Do not Drop Your Baton!

Suddenly I realized that others would someday get everything I had worked for so hard … Who knows if that person would be sensible or stupid? ­– Solomon (King of Israel)

The most unfortunate thing that happens to a relay team is for a runner to drop his baton. The baton in the hand of an athlete is the mandate he has to compete. It is the only thing that qualifies him to continue with the race with the possibility of winning. The moment the baton is dropped, the athlete and team is disqualified from the race.

Every area of life has a baton. We have relationship batons, faith batons, career batons, and a lot more. Interestingly, many folks drop their batons in life’s races. They take the right faith baton, or the relationship baton, or family baton and drop it along the way. In so doing they completely lose even before the race is completed.

It is possible to drop life’s batons in many ways. Some ways include:

1.     Disobeying instructions

2.     Permitting jealousy (for other life athletes) to creep in

3.     Not giving due regard or respect to other people’s boundaries

4.     Impatience at low times

5.     Rejecting advice from experienced people

6.     Accepting advice from inexperienced people

7.     Maintaining a careless and carefree attitude

8.     Fear of doing things differently from your predecessors

9.     Placing personal gain ahead of team gain

    {To order for my new book, Do it Like Kids, click here}

All these points, and some others I may not have thought of, can lead to you dropping your baton in some areas of life. It is important you take them seriously. 

How to Know if You Have the Wrong Baton

If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading. ­– Gautama Buddha

At any given period of your life you have several batons in your hands as you take on life’s races. You have relationship batons, career baton, education baton, spiritual development baton, and a host of other batons you may have at the moment.

Sometimes, it may be tricky knowing if you are holding the right or wrong baton in each of these areas of your life. Interestingly, you may have the right relationship baton and at the same time carry a sorely wrong career baton. In addition, while some wrong batons, say choice of car, may be easily overlooked and lived with, there are some others, like the faith baton, that affects every area of your life.

I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that you may not realize fast the wrong baton in your hand but the good news is that the guiding rules identifying wrong batons are easily discernible. You know you have the wrong baton if:

1.     You must strive or cheat to get it

2.     It does not fit your talents, natural gifts and abilities

3.     You cannot make comfortable progress with it

4.     You did not choose it

5.     The best you get out of it is to impress some people

6.     You consistently struggle to provide finances for it

7.     People see you as a misfit in it

8.     You do not know its purpose

9.     You have no experience with anything related with it

    {To order for my new book, Do it Like Kids, click here}

The underlying principle behind identifying a wrong baton from a right one is your personal peculiarity. This covers your experiences, talents and natural abilities, and environment. What then to do with the wrong baton in your hand may be the next question in your mind? I will respond to this in my next article: “Doing the Best with the Wrong Baton.” 

Running With The Right Baton?

First he took my birthright and now he’s taken my blessing. ­– Esau (after his father blessed his brother, Jacob, in his stead)

Let’s take a short mind stroll. You are the forth runner in a 4 by 100 meters race. You are not just the fastest in your team but the fastest on the tracks that day. The cameras are on you and you can imagine the commentaries said of you to the listening ears of your loved ones back home. 
        The surge of adrenalin, which you are now used to and enjoy, flow through your veins and you are set to take another medal for your team and country. The gun goes and within seconds you spring to your swift feet, receiving the baton and hit the tracks with lightning speed. It is only when the race ends that you realize that more-than-normal excitement of the crowd wasn't just because you have crossed the finish line first, but that you crossed it holding on to the wrong baton!

“Impossible,” you may think, but many folks have won some life races with batons they weren't supposed to be holding. This makes their toil, energy and excitement, best described as, “wasted effort.” Some are presently in higher institutions reading the wrong courses, some are in relationships they shouldn't be in (disclaimer: this doesn't apply to marriages), some are in professions they care little about.

Indeed, we pick the wrong batons when we inherit prospering businesses we lack passion for, or when we continue to build our lives in the pattern chosen for us because the field is “professional,” or when we make life decisions based on fear of losing the favor of someone we earnestly want to please – say our parents.

