Created For Mastery Part 2

When you row another person across the river, you get there yourself – Fortune Cookie

‘Mr CEO, you are looking at a frustrated employee’. These were the words which I told my Chief Executive some years ago. I had been going through some challenging moments in my career. It was a Sunday afternoon, and I had just popped in to send an email to the CEO when he happened to be also in the office. I placed a call on his extension and he agreed to meet me that very same day. I narrated to him my frustrations and he responded by quoting the wisdom of King Solomon saying – ‘A man’s gift makes room for him, and brings him before great men’.

It was a simple response yet profound. It stirred the gift (talent) in me, and from that day I did some interesting things in my career, and experienced accelerated progress. Today my voice is heard in places I have not been to because someone dared me to discover my great within. That CEO’s name is Mr Douglas Mboweni and is still the CEO of Econet Wireless Zimbabwe. The fact that he has won numerous personal business awards and that Econet is by any measure one of, if not the best and biggest companies in Zimbabwe, speaks volumes about Douglas Mboweni’s leadership skills, in particular his people skills. It is the soft stuff which drives hard results.

Let me unpack the people mastery lessons from this moment, building on the Personal Mastery insights from last week.

People Mastery

People mastery is the ability to bring out the best in others. It is your skill in adjusting your actions in order to optimise the abilities of others around you. The reason why personal mastery is important is so that you have better self awareness, self control, self confidence and assertiveness. It is concerned with intrapersonal (what happens in you). People mastery is how you relate with others in a way which empowers others (interpersonal – what happens between you and others). You cannot lead others beyond how you lead yourself. The dimensions of people mastery include empathy,leadership collaboration and developing others.

People mastery is the intelligent use of your emotions to ushers others into their destiny. It is using your light, to gives others light. It is giving voice to the voiceless and using your gifts as wings on which other people’s dreams can fly. You are like the horse of an articulated truck. You have the power and the energy to pull others. If you don’t pull others you will get to your destination with nothing. What a waste of all that energy! More stars give more light.

Empathy – People Are God’s Masterpiece

This dimension is about being sensitive to others’ feelings and perspective, attentive to emotional cues, listening well and help out based on understanding other people’s needs and feelings. Mr Mboweni opened his door to listen to what was on my heart. Each person is a mystery and must be approached with a deep sense of awe. Treat people as special and unique whose depth and breadth you cannot fathom. There is seed of greatness in every one of us. As the masterpiece you are the zenith of creation.

Leadership – Merchants of Hope

One of Mr Mboweni favourite quotes is Napoleon’s, ‘Leaders are merchants of hope’. People mastery like leadership is about inspiring and guiding others, articulating and arousing enthusiasm for a shared destination of hope. On that day when I was despondent, he gave me hope. He ignited the embers which were dying in me. Do you crush the hope of those around you? Do you inspire others to become great? Are you a giant surrounded by dwarfs?

Ennobling and Enabling

You do not become great by what you accumulate but by what you give. A high and mighty leader strips others of confidence, pride and any sense of self worth. That Sunday afternoon, he could have easily rejected my request to see him, let alone at such an immediate notice. Remember I was then, ‘a mere junior staff member who was expected to tip toe when walking in the Executive Wing corridor’. People mastery is about ennobling and enabling others. It is about making others blossom with confidence in your presence than shrink with fear.

Sense what others need to develop, acknowledge and reward people’s strengths, accomplishments and development. Celebrate others, sing their songs, and touch their hearts before you ask for their hands.

GAINING MASTERY IN LIFE CONFERENCE – If you are in South Africa or in the region, El Shaddai World Ministries will be hosting this conference this weekend. Masters in various spheres of life will be sharing, including Bishop Tudor Bismark, author and motivational teacher Pastor Charles Magaiza, African Sun CEO, Pastor Shingi Munyeza, business leader Apostle Sam Fidelis. For registration details go to www.elshaddaiworld.org

Created For Mastery Part 1

Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power - Lao-tzu

Have you ever sought to understand why some people seem to be more successful than others? Why do other people appear to always be making progress where you battle? Are great or successful people born or made? Are some people wired for success while others are not? In my search for answers, I have come to the revelation that there are four levels of mastery in life namely Personal Mastery, People Mastery, Societal Mastery and Business/Organisational Mastery.

