Full Submission is a Beautiful Thing

We all have a sense of independence to us. This independence includes other similar traits like confidence, pride, being a little cavalier and the desire to be the best. However, regardless of the profession or way of life, to be successful at anything, we all have to submit ourselves to a higher being, higher purpose, higher calling to the team or to the organization. It took me 32 years to learn the lesson of submission. To fully submit to my wife, my businesses, my coworkers, and to the process of fulfilling my extreme desire to be the very best I could be in life. Until we “submit” and forget about being “independent” or forget about being immature in marriage given our selfish desires, we will never achieve extraordinary levels of success. The world is much bigger than us, life is much bigger than us, the organization is much bigger than us. Everything is much bigger than us. We cannot do anything worthwhile, without the help, mentorship, generosity, and faith of others. And we must “submit” to that. If we remain independent and keep thinking, “I’m my own person” or “I’ll do it alone”, then we won’t achieve our greatest level of success possible.

I call this the “crossing the bridge” moment. We can be committed to a relationship, organization, or team, meaning we will do our part of the job, and work to make it succeed. One can be fully committed but may not be fully submitted. Because as a committed individual we still want what is best for ourselves, and hope the others in the group enjoy success, but our first priority is ourselves. The extreme highest level of success occurs when there is true submission to the relationship, organization, or team. True submission means giving up your own personal desires for the greater good of the other, and this may mean you even suffer, have some pain, lose some money, and specifically, don’t get what you want initially. We tend to want to “protect what is ours” or not share our proprietary works. We may even not want to truly open up our imaginary thought processes in full transparency to the group or organization for fear someone will “steal them”. There are many aspects of a scared mentality of what may happen or could go wrong if we fully submit ourselves, as that requires us to give up ourselves to the other. And it is very scary, it is very very hard.

As mentioned earlier, in my marriage, I wasn’t fully submitted until I did a whole bunch of stupid stuff and my children hit the ground for my brain to fully develop and submit to a selfless marriage that sacrificed for each other rather than our own personal gain. Once there is full submission to each other, beautiful trusting things happen that would never happen. In our vet practice, you can watch team members go through the fully committed processes, some may even de-commit and leave while watching others flirt with full submission to the core value system and our contagious culture for the greater good and calling of our practice to change people’s lives. Once we see someone fully submitted to AMC vs their own personal desires on a daily basis, the beauty of the relationship sources through the roof and true life enjoyment and fulfillment occurs for all involved.

The “crossing the bridge” takes wisdom, a reflection of your journey, a longer vision of time, discipline, and delayed gratification thought process. One can’t fully submit to the other without a desire to endure some pain with discipline knowing that a greater sense of fulfillment and success will occur down the road. We can be motivated and enjoy success, but without commitment, it doesn’t matter. We can be committed and enjoy success, but without full submission to your spouse, excellent team, or quality organization your long term outcomes won’t be as good as they could be. In the end, it is very simple, together we are better, in all that we do!