Reaching for Greatness

Tonight I met a man who changed my view of the world. Tonight I met a man who not only inspired me to greatness but one who opened my eyes towards what leadership really is. This man's name is Dan Awendo, CEO of Home Afrika. I will not dull his words with my own, I wish to share his story as he shared it that his story may be forever etched in your mind.

"I went to Starehe boys, back in the day when Starehe was still Starehe boys - these days they do not top as they used to. I went to Starehe on a football scholarship, I was a great goalkeeper and that's how I went to Starehe. The other students looked down on me and that gave me a very real sense of self and wanting to do extra. Starehe was composed mainly of Division One students, so if you were a Division Two student then it was almost like you belonged elsewhere. The school was really about your own effort and by the end of my stay there, I was among the top four in my class. 

This is what I am talking about, that extra-effort that you put in for you - not for your parents, not for your teachers and not for your bosses but for you. Regardless of what happens around you, what is in you is what will always make the difference. What you know that others don't will keep you ahead of others. I grew up in Kaloleni and I can tell you that half of the people I grew up with are dead. They lost their lives to drugs and gangs but I made it and others made it too, so it is not what goes on around you but what you do above and beyond for yourself that matters.

We all start out as technicians. Either you are coding, fixing computers, doing accounting or something like that - so we all start out as technicians. However, when you become a manager you must stop being a technician because leadership is about achieving results through others. As a leader you must make sure that your team shines because if they do not shine then neither will you shine. 

As a manager, hire the person who can replace you, who is either like you or better because otherwise you will not grow. The only way to move up is to create space for others below you to move up. It is like the paradox in the bible that we receive by giving. To most people it is counter-intuitive but those who have tried it know that it is the truth. Therefore get to know people you work with, know what motivates them and make sure that they shine. You can no longer be a builder, you must be an architect.

You are the average of the 5 people that you spend your time with the most. Show me your friends and I will show you your future. Eventually you will become like the people you spend your time the most with. 

If you remember nothing else, remember this, You only move up by creating space for others below you to move up."

In Honour of Our Loved Ones

Sorry I never told you

All I wanted to say

And now it's too late to hold you

'Cause you've flown away

So far away

Never had I imagined

Living without your smile

Feeling and knowing you hear me

It keeps me alive

And I know you're shining down on me from heaven

Like so many friends we've lost along the way

And I know eventually we'll be together

One sweet day...

One Sweet Day - Mariah Carey

This one goes out to all of you people who have a father, a mother, a husband, a wife, a sister, a brother, a son, a daughter, a grandfather, a grandmother, a friend or someone that you truly love and who can never be replaced. There are no words that can describe losing a loved one. No words can make things right again, no words can set the stars right again when that precious life is lost. We can only honour our loved ones and celebrate the lives they lived.

Funny how you never notice things about a loved one when they are still alive. Like how they laugh or how they had this strange habit of calling for no reason at all. Small things, things that don't seem like a big deal like how your mother would always remind you to carry a handkerchief or how your wife used to pack your lunch for you - these are the things you will remember the most when someone close to you passes away.

So why wait for Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter or some other man-made holiday till you can see them? Why call when you can visit? Why hold on to the words that you know would mean the world to them? Why hold on to grudges? You always assume that you have more time but in truth, none of us has very long anyway. 

The greatest fear of man is not to lose his own life, no, it is for the person he cares about the most in the world to meet a sudden end. One day this will certainly be true, if you don't die first. For a man, the worst day in his life is when his mother dies. Conversely, the worst day in a woman's life is when her father dies. The worst day in any parent's life is when they lose a child, especially when the child was older.

The Christmas holidays are here again. So take that leave, go home, or go to your loved one. Show them you care, show them that you treasure them, because once they are gone, there will be no more words left to say.

My best friend gave me the best advice

He said, "Each day's a gift and not a given right.

Leave no stone unturned, leave your fears behind

And try to take the path less traveled by.

That first step you take is the longest stride...

If Today was Your Last Day - Nickelback

The Titanic

Yesterday is but a dream, and tomorrow is only a vision, but today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope.

 - Khalil Gibran

"I was waiting for so long, for a miracle to come. Everyone told me to be strong. Hold on and don't shed a tear..."

- Celine Dion.  

The Titanic, they called it the Ship of Dreams. It was supposed to spell a new dawn for man. It was supposed to be the greatest thing ever invented by man, but it sunk, killing 1,517 people and leaving only 706. It took 3 years to build the Titanic but less than a minute to sink it.

You all know the story and I won't rehash it. We all make mistakes, we all do things we shouldn't do. Sometimes they work out and sometimes they don't. Sometimes, Murphy's law will apply to you, anything that can go wrong will go wrong and you will hit an iceberg. You'll never see it coming, just as the crew of Titanic didn't see the iceberg till it was too late.

Life happens to everybody, jobs end, children die, engagements are called off, marriages end, women miscarry, businesses go bankrupt, things fall apart. As the master of your own life and the architect of your fate, you design and draw up impeccable plans, not quickly no. Rather through tireless days and sleepless nights, you craft your dreams and paint a picture of the world you want to live in. Nothing left to chance, everything is mapped out, well maybe not everything but you convince yourself that you have got it together that at least even if you fail, at least you tried greatly. Nay, you say to yourself, you force yourself to believe that it is impossible to fail, because those who have gone this way before insist that if you put yourself in a situation where failure is not an option, you will succeed.