If you are going to be a success in life, you need mastery in all these four levels. Mastery is the possession or display of great skill or technique. It is the power to dominate or defeat or the state of excelling or surpassing or going beyond the usual limits.

Created to Dominate

“Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion…” – Gen 1:28

The very first commandment to man, by the Creator was for us to be fruitful (profitable), multiply (replicate and expand our sphere of influence) and to have dominion (mastery). This is the general purpose for which you were created. This settles any lingering doubts you might have had about whether you were created to be great. If you are not pursuing a path of greatness, you are abusing your general purpose in life. The genes of greatness are set in in you. If you do not activate this greatness, your life is like a Mini Cooper running on a Mercedes Benz engine. You are limiting the full potential of what’s inside you.

Personal Mastery

Your life is like a ship. The seas of life include the winds of economic cycles, the pirates of bad politics, the storms of failure, the icebergs of uncertainty and calm moments of smooth progress. You are the captain of that ship called your life. Is your life in safe hands? Can you trust yourself at the helm of this ship? It’s not what happens on the sea which determines whether a ship reaches its destination safely – it’s what happens in the ship’s control room. If you are not in control, you will soon hit an ice berg or you will be swept away by stormy seas of life.

In order to be a master at anything in life you need to master self. Personal mastery is the ability to make the most of your abilities, strengths, passions and talents. This helps you navigate through challenging times with confident balance. It is an ability to deeply listen and respond skillfully to the soft whispers that warn you when you are drifting off course. If you wish to control and direct the forces you possess, you must act from the throne of your being – the head office of your life.

Personal mastery is continuously making conscious choices…to get from who and where you are to who and where you want to be as opposed to wandering through life making unconscious choices. It is playing the game of life…enjoying the journey of life and not just waiting for the destination. You always have choices and you have the power to choose. You are never a victim of circumstance, but a product of choice. Personal mastery is managing the conflicts you face each day between expectations, consequences and choices.

Steps To Personal Mastery

1. Create A Personal Vision: Where there is no vision, a life will perish. A personal vision creates a central theme for your life. It gives your life meaning and a sense of purpose. It’s the roadmap to your destination of greatness. It’s the shining beacon which keeps you focused, motivated and fulfilled. It accelerates the progress while inspiring creativity and risk.
2. Self Awareness: You are a creature of thought and habit. You therefore need an awareness of how your beliefs, values, attitudes and behaviour impact yourself and your environment (family, friends, and colleagues). An awareness of your strengths and weakness determines how you position yourself in life, how you build your personal brand, and play your strengths (competitive advantage)
3. Self Acceptance: own your thoughts, belief and blind spots and stop believing that the world is doing things to you. Neither does the world, employer or your country owe you a living. A captain of a ship who is always blaming the sea elements for lack of progress will soon give up. You are in charge of your own success – not your employer, organisation or the people around you.
4. Self Responsibility: understand how your choices (action, attitude, thought) influence and create your life. It is also about integrity – a life based on values and principles. Without these your life is like an unfortified city which will soon be run over by enemies of your success.

Quote of the Week

He who rules his spirit has won a greater victory than the taking of a city – Yeshua Mashyach

Riding The Storm

Life throws challenges at you from time to time. You cannot control what happens to you, but you certainly can control your response to what happens to you. This is the essence of personal mastery– an ability to make conscious decisions about how to chart the course of your life and navigate through the challenges. The tree of life challenges and tragedy produces different fruits – you only need to choose which fruits to pick. Fruits of bitterness, discouragement, bitterness or fruits of learning, experience and encouragement? It’s your choice. Victory is not always clothed in the purple of royal pageantry, sometimes it comes in the blood caked clothes of gallantry. True peace is not living in perpetual calm, but having faith throughout the storms.

