Has it ever dawned on you that everything that has happened to you up to this point in time in your life had a purpose and that purpose was to bestow a unique advantage upon you. Has it ever crossed your mind that who you are and where you are and where you have been will never be replicated not even in a billion years? In fact do you know that of the several billion human beings who have walked the planet there will never be another you, your talents, your gifts, your passions, and of course the time at which you are alive?
Once you begin to wrap your mind around the above questions you will inevitably begin to realise this is best time for you to be alive and that if there is anyone who is sitting on a pot of gold but doesn’t know it yet then it’s probably you. To explain let me ask you a question. How many Mandela’s, Peles, Maradonas, Martin Luther Kings and Gandhis do you know, I bet you, you only know one of each. Why? Because God does not mass produce human beings. He takes time even though the gestation period for all of us is the same and the process is all the same – 9 months.
The point here is all of us are born with certain gifts, talents and abilities that no one else has. But most of us spend time trying to copy cat some of the most successful people in our communities – – – why – – – is it because you deem your talents, gifts and abilities inferior to those of others who are more successful. If you do, do you realize that the most successful people that most societies worship and copy cat didn’t get successful by looking at their┬átalents as inferior. Chances are they took what they had and figured out a way to bring it out to the world. The world in turn compensated them for their originality of contribution and hence their massive success because what they brought to the table cannot be found elsewhere except from the original source, themselves.
Are you with me? Here is the secret to success; it is simple and straight forward. Find out who you are, what your talents are, what your gifts are and what your abilities and passions are and figure out a way of having the world compensate you for what you love doing.
We live in an ocean of average people, people who have gotten average because they trained themselves to be average, even though nothing about them is average. What about you? Are you an average Joe and average Jill? Remember there is nothing average about you; it is your thinking that makes you average. Your talents, your gifts and abilities can be in a class of their own if you give them a chance to blossom. But then that is where the problem is right? Ever since we were young we were sent to these schools where we were expected to behave like other well behaved kids. We where given a model of how we should behave and what to expect from life and what is expected from us.
When we got older we behaved like older kids and may be pretty much scored the same grades, well may be there is nothing wrong with that except that somehow during that process the student who used to talk a lot in earlier classes got silenced by repeated punishments. The student who was on the quiet and reflective side is a bit more talkative now because he has been encouraged to talk and share like other students. I am not saying that there is anything with system I am just saying that who knows what the talkative student would have become had he been encouraged to talk and share instead of suppress his innate desire to do so? On the other hand why not let the other student be silent and speak only when he is ready to speak so as to encourage her deep thinking and reflective nature. Why encourage them to be alike when they are not alike?
So you think I am talking politics of modern education, right? Well I am not because everything I just said has relevance to you. Most systems are designed for the masses or the authorities term and average person. If you ask me this is the worst form of abuse and waste of human potential because in trying to conform to labels that have been put on us as average we let go of the talents, gifts and abilities that make us unique and special. Things that cannot be found elsewhere but in us. So in the quest to become better average people we strive to become better than average without realizing that better than average is nothing more than average person who just got better at beating average standards that have been set by average people.
So why not be yourself, or maybe you have no idea what being yourself is? Don’t worry you are not alone, in a world where mass conformity rules the day and where “follow the herd” seems to be the motto it can be difficult to know want you want to be. So lets start with the things that you love doing, I mean things that you love doing even if people don’t approve of them. If you are going to be yourself the first thing you need to do is to let go of unhealthy need for approval, you don’t need approval from the┬á boss, your wife or your husband, or boyfriend, girlfriend, father or mother to do what feels right for you to do. They have no idea what it feels like to be you.
So what am I saying here? I am saying that love who you are and love who want to be and immerse yourself in the idea that this is the best time for you to be alive. The best days of your life are not two years ago, or five years ago, but now, right here this very moment. I know you may be saying but I have just went through major lose in my life or that I am going through hell right now. Tell you what there is no hell or heaven in terms of experiences that you go through, it is only your thinking that makes it so.
While my heart goes out to you if you have experienced a major loss recently, but the best medicine is to stop moaning and figure out a way to profit from your bad experiences, figure out a way to bring who you are to the market place of life so that your talents, gifts, abilities and ideas will go towards not only serving the biggest bidder but the rest of humanity. Stop trying to survive as an average individual, doing the things you don’t like and working for a boss you don’t like and figure out a way of bringing in more of who you are into what you do so that you have a ball and become an inspiration. Stop trying to change the world and realize that the only person you can change is yourself.
Stop chasing money and realize that the more you chase money the faster it runs. Start realizing that money can only be attracted to you by the person that you have become and because of the value that you bring to the market place of life. Start realizing that in a sea of average people there is nothing more difficult than being yourself. But also realize that success cannot be attracted to a person of average contributions. Success or whatever success means to you can only be attracted by being yourself, by realizing the advantage of who you are and leveraging that advantage to command unique position in the market place of life because by becoming and remaining yourself you rise above competition .
By creating things you become the bench against which average people will begin to hold themselves against.
So it really is up to you. You can stay on the beaten path built by average people over the years or you can create a path of your own, which will be harder but certainly more fulfilling, more rewarding and challenging. Something that will challenge and inspire you to go for the highest and the greatest that’s in you not just once in a while but everyday!
Lets Sithole is speaker, author and entrepreneur. To receive his free ebook Maximum Motivation in Minimum Time send an email with MMMT as a title to [email protected] He invites you to join him on face book and to follow his blog at www.straighttalkforpersonachange.blogspot.com.
