02/03/2016
How to Achieve Greatness - Lessons from a child
Most times we ask the question on how to achieve greatness we desire.
I will draw some lessons we can learn from children and partially disagree with the usual advice to "growing up" as we hear often these days.
Let's dig in:
1. CURIOSITY
Ever noticed how children are not scared to touch anything as long as it attracts their attention?
All that they have in their mind is, "what could that be?"
And before you know it, they touch it. Sometimes it's nice and other times it hurts.
But even at that, they don't stop being curious.
Could you use some of the curiosity in your life, business and relationships?
"We know that you lose all the matches you don't play."
So this is the first lesson, dust up your curiosity instincts and make it work for you.
May be some of the things you have ignored for a while will work to your amazement. May be it’s not as bad and dangerous as you have always thought.
2. PERSEVERANCE
I am sure you have seen a child learning to walk before.
He tries and falls, doesn't cry straightaway, he gets up and tried again.
This could take months but they never give up until they are confidently walking.
You want to be great right? Keep paying the dues every day. Hand in there and keep trying, one day you will surely go from crawling to walking. Yes, it is possible but you must keep on trying and failing.
Rory Vaden, the New York Times Best Selling Author said:
“Success is never owned; it is only rented – and the rent is due every day”
Depending on the area of life you want to be great at....
Work on it, fail, learn your lesson get up and go and do it again and again and again.
Decide in the words of the great Les Brown that...
"It's not over, until I win!"
There is no such thing as failure; your either win or you learn! So don’t let the setbacks stop you from pursuing your comebacks.
3. FORGIVENESS
This is one area we do not think of when it comes to working on our greatness.
When a child misbehaves and you tell them off and when they don't get their way, you can see that they are very hurt about it but within 2 seconds they come back to hug you.
If you will be great, you must learn to forgive and keep a clean heart to give you room for more creativity in your life, business and relationships.
It's put rightly in this saying that:
"Unforgiveness is like drinking poison and expecting another person to die"
Forgive fast and remove every negative charge so you can attract your greatness!
As Dr. Martin Luther King Jnr. said has so eloquently stated,
“We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love…. Forgiveness is a catalyst creating the atmosphere necessary for a fresh start and a new beginning. It is the lifting of a burden or the cancelling of a debt. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. ”
You must have this in your arsenal in the journey to greatness because you will come across many circumstances that will require forgiveness.
4. SHAMELESS
As I mentioned earlier, kids don't give up learning to walk irrespective of all obstacles.
Here is another thing, when they fall, they don't care who is looking.
They get back up and try again.
Also when they start learning to speak, the story is the same.
They are not ashamed to try saying words even when everybody is clearly laughing at them, they do not stop! Instead they join in the laughter.
To be great you must be able to take ridicule and keep doing it until you crack it! Even when you have cracked it, don’t stop! Remember, Sir Richard Branson, dressing up in the waitress’s new uniforms for the launch of the new designs.
All the great people have taken loads of ridicule because greatness requires visions and dreams which only make sense in most cases to the dreamer.
5. NETWORKING
I often take my children to playgrounds and friends' homes. I am always amazed at the speed with which they make friends.
No long introductions, no time wasted and they're already off playing and even arranging sleep over at each other's home. You will not believe that they are meeting for the first time in their lives.
I cannot forget taking my kids to France and they were able to make friends quickly with Italian and French kids who spoke different languages. Please don’t ask me how they communicated but I know they exchanged email addresses.
What if we can network that quickly without the fear of being judged or status in the society? Or even the fear of rejection?
It's been said that "your network is your net-worth"
And Jim Rohn famously said that:
"You are the average of the 5 people you hang out with"
So go out there and network relentlessly in the areas and professions you seek greatness in.
Whatever consequence you are afraid of surely outweighs your dreams, goals and your aim to achieve greatness.
6. BE FEARLESS
Kids have no more fear than the two natural fears as below:
• The fear of LOUD NOISES
• The fear of FALLING
All other fears are learnt and therefore can be unlearnt. This is your action point from today. Any fears outside these two, please start unlearning them today as it is one of the top barriers to achieving greatness.
Mostly, we all fear failure and will not try any new things. So we limit ourselves to the things we have been told is possible.
However, it is in trying new things that we breakthrough. Push the boundaries, poke that box (Seth Godin), this is how greatness is achieved, else we remain mediocre.
7. BE ORGANISED
Kids have set time for everything. Every parent or childminder will tell you that this is critical if you will succeed in looking after a child.
So if you will achieve greatness, you must be organised; have set times for sleep, meditation, study, work, play and relationships.
Start each year, month, week and day with goals and steps to achieve them. The people around you will also respect you for this and you will be more efficient.
Be sure to have all the things you need ready for each event of the day so opportunities do not meet you unprepared.
8. COMMIT TO MASTERY
In Malcolm Gladwell's famous book "The Outliers" he put the number of hour required to achieve mastery at 10,000 hours.
Kids have no problem watching the same movie 100 times and when it comes on the 101st time, they still pay attention and watch it from start to finish as if they are seeing it for the very first time!
In your chosen area, are you willing to read the same book twice or even 10 times? Of the educational videos you have seen, how many have you gone back to watch again or are you always looking out for the next one?
How much time do you spend in re-learning your skills and finding out what has changed?
These are very important questions we must answer in the affirmative to have any chance of achieving greatness.
If the kids see reason in watching the same videos many times even when they can recite it word for word, then I believe there is some lesson there for all of us.
Here are just a few...
Can you the think of any others?
Abundant blessings to you!