I would like to share with you the story of a young 27 year old British lady who passed away a few days ago. Jade Goody discovered about a year ago that she had cervical cancer. The doctors tried chemotherapy and surgery, but it was too late. They told her she had two months to live. Her response to this was remarkable. She decided there and then that she was going to make the most of the few remaining months of her life. As a single mother of two, she realised the need to leave a decent inheritance to allow her two young kids a decent education and raise cancer awareness. I want to share a few points from this true story.

Face The Facts

Jade accepted the reality that she had a terminal illness. There is a different between self denial and faith. Faith does not deny the facts. Faith believes in spite of the facts. There is a faith to resist the conditions, but there is also a faith to go through the conditions. Your condition might not be a terminal illness; it could be a cancerous financial problem, a haemoragghing business, a hypertensive relationship, a rickety marriage or an arthritic career.

The first step to addressing the problem is to identify the problem by its name. The longer you stay in self denial, the more the problem multiplies and the less you focus on addressing it. Jade accepted she was terminally ill, and took immediate steps to put her life in order.

Certainty in Uncertain Times

The storms of life are periods of uncertainty. Inaction is the riskiest response to the uncertainties which storms bring. But rash or scattershot action can be nearly as damaging. Rising anxiety and the growing pressure to do something often produces a variety of uncoordinated moves that target the wrong problem or overshoot the right one. A disorganised response can also generate a sense of panic. This can easily distract you from seeing the often hidden but significant opportunities nestled in the storm. You create certainty by taken action. This action is through taking a defensive or offensive positions.

The position you take in the storms determines whether you weather or get swept away by the storm. Jade chose to take a position in her situation of uncertainty by creating certainty. She even planned the details of her own funeral. Her final two months were days of specific and certain progressive actions.

Redeeming The Time

Jade was told she had two months to live and she decided to make the most of that little time. In those two months she had a wedding and went through the marriage ceremony heavily sedated by morphine to ease the pain. She fulfilled a lifelong dream to be a bride and marry her boyfriend. She also organised for herself and her two sons to be christened in church. In between the pain, she also had paid interviews with magazines and made hundred thousands of pounds for her kids. She could have easily chosen to pity party and wallow in crippling sympathy but she chose to make the best of her worst time in life. In the last two months of her life she made enough money to see her children through school. The lesson is that you must allow the storms of life to strengthen your resolve and not cripple you. Maximise the moment and savour the opportunity to make a difference.

Ride The Storm

What do you do when clouds gather and storms come? Run for cover? Lets learn from the eagles. Eagles love the storm. When clouds gather, the eagles get excited. The eagle uses the storm’s winds to lift it higher. Once it finds the wing of the storm, the eagle uses the raging storm to lift him above the clouds. This gives the eagle an opportunity to glide and rest its wings. In the meantime all the other birds hide in the leaves and branches of the trees. When life gives you clouds, make some rain and gives you a storm, ride on it! There is an opportunity in every opposition. There is a testimony in every test. The darkest clouds yield the greatest rain. Your breaking point is your breakthrough moment. When life gives you lemons, make some lemonade. When life throws hard stuff at you, use it to make a firm foundation for your future success.

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as if everything is – Albert Einstein

