The Sunday Mail
Hunt for Greatness
Milton Kamwendo
Give everything to your life and your pursuit of greatness. There are no half-hearted champions in life who only want to play when there is no opponent and to win when there is no contest.
You do not have another life to live. Do not be sorry that you are alive. Take responsibility and keep standing even when you are hardest hit.
You will make mistakes, you will be blamed, you will be opposed, you will be criticised, but you can never make anything great any other way.
Expecting greatness on a silver platter is a myth. Be bold, courageous and stay focused and moving.
Taking steps may be hard, but it is not impossible. Progress may be slow, but it has not stopped.
The winds may be blowing hard, stand willing to still fly and drive through the storm.
Never let adversity drain your energy and daunt you from moving with focus and passion.
Do not complain too early because you are facing adversity. Do not quickly assume the mantle of a victim. You cannot make any progress sitting around and pandering in pity-parties during a pandemic. Welcome adversity and be grateful whatever happens. Adversity always comes carrying with it special gifts and lessons for the willing and open-minded.
There are things that you learn in the dark days that you will never learn in the bright and shiny one. There are ways you would have never moved in, save for a good blow of adversity.
There are thoughts that you would have never thought until things get really bad. There are strengths that you would not have discovered until you are under pressure and you had to deliver.
In the day of adversity, you learn things that no other book, lesson, coach or webinar can teach you so eloquently.
Welcome with grace everything that happens to you.
In all things always seek for the best.
Adversity hides the best parts of greatness and deepest pools of opportunity. Think clearly and do not use your emotions as a proxy for artificial intelligence.
Whatever this moment means to you, seek to maximise it and not minimise it. Decide that you will walk through whatever you are going through.
Your resolve to keep standing, keep moving, and keep pursuing greatness is more important than any test that may come your way.
Stop putting a magnifying glass on adversity, rather put your focus on the canvas of opportunities presented by this moment in your time-line.
Confront your challenges with boldness of action, clarity of mind and courage of spirit.
Be willing to sigh, if you have to, but do not sign off. Do not let adversity tempt you to disengage.
Keep standing and keep looking for and fishing for opportunity within the pools of adversity. Do not close your eyes early, when the wake up call of adversity has just visited you hiding blessings from the fearful.
Resources
The river of resources is not always in flood. Sometimes the river dries and you have to dig for water in the river bed. Do not let scarcity blind you.
Use it to push your mental horse power to the limit. Keep standing; keep moving and keep thinking and thinking bigger.
Never let drying resources stop you from dreaming, doing and daring.
Sometimes it is when resources are lowest that you are able to think clearest. Challenge your logic and your limitations. Challenge your business model, operating model and mental models.
What you think is a limitation is a no brainer for someone who chooses to think differently and creatively.
All limitations are inviting opportunities for innovations. Stay long enough with a problem to benefit from it. Do not allow resource limitations to become mental barriers.
Seasons
Seasons, good and bad, come and go. The season of adversity will not last forever. You may have to make tough choices, but do not give up on life or on yourself. The shame of turbulence does not last forever. Do not let old fears haunt you.
Do not let new fears destabilise you. Do not run away from challenges and stop thinking about possibilities.
Do not die in the winter of your life and freeze in action. Whatever blizzards you face, they will soon pass. As the season marches on, keep standing, keep moving and making progress towards your greatness.
Move while others wait for better time. Stop planning to move after a change that you not control.
Just move in the light that you can see. When a season closes do not despair or give up.
Declare to yourself that “I can and I will” and move on with life and open the new chapters of the new seasons.
Doors
Doors close and others doors open. There are double doors, secret doors and other doors. To move from where you are to the next, you have to go through some door. Some doors are easy to enter and others require effort.
Adversity slams some doors but unlocks others.
When you find a door closed, keep knocking until the door opens. If the door does not open keep looking at the long passage ahead for more doors. There are doors of opportunity everywhere and you will not see them if you are not looking for them.
Most doors are missed because the tendency to be fixated at one door only. Stop thinking too much about adversity that you start seeing too little.
Adversity can easily drug and drag you away from the opportunity zone.
Look behind you, there are some doors that you could revisit and go through.
Never look at the past with one brush of paint.
There are many good things in the past that are doors to your greatness.
Do not let adversity blind you from the rich legacy and great things in your past. Regardless of how hard you have been hit do not stop believing in yourself and your capabilities.
Keep walking through doors that you were afraid to enter.
Do not let fear disenfranchise you.
Look beside you and the opportunities that are emerging.
As some doors close, new doors are opening.
New opportunities are showing up everywhere that perhaps do not look like what you have always known. Your greatest asset in adversity is your thinking, your imagination and your seeing. See strategically and you will act with boldness in the midst of adversity.
Look under you and see what you are standing on.
You are standing in the middle of your opportunities for greatness. There are opportunities that you stand on now that will not come again anytime soon.
Do not let this moment pass by while you are brain-frozen and mind-numbed by adversity.
Do not let adversity stop you from seeing. Look through the obstacles in your path to greatness.
Look through the fires you face, there are testimonies that are waiting for you. Look through your fears and do not let them paralyse you. If necessary, you have to do whatever you have to do afraid.
In moments of adversity do not forget to look within you.
See the strength inside you and the power in your spirit. Being delayed does not mean that you have been denied. Falling down does not mean that you have been counted out. Stumbling does not mean you have died.
Rise to enter new doors and face whatever you have to face.
Look above you and you will see the stars. The challenge of adversity is that you can spend your time with your head bowed down and looking at the potholes at your feet.
You will ever rise looking at your hole and stuck in the past. Look up and you will see possibilities.
The night always teaches us about possibilities. The sky is always big enough for you to hang your own star.
Stop thinking that other people have taken away opportunities from you.
Whoever you blame you empower to cause you misery. There is space for you.
Regardless of the obstacles and adversity, seek to be the best of whatever you are.
One can never read enough the popular “Be the Best of Whatever You Are” poem by Mr. Douglas Malloch (1877-1938) that reads:
“If you can’t be a pine on the top of the hill
Be a scrub in the valley- but be
The best little scrub by the side of the hill;
Be a bush if you can’t be a tree.
If you can’t be a bush be a bit of the grass,
And some highway some happier make;
If you can’t be a muskie then just be a bass –
But the liveliest bass in the lake!
We can’t all be captains, we’ve got to be crew,
There’s something for all of us here.
There’s big work to do and there’s lesser to do,
And the task we must do is the near.
If you can’t be a highway then just be a trail,
If you can’t be the sun be a star;
It isn’t by size that you win or you fail —
Be the best of whatever.”
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
