Sundaymail Editor
Hunt for Greatness
Milton Kamwendo
There might be other days in your timeline, but there is no day like today. Today is special. It has its own special opportunities and graces. Welcome this day and live out your best in it. Make your mark and be able to say tomorrow you can be whatever you like, but I have lived my best today. Squeeze out of the time you have all the juice of life and do the best you can. Welcome this moment as a gift – yours to have and hold. Your motto should be “carpe diem!” It means seize the day. Seize this moment and make the most of it.
Live your best today and make the most of this moment regardless of its emotional content.
If this moment is tough, strengthen yourself and stretch for growth. If this moment is challenging, reach forth and learn all you can. If this moment is easy, do not be deceived and become complacent. If time seems to be too abundant, write bigger goals that inspire you to reach for greatness. Live your best today. Seize the hour and do not let procrastination kill your dreams and drive.
Soon, this day, too, will be gone. You cannot keep borrowing time from tomorrow. Make the most of the moments at hand. Do your best with what you have and where you are. Greatness is built daily but not in a day. Every day is an opportunity to move forward and to inch towards the greatness that you have designed and to tap into the your abundant potential.
After university, I joined the banking sector as a graduate trainee with Barclays Bank. Times change, systems change, but people grow if they make up their mind to do so. It was the early 1990s and in those days, banking was based at the branch.
The banking IT systems were limited to branch activities and most of the functions were manual, and rigorous. All the customer services, back-office processing, lending, administration and relationship work were at the branch level. The bank manager mattered and could transform your destiny with a few decisions.
As part of the training programme, we would go through all the departments, starting at data capture. It used to be called waste department).
In the waste department, we had to sort and capture all the transactions of the day. That day’s transactions had to be captured in full and accurately, else this affected both the customer and the bank’s books.
In the waste department, you dare not leave anything for tomorrow. Today’s work had to be done. You would not operate with a tomorrow margin. You had to do what you had to do for the day. Each day mattered and its work had to be captured and processed.
Tomorrow is seductive and tempting. It is the easy tray in which to place what we should have done today and now. It is the magic whip that we can easily spread on any “to do” item to make it look better, sweeter and easier.
Without a tomorrow, most people would just get mentally sick, and many do. Alas, procrastination is a thief and dining with one, you have to look at your watch.
What you can control is what is in your hand – today; this day. Tomorrow is a mere mirage and promise. You cannot boast about tomorrow. You can only work with humility today.
Do not carry the weight of tomorrow today. Do your lot today. Process your “waste” today. The number of tomorrow commitments that have been given is so massive that the world would reel without storage space to contain them were they numbered.
What I learnt from the bank’s waste/data processing department is that you cannot consign today’s work to tomorrow. If you do, you will never catch up on your work because tomorrow’s work may be more than today’s and the interbank clearing period is not waiting.
Do what you have to do today. Be decisive and be an action person. For greatness to come, choose to be a person who puts action to plans. Execution is the tinder that lights up strategy. Execution is not something you do after strategy planning. Execution is the strategy.
Procrastination is a weak pain killer. It will put the pain in a cradle for a short period but will not cure the disease. While tomorrow may make you feel like you have worked, it will not give you the fruits of actual work.
You should be asking the question: For how long can you put off your greatness?
Without real action, not much will change, but everything will likely be deteriorating.
Take massive action today and a little more. Keep saying to yourself: “I act now! I act now! I act now!” Rest a little if you must but take massive action. Pack action into your day. Draw up your to-do list and then do.
By the time you go to sleep, you must have worked. Merely showing up and clicking away is not necessarily working. Being around but absent-minded is not working.
There must be movement and results. Resolve to deliver value. Results do not come from “job attendance”, but from work done.
Working means getting things done, delivering results, making things happen, meeting set goals and setting higher ones. Work today and let tomorrow take care of itself.
An early lesson that has stuck with me from my banking experience is that yesterday is a paid and processed cheque. A cheque is a bearer instrument that you fill out and ask the bank to pay on presentation.
After the cheque is presented to the bank, processed and cleared, the cheque would be crossed, usually with a red pen and stamped “paid”.
The cheque would be returned to its owner together with his statement. Deal done.
Yesterday is a paid cheque. You cannot use the past, except for historical reconciliation. Do not be parked in the pains of the past.
You cannot present again for payment a cheque that has been paid. You cannot bring part of yesterday into today. You cannot borrow part of yesterday’s time for use today.
Sometimes people would issue a cheque with a forward date. This would be called a post-dated cheque.
Tomorrow is a post-dated cheque or promissory note. You cannot draw on post-dated instruments before their time unless it is a discounting transaction. You cannot use tomorrow today.
The best preparation for tomorrow is to do what you have to do today. Today is ready cash.
You can draw these funds and use them. Use today, use it wisely and use it all, because tomorrow will be another day. Abusing the present is mortgaging the future.
Edgar Albert Guest blessed the world with his poem titled “Tomorrow!”
Read it, learn from it and let it inspire you to make the most of today. It reads:
“He was going to be all that a mortal should be
Tomorrow.
No one should be kinder or braver than he
Tomorrow.
A friend who was troubled and weary he knew,
Who’d be glad of a lift and who needed it, too;
On him he would call and see what he could do
Tomorrow.
Each morning he stacked up the letters he’d write
Tomorrow.
And thought of the folks he would fill with delight
Tomorrow.
It was too bad, indeed, he was busy today,
And hadn’t a minute to stop on his way;
More time he would have to give others, he’d say
Tomorrow.
The greatest of workers this man would have been
Tomorrow.
The world would have known him, had he ever seen
Tomorrow.
But the fact is he died and he faded from view,
And all that he left here when living was through
Was a mountain of things he intended to do
Tomorrow.”
Intentions are noble things. Deeds done today are supreme. There are opportunities of this season that are not soon coming back, tomorrow.
What will you do tomorrow?
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
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