A Time To Reflect

The ability to reflect on your experiences is a key ingredient for success. I have been observing our 5 year old boy’s learning abilities. He is very artistic and is always drawing stuff and building models. He likes to come and share with me his “works of art” To challenge his thinking and help him grow I always ask him to reflect on his “work” and tell me the story. Each time I ask him to reflect, he will self correct his work, add interesting detail and come up with fascinating abstract artistic creations. The “reflecting” helps him think possibilities and get a better grip on his “work”
In learning and development psychology, reflecting is based on concept of meta cognition or metacognitive ability. Meta cognitive ability is the skill to adjust to suit changing demands and contexts. In organisations the process of strategic planning and review is a “reflecting process” This process can also apply to your life. I would like to share a few insights about the importance of reflecting.
Get Your Bearings Right
Is there strategic alignment between your purpose, goals and your current actions? Although at the beginning of the year, you set clear goals, at this time of year, you might now be lost in the clouds of details of execution. It’s time to take a step back, reflect and see if you are still on course. You might be busy going in the wrong direction. Sometimes the young boy, who sets out to draw a car, ends up drawing a meaningless piece of art, if he doesn’t reflect on his original intention.
Check Your Tool and Skills Set
Is your execution methodology aligned to your strategy? When organisations do not do well, they first check strategic alignment. If the strategy is right, they then reflect on their processes and methodologies. A great strategy will not produce the right results if the execution methodology is wrong. The young boy uses pencil, colours, ink and oil pastels for drawing. If he uses oil pastels where he is supposed to use pencil, the result is a bad “drawing” The same goes if he decides to use black ink to colour tree leaves.
The reason why you might not experience the results you want is because your execution methodology might not be the right one for what you want to achieve. If the tool is not the right one for the job, you will soon develop frustration, and you need to put extra effort. Change your tools and skill set to ensure goal alignment.
Deal With Distracting Stimuli
The pursuit of your goals is not always a smooth ride. You may encounter detours, obstacles and distractions along the way. This is perfectly normal. The important thing is how you respond. You cannot change what happens to you or the context of your goals, but you can determine how you respond. A time to reflect like this is a time to identify these distractions and position your responses. Reflecting gives you an opportunity to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Change Your Course
Is the strategy for pursuing your life purpose the right one in the first place? Let me share with you a story about French water company, Vivendi. In 2002, it made history by becoming the first European company to make a loss of 23.3 billion Euros. The reason was very simple – what on earth was a water company doing in telecoms? They had been lured into telecoms during the 90s telecom boom. This was a wrong strategy.
Changing course might mean leaving that job, profession, industry and pursuing something in line with your strengths.
At the beginning of the year I shared about the importance of Operating in Your Strengths Zone. If you are busy pursuing something that is not in line with your strengths and wiring, you may need to reflect and change course. The young boy who draws, still battles to draw 3 dimension drawings, and what’s best is for him to stick to single dimension drawings for now. You build your strategy around your strengths.
As you reflect, I encourage you to get a grip on your purpose, refuel your motivation tank, fire up your striving instincts and continue with your special assignment to this generation. Do not wait until the end of the year to reflect – that’s the work of under takers – the year will be dead! Reflecting now is being a good caretaker of your goals. You can prune, irrigate and fertilise your goals now.
Quote Of The Week
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.- Mark Twain

Merchants of Ideas

I had a meeting this week with my friend who has just negotiated with a leading cellular company to roll out an innovative telecommunication solution. I congratulated him, because he is a well experienced IT and telecoms expert who could easily start his own business. Only a few weeks ago he had been looking for a job, and I was challenging him to start a business. This is exactly what Africa needs – more entrepreneurs and fewer employees. We need thought leaders and merchants of ideas.

I have traversed the greater breadth and width of Africa and made some observations. The number of traders and hawkers while reflective of the hardworking African ethos is also indicative of the fact that Africa is still at the bottom of the economic food chain. The majority are still consumers and need to move up to become producers. The majority of Africans cannot continue to be hewers of wood and drawers of water even as the world has moved into the information age. We need to rise to a new level of consciousness where we create things.

There are treasures in the secret places of the earth, waiting for the entrepreneurs to discover them.
The greatest fortunes are made in times of recession. The global recession offers more opportunities than threats depending on how you see it. The barriers to entry for most industries are very low at the moment. This is the best time to set up an entreprise for yourself if you don’t already have one. The solution to the global economic crisis is not in printing more money as is already happening. It is in encouraging entrepreneurship.

