Maickel Melamed Suggests Paradigm Shift to Develop our Potential and Achieve Success

Maickel Melamed Suggests Paradigm Shift to Develop our Potential and Achieve Success
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, 03/24/2014

The marathon runner was introduced by the Vice President of the Republic, Dr. Margarita Cedeño de Fernández, who, after meeting him while he was preparing to participate in the New York Marathon, decided to invite him to visit the country because of his qualities as an example for Dominican youth.

Prominent Venezuelan marathon runner and motivational speaker, Maickel Melamed, called on citizens to make a change in their beliefs, paradigms, and perceptions to discover their qualities, develop their inner potential, and achieve success.

Speaking before hundreds of people who heard his lecture “U-Turn” (Vuelta en U), introduced by the Vice President of the Republic, Dr. Margarita Cedeño de Fernández, Melamed listed several qualities that have earned him three of the most famous marathons in the world, after being diagnosed at age 13 with “motor retardation”, which doctors said “would never allow him to have a normal life”.

The winner of the marathons of New York, Chicago, and Berlin, thrilled the participants with the touching stories he told, which reminded everyone of the immense potential we carry inside, and reminded them that it is the “small everyday twists that make it possible for us to achieve big goals”.

For Maickel Melamed, to fall and rise is not enough anymore. “Today we fall and get up to win, because, believe me, if we fall and do not get up to win, we better stay on the floor”. He cited the determination to have “only one thing in mind” as a fundamental condition to achieving goals.

Three new paradigms

Melamed proposes the addition of three new paradigms that will give great meaning to the lives of people. The first is “Everything bad that happens in your life is great”; he turned his life around after years of believing that “I would not be a normal person” as he was told at age 13, because he realized that “since he would never be normal, therefore, he would never be a regular person, and therefore, he could never become an extraordinary human being”.

The second paradigm is “to fail is to get it right”, to which he adds that there is no way to produce something original if we do not fail first, to ensure that “we are like a work of art that we have to chisel every day, to fail is normal”.

Finally, he listed as the third paradigm: “to be weak is to be strong”; he says that this is an important point because it helps to recognize weaknesses and that he was able to verify this during the Chicago marathon, where he was forced to walk up the sidewalk during the run of 42 kilometers, “and as he felt the weakest and finished, the most beautiful thing happened, the most beautiful thing appeared: the team. That is where I saw that each of my steps was not mine, it was the step of an entire team that encouraged me every inch of the way; and I swear to you that that day I was not going to make it on my own”.

At 39, Melamed is an Economist from the Andrés Bello Catholic University and a Gestalt Psychotherapist. For over 10 years he has been a speaker, facilitator, and workshop leader for institutions in Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Costa Rica, and the United States. His life purpose is to help others to be better than they think they can be, through the discovery of their true potential to put it into practice.

Introduction by Cedeño de Fernández

The marathon runner was introduced by the Vice President, Dr. Margarita Cedeño de Fernández, who met Melamed while he was preparing to participate in the New York Marathon.

“At the time, I remember thinking: how hard must have been the life of this great young man; what difficulties did he have to overcome to be there, in that program, telling the world “hey, I have overcome my obstacles and I am here to show that my faith and determination are larger than the difficulties that life presents to me”, said the Vice President after characterizing him as a young man that is simply unbelievable, extraordinary.

Dr. Cedeño de Fernández valued the ability to motivate by example, the nobility, tenderness, and great love of life and humans that Melamed exhibits, which awakened in her a deep feeling towards him, and that is the reason she had dreamed of bringing him to the country so that Dominican youth could meet him in person and be inspired by his example, his tenacity, and integrity.

“Maickel Melamed is an example of dignity, discipline, and perseverance. Maickel came to earth to teach all of us that, by the mere fact of being human beings, we have the ability to create our dreams and make them a reality, and that we must work without rest to achieve them. That we must defend our ideals with passion and solidarity”, she emphasized.

She noted that today, our country is at an important time in its history, where it requires the participation of all of us to build the country we want, the country we yearn for, the country in which we want to live. “A marathon that requires all our talents, all our dispositions, and all of our hearts, for it to be the best it can be”, she said.

The Vice President highlighted the bravery of young Melamed, who she said he has not only participated in marathons in New York, Chicago, Berlin, and Tokyo, but also climbed Pico Bolívar in Venezuela which is more than 5,000 meters high and who he has practiced extreme sports such as paragliding, parachuting, diving, mountaineering, and athletics.

“Sometimes we feel that life confronts us with difficult moments, that we cannot overcome the obstacles and that the challenges are too big for us. That is the time to make a U-turn, as Maickel teaches us through his lecture”, she said.