The Sunday Mail
Hunt for Greatness
Milton Kamwendo
Face forward. Stand up straight, look ahead and keep the faith and have hope. Change happens but whatever happens do not give up.
Do not let your heart quiver with fear and hopelessness. Keep your lamp of hope aflame. See the future in the seeds you hold today. Glance at the context and situation around you but keep your eye on the future and the possibilities ahead.
The wall you face, you can scale over. The mountain on your path you can move. You have more power than you can dream. The danger in your pathway you can overcome. The fearful challenges of the moment will pass and you will have many stories to tell. Keep believing in greatness and in possibilities hidden in adversity.
It is when things are hardest that you must not quit or run away. You must never think with your feet or any other part of the body that is not designed for a finest and balanced thought. Embrace reality and then frame and shape it.
Keep faith alive, but face the brutal realities, whatever they may be, with a sharp forehead, burning eyes and a can-do spirit. Face your giants and wrestle on with life. Greatness at bargain prices is a myth and mirage. There may be gorillas knocking everywhere, perchance to scare you but face them with a ready mind and spirit.
Face the reality
Face the reality of everything as it is and not as you wish it to be but do not despair. Working a process does not mean that you will never arrive. All things have a gestation period so do not abort your dream because things are moving slowly or kicking sideways.
The giant, tall and impressive tree you see was once a tiny seed. The seemingly great and powerful, were once mere fertilised eggs with no form or beauty. Great things do not always begin that way, ever. Do not throw away your seed because no one is seeing the harvest. Do not despair because no one is giving you the opportunity to play. Do not cry, because there is no space allocated to you. It is not where you deliver that matters, but that you deliver.
Change and challenges come, but stay strong and hold tightly to the string. Change is uncomfortable and upsetting but real; stay grounded and growing. There is always something you will need to learn and master.
Keep battling with your situation and you will achieve mastery. In the middle of the storms and the turmoils, just go on placidly with your mission. Going on placidly means in a way that is calm, peaceful or quiet. There is power in quiet confidence.
Let the turmoil outside you never touch the serenity and peace within you. Stay grounded in hope, empowered by the grace of life and the throb of the power within. Face reality, but define the frame. Throw away the frame of negativity, it will blind you to opportunities.
Face the brutal facts
According to the Stockdale Paradox, you must retain faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties and the same time you must confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be. Keeping hope alive does not mean that you ride the moon and ignore current reality. Irresponsible and careless optimism and bravado kills; but negativity, fear and cynicism are worse and more disabling.
Face your challenges and let them channel your strength to innovate and to do what you have never done before. Every challenge is a super-charge towards something new. Challenges teach faster and more intensely than other experiences. Every adversity is an advantage that is waiting to drive and elevate you to greatness.
Every problem is a powerful dose of motivation for you to go forth and conquer. Great challenges strengthen your resolve and amplify your testimony. Do not despair because of circumstances or seasons. They eventually pass. Do not be blinded by difficulties or blinkered by circumstances. Do not bury your head in the sand because you are not an ostrich and you should never think or behave like one.
Work through your situation with a grounded focus and sturdy action. Summon your deepest faith, summon your best courage, summon all the creative powers within and face your situation with bold resolve. Keep your vision of greatness in mind and hope alive. You shall prevail and you will have a pleasant testimony.
Face the music and dance
The art of life is that you must dance and pursue your dreams of greatness. It takes presence of mind and stretching a little here and there, always maintaining your balance and gait. Greatness is in your ability to hear and dance to music that has not yet been played. Your ability to keep on depends on your ability to see the unseen and unmanifest.
Staying power is in your ability to dance to the music that is playing, and not the one you think should be playing and at the same time hear the unheard melodies. Prepare for the future because you will be living there. Stop pining for the past because it is past. When you look into darkness, do not despair because the day is coming. If it delays, wait for it with prayerful but with open eyes and feet ready to dance.
Face the gorilla and wrestle
When you are wrestling with a gorilla you stick to the fight even when you are hardest hit. You hope for the best but prepare for the worst. You do not announce your lunch break because you do not stop when you are tired, neither do you hope that the gorilla will tire out that fast and lose interest. When wrestling with a gorilla you only stop when the gorilla stops, and even then you remain alert and engaged.
Before any battle, engage in a little private arithmetic. Until the gorilla is tired, it is game on. Such is any match against adversity. You have to stand when you are hardest hit. Brutal facts are brutal but their story can be changed. Gorillas by their nature speak a different language, care little for protocol and do not announce their coming. Just be ready, prepared and positioned for greatness.
Any crisis you face is a message that something that used to work will no longer work and it is time to wake up and change. A crisis is a red flag, wakeup call and alert message. Hear its message, and act with confidence, courage and clear intention.
The gorilla does not understand your history, circumstances and does not negotiate or feel any pity. No crisis should be wasted in worthless worry, and mindless arguments. Stop gambling with life and face the brutal realities of your situation. Things do not work themselves out, you have to face reality and do the things that take you out of your holes.
Your situation may be bad, and you may feel that you have very few viable options. Whatever your situation, face it and work through the realities and draw backs. This is not a moment for superstition and supercharged conspiracy theories.
Half-truths shared with full passion does not make them full facts. It is not how bad the situation is that matters but how squarely you face it. Your attitude and mindset in any situation determines your destiny.
Whatever happens, do not lose hope and faith or close your tired eyes the realities that you know. Thinking short-term, short-measures, short plays leaves you vulnerable and weak. It is when things are most turbulent that strategy is most needed. This is a big marathon, pace yourself for survival and the long drive ahead, during and beyond the mess.
Greatness behoves that you stick on in the game long enough, while moving from failure, to difficulty, via adversity, through trouble and still not losing your enthusiasm, faith and passion. Never doubt that you are destined for greatness, regardless of the present. No winter lasts forever and no storm is perennial. In the end every storm finally runs out of water and wind. Keep faith and hope alive. Faith that does not ignore facts is your greatest asset in stormy and turbulent times.
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