If a country like Zimbabwe could invoke genius spawned inventions like the one which created the Great Zimbabwe City in the 1400s, there will never be a need to look to the East or to the West to repair that economy. Those ancient Zimbabwean people did not go to school of architecture or civil engineering. They consulted the great within! The best solutions come from the great within. Thank God for books, but books can create idea strait jackets killing invention. Make no mistake I read lots of books, but the best books are those inside of me. Invention is ‘out of the book kind of thinking’. To invent is to write your own book.

There are two levels of entrepreneurship – invention and innovation. Invention is about creating a new product or process. Innovation refers to the introduction of an invention into a use that has economic value. Bill Gates is an inventor. He invented Windows and he will have annuity income for the rest of his life from sales and other Microsoft patents (Intellectual Property) IP related income.

Richard Branson of the Virgin Group is an innovator who has packaged cellular technology to provide telecommunication service. MacDonald brothers invented the fast food concept, but Ray Kroc innovated and developed the MacDonald franchising concept. Invention is the highest form of entrepreneurship. Innovation translates inventive genius into the production of goods and services that improve people’s lives.
Inventions and innovation is not about making money. It is about changing the world. Can you just imagine some of the inventions which changed the world – light bulb, penicillin, mobile phones? You can add your own invention to this list. I want to challenge you to think solutions, think possibility. See what no one has ever seen. Imagine what no one has ever imagined.

The Power Of Faith

Faith is the inner spiritual eye which looks into the land of hope ahead. This is a power that taps into the great within and the Great above. This power once it possesses you, catapults you into the realm of opportunities and possibilities.

Faith makes the world go round. Faith is that something in man that transcends every form of limitation and opens the mind to the limitless powers of the great within. Great accomplishments are born out of faith. Great men and women are symbols of faith. The journey which Nelson Mandela walked is a journey of faith. Nobody could see where he was going, but he knew where he was going.

Faith Is Prophetic

Martin Luther King Jr dreamt of a world without social injustice and divisions. Back in the 1960s it was unimaginable to think of person of colour being treated as an equal. His dream was the prophetic voice of his time.

African telecommunications pioneer the late Miko Rwayitare, originally from tiny Rwanda had a dream to connect Africans who had never had a phone ring in the jungles of the Congo basin, and he created pan African telecom operator Telecel. When Henry Ford was busy working on the prototype Ford T Model, everybody thought he was crazy. What could go faster than a horse? He saw what nobody could see at the time.

Faith is about building your tomorrow today. It’s declaring possibility out of today’s impossibilities. It’s about calling things which are not as if they were. You are your own prophet. With faith you can declare (forth tell) the future, today and explain (foretell) tomorrow’s possibilities.

Faith is Creative

By faith, the Creator said “let there be light” and there was light. Faith is spiritual, because it believes in that which cannot be seen by the natural eyes. It is the midwife for great inventions. It took great faith for the Wright brothers to create an aeroplane. Faith is imaginative. It removes the veil of mystery and reveals to you, the unbounded possibilities of life. With faith you can create miracles and tap into the creative genius in the kingdom inside of you.

The world is waiting for a generation which will exploit resources without damaging the earth. Faith that took man to the moon is the same faith that man can use to preserve planet earth. The faith which created weapons of mass destruction can also create weapons of mass construction and prosperity.

I always keep my special journal where I write the ideas that come into my mind. Sometimes it’s just a picture which I draw, or one or two words which I just jot down. I then work on developing those ideas. It doesn’t always make sense when I start, but as I take steps of faith it all just seems to come together. That’s how I write most of the articles and develop the products and processes of Seedbed Consulting.

Faith is Motivational

There is no greater motivator, no better inspiration, no better hope than that built on faith. Faith can move the mountains of doubt, fear, discouragement or failure. It rises above every obstacle in the world and reaches the greatest heights and fathoms the greatest depth. Great men and women never attribute their success to their genius or master mind, but to their never say die spirit. Billionaire Sir Richard Branson built the whole Virgin empire with no cash but using the faith currency. Whether challenging the giant British Airways monopoly to launch Virgin Airways or challenging mighty Coke with Virgin Cola, faith was the key.

