You never know what you’re capable of

You never know what you're capable of, until the pressure's on.

So it was freshman year of high school. And I was in a speech and debate class, it was my first chance to ever get in front of people and do any kind of formal speaking, and it scared me to death.

One of our assignments was to keep up with current events. And you would be told before first period, some random day, here's a current event, we want you to do a seven-minute speech on. And you have the first three periods of the day to take notes on index cards on what you wanted to say. And then you had to come present it.

So I was told before first period that I had to talk about the war in El Salvador, this was back in 1980. So I cut my first three classes, and read all the Newsweeks and took notes on a couple of index cards and everything I wanted to say, wrote out full sentences, which is a no, no, but I didn't know that back then.

And then got in front of the class and proceeded to do my speech. As I started reading, you know, the war in El Salvador started, Mr. Socko, the teacher with his booming voice, says, Mr. Goldman, please stop reading from your index card.

Okay, so I look up, you know, the war in El Salvador started, and then I have to look down at my notes.

And because they were full sentences, I couldn't look back up and remember where I was, he yelled at me two different times, and then walked up to me and took my index cards away.

I sat there or stood there silent for about 10 seconds, which to me felt like 10 minutes, saying, in my head, there's no way I can do seven minutes on this.

I wrote it all down, but I don't even know what I'm talking about.

And after about 10 seconds of uncomfortable silence, the words just came to me.

And I did seven minutes.

By the time I was about a minute in, it felt great.

I knew what I was talking about. And I remember I got a 97 on that assignment.

And that was the moment I realized that I kind of liked this public speaking thing.

But I never knew what I was capable of until the pressure was on.

Another great example is a gentleman named David Goggins, who's an ex Navy SEAL and Ranger he wrote a book called "Can't hurt me", which is amazing.

And he's got something called the 40% rule. And the 40% rule says, When your mind is telling you, you're done, you're really only 40% done.

Your best, your potential, your fulfillment, is just beyond your comfort zone, just beyond what you think is possible.

Where do you have a limiting belief that you can't do something and how is it holding you back?

What's the risk of stretching beyond what you think is possible? But better yet, what's the risk? If you don't stretch beyond that?