DANGEROUS WEAPONS IN THE SAND DUNES OF OUR LIVES

"A life not reviewed is not worth living at all" ~ Jim Rohn.

"Often times, while we are looking at other pastures, other people are busy looking at ours" ~ Think and Grow Rich, A Black Choice

Some time back, Nelson Mandela said that George W Bush was a dumb fool who wanted to drag the world into a holocaust.

I remember those days. Everyone was debating whether it was justified for America to attack Iraq. The main reason as to why George W. Bush championed to attack the Arab nation was that their president had weapons of mass destruction hidden somewhere in the sand dunes of their dessert!

Several years later, the world still waits on the WMDs. Barrack Obama himself termed the war on Iraq as a “dumb war”.

Yet I have come to realize that there is nothing dumber than for us to have the necessary weapons (read tools) to affect our generations and not even realize it.

It is dumber yet again to totally ignore the above statement and still go “out there” seeking for these tools. Let me  explain by telling you what happened to me last night.

As I retired back home after a fruitful day, I decided to relax my mind by watching this BBC Film called ‘The First Grader’. Now being a Kenyan, I have always known that the movie existed. For the record, this is a must watch film to anybody out there who is a visionary. I guarantee you serious inspiration!

There is something called prejudice. There is also something called familiarity which breeds contempt. When the true story depicted in the film was taking place, I was in Kenya following it closely on the news. That is why I registered minimal interest to watching the film. I thought that there was ‘nothing new’ it has to offer. I thought I knew the whole story inside out.

Naturally, I wanted something exotic…something surprising…something unique.

Last night as I watched, I could not help but sob heavily at this inspirational classic that now finds its way into my library as a treasure.

And herein is the thing: For the most part, we are so prejudiced against ourselves that we take ourselves for granted. We take what we know for granted. We think that it cannot make a difference. We hold our own arsenals in contempt since we are so familiar with them.

We kind of think that what will do the trick would be something foreign…something unique that the whole world has never seen before. What a dumb trick we play on ourselves! Listen, just like George Bush found no WMDs in Iraq, I guarantee you that there is nothing new out there if we keep ignoring our own potentials, our own strengths, our very own opportunities!

Sadly this truth mostly resounds louder in our lives when all our strength is gone, when all our days are spent and when we are crossing over to the other side. We finally realize how dumb we have been, like it is depicted in the book ‘Acres of Diamond’.

Before serious companies worth their salts can strategically plan for their year, they do an analysis of their assets and look at their balance sheets. They seek to know where they are at as they strategize to go to where they desire.

The truth is, as Darren Hardy, Publisher of Success Magazine says, we are multi-billion dollar organizations ourselves in our own right. By the close of the age, Billions of money would have passed through our hands.

That is why it is important to sit down and make a thorough review of our lives.

·         What are our strengths? These are the things we are so prejudiced about…things like our academics, our passions and talents, our skills, the compliments and recommendations we receive, and so on.

·         What are our weaknesses? These are basically our blind sides. Each of us has a blind side. Knowing your blindside will help you to structure your life in such a way that your life signatures do not have to depend on you using your blind side. This is absolutely major!

·         What are our opportunities? This, ladies and gentlemen, is where the weapons are hidden in the sand, I can tell you that. For the most part, we think that we are stuck…No we are not…if we would take some time and consider some options we have here:

o   Do we have role models who can mentor us?

o   In our careers/industries, do we know the existing problems that we can solve?

o   What complains do people make of our services/lack of it?

o   What compliments do people give of our services/products and how can we make it even better?

o   What new technology can we use to make work easier?

·         What are our Threats? We all do have potentially things weapons (this is now for real) that can obliterate us in our life signatures in a New York second. Some are from our childhood. Some are in our diet and exercise and routine medical checkups. Some are in our financial prudence or lack of it thereof…

If a visionary would take time and identify these things…it might take you more than an hour or so…viola! You have your war chest.

Never again would you want to dispense your life signatures naked. You wanna go in there loaded. Before the goals, prepare and clean the arsenals.

Over to the sand dunes you go!

Have and Arsenal week, wont you?

Shorten the learning curve but by all means please learn. Do not circumvent the process!