Faith is an attitude of mind that turns you into the inner, the hidden, the unseen, the great beyond, and takes your consciousness into those finer realms where everything is perfect. It taps into the kingdoms of the great within you. With faith the circumstances of your life are subject to change.

Building Your Personal Brand

Have you ever thought of yourself as a brand? What brand are you? A ‘no name’ or a premium brand? Every one of us is a brand. There are two groups of people in this world – the trivial many and the vital few. The trivial many are those who go through life completely unnoticed and without making an impact. The vital few are those who have a presence in life – they can be felt and are seen.

I live in a city where there are so many VW Golf cars; even if one is stunning in appearance its beauty is lost in the crowd. To have the persona of a unique brand one needs to have the presence of a top of the range Ferrari or a Lamborghini Murcielago to stand out from the crowd and not be swallowed in the masses.

In order for one to stand out, you need to step out of the box of familiarity, reassert and reconnect with that which makes you great!

It’s time to buck the trend and not go with the flow. If God wanted us all the same, He would have cloned us into robots. Dare to be different and brew your own brand. In a world full of winching, whining and moaning about the global crisis, the inclination to have a deficit mentality is very high. By appreciative inquiry you can look inside yourself and activate the deposit of significance and vitality in you.

Show the world what you are made of. This is a time to build your brand. The best stand out from the rest.

Position Your Brand

Your purpose gives your personal brand a unique position. Purpose is the foundation of your personal brand. In order to stand out, you need to position yourself in line with the one thing which you were born into this world to do. Take your position in that family, community, company, country. You look the part, so play your part.

President Obama was born to bring change and hope. You read his two books Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope; you get convinced he is positioned in line with his purpose. His whole presidential campaign was based on his brand of change and hope. Identify your purpose and build your brand around that purpose.

Your Core Competency

Businesses build their brands around their core competency. Core competency is the source of competitive advantage. Mercedes Benz is known for luxurious engineering genius. BMW is known for high performance cars. These two brands have been built around their respective competency.

What are you known for? You build your brand around what you are good at it. There are three things which make up your competency namely talent, knowledge and skills. To stand out, you need to play your core competencies. You cannot give what you do not have. Your unique gifting, inimitable knowledge and special skills give you a natural advantage. So, build your brand around it.

Build Brand Equity

Over a period of time your personal brand accrues value. This value is a result of the effort you put in developing your personal brand. You are an asset and you develop value not by what you accumulate but by what you give. In business you sweat your assets to create value. The Coca Cola brand is worth billions because you can literally label coloured water “Coca Cola” and people will still buy it.

What is your value add to the world around you? What difference are you making to those around you? This is what builds your brand equity. You need to consciously invest in your brand by improving yourself. Improve your knowledge, upgrade your image and protect your brand.

NB: Using Appreciative Coaching approaches, Seedbed Consulting offers Personal Branding to help you with developing your personal brand. Please visit our website for details www.seed-bed.com

A Triumphant Generation

Tough times require tough leaders. Joshua who succeeded Moses, the lawgiver is a good example. Joshua represents a generation of people who are ready to make a difference. Moses was a reluctant leader, but Joshua was a “can do leader” He finished the work Moses could not complete and led the children of Israel to victory in the Promised Land. The Joshua generation is the triumphant generation which will change this world.

If the whole world is in a crisis, no one is going to do anything for someone, so we have to learn to do it ourselves. The children of Israel made the long walk to the Promised Land themselves and fought their own battles.

A brief summary of Joshua’s CV provides some insight into this great leader: CEO of Israel Incorporated. He was educated at the Egypt Prep School (40 years), Wilderness School of Business and Moses School of Leadership (for 40 years). He was the Commander at the decisive battle against Amalek and conquered 6 nations and 31 kings in his career. The crowning moment was the listing of Promised Land Properties on the Zion Stock Exchange. Cest impressif!

