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Sunday, January 15, 2017

Adversity unlocks great potential!!!

I've read many success stories about great leaders but, this one... just incredible!


Karoly Takacs. You've probably never heard of him. However, in Hungary he is a national hero. Everybody there knows his name and his incredible story.

In 1938, Karoly Takacs of the Hungarian Army, was the top pistol shooter in the world. He was expected to win the gold in the 1940 Olympic Games scheduled for Tokyo.
Those expectations vanished one terrible day just two months before the Olympics. While training with his army squad, a hand grenade exploded in Takacs' right hand and, his shooting hand was blown off.

Takacs spent month in the hospital depressed at both, the loss of his hand and, the end to Olympic dream. Just imagine the mental trauma he must be going through. At that point most people would have quit and, would have spent most of their life feeling sorry or accepting it as virtue of their own karma. But Winners are different, winners never give-up, and Takacs was a winner! Winners know that they can't let situations keep them down. They understand that life is hard and that they can't let life beat them down. Winners know in their heart that quitting is not an option.

Takacs did the unthinkable; he picked himself up, dusted himself off, and decided to learn how to shoot with his left hand! His reasoning was simple. He simply asked himself, "why not?"
Instead of focusing on what he didn't have - a world class right shooting hand, he decided to focus on what he did have - incredible mental toughness, and a healthy left hand that with time, could be developed to shoot like a champion.

For months Takacs practised by himself. No one knew what he was doing. May be he didn't want to subject himself to people who most certainly would have discouraged him from his rekindled dream.

In the spring of 1939, he showed up at the Hungarian National Pistol Shooting Championship. Other shooters approached Takacs to give him their condolence and to congratulate him on having the strength to come and watch them shoot. They were surprised when he said, "I didn't come to watch, I came to compete." They were even more surprised when Takacs won!
At the age of 38, Takacs won the Gold medal and set a new world record in pistol shooting. Four years later, Takacs won the Gold medal again at the Helsinki Olympics. Was he super lucky? NO, he is a man with the mental toughness to bounce back from anything.

Winners in every field have a special trait that helps them become unstoppable. a special characteristic that allows them to survive major setbacks on the road to success. Winners recover QUICKLY. I've read success stories where people don't give up. But this is different. Bouncing back is very important but in this era, may not be only sufficient. Winners bounce back QUICKLY

Similarly, Leadership is full of challenges but a great leader is the one who knows how to grow through challenges and knows adversity is precisely what unlocks one's greatest potential.

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