What do you do when your best isn’t good enough? When achieving excellence seems like an unachievable pipe dream? You must seek to develop a force from within that transcends any challenge in your path. That immovable force is WILLPOWER. Whether it’s the game of business or life, you must be willing to do things you’ve never done, in order to go places you’ve never been. You must know that Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way!
After being involved with athletics for more than 30 years, I believed I’d been challenged with every obstacle a person could face. Born and raised in the ghetto, I reached the pinnacle of college athletics by earning football scholarships to more than 30 colleges, choosing the University of Minnesota, and leading the U of M to its first bowl game in 16 years. After football, I was privileged to have an outstanding career in corporate America for more than 20 years as an executive in sales/marketing with four Fortune 500 companies and a Hall of Fame career in professional speaking and training. I thought I had the formula for success and I was on a roll!
Then the unthinkable happened…
I had a devastating accident that changed my life forever. It happens to every great athlete, performer, business person, or artist. I lost my focus! I tumbled off of a ladder, broke the C6 and C7 vertebrae in my neck, and found myself paralyzed, unable to move.
When your mind works and your body doesn’t, it’s like being buried alive! I needed fourteen hours of surgery to give me a 50/50 chance of ever walking again. Before being wheeled into surgery, my neurosurgeon, Dr. Stephen Haines, asked me if I wanted to tell him anything. I said, “Doc, it’s the 4th quarter, 4th down, we’re on the one inch line, and there’s one second left in the game… now don’t screw it up!”
If I thought the surgery was going to be the worst of it, boy was I in for a big surprise. I woke up in the ICU with a metal and fiberglass apparatus bolted into my skull, extending down to my waist. I was never in so much pain in my life. Lying there each day, in searing pain, trying to negotiate my future with a body that wouldn’t move was a sobering experience. I never thought I could ever be depressed, but there I was in a state of deep, dark, despair. They tried every kind of anti depressant on the market to no avail. They only made me feel worse. I thought to myself, “Great, a motivational speaker who is depressed!”
One day, Dr. Haines came into my room while full of visitors and asked everyone to leave and challenged me. He told me many of his patients could walk, could use their arms and legs, but will never walk or raise their arms again because they don’t believe in their heart they will ever get better. They won’t go through the painful, slow, and mundane process of rehabilitation for fear that it won’t work. They succumb to the injury and lye in bed or sit in a wheel chair for the rest of their lives, never knowing how much better they could get.
“What are you going to do?!” he shouted. “Who is Desi Williamson? Now you’ve got to reach deep down inside and find yourself. You’ve got to do all of those things you’ve been telling other people to do.”I was scared to death! I knew for things to get better, I had to get better.
For things to change, I had to change. And so began my painful journey of self transformation.
After three months in the hospital, four months in a metal and fiberglass halo, and eighteen months of intense rehab, I not only believe – I know – that Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way! As I began to relearn old things, like how to walk, feed myself and use my motor skills, I also intimately learned about the concept of PROCESS. Webster defines PROCESS as “gradual changes that lead toward a particular result.” I am now a living walking example that it’s the ability to go through the PROCESS that determines your outcomes in life. When failure strikes, it’s usually because people want the end result, without going through the PROCESS of transformation.
Whether it’s building a successful business or life, there are irrevocable principles that determine our success or failure. WILLPOWER is the fuel that drives the engine. I’ve created my own personal definition of WILLPOWER. It’s the mental powers by which one chooses and decides upon a definite course of action, fueled by deliberate intention, in spite of opposition. Dedication, desire, discipline, purpose, power, and persistence are the forces that drive deliberate intention.
I’m now dedicating my life to showing people how to dig deep inside of themselves and find that WILLPOWER necessary to increase the quality of their lives in all areas. Whether it’s the life of business or the business of life, I’m committed to helping people get, keep it, and use it. Then they will know, too. Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way!
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Read the first chapter of Desi Williamson’s new book, Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way!