There are some lessons we can learn from Joshua.

The Promised Land

In order to get to the Promised Land, Joshua had to overcome nations which were already there. These included the Giggasites, the Perrizites and others. He also had to crossover a flooded river Jordan. Joshua marketed freedom to the slaves with his vision of a Promised Land that flows with milk and honey.

The destination of your life is your Promised Land or Canaan. To get there you need to overcome the various obstacles in your way. Your life must crossover the Jordan of financial crisis, failure, poverty, sickness into the promised land of success, prosperity, health, etc.

No Compromise

Joshua was a no nonsense leader. He did not turn to the left nor to the right. He was determined to take over the Promised Land. He was willing to pay the price. He accomplished his mission of taking over. He never faltered from his mission to bring the slaves “home,” even when things seemed hopeless.

You need to have a no nonsense attitude when it comes to your journey to the Promised Land. Avoid detours and become distraction intolerant. Stay focused on the destination.

Strong and Courageous

Joshua was courageous and bold. Israel was still a growing nation and they had a rag tag army which did not know how to fight. They had spent many years as slaves in Egypt. It took the courage of Joshua to say “Yes we can”, and yes they did.

You might have been a slave to debt, poverty, even a paid slave (remember if you cannot determine your salary, you are a slave), but if you are courageous you can crossover into your promised land. Without courage you become a slave of your insecurity and you will not let go of the familiar.

This is a season for you to go to your Promised Land. It does not matter what challenges are standing in your way. Neither does it matter that you have never done this before. Have a strong sense of perseverance. In this fast-paced, short-attention-span world, it’s challenging to stick things out. But stay on track, make adjustments along the way if necessary, and get to completion.

Promised Land beckons!

A Leader Is A Reader

Empires of the future will be empires of the mind – Winston Churchill

The extent to which you can dream and pursue your dreams is determined by your mental capacity. Your mental capacity is made up of your talent, knowledge and skills. Talent is constant, but knowledge and skills can be improved. Improving your knowledge and skills optimises your talent.

For example Christiano Ronaldo is a talented soccer player. What has made him a world class soccer player is his knowledge of modern soccer techniques and sharpening his skills through training. Your purpose, vision and goals are nourished by the amount of knowledge and skills you have. No amount of passion or zeal can substitute lack of skill or knowledge. Without these you are like a boat on dry ground.

You cannot dream of being a world class business person if you do not know how businesses work. Neither can you dream of being the best in your profession, when you are not improving yourself.

Time will fail me if I tell you of my father in law who at 55 is doing an MBA. It’s never too late to invest in yourself.

Invest In Yourself

The only way to improve the quality of your life is to improve yourself. The only thing you can improve is yourself. But when you do, everything else around you suddenly gets better. The life you will live tomorrow is a result of the seeds you will sow today. What seeds are you sowing in your life?

I once worked in Nigeria years ago where there are some well stocked book shops. I bought every good book I could lay my hands on. The family was expecting to see boxes and bags filled with goodies when I arrived at the airport. I disappointed them – I only had bags full of books! Years later I have no regrets because the books have opened my mind and opportunities in life.

Be Teachable

At the beginning of the year I set goals for my personal development. I have since engaged a professional mentor and a coach to help me realise my full potential. I had to overcome pride to realise I need help. I do not yet know all there is to know. We all do have an ego and we think maybe we don’t need help, but the truth is we do. Getting a mentor has helped me to have someone looking at my blind spot and to avoid pit falls. A coach is helping me with areas which I need to improve on or are new to me.

Timothy and Barnabas from the Greatest Book were all good but Paul mentored them to greatness. Without Sir Alex Ferguson as a coach, Christiano Ronaldo might still have been struggling in the slums of Portugal.

