The Sunday Mail
Hunt for Greatness
Milton Kamwendo
You have awesome personal power! Believe that fully. The winds of fate may blow hard, with fury. Adversity may strike several times and in several ruthless ways. Difficulties may double, then multiply like worms.
All this does not change the fact that through your personal power — the power of choice, you can direct your destiny and outcomes. Through just a few mindful choices you can alter your destiny and shape your life’s outcomes.
Until you believe that your choices determine your outcomes you are not ready for greatness. Choice is your ultimate power plug. Choice is the major highway to greatness. Whatever you can choose to focus on, conceive in your mind, believe in your heart, and take action towards you can achieve and attain.
It is the power of choice that shakes off fear, relocates mountains and plants faith on rocks. How you use your choice determines your outcomes. Faced with opportunity do not choose the cave of fear. Faced with promotion, do not choose the abode of self-doubt. Faced with the challenge of growth, do not choose the comfort zone. Faced with a hard strategic path, do not choose the pedestrian routes of scepticism and recreational negativity. Use your choice as a powerful torch. Shine the light on that which matters and what matters will choose you.
Stop thinking and acting like a gambler that blindly trusts the odds that you do not control. Through choice you control the algorithm that yields the outcomes and you are willing to walk, work and wait for your greatness. Stop thinking that someone else controls your fate and determines your misery. As you blame, so you loose choice. As you complain, your grip on creative choice diminishes.
Choosing greatness is never a matter of mere luck, but a conscious choice. Greatness demands intentionality. Glance at the problems, but choose greatness. Greatness is largely a matter of conscious choice and deliberate action.
Choose to be intentional and pursue a clear path into the future, despite the head winds, thorny bushes or sly foxes. Choice gives you staying power; it is your anchor. You determine that you are not going to just be tossed about by every wind, but that you will focus your effort and keep looking for the harbour. Choice gives you navigation power.
Intentionality unleashes staying power. You choose and decide that you will not live life as a prolonged accident, or an elongated nightmare. You choose vision, and the vitality of empowering goals. You choose to be driven by an intentional and personally meaningful vision and rewarding goals programme.
Everything worthwhile starts as an exercise of choice. Choice is a small, but sure seed. Choose courage because without it you are a prisoner of fear. Many write down goals and then freeze when courageous choices must be taken. Choose clarity, because without it you will be fuzzy, furious and your energy will fizzle.
Choose simple clarity and critically few priorities, over empty big words and utopian ideals that sound great, but are not heartfelt. Choose to connect because you cannot influence without connection. Choose to continue because if you do not keep moving, every little obstacle will intimidate you and force you to retreat. What you choose you can become. Therefore, choose wisely and act with lion-like courage and stamp-like resolve. Choose to stick to your envelope of deliberate steps until you reach your destination.
Clarity becomes power when it is moored on choice. When you go hunting you do not just shoot anything at random because you suspect that it moves. In hunting for greatness you are clear about what you are going for. You take deliberate strategic moves. You stalk your prey, follow its tracks and keep searching your context. You are always alert and looking out for opportunity hidden in every adversity. You are willing to wait in patient and stubborn faith. You are willing to operate by the seasons and times determined by your prey not your pleasure.
At the right moment you trail, take deliberate aim, then you focus, in a huff get ready and then you fire, fire, fire. After firing your follow through unfazed. You have a clear goal in mind and clear target in eye. Therefore, you are willing to endure whatever it takes to get your prey. Such is the power of decisions and not mere wishes.
Greatness is hunted for and not just found tossed idle at the bargains counter. You have to hunt for greatness and forget the money for bling lyrics. Hunting is not the same as just running after a chicken to put it in a pot. Hunting is a decision and a strong committed choice. It is expensive. It requires carefully chosen equipment and deliberate investment. Hunting for greatness can be very dangerous and exhausting. It is mental, physical and psychological.
Hunting for greatness means that you are intentional and clear. You know what you want. Hunting means that you study your prey and understand jungle context. You cannot while hunting complain about the chaos of the bush, you learn to survive it.
Hunting is never just copy, paste, repeat! You cannot just take everything from your last hunt without reading the context and thinking through. You have to master your weapons and know how to use them. You have to keep learning and studying your craft and context. Hunting without weapons is a dangerous suicidal tendency.
Expecting the bush to be predictable and plastic is madness. Choose your path and your path as a hunter will choose you. Hunters have stories and every hunt is an adventure. Hunters are kindred souls and a type of brotherhood. Hunters keep sharing and exchanging insights. Every trophy has a story. Hunting is an engaging sport. Hunting for greatness is the most thrilling thing that you can do with your life. You are either on the hunt or you are the hunted.
Choose to continue and sustain the momentum no matter what. Obstacles may come your way. Where else should they go? Strategy is not crafted because everything is stable and predictable. Strategy is a documentation of deliberate choice. Execution of strategy does not depend on circumstance, but it is a choice you make despite the challenges. Strategy is not executed because the path is clear, easy and plain. Where there are no challenges, there is never a need for strategic choice. Strategy is making and committing to tough choices.
Leadership is mobilising action to pursue strategic choice. Leadership is tough action that brings tough choices to life. Where leadership is missing, there is always a desire for stability and predictability. Strategy requires decisive and resolute leadership.
Choose to continue on a strategic path moving despite obstacles, setbacks, setups and stalls. Choosing to continue moving is a choice to stop admiring problems, defining and taking specific and committed actions. Choose to plough through whatever obstacle you face. Choose to face whatever stumbling block stands in your way. Choose to unblock every hindrance that threatens you. Choose to continue to invest in your greatness and the path you have chosen.
Your strategy is not what you say it is, but where you choose to put your resources and energy.
Committed to your greatness.
Milton Kamwendo is a leading international transformational and motivational speaker, author, and a virtual, hybrid and in-person 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
