The opposite of greatness

Hunt for Greatness
Milton Kamwendo

It has been many decades since I left Junior School.

However, the memories of my time at Masuku Primary School are still vivid and I am grateful for the strong foundation that I got from this humble school.

Perhaps one of the unforgettable games that we would play in the classroom, strongly inspired and supported by the iconic Student’s Companion is the game of “opposites”. Sometimes understanding the opposite helps you understand the principle.

Greatness is a choice. Its opposite path is available and more accessible to whom it may concern. I looked up the opposite of greatness I got the following words: “littleness, insignificance, weakness, inability, lethargy, incompetence, unimportance, tininess, powerlessness, smallness.”

A little creativity and original thinking never did anyone any harm. My rendering of the opposite of greatness is: “hell.” I know you do not want to go there, play there or even dream being there.

All activity is driven by strategy. There are seven easy strategies for going to hell – the opposite of greatness. The strategies are:

1. Follow your feelings and do what feels good regardless of whether it is right or wrong. Worship your feelings and follow their lead and you know where you will get to.
2. Buy things that you do not need using money you do not have to impress people you do not know. Keep this for as long as possible and you will be as poor as possible.
3. Hold on to all hurts, bitterness and resentment. This will make you feel sick sometimes but you can always pass it for a strong stand that speeds you to hell. There is no practical benefit to storing anger, resentment and bitterness for years. What is the point?
4. Blame others for everything and always be on the lookout for scape-goats. If you cannot find anyone to blame, just blame the bland past or the system. You can always blame your skin, ancestry, neighbourhood or the rock near your house. The more your blame the better you will feel and more dis-empowered you will be.
5. Be consumed by yourself and what is best for you, without thinking about others. Be absorbed fully by your problems, your happiness, your success, your wealth, your entertainment and everything else that gives you pleasure and promotes. Let it all be about you and you alone. The more you do this the more you will realise that life does not work that way. Beware: your clansman will fan this flame and encourage you along this path to hell.
6. Be anxious and stressed about everything. Worry and stew about things all the time. Always be under stress, thinking about what people owe you, upset about the way things work, distressed about life and bothered about everything. Worry is misplaced worship, where you start worship a problem instead of working the solution.
7. Find the negative in everything and point it out loudly everything that is wrong and call out everyone who is wrong. Complain bitterly, make noise frantically and be heard. Never believe anyone or anything. Be a cynic and yell whenever you can.

If you can do these seven strategies well you will have found the highway to hell. You will score points on the hell dashboard and you will have a hell of a bad time with your life. There is an alternative path you can choose.

Greatness cannot be achieved when you are a slave of your feelings. You have to take intentional control and direct your life and your emotions. You achieve best when you have a moral and life standard that you follow and that does not depend on your emotional swings. You easily lose direction if your compass depends on how you feel and what you think gives you ultimate and sustained pleasure.

Discipline is the ability to do what needs to be done regardless of how you feel. Talk to anyone who is achieving greatness in any arena, they will tell that it is not about how you feel but where you direct your energy and focus.

Mr. Jim Collins in his legendary work entitled: “Good to Great – Why some companies make the leap and others don’t” says that one of the keys of moving from just being good to being great is a culture of discipline.

This culture requires disciplined people, who engage in disciplined thought and take disciplined action. Discipline is not tyranny, but the key to the freedom of greatness.

Note well your audience. Stop trying to make impressions with what you do not have, what you do not own and trying to impress people that you do not know.

Living to make impressions in a game where no one is keeping the score is insanity and leads to hell. Be willing to focus your effort and stop pleasing those who care little about you. Never be afraid to work gradually, take deliberate action and work your way to where you need to be even if no one is singing your praises.

Never be afraid to be authentic. It is not everything in life that always needs a filter and vanish.

Be comfortable in your skin and your story. Greatness is a journey and success takes a long time.

Digging foundations takes time. Private victory is the foundation of all public victory.

Make yourself lighter to lift and cast off all burdens that clog your heart, blur your mind and pollute blood. Bitterness eats you and corrodes you.

Hate injects toxins into your blood stream.

Jealousy will keep you imprisoned and anger will keep you boiling. Forgive and never allow the hurts of the past to blind your future and take away your freedom of today. Whenever you journey towards greatness, towards the magnificent future, you have to deliberately choose the best parts of the past.

Choose the path that does not make you unnecessarily sick and inefficient. Always take the best parts of the past and direct your best thinking towards what is good and great.

You are not a victim and you are not powerless. While you may not always choose what happens to you, you do choose how you respond to whatever happens. The thoughts that you allow yourself to dwell on shape your experience of life.

Choose what you allow to rent your mental real estate. Ms. Caroline Leaf, a neurosurgeon writes in her book, How to Switch on Your Brain, “Choice has mental “real estate” around the front of the brain.

It includes many circuits that start at the basal fore-brain (between the eyebrows) and extends back across the frontal lobe, which is capable of an impressive array of functions and is connected to all other parts of the brain.”

Choose to apply your mental efforts towards noble thoughts.

Instead of dwelling on bitter thoughts dwell on transformative thoughts of vision.

Instead of thinking like a victim, think like a protagonist – like the main actor in the movie of your life. Stand back and observe your thinking; watch your obsessions and go ahead and get the toxic out of your system.

You will not go far looking everywhere for scape-goats to explain your challenges, and absolve you of responsibility.

You move forward in life when you take responsibility and focus your efforts on taking action instead of resigning to fate.

Stop being consumed with yourself and realise that the world is a village and a group of villages. So much good is generated when you spread the good for all.

There is so much to go around and having an abundance mentality is liberating and empowering.

Stop being on a treadmill of stress and stressing others. Worry is a substitute for thinking and positively channelling your mind.

Worry borrows sorrow from tomorrow, without repaying it in better currency. All it does is that it robs you of the joy of today and leaves you carrying both today and tomorrow’s burdens. Worry gives small things big and fearful shadows that they do not deserve. Worry builds, bottles and creates resentment. Worry is the darkroom where all the negatives are developed and given sharper and piercing focus. Worry is the abuse of imagination. When you stop worrying the dark clouds of despair start clearing and opportunities that you never saw start emerging. Stop worrying, start thinking, head into action and you will surprise yourself in many ways.

Stop being negative and dwelling on the impossible.

While being positive will not solve all your problems, being negative robs you of the energy to solve any problems. Instead of looking for everything that does not work, look for what works and what you could make work. Nothing will work until you start working.

 

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.