The Sunday Mail
Milton Kamwendo
Hunt for Greatness
Times are not always the same.
Trying times and seasons come. Trying times are not the times to stop trying. Such times stretch faith, focus and friendships.
When trying times come, they should not be met with carelessness and madness.
The sky may be dark and heavy, but it is not falling. Fear not!
When you act out of fear, you are bound to make irrational demands, decisions and decrees. Chaos is part of life.
Tough times are part of life. Trying times are part of the equation. Meeting chaos with insanity breeds clutter and commotion.
Take hindsight, it will stabilise you. Look for insight they will steady your hand. Consider foresight thinking, it will secure your heart. Fear not!
Think across all the time horizons and shift gears accordingly. Think long term, engaging the gear of faith and you will see that the future is enthralling, exciting and filled with endless possibilities that will electrify your passion.
When you do not see the future, you lose your grip on the present. Think about the medium term and you will see a little more clearly. Time has a magic eye-salve that clarifies vision. Think short term and confront the brutal realities that you face. Determine to outlive, out compete, outmanoeuvre and outstay whatever stands in your path and seats in your seat. Fear not!
Never let any report of chaos unsettle you. Stop reading things that make you unsettled.
Whatever you think is going on is not all that is going on. There are other perspectives to whatever picture you see. The chaos happening outside you must be met with a grounded faith-filled heart, a resolute mind and a clear eye.
It is when things are worst that opportunities are biggest.
When you know the real and lasting source, you cannot be moved or flustered.
When you deal with the roots, you are never worried too much about the leaves.
Whatever happens, you will do more than survive. You will thrive and you will have a testimony beyond the test.
Life is governed by choices. It is a choice that you make to live on different terms.
Confront fear with faith. Do not just forget everything and run wild in panic. There is nowhere to run to. Stay on station and watch strategically and you will start seeing around the corners. Fear not!
The past is not coming, stop living there because that would be fairy-land, and fear-land.
You cannot recreate the pass and you can never be sustained by wishful thinking.
Learn to live on the edges, because everything is changing and shifting.
Whatever is happening, never think from the podium of fear. Do not fly out of the window or stone the window. Fear not!
Finding excuses and reasons
In times of hot change, unstable happenings and turbulence, be wary but do not fear.
Stop finding excuses and reasons for fearful frustrations. Worry is like sitting on a rocking chair.
You feel you are doing something but remain in the same place. Every season has its opportunities, just like every cloud has a silver lining.
Stop being overwhelmed by the huge clouds of despair and apprehension.
Focus on finding the silver linings that are there on every cloud. There are opportunities in every season.
There are opportunities that are being made available now, that will never come again. Seize them and embrace them. Instead of manufacturing excuses, dream up success move, grab the opportunities and tap the possibilities.
Stop exchanging fear-filled messages and start doodling around this ever-widening opportunity canvas. Do not fear!
Frantic efforts to avoid reality
I am not urging you to behave like an ostrich that buries its head in the sand as a scanty solution to reality.
Do not fear, but look straight into the face of reality. Learn everything you have to about the current situation and conditions then take a neutral view to facts and events.
Stop looking at what is happening from the basis of negative Armageddon commentary.
Instead of using events and facts against yourself, use them to bolster your confidence.
Armed with the facts, start scouting for possibilities. There are too many possibilities for you to use up in one lifetime. Never let short-terms problems and situations result in you making permanent faulty conclusions about the future.
When you are blind to opportunity, do not think that everyone is with you in the bus you have taken. Do to fear!
The future is bright, exciting and filled with possibilities.
When the greater majority of people are negative and apprehensive, you have awesome opportunities, advantage and a wider canvas of opportunities to work with.
While others are moaning, groaning and complaining, that is when you should be planning, positioning and playing out your strategy.
Stop using other people’s fears and doubts as inerrant and absolute fact. Confront reality with faith, foresight and creativity. It is when architects are faced with high limitations that they make the most creative of designs.
Limitations force you to think and find solutions. You cannot let this moment of awesome and creative opportunity pass by while you are in a dreamy state of despair.
You will never make history when you are stuck in history.
Your life will always wade forward towards the direction of your most dominant thoughts and expectations.
When you expect failure, you angle yourself for failure. Change your words and you change your world.
Change expectations and you will start painting pictures of hope.
When you look at the present moment and compare it with the brightness of the future, this moment is a mere footnote. Your expectation is the seed that stimulates faith or fear. You do not afford the luxury of sowing negative thoughts at an industrial scale.
Expect great things to happen and you will start seeing them everywhere. Change your expectation to match your vision. Expect opportunity and ideas; you will start seeing them everywhere.
There are more opportunities awaiting you than failure. Think differently and you will have different experiences.
Be grateful and have empathy for negative people, they de-congest the road to greatness.
Never join the choir of bitter, disaffected, complaining, grumbling, hopeless, lamenting and remonstrating people. Rather than being part of the problem, work to be part of the solution.
Complaining without a solution makes you an empty armchair critic. Do not fear!
Forget everything and reboot
Do not fear. Do not be disheartened by the critic and the despondent fearful ones.
In any environment there are those who are stagnant and others that are like sharks — ever moving forward.
Choose to be a member of the progressives. It is better to move slowly forward than to park.
There will always be critics and doers. Choose to be a doer and possibility thinker. Do not let other people’s fears become your prophetic reality.
Hot-wire your mind for greatness and reboot your hunger for progress.
Be radical in your thinking but gentle with others. Be relentless in your actions. This is opportunity time – amazing opportunity, filled with overtures of grace.
Forget everything that you have been picking up that is negative and remember the following words: Fear not!
Og Mandino is his book “The Greatest Salesman in the World” delivered these immortal words: “I will live this day as if it is my last. I will waste not a moment mourning yesterday’s misfortunes, Yesterday’s defeats, yesterday’s aches of the heart, for why should I throw good after bad? I will live this day as if it is my last. This day is all I have and these hours are now my eternity. I greet this sunrise with cries of joy as a prisoner who is reprieved from death. I lift mine arms with thanks for this priceless gift of a new day. So, too, I will beat upon my heart with gratitude as I consider all who greeted yesterday’s sunrise who are no longer with the living today. I am indeed a fortunate man and today’s hours are but a bonus, undeserved. Why have I been allowed to live this extra day when others, far better than I, have departed? Is it that they have accomplished their purpose while mine is yet to be achieved? Is this another opportunity for me to become the man I know I can be?”
The forgoing paragraph is worth re-reading until it burns in your mind, fuels your hunger and tames your fears.
Put your best foot forward and do your best. This is your day, rise to meet it.
Your destiny and birthright is not with the timid and cold souls that know neither victor or defeat.
It is better to fail trying than to fail to try.
Trying times are not the times to be fearful and stop trying. Do not fear!
Committed to your greatness.
◆ Milton Kamwendo is a leading international transformational and motivational speaker, author, and growth mentor. 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 Twitter: @MiltonKamwendo. His website is: www.miltonkamwendo.com
