Remove the brakes to your greatness

Hunt for Greatness
Milton Kamwendo

Greatness is a journey. The journey can sometimes be rough, tough and bumpy. Hold on to the fight and keep moving. Everyone who has achieved any measure of greatness has a story to tell.

Obstacles are a necessary part of the journey.

They make the game worth playing. The rivers that you have to cross and help you learn to swim and to respect nature.

The rocks that you have to climb over, help you learn to scale up and see a different view of the world.

The mountains you face, train your faith, fidelity and focus. The lions that you hear roaring, help you tame your deep fears and clear your mind.

Never lose heart. Everything that comes your way is meant to bless you ultimately and never to kill you.

Therefore, take heart, stand the heat, and remove the brakes to your greatness.

The brakes to your greatness could either be concrete or personal. Both matter and should be considered.

Concrete brakes relate to your organisation or context. These could be process challenges, organisational or structural issues, methods or tools that you are using, priority challenges or failure to address your market or context. Failure to address each of these concrete brakes could make the road you are on bumpy.

Do not rush to point fingers and linger in the victims’ mall.

Look at your process. Using a wrong process keeps you stuck in the bumpy road. Keep looking at your methods and your tools.

At times you have to invest in tools and they make your work easier. Without tools you take too long to do simple things. The better the tools you employ the better the speed and the results you deliver. Using tools is a journey. Some tools have a learning curve.

Once you have mastered a tool your perspective changes.

Keep looking at how you are organised and the structure. It was Mr Winston Churchill who said: “We shape our buildings; thereafter, they shape us.”

Keep checking the structures that you have encased yourself around whether they are still serving their purpose. Some structures a limiting and they become real prisons. Do not allow structures to brake your move towards greatness.

Keep reviewing your structure. Things are not changed by time, they are changed by people.

Priorities could brake your road to greatness. If your priorities are too many, you have no priorities and your actions are likely scattered.

Scattered thought make for most bumpy rides. When the road gets bumpy get ready to reflect and focus on the things that really matter. Things that matter most must never be sacrificed for things that matter least. Ideally priorities must be few, clear and allow you to focus.

Greatness is a result of focus and not hocus-pocus.

Preserve and protect your focus on the priorities that matter. Eliminate superstition from your thinking and stop going around looking for speculative devices to bolster your courage.

It is not everything that comes your way that must be done. Some things you have to dump, others you have to delegate and those that matter you must do brilliantly. If something does not serve you and detracts you from your focus on the road ahead, delay it or dump it.

The other concrete brake to greatness is where you hit off-target and you fail to address the market or your context.

The key to being a great dancer is dancing to the music that is playing and not the one you wish was playing. The road becomes bumpy when context is lost and you are off-topic. Address the felt needs and the context you are in.

Mr Peter Drucker, a respected management thinker had five important questions that he always advised organisations, profit and non-profit to ask. These questions also apply at an individual level and are helpful in framing your context and how you play. The questions are:

Question 1: What is our mission?

Question 2: Who is our customer?

Question 3: What does the customer value?

Question 4: What are our results?

Question 5: What is our plan?

If you cannot answer clearly these questions, the road will be bumpy. Stop playing hocus-pocus with your life and really focus on what matters and on who matters. Plot your strategy and put your primary customer at the centre.

Narrow the list of the people you are trying to please because you cannot please everyone. The more focused you are, the clearer your mind will be. Stop playing grasshopper games, jumping from place to place without any real focus and sense of value.

Be clear in your mind about your focus and what you are driving towards. Other people may not see what I call your “base of focus” and may think you are taking on too much. When your base of focus is clear, your actions will be coordinated and coherent. Do not bother making elaborate explanation of your base of focus, to people that are not in your circle of influence and sphere of concern. Just focus and your results will be more eloquent that your arguments.

Focus on the road ahead and keep driving. Do not let any pothole put you off the road. Do not let any detour detract you from driving towards your greatness.

Challenges are part of the journey to greatness. Stop thinking like a victim and thinking that the whole world owes you a wave of favour.

Take personal responsibility for doing and playing your part. Be ruthless in examining the personal brakes that are limiting your greatness. You cannot expect others to fix what is broken while you stare and wonder what they are doing. Be engaged and ready to play your part and to make a difference.

Personal brakes that you have to address include fear, perfectionism, waiting, ignorance, trying to fit in, isolation and playing ego-games. Do not let fear imprison or torment you.

Do not let fear of the new stop you from taking action and moving forward. Whatever you do not know, you can always learn if you are humble and willing.

Do not wait for everything to become perfect before you make an attempt. Start and then keep adjusting, learning and improving. Stop waiting for a bus that will never come. Take action and start moving.

You are born to stand out and not to fit in. Do not wait to be part of the crowd. Be willing to do your own thinking and stand for what you believe.

Mr Steve Jobs said a number of things that show that he had wealth with his own personal brakes to greatness. He once said: “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.” That is true.

Do not waste your life trying to do things that please others but leave you frustrated. Be true to yourself and to your spirit. He also said: “Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.”

Find your voice and be true to it and you will see greatness everywhere.

Opportunities are limited when you are trying to play to a gallery of people that are not interested in the game you are playing. You are here for a purpose and you want to serve your generation and play your part. Be true to yourself and drive on the road you are on to your greatness.

Do not let the torrent of the current overwhelm you because you are so absorbed in your ego. Greatness is delayed when you put your ego on the front seat and the mission on the backseat.

Look at the big picture and the destination ahead. You are more powerful than you think. Your mind is able to conceive ideas and models that would surprise and transform you.

Be willing to place the mission ahead of your ego. Stop looking for praise singers to validate your drive.

Harness your thought-power and direct it towards great things. Look ahead because that is where you are headed.

Keep the big picture in mind because thinking small will not serve you. You have the power to become anything that you dream and dare purse.

Do not be stuck on the launch-pad. Release the brakes and accelerate forward. Do not be stuck in sawing saw-dust. Dreams can come true but the first step is to dream them and then start driving towards them. Release the brakes, else your drive will be bumpy and rough.

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