Set Personal Growth Goals

You should set aside time to continually learn new things. You must keep improving yourself to build on what you learned yesterday. You should develop a specific plan for personal growth. The starting point is to acknowledge that you need to grow. Ask a colleague, a friend or family for honest feedback about areas you need to improve on. Identify the interventions needed to address the gaps – it could be a coach, mentor, a course, a book, a video or an audio tape.

What you repeatedly read, listen or watch soon becomes your habits. Human beings are creatures of habit. Habits form your consciousness and character. Character shapes your destiny.

Mahatma Gandhi said “Be the change you want to see” and I say it too. Forget about all the change peddlars, you are the only game in town. You are the change you can believe in. Ultimately the belief that you can change yourself leads to the belief that you can change your life.

The Power Of Passion

There are lesser truths and greater truths, just as there is lesser light and greater light. I want to share some greater truths about success. There are three levels of success. The first level is for people who know their purpose. The second level is for people who have a vision and set goals to achieve it. The third level is for people who have passion for their purpose, vision and goals. This is the level of success that leads to greatness.
Dr Martin Luther King Jr knew that his purpose was emancipating his generation. His vision was the attainment of ‘equality of all man in society’. He was so passionate about this he was sent to jail many times for it and even died for it. He experienced the three levels of success. More than 40 years after his death what he gave to not just America but the whole world is still celebrated.
Purpose is about knowing why you must do what you must do. Vision is about knowing what you must do. Passion is about how you must do what you must do. The reason why some people seem to be less successful than others is not because they don’t know their purpose or do not have a vision. Passion is the motivation that sustains your focus on your goals.
The Oil on The Wheel of Purpose
If purpose is the wheel and vision and goals the cogs in that wheel, passion is the oil that lubricates that wheel. A wheel can turn on a car from Cape to Cairo and not break down because of oil. This is what passion does to your purpose and vision. You feel no pain, neither do you tire nor experience burn out. With passion you look more into the future than you look at your watch. Passion makes you a great implementer, executor and finisher. You are convicted to finish and finish well.
The Apostle Paul was a greater finisher because he was passionate. He was seized with “this one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind….I press on toward the mark…” Only one thing mattered to him – the attainment of his purpose, and that is why at the end of his life he said “I have fought the good fight of faith, I have finished my course”. Paul ran the full course because he had the oil of passion. If your wheel of purpose is turning without passion you may soon burn out, or you may not finish the course. Fill up on passion!
Crazy and Possessed
A few months ago when we were repositioning our company Seedbed, we listed four values which describe the work we do. We included “Crazy and Possessed” as two of the four values. Sounds crazy and spooky? That’s the whole point. We believe so much in the work that we do that, we can work without stopping, sometimes we forget to eat, we sleep very late and we don’t have weekends. We feel taking a break interferes with our energy and momentum. We are not preoccupied with the money we make out of it, but with the lives, organisations, communities and nations we can change. We are seized with this work. The reason is because we are operating in our strength zone.
Passion driven by purpose separates you from the crowd. To achieve success you need to come to a point where you are crazy about your goals. It’s the only thing that matters to you. You can give your all to it. The reward is not monetary but the achievement of your special assignment. Greatness is not the accumulation of material wealth; it is measured by the accumulation of what you give to humanity.
No Place That Far
Most of you have been in love before. If your goal is to win that woman or that man, you lay down your life even if it means bringing the moon to him or her. I remember when I met my wife some years ago, I was crazy. As my principle treasure, I remember I would accompany her to their house every day after work using public transport. I remember one day it rained so heavily while I was on my way from there and I was soaked to the bone. It didn’t matter to me at all because my vision was to completely win her heart. There was no place that far for me, where I wouldn’t go just to be with her.
The point is when you are so passionate about your goals you can overcome every obstacle, opposition, challenge. If we were to accuse you of being crazy and possessed by your purpose and vision would the charges stick? Passion leads to deep commitment, deep resolution, deep motivation and deep conviction. Greatness in life is not about finding something to live for, but something to die for.