Posted below is a copy of “Thursday’s Thought”which is distributed by my friend Grant Helgeson, at Westland Properties Group (www.westland-properties.com). It’s so good, I had to share it here. 

If you really want to live your life to the fullest and realize your greatest potential, you must be willing to run the risk of making some people mad.  Whenever you move beyond someone’s opinion of you, they get upset because you thought more of yourself than they thought of you.  If you want to know just how much you can do, how far you can reach, how much you can stretch, you must be willing to leave some people behind.  You must be willing to do more, be more and have more than those in your present company have.  This does not mean you should compare yourself to them.  It means that you must be willing to step out on your own, try life for yourself and claim your divine inheritance without guilt.  If you really want to know who you are and what you are capable of achieving, you must be willing to live without the opinions of other people.  That means you don’t ask for opinions!  And when they are offered, you need not accept them.  In order to find your identity, your authenticity and a true sense of wholeness, you must develop your individuality from the wealth of information that comes from within you.  Of course others around you can give you effective feedback.  But you need not make it your gospel.  People may not like what you do, people may not like how you do it, but these people are not living your life.  You are!  Until you are willing to live beyond the opinions of other people, and without the company of other people, you will have no idea of what your life is all about.

You may have been holding on to other people’s opinions about you and doing your best to keep people with you and on your side.  Tell someone you do not agree with their opinion of you.  Then jump into the center of your own life and get comfortable being there!