DRIVEN!

What inspires some people to be so DRIVEN...so successful...so internally motivated?

I just finished reading "Mao's Last Dancer."

"At the age of eleven, Li Cunxin was one of the privileged few selected to serve in Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution by studying at the Beijing Dance Academy. Having known bitter poverty in his rural China home, ballet would be his family’s best chance for a better future. From one hardship to another, Cunxin demonstrated perseverance and an appetite for success that led him to be chosen as one of the first two people to leave Mao’s China and go to America to dance on a special cultural exchange."

This was a phenomenal book, and I was amazed at his work ethic, even as a young child living away from his family. He was DRIVEN!

Additionally, I am listening to "Hard Work: Life On and Off the Court."

"Roy Williams is arguably the most successful active NCAA major-college basketball coach. A few more NCAA championships with North Carolina— he has two—and he inserts himself into the greatest-all-time discussion. His life story is a genuine rags-to-riches saga. Born poor in rural North Carolina and raised by a single mom, he was extraordinarily driven and self-sufficient as a child and young man. He received a basketball scholarship to North Carolina but was in over his head as a player."

This is an inspiring story about a boy with an alcoholic father - who eventually leaves the family; a saintly, hard-working mother; he certainly had no encouragement to go to college, but he is driven to want to coach and succeed.

Both of these books tell about young boys whose parents are poor, poor, poor. But the boys are honest, and just incredibly hardworking. It is just built into their psyches.

WOW, I love books like these; inspiring, motivating, true, life affirming; about rising to the top, not because of connections or money, but hard, hard work, drive, dedication, commitment, motivation.

So, looking for a good book to read?

...check these out at your local library!