Monday, February 10, 2014

The Importance of a Line in Life

I am sure by now you might have seen that graphic on social media depicting the truth that success is not a straight line. It is a long winding and curvy line from the start point to the end point. In terms of success in your life, your greatest friend is a graph, a line graph with troughs and bumps.

I am not talking about that kind of line today. I am however dealing with one of the most important lines you could ever have in your life. I have had this line several times. The most interesting thing is that this line comes to use mostly at the lowest level of a personal graph.


It is a straight line. It is not drawn in Microsoft Excel...nor is it drawn on paper. It is however drawn in the heart of a visionary who stands up and decides how her life will never be from a certain point going forward. Its called drawing a line.

If you have never drawn a line in your life:

  • You have not really been living,
  • You are coasting around in life never fulfilling your potential,
  • You have accepted defeat and you think that there is no respite,
  • You are existing way below your privileges,
However, when you draw a line in the sand and decide what you will no longer stand for:

  1. You start identifying yourself with the calling in your life,
  2. You snap out of a cycle of lack of purpose and start aligning your life to live and love and matter
  3. You 'scratch the CD' of meaninglessness that has been playing in your life
  4. You stand to be counted as a person of purpose.
  5. You register to the world, and most importantly to your mind what vices (personal or otherwise) that you will not be known by.
  It is very easy to get caught up in a cycle that does not grow or profit you. All that is needed for this to happen is to have your bills paid. Yet honestly, we live for much higher purposes in life than just paying bills.

People need to draw a line in the sand and decide to start leading lives that are meaningful....lives that can be counted...lives full of purpose.

When is the last time you drew a line and decided? I did it this morning.

Monday, February 3, 2014

The Woowoo (But Crucial) Side of Success

To be honest, not all that can be quantified or counted is all that is needed as ingredients for success. You cannot measure a hunch. Neither can you measure passion.

Since so much has been written about success, I am willing to bet that for the most part, what determines success is mostly the invisible...the intangible and the Spiritual.

I am yet to meet or read about a successful person who was unspiritual (read did not believe in anything).

There are two major ingredients if you will be personally successful and satisfied to the degree that you will impact not just this generation, but also the next and the next.

First, You Must Be Called: 

This is as woowoo as it gets. To be called simply means to be ordained or set apart for something specific. Now, being called does not mean that you must accept the call. You could as well reject the call. Most successful people always have this innate knowledge that something or Someone somewhere has 'marked' them to do the extra-ordinary. They know that they are meant for something bigger and better.

I keep feeling this disquiet in my heart about my life. Who I am, where I am at, what I have done, where I have been and what I am meant to be. Frankly, as late as today morning, I know that there is a disconnect between what I am showing up as in this world and what I was meant to really be and to do. I know for a fact that I am called.

The beautiful part of this being called business is that everybody, including the madman out there in the streets is called!! No one alive is useless. I repeat, there is no one in the face of the earth who has been given breath for no other reason than to be counted in life. You too are called.

Then, You Must Be Separated.

Micheal Jordan
Micheal Jackson
Micheal Schummacher
Micheal Owen....

Apart from a name, they all have one thing in common. They were/are known for one Major Thing. You can easily say that they have been 'separated'. There are a million things that either of these guys could have done. But each of them chose and stuck to just one. One can easily argue that they 'heard the call', they answered the 'call', and they separated themselves for the call.

Micheal Jackson did not hang around football stadiums. He was mostly found in studios and concerts. Micheal Jordan did not hang around bars and orchestras. He was mostly found in the gymn and in the basketball court...save for that brief moment that he was in a baseball pitch and made no impact.

Separation requires discipline. This is where very many visionaries get disilluioned. Most visionaries are so bogged down with eking a living that they are no longer separate. The writer must write daily, the speaker must inspire weekly, the singer bust be in studio each week, if not each day.

She was my contemporary back in Nairobi. Both of us sensed (and still do) the urge to 'coach people'. She got started and so did I. She started writing about success and life...then one day along the line, she got 'separated' and started writing and instructing about courtship, dating and marriage. Ngina Otiende is so much separated that I take her advice and apply it in my own marriage. That is what separation does.

The Biggest Mistake.

One of the biggest mistakes made in spiritual circles is for people waiting for 'the audible voice of God' to instruct them to do something. Some guys are even waiting for the audible voice of God to tell them whom to marry (controversial, I know). A beautiful story in the Bible is of four guys carrying their paralyzed guy up a roof, razing it off and lowering him to Jesus for healing.

What if they waited for God to instruct them? God does the calling, you do the separation together with him.

Ok. I know that there must be balance. You do not just do things outside of 'God's guidence', neither do you keep sitting there waiting for him to 'speak'.
Can you sing?
Can you write?
Can you pray?
Can you inspire?
Do you love working with photoz?
Do you love chatting and giving people advice on line?

Then why don't you separate yourself? What are you waiting for?

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What are your thoughts on this?

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