 {To order for my new book, Do it Like Kids, click here}

Suffice me to interject that a wrong baton may not be wrong in itself. What makes it wrong is the fact that it shouldn't be in your hands. In the hands of another runner it is the perfect baton but in yours it condemns you to failure. Are you running with the right baton?

In the next few articles I will be writing about running with the right baton from different perspectives, starting with how to know if you are holding on to the wrong baton. . I look forward to having you with me as we make it a jolly-good read.

The Perfect Success Journey

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to take away. ­– Antoine de Saint-Exupery

I recently saw a video that tries to teach footballers how to take the perfect penalty. Out of curiosity for the word “perfect” I gave it my attention. Interestingly, it taught, in four minutes, what I consider pillar-principles that lead to success in any success journey. I felt I should share these principles here as you look to making significant progress in your success journey.

The first principle is practice. I often tell my students to learn as much examples as there can be in any subject because all examples are examination questions solved out. When you get extremely familiar with the examples the examination will not be a problem. The habit of practice is one of the biggest gift you can offer your success journey. Martin Perry, a confidence coach, says, “It's through preparation that you create the outcomes you want; through preparation you create future history.” I like the choice of his well-spoken words.

The second principle is simulating pressure. When demand is made of you it will not be made in the comfort of your room – reading table and cup of coffee setting. It would be made under the scrutinizing – sometimes pessimistic – eyes of skeptics. If you would produce great results irrespective of the environment you must learn to concentrate in chaos. Your perfect environment will not be so you must learn to do your stuff anyway and do it well. You can do this by introducing noise or distractions. To meet my goal, for example, of four outstanding articles every week for this blog I sometimes have to write in very noisy environment where I am distracted every five minutes. Introducing a deadline is another way of putting time-pressure on yourself as you practice.

           {To order for my new book, Do it Like Kids, click here}

The third, and Finally you produce outwardly what you have captured inwardly. If you can see it within you can produce it without. Learn to visualize the outcome you desire. I visualize virtually every assignment I have – including this article. If practice is outward preparation, visualization is inner preparation. When you visualize the positive results you desire you program your system to attract them.

Finally, On Financial Capital

Rule No 1: Never lose money. Rule No 2: Never forget Rule No 1. ­– Warren Buffet

 Ok, I have recently written articles – social capital, intellectual capital, and skill capital – that placed financial capital on a cross destined for its death. If you have followed these articles (and are like me) you will still have it somewhere in your mind the thought that says, “Money is important!” and you would be right. To assume otherwise will be to deceive the one person you shouldn't – you.

There are some principles overseeing financial capital. One of such is a savings culture. We must have the courage to save out a percentage of our earnings consistently. It is better to save percentages rather than fixed amounts. Second is the principle of investments. We must also learn to invest what we have in worthy ventures (not get rich quick schemes) and watch our investments grow.

Having said this, my focus for this article are the factors that makes financial capital elusive to most of us. The first is the basic human emotion of fear. The fear of losing our money cripples us and ensures we do not take the investment steps we should have taken. Therefore we remain on the same spot. 

Closely associated with fear is the strong desire for the oxymoron, “financial security” we all have. We say, or, worse still, act this out by our frantic search for jobs that have “financial security.” In our desire to secure the future we shortchange ourselves today only to realize tomorrow that the “security” we sought was all but a fantasy.

Third is permitting debt to hold us down. Personal debts are bites into future funds. In anticipation for the money yet to come we activate the flight mode from present day needs by asking for soft loans. Debts leave us subject to the person that gave them to us.

           {To order for my new book, Do it Like Kids, click here}

Finally is the waste factor. We activate this in various ways. To some it shows itself as impulsive spending, to others it is an addiction to trendy clothes, or phones, or gadgets. If you would take full advantage of the limited financial capital you have access to you must tend to your wastage.