Give a dog a name, a frame!

11 Apr, 2021 - 00:04 0 Views
Give a dog  a name, a frame!

The Sunday Mail

Hunt for Greatness
Milton Kamwendo

As you write or speak, so you compute and frame reality and experiences. Frames shape meaning and influence context. There is an old English Proverb that says: “Give a dog a name and you might as well hang him.” It’s a proverb about reputations and labels that we put on people and things. What you name, that is what it becomes and the image it assumes, at least to you and those that you share and fellowship with. Names are powerful frames that may empower or disempower. Never play with words because they are seed of all creation and meaning.

When you know the power of words you can shape your experiences and greatness the way you like. To speak or issue words in any way is to create and mould. To unleash your personal power and launch your greatness you have to intentionally frame. Your words matter and the words you habitually use become your experience eventually. You will never change your life until your change the words you use consistently. You cannot change any harvest until you change the seeds you plant. Every harvest starts with the seeds you plant.

Be deliberate and intentional in your frames, and names. You do not afford the luxury of a negative thought and you do not afford the use of negative words. Deal decisively with the roots of negativity in your mind and attack negativity in your head and habits of thought and words. Do not allow careless implants of negative frames and thoughts. With the negative frames and names placed around your life experiences you are blinded to reality and the power to shape your destiny. Names and frames reflect dominant beliefs and strongholds of thought.

What do they say?

Choose and intentionally change the labels that were stuck on your and the ones that others stick on you. You may have heard: “You are poor, weak, male, short, tall or whatever label is used”. Never let other people’s negative opinions because your facts. Reject every label that locks you in mediocrity and disables you. Reframe and change every label that disables access to your best thinking and boldest actions. Negative thinking blanks your imagination, and dulls your life force and energies of life.

Change how you address yourself and think about yourself, your context and your situation. The names and frames that you use must inspire you and fire your thinking and creativity. If need be you have to auto-programme yourself by telling yourself what you need to believe, think or see. This is usually called affirmations. These are short, positive and powerful words that line up with your dreams, goals and positive desires. Affirmations are powerful when you choose to be intentional and consistent.

Do not surrender power to the negativity around you. Situations do not have any power over your life except the one you choose to surrender. Blame is mindless surrender. Complaining is lazy surrender. Negativity is embraced is personal infusion of gloom. Work on the positive side of your life’s balance sheet. Do not let experiences themselves shape your life, choose to sculpt your experiences with your words. You are born to create, to transform and change things. You are not a lame duck or a halfdrunk and dead-living dog. Address yourself in powerful and inspiring ways. Awaken the greatness in your through powerful word-injections. Summon your personal power and direct it intentionally with powerful, colourful and positive words deliberately planted and intentionally spoken.

Danger of a single story.

Refuse to be locked into a single negative and disempowering story and single point of view. Ms. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a well-known writer. She was born on September 15, 1977 in Enugu, Nigeria. One of her powerful TedTalks paints clearly the limiting nature and the dangers of a single story. In the talk she narrates her experience in the United States, where a number of people that she met were locked in a single, negative and miserable story of Africa. They could not compute that her father was a professor, and that being born in Africa does not mean you are depraved, ignorant or less in any other way. When she shared many other powerful stories about Africa, she found that may people around her could not believe that those stories existed. They were locked in a single story and frame that they had been fed by only God knows who. Some were so locked in their single story that everything else about Africa appeared to be fiction.

If others are locked in or have locked themselves into a single story prison you do not need to join them. Your life does also not need to be locked into a single story or narrative. Yes, the single perspective may have shavings of truth, but it not the only story. Refuse to believe in and be locked into a single negative and inhibiting story.

One story is that you may be down, the other stories are that you are busy mining, you in exploration mode and picking up great insights and treasures.

One story may be that you are in a hole, the other is that you are looking up and climbing out of the hole. One story is that you are in Africa and there are a lot of problems here. The other stories are that Africa too rich, too vibrant and too critical to be ignored. Africa presents so much opportunity everywhere you look that every moment you have to be full of gratitude.

Everywhere you see problems there are stories of innovation and creativity ready for release. Africa is teeming with possibility, potential and greatness. Refuse to let other people’s single, negative and uninformed story be-come your story. One story is that you are old or young. The other story is that you are the right age for whatever you would pursue and become. Rise and challenge your story and determine the stories that you want to live, shape and realise.

Give yourself powerful names.

Choose your experiences by giving yourself powerful and positive-possibility names that fit into your context of greatness. Uproot all the poisonous weeds of negativity, despair and delusion. Change from fellowships of bitterness and unplug from mass negativity. Mr. Mohammed Ali, the champion boxer, was born Cassius Clay. You do not want to ever be a word boxer and you are always hearing “Clay, Clay, Clay!” He understood early the power of words and frames. He knew better and used words as his primary and choice weapons of war.

It is not the names that others give you that matters but what you choose to call yourself. He knew the power of words and knew too well how ignorant his opponents were about the power of words. He knew that in boxing, like any other arena in life and business, words matter and they are the currency of greatness. Ali would not wait for his opponents to give him frames, he framed their beliefs and their defeat. Talking about himself he world say: “I’m so mean, I make medicine sick. “In addressing and talking about his competitor he would say: “If you even dream of beating me you’d better wake up and apologize.” In talking about other boxing greats he would say: “I am the astronaut of boxing. Joe Louis and Dempsey were just jet pilots. I’m in a world of my own.” He would even advise his opponent the round in which he would knock them out.

The opponent would come into the ring expecting to be knocked out in that round and they would! In talking of a great opponent of his time that he would eventually date in the ring and defeat he said he would: “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. His hands can’t hit what his eyes can’t see. Now you see me, now you don’t. George thinks he will, but I know he won’t.”

Mr. Ali knew the power of words and used this to his advantage. He started calling himself a world champion before anyone was calling him a world champion. One day in 1974 the world woke up to confirm his personal prophecy. Do not wait for others to prophecy over your life – prophecy greatness over your life daily. Ali was right when he said: “If they can make penicillin out of mouldy bread, they can sure make some-thing out of you.”

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 cut-ting-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.

 

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