“Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results.” Albert Einstein.
So you have now made up your mind that you want to be a game changer. You have been inspired by all the great men and women who have gone before you; some in past generations, others in your own and yet others in the younger generation.
You have identified the league in which you are going to play, have determined in your heart that you will not accept the status quo and are prepared to fight to the very end to change the game. This is it. You have purposed in your heart that come rain, come thunder you will change the game for your own benefit.
Well done for identifying your league, your game, your opponents and still deciding to change the game! Except there is one enemy you never saw coming. The one within! And I will give you the name of that enemy. Success.
Man has been known to subdue cities and nations, to navigate treacherous waters and to tame vicious beasts but taming and controlling oneself has been the toughest battle of all.
As we begin to change the game and are initially buoyed by success, there is always a danger that the once lofty targets and visions we set for ourselves begin to look unnecessary because we are now comfortable. The drive to fight and change the game begins to fade once we have started reaping the harvests of earlier efforts. All of a sudden we begin to be philosophical. And in no area is this more obvious than in love and politics.
“I mean, I have done my part haven’t I? I have fought my way from destitution into relative prosperity so even if I don’t get to own the business empire I initially dreamed of, it wouldn’t be a train smash now, would it? I even give money to beggars by the traffic lights.”
Now if our employers had reasoned like that, where would we be? What about the hundreds and thousands of people that were going to benefit from our empire, to feed their families and make their own dreams come true? It is true; good is the enemy of great. Once we slip into this mentality we have entered our comfort zone.
The difference is in your attitude when you set out to change the game. If you just WANTED to change the game, you were never going to complete the change but if you felt deep down that you HAD to change the game then success, resistance and even your own habits would have no power to stop you. That explains why people have chosen death over life when it came to their cause.
If they just WANTED to change the game, they would say, “ Come on guys, isn’t there another way to work this out?”, but if they were GIVEN to their cause they would, like Nelson Mandela, say “Equality is an ideal for which…if needs be I am prepared to die.” That is the spirit of a true game changer!
I have a question for you. How important is your vision to you? Is it something you WANT to do and therefore can drop at any time, or something you feel you MUST do, like an obligation to yourself, your family and humanity. Do you feel that failure to accomplish it is not an option as long as you have breath in you? If the answer to the question above is negative, or unclear to you, you need to go back to the drawing board.
To avoid slipping into the comfort zone, where there are no risks and change is no longer welcome because we have security, we need a higher reason to change the game outside of personal benefit, otherwise once our own desires have been fulfilled we will relax.
And humanity would have lost another hero.
In simple terms; Energy is defined as the ability to do work. And work is said to be done when the point of application of a force moves in the direction of the force. What the definition of work implies is that you can spend the whole day pushing against a concrete wall, and make no mistake, you are burning energy, even sweating but the net result is the wall hasn’t moved an inch! And that is why losing is never pleasant for anyone. You expended energy but did not recoup it through the realization of a goal and the accompanying satisfaction. It feels like you have wasted energy.
I am not going to dwell on the dangers of being a negative person or hanging out with one. Suffice it to say negative energy is destructive, is anti-achievement and always ends up in failure. Usually it can be traced to an experience that was not handled well, and has since become a poisoned oasis for others. We need to watch out that we do not become this person no matter how hurt or disappointed we are. Negative people are unattractive.
On the other hand I can’t think of anyone who does not love a person carrying positive energy.We love people with positive energy because they tell us that we can do it. They motivate us and encourage us to reach higher. When we speak to them, we feel we can do anything. I have friends that I always tell that they are healthy for my ego because every time I speak to them, I always feel like the most success- bound person in the world. When you carry positive energy, you are driven to accomplish. You want to expend that energy and see work done, so you won’t waste your energy on activities that do not bring a tangible return. How many times have you been so busy in a day and at the end of it, sit down and ask yourself what you have actually accomplished and can’t find it? Oh yes, you were sitting in a rocking chair; demonstrating lots of kinetic energy but in reality not going anywhere!
But to carry positive energy, you first need to generate it. And I do not know a better way to generate this energy except by having a hunger for life in general and more importantly for something specific. It has been scientifically proven that people who have lost hope in life or something dearly loved and have given up on life, die sooner than otherwise. This is because the body also begins to shut down, faculties that would normally generate huge amounts of energy shut down and instead of being alive the person begins to exist. The body was not created to be idle but active and when it becomes idle, we won’t get far in life.
