On Thursday I had the opportunity of sharing with Finance Professionals Kenya some thoughts on winning in 2022. Here are a few nuggets...
1.??????Take Full Responsibility for Your Life
- Own your decisions, your choices, your character, your destiny, and your life in totality
- Stop blaming other people, circumstances, or even events
- Stop making excuses - Excuses the flourishing grounds of all failures
- If you make a habit of blaming others, the world will make a mockery of you one day.
2.??????Have a Clear Vision
- What would you like to achieve in life?
- How will your children remember you?
- Without a vision, you will be a life epileptic
- Vision will compel to consider tough options even when easier ones are available
- Vision will ease your decision-making struggles
3.??????Define Success in Your Own Terms
- Success is relative with no single universal definition
- How will you know when you achieve it or get to your destination?
- Do not benchmark against others, Benchmark against your own definition of success - Manhattan City Plan was developed in 1811 (210 years ago).
- Do not allow circumstances, events, and people to define what you can or cannot achieve or become
- Success is a gradual process- Not a one-time event
4.??????Silence Any Contradicting Voice
- Associate with people who affirm and uplift your vision
- Never entertain any discouraging voice.
- Silence the voice of history. Your history could be the biggest hindrance.
- Stand up against self-defeating internal conversations
- Do not entertain any company that demeans your vision.
5.??????Transcend Your Limiting Beliefs
- Our belief about ourselves or something is the greatest catapult or hindrance towards winning in life
- Challenge the common beliefs and status quo - Rodger Banister 1954
- Move past the communal and societal beliefs and become YOU.
- Challenge Common Sense
6.??????Develop an Intense Desire to Win
- Every achievement in human history began with a desire to change something or achieve something.
- The Wright Brothers had an intense desire to fly. The desire drove them from Dayton, Ohio to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina
7.??????Make Discipline a Major Force in Your Life
- Motivation will always get you started, but it is the discipline that will keep you going
- There is no enduring success without discipline
- Your talents, abilities, hard work, and credentials might propel you to the top, BUT only discipline will sustain you there.
- Be faithful and committed to your discipline, without it, you are doomed
8.??????Embrace Incrementalism
- Winning is a gradual process
- Take baby steps and keep going no matter how small the going seems
- An eaglet never breaks out of the shell at once. It is a week-long process.
- Keep "PIPPING" until the shell breaks.
- Keep your eyes on the prize and keep going
- Fixate your eyes on the finishing line
- Follow One Course Until you Succeed
- Ax one tree until it falls, A single axing will never fall any tree in the forest of life.
- Self-doubt is a slow puncture that will deflate you and keep you in the garage of life.
- Believe that you are worth and capable and confess it.
- No matter who believes in you, if you don't believe in yourself you are doomed.
- Confession increases confidence
- You are an average of your five best friends
- You are as good as the company you keep.
- Choose your close company with a toothpick
- Do not allow baggage and dead-weight into your inner circle, it will drain you.
- When you walk with a person you either adjust to their pace or they adjust to yours unconsciously
- Only Quality People. Be wise about whom you hang around with.
- Action is the hinge upon which the door of winning and success swings.
