life, I've had quite a few injuries, a few of them life-threatening. Most of those were self-induced. Most of those were caused from recklessness at the time, which I maybe mistaked for fearlessness. Sometimes fearlessness is not the same thing as reckless abandonment to logic, common sense, and wise, careful, decision-making. I have hurt myself many times because I have liked to push myself, and push circumstances to the limit. And I don't think, I want to say, that I've taken my body to the limit like an ultra marathon runner or a professional athlete at that level, but I have taken acute situations and my body to the limit and done things in moments that really should have probably not happened, and therefore I've suffered the consequences. And sometimes I've hurt myself just from not paying attention and thinking that I was more capable, stronger, faster than I really am, and than I really was back then, and still happening today. 

How does this relate to life? How does this relate to everything? As I'm always striving to do, taking the spiritual and merging it with the animal nature—the human nature and the spiritual; the spiritual, beautiful ideals and concepts, and the physical reality and the tangible facts. So when we think we're big and bad, and we think we're fast, we're strong—when we think we are basically unbreakable—sometimes the Creator and life itself will break you to keep you humble, to remind you to slow down, to walk carefully, to walk in humility and to know your strength, but also most importantly part of knowing your limitations can just be replaced with knowing your weaknesses. Every great leader, every great commander, every great person who has the responsibility of being an example to others through any type of leadership role has a responsibility to not just know their strengths, but to know their weaknesses. A good leader knows their weaknesses, knows their limitations, because then they seek to find other people who can fill those gaps. They seek to find and rely upon other people. 

The art of relying on another person to help you achieve your goal and the collective goal of your tribe, your organization, your business, whatever it is—the art of relying on somebody else to fill that gap that you have—is an important art. And it's getting lost in today's society, in today's business culture, in today's spiritual culture. It's all about self, self, self—self-empowerment, “you can do anything”. But you know what? We all have talents and abilities, but we don't have all of the talents and abilities. We all have talents and abilities, but we don't have all of them. There's so many talents and abilities and there's so many people on this planet, and we need to rely upon the help of others. In knowing your limitations, in being reminded of your limitations through failure in life, you begin to become more real.

And you know, it takes courage to try new things and to fail. It takes courage to leap off that cliff, literally, into the water, which I grew up doing and still do. It takes courage to make that leap of faith in your life. It takes courage to try new things and to venture into new realms of consciousness, new realms of social existence, and spiritual existence, where we don't usually tread—going into new land, going into the new horizon—untouched, uncharted territory.

In that, you want to have people around you who fill the voids of weakness or lack of ability that you may have. That is the beauty of the tribe, the family, the community—what I like to call comrades, spiritual comrades. The notion of friendship is wonderful, and acquaintances and business partners. It's all lovely, but the notion of a comrade, to me, signifies and reaches for higher ideals of loyalty, trust, integrity, and honor. A comrade has trust and honor. A comrade in your life helps to remind you of your strength, but also your limitations.

So for me, I know that the Creator helps me to realize and understand my limitations through teaching me long suffering, and teaching me to slow down, and to choose life decisions, moments and my actions carefully.

Accepting your weakness in life is a fine line between succumbing to your weakness and accepting it. The acceptance is an important part to overcoming. Accepting is not succumbing. Accepting is identifying correctly, identifying the weakness and then choosing to overcome it. Sometimes choosing to overcome your personal weakness takes a plan—a plan of action, a commitment, a self improvement plan of sorts.

So life will teach you your limitations, and take note, because your limitations are your weaknesses. As I said in the beginning, let's talk about boundaries. Know your boundaries. I say boundaries because I think of all of us human souls, all of us evolving mortals, as human beings that are in different stages of our spiritual maturation process. Just like a child has a fence around their play yard to keep them safe, there's a boundary. As they get older, the fence gets bigger; the boundary of their existence widens. Even as adults, we have boundaries of existence and our boundaries grow as we grow. 

Now we think, oh as soon as we're an adult we can do whatever the hell we want, and we just jump up to it, and there are no boundaries. But that's actually not the case, because life then teaches you the boundaries. You're not smart enough—boom, that's a boundary. You can only go so far because your knowledge is limited, your wisdom is limited. You're in a profession where your strength means something—boom, that's a boundary. You could only go so far because you're limited by your physical strength. You're an athlete—boom, there's a boundary. You can only go so far because you're not strong enough, fast enough, somebody else excels past you. 

If you want to move that boundary, you have to work on yourself. You have to get stronger, faster, better. You have to get smarter, more spiritual, more humble. You have to grow, grow in all of these areas. And so whether you like it or not, you're surrounded by boundaries in your life. Your life, my life, is full of boundaries. Okay? I can try and climb over that wall, that metaphorical boundary, but I'm going to fall off of it and hurt myself because I'm actually not ready for it. The boundary has to be pushed by self-growth. You see, the boundary expands by self growth, by improvement, by spiritual maturity, by more wisdom, by more humility, by more purity, by growing into virtues, by more strength, honor, integrity, commitment. The boundaries keep going. The playground of life and your existence gets a lot bigger.

And so we have this illusion that we leave the playground when we become adults, and that there is no boundaries. Meanwhile, the boundaries are all there and life is knocking us down off our high horse over, and over, and over again. We come into a room and we're always thinking we’re bigger and badder and smarter than somebody else. That person will then remind us, no, you're not smarter and bigger and badder than me—boom, that's a boundary whether you like it or not. You're contained to that consciousness field, that consciousness boundary that you're trapped in, right there, and you're only contained in it as long as you allow yourself to be. That is why recognizing that limitation, oh, it's really simple.

