This speech by Martin Luther King Jr. moves me. It’s about Personal Leadership and standing up for something meaningful.
We never know which day will be our last, or when our time will run out. If we take life for granted, then we are nearly dead just waiting for our physical death. For me, the day I accepted that I was going to die, was the day I started to live as if I had nothing to lose. Twenty-five years later I am still here and giving life everything possible.
Stand up. Live. Take a risk. Do something that matters!“You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be. And one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls you to stand up for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause.
And you refuse to do it because you are afraid. You refuse to do it because you want to live longer. You’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you’re afraid that somebody will stab you, or shoot at you or bomb your house; so you refuse to take the stand.
Well, you may go on and live until you are 90, but you’re just as dead at 38 as you would be at 90. And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.”
– Martin Luther King Jr.
Leadership Advocate and Co-Founder of the Goldzone Group. I help leaders to master the new rules of leadership for the new economy. Over the past 30 years, I have visited more than 500 cities in 54 countries to explore, learn from, and help many of the world’s leading companies, leaders, and luminaries in science, technology, health, finance, and entrepreneurship.