I had hit the ground, sweating and covered in dirt. The whistle blew screeching at me and inflaming my senses to rise again. So, I rose. “Down,” the heavyset man screamed in the sweltering Georgia heat.

My body was breaking down, my air and heart were failing me. With each down call and every whistle up, I died. I was falling, the sun was heating me beyond the point of return. Beyond the limits of the body that was safe for any human to go through.

It was August in Georgia, and football practice was all but over, save for the grueling conditioning of sprints and burpee’s that were always saved for the end, when all of my energy was gone.

This training has stuck with me through my life. The enduring misery, that molded me into a man that knows when death seems to be on your back breathing its hot putrid breath down your neck, and you can’t breathe for the smell of it, I can rise.

I am surrounded by winners in my life. My best friends growing up have all gone on to do amazing things. They have become business owners, doctors, professional bodybuilders, actors, rappers, artists, and have incredible family’s.

I am surrounded by winners, and this thought used to bother me. Why are all my friends, all my family so successful, yet here I sit miserable and unfulfilled?

It is a question that I asked over and over as I sat judging the accomplishments of others with thoughts like. “Well, if I had their family or money, or brains or opportunity or talent or ability or a million freaking things, I could be successful too, I could be happy too.”

How pathetic!

I was so caught up in the victory of others, so wrapped up and focused on others gifts that I completely ignored my own.

I see this a lot, it happens every day. I still allow myself to fall victim to it, although much less often than before. Envy of others becomes a harsh criticism of my own abilities.

Check this out. I am funny, I am smart, I have a gift for communicating, for writing. I am empathetic and knowledgable in multiple area’s. I can make people smile, oh I love to laugh. I am full of love, surrounded by love, have incredible friends that believe in me and what I do.

I am gifted so immensely that the idea of focusing on my own abilities scares me so much that I spend my days focusing on the strengths of others to drown out the light inside myself.

Because, I don’t believe I am worthy of a good life, that I could manage the success I see my friends enjoying. So, I would rather sit in darkness than allow my light to brighten my soul and brighten others.

It is the lesson I learned in football when death is on my back breathing down my back, and I feel that getting back up may be impossible. I Rise.

Because the reality is the ground is not going anywhere. It will still be available for me to fall on and in fact, be buried in one day. But, I must not believe that it is where I live. I do not live in the dirt simply because I fall down.

I do not live in the dirt simply because I am tired and can’t see that victory and success are right over the hill.

I rise, from the ground for which I lived on because I know that, my gifts are different from others not less than.

I rise because I have one life to become strong enough to live in my gifts and allow others to do the same.

I rise from dirt, with tears and sweat in my eyes after the thousandth time being knocked down because my God did not put me on this patch of dirt to live in filth.

My God put me here to rise from the dirt and to show others that if it is possible for me, then it is possible for another person.

I rise from the dirt, not the man ashamed that he can’t jump as high or run as fast as his fellow. I rise from the earth the man aware of his inherent greatness. Aware of his gifts.

I rise for myself because the smell and taste of dirt have grown stale in my mouth and the fresh air that awaits me as I stand is too good to pass up.

I rise in hopes that when you see the failure, the man on the ground covered in every form of filth and despair, that you know the winner that lies within.

For without failure there is no success.

Never Try never Fail.

Never Fail never Learn.

Never Learn never Grow.

Never Grow never Know.

You were meant for more.

Try… Try… Try… Try… Try… Try… say’s the Failure,

It is worth it. You are worth it. Say’s the Winner.