It's like basic math. If I can only do basic multiplication and I want to start going into division, into calculus, into algebra, I have to then educate myself. I'm in a very small little playground of mathematical reality if I don't go past multiplication. So I can make the choice to then study, choose and learn, and then I have a much bigger boundary. And so, that is the concept of knowing your limitations. 

I find that people who are so talented and people who are capable of so many things—they have smart minds, quick intellect, physical capabilities, they're very cognitive to their existence and their reality and their function-ability is high—those people have the hardest time actually accepting their limitations because they can do everything so well and do so many things, and they can do a little bit of everything well, but they can't do everything super well.

So very talented, very capable, very smart people have to begin to understand their limitations, their boundaries. And that happens in life in different ways. Personally, a beautiful way that happens for me is through my elders, through my mentors, through my teachers, from those souls that have gone before me and taught me and said, “Hey, look, you're not ready for that. Hey, look, you're doing this and you're doing that. The result of doing this and that is going to be this, which is not a nice situation, so you might want to change it up”. They know that because they've already done it. They've already been there. They've already made the mistakes. They've already expanded those boundaries. It's kind of like, we have to have the humility to use the metaphor of being a child on the playground all throughout our life, even though we are no longer children. Just like a three year old is not ready to do the monkey bars and swing across the monkey bars because they literally don't have the strength yet, the dexterity, they’re not developed yet in the hand-eye-coordination to do that. You can't be a little three-year-old and assume you're going to hit that complex monkey bar situation when you're just not strong enough and not ready. But if you just trust that one day you will be and you take the responsibility to get strong enough, you take the responsibility to grow, you take the responsibility to learn, you then can do it.

Thus comes in the correlation that our potential is limitless. We don't really have limitations, in that sense. That is the duality of the teaching. We can teach and train ourselves with enough discipline to do anything. Now, there's relativity within this understanding that we have limitations. And so in order to overcome the limitations, you simply recognize them. You simply recognize them and overcome them. And so for me, I've had to learn that over and over again through long suffering, through actual pain, physical pain, shattered bones, sliced arteries, stitches, blood, suffering, infections, hospitalizations. For whatever reason God has wanted me to slow down sometimes, and it's a hard lesson that I didn't learn the first time or the second time, or the third time, or the fourth time, or the fifth time. But I learned a little more each time and maybe one day soon I will have it completely understood where I will learn to not push the boundaries, to not push. You see ambitious personalities push the boundaries, they push. And that's okay at the right time and the right boundaries to push, but not the wrong boundaries.

We as adults have the responsibility to learn when and when not to push the boundaries. That's the accepting of our limitations. Meanwhile, I know in my heart of hearts that I could do anything I put my mind to. I don't mean that in a fluffy way. I can and I could with enough commitment, time, study. But is it necessary? Is it the right thing to be doing? What do I need to focus on? What are my strengths? What are my weaknesses? Work on overcoming my weaknesses, work on getting stronger, even, in these areas. 

Another concept to be aware of is, do not let other people impose limitations upon you. Don't let them project their own fears, their own limitations, their own weakness upon you. Unless it is somebody who truly loves you, and sees you, and has your personal spiritual growth and wellbeing in mind, and they are actually trying to help you, then you can listen. But if it's someone coming from jealousy and envy and fear, you don't need to listen to them. The limitations that you discover in your own life that you have will be discovered through actions, through learning. Life will handle it. It'll teach you. You just have to listen, observe, be open, be humble, be willing to receive the lessons that life brings, that God brings—the very loving and intelligent personality Creator, God—through His intricate outworking in the very intelligent universe trickles down into our reality, into this moment, into this flesh and blood. He helps us to learn.

The one interesting thing about accepting your weakness and your limitations, and knowing your limitations, is the link of spiritual consciousness and the recognition that we are created beings. Whether you're an atheist or not, whatever religion you think you come from or not, you prescribe to—this is a universal understanding for spiritual beings, that we are spiritual beings and we are created by a loving Creator, and we have that Creator within us. The Spirit of Truth. We have the ability to tap into that spiritual consciousness at any time. And in that sense, we do become limitless. Our limitations change greatly, and that is consciousness. You see, consciousness can take us anywhere, anytime. You don't need drugs. People think you've got to take the Iowaska, the peyote, the mushrooms, the frog juice kambo, whatever the hell it's called. People think you've got to dive deep into these altered states through a little helper, but you don't. You can get there right here, right through your soul, right through great, great commitment and thinking, and intentional expanding of the consciousness, and communion with the Creator. It's a powerful thing. It's happened for me personally many times. I'm not saying it's easy. I'm not saying I'm a master of it. But I'm saying it is possible and all you can do is try and learn, and tap into that infinite source of love, the infinite source of creatorship. That we are created by a loving, beautiful, vast Creator. I don't care what you call—Him, Her, It—just recognize the Creator, the personality Creator.

The divisions of man, the divisions of evolutionary religions, the dogma—it's not needed anymore. What's needed is just recognition and the embrace, the embrace of the absolute, of where we come from, where we're going and who we are. Those questions get answered through that communion.

Check out my website at http://getrealordietrying.com

Leave me a voicemail on Anchor at Anchor.fm/getrealordietrying

Rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or any of the platforms you listen on.

Be sure to follow me on social media and share this podcast with your friends.

Word of mouth is a great way to share the vibe.

"Get Real or Die Trying with Amadon DellErba" is a production of Global Change Media.

And remember: "Pain is Temporary.

Victory is Eternal."