Slaying your next dragon

I want to talk to you about a concept called slaying your next dragon. And to do that, I want to talk about my grandfather. Pop.

Pop was the best man I ever knew, the strongest man I ever knew. He was born in 1907. And he grew up on Hester Street, which is the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Today, that's part of Chinatown. But back when he was a kid, it was all Jews and Italians. And for those that don't know, Jews and Italians are basically the same. It's just the Italians cook a lot better. I think. That's why I married a nice Italian girl.

Pop was never a financial success. He never won any awards. He was a blue collar guy. He drove a truck for a lot of his life, delivering newspapers and magazines. I can remember hearing that he got robbed a bunch of times by gunpoint, but didn't want to scare my grandmother. So we never told her, drove a cab later in life.

He sort of invented the hospital TV remote control, but that's a whole other story.

Pop was kind of hard on the outside, soft and fuzzy on the inside, always had a gleam in his eye, always had a fire. In his belly.

I remember hearing the story when my mother was younger, she was driving her car and Pop was in the car with her. And somebody had cut her off. And at a stoplight, the guy that cut her off was right in front. My grandfather gets out of the car, casually strolls over to this car in front and says, roll up your window.

And those are the days when you actually didn't need to roll up your window.

The guy rolls up his window.

My grandfather punches him in the face and walks away. He didn't screw with Pop.

But I also remember how he took care of my grandmother. I remember that tears in his eyes. The day I got married. Tough on the outside, warm and fuzzy on the inside, gleam in his eye and a fire in his belly.

On a day I'll never forget when he was 83 years old. He got fired from driving the cab, now at the time he had no business driving the cab, he couldn't see very well. He got into a lot of accidents.

He was too proud to even tell us he got fired, my grandmother told us.

The reason I remember that day so well is that to me was the last day I ever really saw my grandfather.

Now, he lived for another three years, but he wasn't. He was just sitting and waiting to die.

Now Pop was lucky. Pop had that fire in his belly for 83 years. For 83 years, he had that next dragon he wanted to slay that drove.

But for most of us, we lose that fire way earlier than that.

We need to find our next dragon to slay, you need something that inspires you, something that maybe even scares you.

So what's your next dragon?

What's something you've always been afraid to do? What's something you've always wanted to learn? What dream do you have that you haven't moved forward on? What's the next level in your business or your career? What's the next level in your life? Who do you want to meet? Who do you want to build a stronger relationship with? Who do you want to become? What's your next dragon? How are you going to keep that fire burning in your belly?

What's your next dragon?