Sponges and Slugs!

Slugs have a bad publicist. Slugs are actually fairly tough, unless you put salt on them which dehydrates them and kills them.  Unfortunately, slugs are slow and that is how we see them.  No one wants to be labeled as a slug (Besides UC-Santa Cruz, no one sees a slug as a viable mascot that will inflict fear in their opponents.)  Sponges don't have as much of a negative reputation as the slugs but they are equally misunderstood.  Sponges are also fairly tough.  Sponges also require water to survive.  In fact, you can squeeze a sponge and it will always retain 20% of it's capacity.  This is how sponges protect themselves and keep them alive. The same is true of a household sponge.  Squeeze and squeeze and squeeze and 20% of the water that the sponge absorbed will remain in the sponge (until you leave it out for a long time and the water evaporates.)  We are unfortunately similar to both the slug and the sponge.  Like the slug, we are tough but we are also often slow.  Slow to change.  Slow to take advice that is helpful.  Slow to ask for help.  Slow to take action.  Like the sponge, when we "work hard" and think we have done "everything we can", we actually only do about 80%, at most.  It is our body's way of keeping us alive.  Rarely do we tap into that last 20% that helps us to reach our full potential.  110% doesn't exist (it is a motivational tool used by many to encourage you to do more.  For most of us, 90% doesn't even exist.  In order to reach into that last 20%, we must be willing to take risks and make sacrifices and embrace being uncomfortable.  Only then will we come closer to reaching our full potential.  "If you only ever give 90% in training then you will only ever give 90% when it matters."  Arthur C. Clarke