What do you think of when I say the word fast? A slick sports car? Maybe a supersonic jet? A cheetah? If you are really into nature maybe you think of a peregrine falcon, which is actually the faster animal on land. None of these can match the fastest object that has been on earth. While we think of all these sleek and sexy images when we ponder the word fast, the truth is quite less sexy. The fastest object ever recorded on earth was a… manhole cover.
Like the description for the word, when we wish to go fast in life we think of all of the outside circumstances. A really fast engine or muscle and aerodynamics. While these certainly do help the situation, they are not the most important. What is really important is what is driving or propelling you. Let us take the story of the manhole cover. In 1957 the United States was conducting underground nuclear testing. Just to be sure they covered the site with a half-ton iron manhole cover. I am not sure if that weight was chosen with some sort of science behind it, or because it just sounded really heavy.
After said experiment, our friendly nuclear scientists went out to retrieve the manhole cover. To their surprise, they could not locate it. Where had it gone? The repeated the experiment, because large nuclear explosions underground must be terrible fun. This time they set up a high speed camera to see if the could see what happened to the cover. By studying the film, they discovered the manhole cover to be traveling at 125,000 miles per hour or 5 times the escape velocity of earth. That means at this time both covers are somewhere around pluto.
A manhole cover isn’t tricked out with anything fancy and doesn’t go fast, if anywhere, on it’s own. Put a nuclear explosion behind it and it will become the fastest object ever on earth. The same can be said for you. You may not view yourself as the fastest, the smartest, the luckiest or whatever other adjective you are pondering. If you put enough energy behind you, there is no limit to what you can accomplish. I am not recommending you stand above a nuclear explosion. No, in humans our propulsion is our why. It is this motivating factor that determines our speed, our persistence, and our drive. If you are not moving fast enough, strengthen your why. Increase the internal explosion and it will blast you towards any objective.
SECRET 2 AN AMAZING LIFE 
An elegant way to say that a big why can lit fire in one’s ass…
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