In last month’s column I mentioned book I am co-authoring. Why Be Different? Success Secrets for Selling Unsellable is a book about how one can set themselves apart from competition in such a way that they literally become leaders in their industry. Much of book will be based on interviews conducted with people from a variety of industries such as real estate, healthcare, accounting, hospitality and more. Being a leader doesn’t necessarily mean you are biggest. It means that you are one others look to when determining standards of success within an industry.

As I have been gathering information, what I find interesting is some of similarities with people we are featuring in book. Each person has been through some incredible ups and downs on their road to success. Each has gone through experiences that would make someone else quickly throw in towel. They didn’t let roadblocks stop them; they just kept moving forward in order to reach their goals.

What I find most intriguing is their powerful belief in having a vision of what is possible. All are also very flexible in their approach to life. They knew what they wanted to achieve and if one thing didn’t work they tried something else. If that didn’t work, they tried yet something else. They kept at it until they achieved their goals. The words “no” and “can’t” are almost nonexistent in their vocabulary.

Also evident is their generosity to their community and their clients. Rather than putting a price tag on everything, they often make contributions without expecting anything in return. They do it because it makes others feel good and it is simply right thing to do.

With each person, a love of what they are doing is essential. Although they work very hard, they have such an incredible passion for what they are doing that when tough times hit, they are virtually unstoppable. People who are not incredibly passionate about what they are doing give up when they are presented with roadblocks to their success.

Don’t just be another person saying, “I’d do anything…” Keep your vision, your passion and jump over your roadblocks.

Kabbalah explains that G-d first looked into Torah (the Bible) and only then created world. That means before G-d even created world, He foresaw entire scenario in Garden of Eden, including eating of forbidden fruit and exile that would follow. As paradoxical as it seems at first glance, this scenario is actually fundamental to creation itself.

Let me explain.

Part of intent in Creation is that we should not remain passive recipients of G-d’s largesse. Rather, G-d gave us greatest gift of all – potential to become true partners in creation. This is a gift that was not given to even most holy angels, but was reserved for us, specifically because we are souls in very physical bodies, and trapped within our fixed and limited sense of who we are and what’s possible for us. Only because we are finite and disconnected from truth do we have ability to exercise free choice. And only those who are gifted with free choice have power to create something new; to transform darkness into light.

Childhood is intentionally designed to reactivate and give a personal flavor to limiting emotional states that were imprinted in human psyche during exile from Garden. Your particular experience and predispositions combine to create your ego-based identity, your persona. This part of you tells stories, gives opinions, makes judgments, has reactions, and is programmed to reinforce and defend itself in exactly these ways. It is on one hand part of what defines you uniquely as you, but on other a highly restrictive, limiting structure, like a piece of very dark, even opaque glass superimposed over a clear window. It is most external, surface layer of who you are, which conceals all of more internal layers. Because it’s most visible, it appears to be most real.

But there is a truer you. And purpose of each and every obstacle in your life and all of your reactions to those obstacles is to allow that truer you to shine through.

And at this time, when, as prophesied, Divine wisdom of Kabbalah has become accessible to average person, time has come for just that to happen.

Every Olympic athlete has spent thousands upon thousands of hours testing and expanding his limits; jumping hurdles - or equivalent - in order to access a latent power that would otherwise never be expressed and to break through barriers of what is assumed to be possible, over and over again.

Whether or not you are an Olympic athlete, you have same power to break through barriers in your own life. In game of life, we face hurdles almost constantly. Often these hurdles seem just too high. Each time you run across a hurdle that seems just too high, you have a choice to make. You can stick with your familiar old story about who you are, back away from hurdle and resign yourself to a smaller life. Or you can reach beneath and beyond concealing glass into unbounded potential of your truer self. There, you already have untapped power to jump higher and farther than ever before, and in doing so expand very boundaries of person you’ve assumed yourself to be.

Any time you do this, you’ve taken a piece of darkness – whether your own limiting stories, obstacle in your way, your fear, resignation or self-doubt – and used it as impetus to draw more light, power and aliveness from essence of who you are. That’s one of reasons that you’re here.

Next time you hear yourself saying or thinking something like: “I’m just not type”, “I can’t”, or “I’m afraid”, think of tiger and elephant. Knowing that you’re creating your own cage is first step in breaking free. Then, just as an experiment, ask yourself what you would do if you were type, if you could do it, or if you weren’t afraid. If you ask yourself this question, you may be surprised at how clear and available answers are.

Then, as a bonus, even though it ‘just isn’t you’, even though you’re scared, try taking action based on these answers and see what happens.

It’s time to turn some darkness into light.