| Recently Success publisher Darren Hardy shared a | | | | removed. Several months later a friend mentioned |
| question that changed his entire outlook on life. | | | | that he heard swimming was great therapy for |
| The words came from a mentor who simply | | | | recovering from such a trauma. The young |
| asked his students, “In a relationship, what is | | | | Frenchman followed his advice and found that |
| the percentage of shared responsibility in making | | | | being in the pool was the most natural thing in the |
| that relationship work?” Some thought it was | | | | world. Before long he was spending hours every |
| a fifty-fifty exchange, others suggested that you | | | | day swimming. |
| give a little more than you get and offered | | | | Unable to return to aviation, he turned instead to |
| fifty-one to forty-nine percent. A particularly | | | | the ocean to continue pursuing his new passion. |
| generous person suggested a ratio of eighty to | | | | Over time he recovered full use of his arm, |
| twenty percent, but none of these were what | | | | continuing to immerse himself in swimming and |
| the instructor was looking for. Instead, he | | | | scuba diving. Later he would invent new gear for |
| approached the board and wrote “100 to | | | | divers, better underwater cameras and undersea |
| zero.” | | | | labs. Over the course of his life this officer would |
| The instructor explained that each person has to | | | | become the world’s most famous ocean |
| be willing to give one hundred percent while having | | | | explorer, Jacques Cousteau. |
| zero expectation of receiving anything in return. In | | | | Like Cousteau, moment by moment we each are |
| essence, each person must take complete | | | | faced with the decision to take complete |
| responsibility to make the relationship work. He | | | | responsibility for the only thing we control in the |
| continued, “You as an individual have total | | | | world; our response to what happens to us and |
| control of how you will respond irregardless of | | | | the choices we make. |
| what your partner does or doesn’t do.” | | | | A few years ago Bill Irwin hiked the Appalachian |
| This is true in every area of life. | | | | Trail. He walked the entire 2100 miles with only his |
| True, sometimes circumstances that we did not | | | | dog by his side. His accomplishment doesn’t |
| dictate invade our lives that are beyond our | | | | seem very significant, after all many other people |
| control. However, at all times we have complete | | | | have completed the trek. However, Irwin’s |
| control over our response and must take one | | | | story is special because he is blind. As he would |
| hundred percent responsibility for it. | | | | share, “We never really walk on our legs, but |
| In the early part of the Twentieth Century a | | | | on our will.” |
| French Naval Officer was in a car accident and | | | | Sociologist Tony Campolo took a unique study, |
| left hospitalized for a year. Doctors recommended | | | | asking 50 people over the age of 95 what they |
| that his arm be amputated but the officer | | | | would do really do differently if they could do it all |
| refused to have the surgery, preferring to have | | | | over again. |
| an arm he couldn’t use over having it | | | | |