The Sunday Mail
Hunt for Greatness
Milton Kamwendo
Whether you like it or not the future is coming and galloping fast towards us. You have to see it before it comes for you to be ready. The ability to envision possibilities for the future, mobilise resources and actions to bring those possibilities to life is what enables greatness.
Do not despair about the present. Do not lose heart and stop believing. Keep dreaming and focused. The future is exciting and be ready for it with blueprints of action.
Never stop dreaming because God dreams and creates through you. Do not suppress your imagination, ideas and concepts because they move the world forward. Without dreamers the world stagnates.
Do not stop dreaming so long as you are living. Give your dreams and visions the best chance of coming to life. Respect your vision enough to pursue it with passion of heart, presence of mind, and the pursuit of a hunter. Give your dreams, plans and visions vigour and unyielding verve.
If you only look at the past or the present and coil into your shell you will miss the train of the future. Dream big and bold. Make your vision bold and clear. Make it a compelling dream that you do not want anyone to wake you out of. Apply your best thinking to the problems at hand. You will emerge a winner because the future is looking for dreamers that do, and visionaries that execute. Create things, ideas, concepts, businesses that did not exist before. Look at yourself as a creator and do not just be satisfied with what is. Look into what can be and explore the possibilities.
Frame challenges and problems in a possibility context. Your problems are not there to kill you but to prompt you. Your challenges are not there to chain you, but to channel your personal power. Your challenges should never tempt you to give up and lose your nerves.
Stick to your dream like a stamp. The dream journey continues and you must never stop moving regardless of the circumstances. If one door closes, knock at another. If one path closes, create a new path. If one idea fails, explore others. If something fails, try again and use a different path and approach this time.
Every dream is like the Russian, Matryoshka nesting dolls. Each doll is painted beautifully hollow inside. Inside that doll is a smaller one the looks just like it. There could be several of the dolls nesting in each other. The term, “matryoshka” means mother. Some people call these dolls, the “babushka” dolls, and babushka means grandmother.
Your dreams and visions are like that. They mother or grandmother other dreams and visions. Each dream has other nested dreams and visions inside it beyond your wildest dreams. There are many dreams within any dream. Every dream comes pregnant with other dreams. Do not kill your dream because in it are other dreams.
Your dreams create spaces for other dreams to be forged, fed, and fired up. Your courage will always encourage other people. You encourage many other people that you may never meet or know. So carry the burden of vision with grace, fortitude and dignity. You may feel alone when you are fighting but you will never harvest alone. Your private battles have many public beneficiaries. Fight them with courage, integrity and commitment. Your victories are the vaulting pole for other dreams.
Do not block the road to greatness for others because of fear or feeling that you have arrived at your destination. Do not arrive so soon and expire in action. Greatness does not like plateaus. The sky is big enough for any bird to fly. There is space for your dreams.
The night would be long and painful if only the great dreams of the few were the only ones in the offing. There is a place for your vision. The woods would be silent if no birds sang there except the beautiful ones. There is a place for your sound and song. Pass on the torch and strengthen some soul to bear adversity with courage and vision.
Mr George Bernard Shaw once said: “Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”
So it is within any vision, and dream that burns in your heart.
Your dream is a splendid torch that you do well to believe in its beauty and potential. Let your dream burn brightly, hold it firm despite what the cynics say and the critics tout. Choose your thoughts carefully because they become your life. You are not the beginning, likely not the end, but you are a vital node. Take your vision seriously but never take yourself too seriously or think you are the bellybutton of the world.
Do not for a moment stop believing in greatness and in possibilities. Believe in your story and be willing to tell it. Do not let present realities confuse or confound you. Your contribution counts and you make a difference, be content to play your humble part in your corner. Do it with conviction, pride and prayer.
Whatever you do that is worth doing is worth doing well. Keep moving and giving your best shots even if no one is watching. Being locked-down does not mean that your imagination and creativity are locked down. When you commit to excellence; excellence will commit to you. There is always a dream within a dream and you play a vital role in nurturing the dream and giving it life. Life to you and you give life to your vision.
Every dream is a seed, sow it with care and focus. Every dream carries awesome potential and nested power. A little seed, like a little flame, can start a huge fire. See greatness in little places and spaces.
A little dream, like a little seed, starts a forest. Think generations and generate positive legacies. When you realise that every dream is a dream within a dream, you are liberated to dream bigger as you pursue greatness.
Dig deeper, you are a lighthouse keeper and your dream has potential. Greatness is not about you being irreplaceable and indispensable because no one is. It is about humbly taking your place, giving your best and making a difference where you are and with what you have.
If you decide to be a critic choose to be a clever and responsible one. The key to greatness is to be a certain special type of critic, but never a cynic. Adopt Michelangelo’s maxim: “criticise by creating”. Instead of being a negative motor-mouth, let your deeds show the way, and display the alternative. Criticise by dreaming, creating and showing superior alternatives. As you pursue your visions, criticise by creating in a prolific way.
Keep on creating and speaking through works, and not just clever arguments. Create something so compelling that change is inevitable. Let your dreams be channels into actions and results that speak loud and clear that there is a better way.
Mr R. Buckminster Fuller once said: “In order to change an existing paradigm you do not struggle to try and change the problematic model. You create a new model and make the old one obsolete.”
Dare to be naive, live out your dreams and challenge your limits of reality. You are not a victim, so dream bold and carry that magnificent obsession every day. You are not ordinary, so do not let other people’s dream intimate you and tempt you to dump yours.
Instead of flowing with the current, move against the tide of negativity and hopelessness by embracing noble dreams of possibilities not yet seen or known. Instead of accepting the social conditioning of negativity, dare to dream and do differently. When you think positively you give your visions an unfair advantage.
Committed to your greatness.
Milton Kamwendo is a leading international transformational and motivational speaker, author, and workshop facilitator. He is a cutting-edge strategy, team-building and organisation development facilitator and consultant. His life purpose is to inspire and promote greatness. He can be reached at: [email protected] and His website is: www.miltonkamwendo.com
