You are an uncut gemstone of priceless value. Cut and polish your potential with knowledge, skills and service and you will be in great demand throughout your life.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the inherent value within each person and the importance of developing one's abilities through learning and service.
Denis Waitley uses the metaphor of an uncut gemstone to illustrate that every individual possesses unique and invaluable potential. By actively seeking knowledge, honing skills, and serving others, one can enhance their inherent qualities and become highly sought after in life, thus fulfilling their true potential and contributing positively to society.
In practice
This quote can be used in a motivational speech at a graduation ceremony.
Procrastination is the fear of success. People procrastinate because they are afraid of the success that they know will result if they move ahead now. Because success is heavy, carries a responsibility with it, it is much easier to procrastinate and live on the "someday I'll" philosophy.
Winners have the ability to step back from the canvas of their lives like an artist gaining perspective. They make their lives a work of art - an individual masterpiece.
Losers live in the past. Winners learn from the past and enjoy working in the present toward the future.
The easiest thing to do in the world is to neglect the important and give in to the urgent.
Expect the best; convert problems into opportunities; be dissatisfied with the status quo; focus on where you want to go, instead of where you're coming from; and most importantly, decide to be happy, knowing it's an attitude, a habit gained from daily practice, and not a result or payoff.
Positive self-expectancy is the first, most outwardly identifiable quality of a top-achieving, winning human being. Positive self-expectancy is pure and simple optimism: real enthusiasm for everything you do... [while] expecting the most favorable result from your own actions. There never was a winner who didn't expect to win in advance. Winners understand that life is a self-fulfilling prophecy. And they know that you usually get what you expect in the long run.
In honoring the Wright Brothers, it is customary and proper to recognize their contribution to scientific progress. But I believe it is equally important to emphasize the qualities in their pioneering life and the character in man that such a life produced. The Wright Brothers balanced sucess with modesty, science with simplicity. At Kitty Hawk their intellects and senses worked in mutual support. They represented man in balance, and from that balance came wings to lift a world.
I am very, very hopeful about the American South - I believe that we will lead America to what Dr. King called 'the beloved community.'
I am inspired beyond my ability to articulate... and now I know what and who I want to be... a soldier for peace.
I cannot save the world, that's not what I'm trying to do. I guess I'm just trying to walk the walk and be an example to those that want it. Not everybody does, but if Mary J Blige can come out of that same hole you were in, then you can do it too - that's my goal: to do that without saying it, but actually live it.
Girls have to fight against a lot of the same stuff we did growing up... peer pressure, exploitation, etc. But what worries me the most is this trend that caring about something isn't cool. That it's better to comment on something than to commit to it. That it's so much cooler to be unmotivated and indifferent.
My daughter is one of my greatest inspirations. She's an environmentalist, she plays piano, she's raising money for the earthquake victims in Nepal. Every day she surprises me and teaches me something.
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