Well, that works most of the time, until you lose your job or a loved one is diagnosed with cancer. That is, everything makes sense until the one thing, the one component of your plan that you felt was invulnerable collapses and everything comes apart like it was never solid in the first place. I once heard a story about a man who succeeded in all he put his hands to. He had the Midas touch, no venture of his failed or broke even. All his efforts were rewarded gloriously. He believed that he was untouchable, that his excellence bordered that of a god. Well, one day he got sick and his wife whom he had always taken care of, did not know to run the businesses and he lost it all.

Through the darkness and good times

I knew I'd make it through

And the world thought I'd had it all...

Things collapse, now you've lost your job, your main and perhaps even, your only source of income. You smile but through your eyes your sorrow shows. Your dreams, your great dreams of building a great home for your family, your dreams of sending your children to great schools, your dream of giving your family the finer things in life goes down the drain. You do all that you know to do, you do things that you never thought you'd have to do. Your bear the humiliation and try to smile. You hide the stories of your former trappings, you try to conceal your former life from your current colleagues. You can't let them know how far you have fallen.

The people who would have once greeted you as sir on your way into a building or into an office, the people who would have saluted you and spoken reverently to you now harass you when you try to enter the building where you work as a handyman. They treat you like a suspect or a criminal. You are silent on your true qualifications. You are reduced to pleading with people who work in the offices of the building where you now work as a handyman, for a job. Where you would have once come in as a distinguished man, you now come in as an assistant to a more skilled handyman. 

You carry the toolbox, you do as you are told. You try to keep up, but you are not as fast as the other handymen. You do your best, but you are not always paid for it. The hardest part is when your friends and former colleagues ask you where you work now - that is if you are single. If you are a family man, the hardest part is going home and having to look your kids in the eye knowing that you will disappoint them. The pain is blinding and sometimes, death seems like a reprieve, no, even better, death seems like a friend. More than death, you want to never have lived, you want that the Earth would open up and swallow you and that there would be no memory of you - that no one would remember what a failure and disappointment you were. 

When it was dark now there's light

Where there was pain now's there's joy

Where there was weakness I found my strength

Friend, I am here to tell you that I have been that man. I am here to tell you that I reached the precipice and fell hard and that it hurts when Humpty Dumpty has a great fall. It hurts to piece yourself together, it hurts not to be able to hold your head up high. It hurts to have nothing to talk about at the table of men. It hurts when you have nothing to show for all the years of your work. It hurts when you can't even provide for yourself. It hurts, it really hurts to borrow from friends and loved ones. 

This too shall pass. I know it doesn't look that way. I know exactly how it looks and feels but here's the key, when you are going through hell, keep going. When one door closes, another opens but it can be hell in the hallway. Disappointment may rain on you, people will turn on you but I can promise you this, it will end and you will smile again. 

Your unsinkable ship, your perfect plans, your awesome dreams, your great job, your rock-solid marriage will hit an iceberg. Everything you know or you think you know will change but I am here to assure you that this is not the end, not for you. You are greater than your worst tragedy, you are stronger than your greatest challenge. You may lose your will to live, you may lose the spark in your eye, you may even lose the one thing you never thought you would lose but the sun will shine again on you. You will need help but when you shine again, you will shine brighter than you ever did before and one day soon after that, you will understand the storm you went through.

What is destined will reach you, even if it be beneath two mountains. What is not destined will not reach you, even if it be between your two lips.

- Imam Ghazali

The Perfect Partner

…Well I found a woman, stronger than anyone I know

She shares my dreams, I hope that someday I'll share her home

I found a love, to carry more than just my secrets

To carry love, to carry children of our own

We are still kids, but we're so in love

Fighting against all odds

I know we'll be alright this time

Darling, just hold my hand

Be my girl, I'll be your man

I see my future in your eyes…

Ed Sheeran - Perfect

So you found that special one. That woman that makes you realize that all your life has been spent in preparation for the moment that you'd meet her. You met her, that amazing Wonder Woman for whom every pain, every heartache was worth the experience. 

She is your sunshine, she is your rain, she is every flower in your garden, the crown jewel, the very breath that you take. The one you cannot live without. The love of your life, the future you hope for, the one that you want to spend the rest of your life with, the one you would give your all for. The one for whom time stops, the one with whom every moment counts. The one whose eyes you get lost in, the one who is worth the wait, the one.

The thing is, you reach this stage a few times in your life. It's therefore understandable for you to be sceptical of the passage above. How many times do you feel that you've met the one only to find yourself face down on the floor? God it hurts! It hurts to be alone but it hurts even more to love and to be left by the one you love, especially when they promised to be there for you forever.  

What to do then? You don't want to be alone but it feels like any time you try all you feel is pain. Keep trying. Keep putting yourself out there. There is some wisdom to the expression that "one wears their heart upon their sleeve." Fortune favours the bold. There is only so much pain you can take - I know, but you don't know how much you can take. You don't know how much inner strength you possess till you go through hell. No risk no reward, no pain no gain, no guts no glory, you have to risk it to get the biscuit.

I knew I had found my perfect partner when I discovered that she cared enough to reach out even when we'd had a fight. I realized that I had found my partner in crime when I discovered that we could fight and still love each other. I realized that for the first time I loved someone truly and deeply when they wouldn't give up on me even when I was being difficult - not intentionally of course but men withdraw, sometimes more than they should. I realized that I had found her when I saw some of me in her and when she saw some of herself in me. I realized that I had found the one when I didn't care to hold her handbag.

She’s beautiful, and therefore to be wooed; She is a woman, therefore to be won

- William Shakespeare