Never Skip An Opportunity to Grow

Every precious moment that I have is a special present to be lived fully. Every day is an opportunity for growth, enjoyment, improvement and development. If you are not growing you are steadily decaying. If you are not getting better you are likely growing bitter with each passing moment. Whatever you do, do not stand still but grow daily. 

Grow mentally: read, think, meditate, share and stretch your mind and boundaries. Refuse to set so low a ceiling that you have so little headroom and you see your door step as the universe. You are only limited by your choices, but never your circumstances. Circumstances are the excuses that you use when you are operating in “victim mode.” Grow daily in order to see more expansively. A mind that is not stretching is becoming dull by the hour and is increasingly becoming a liability to the other minds that it interacts and works with. When your mind is stuck in the past you live in denial and boredom. Thinking in analogue terms in a digital world is self-defeating. If you are stuck in time you use too many resources to do the unnecessary. 

Read something every day. A day in which you have not opened a book is a wasted one. A mind needs daily stimulation to be in shape. Surf a few websites, send a tweet or two, read an interesting book, visit an exciting place, strike a conversation with a stranger, attend a conference, see the world differently. There is so much to learn, so much to do and so little time to spend in purposeless grinds. Mental stagnation is a poor choice to make. You truly have shallow goals, small ambition and poor vision if you easily run out of things to do. If you dream small, you will see a tiny overcrowded world without space or opportunity. This is an abundant world, filled with more possibilities that you have thought and more opportunities than can be digested. It all depends on where you are looking and what your eyes are glazing for. When you are through with growing, you are ready for burial and you make worthy museum material. Refuse to be buried alive in your despair and despondency.

Grow daily and you will prosper gradually. 

Milton 

Take Responsibility to Positively Affect the Grassroots.

In my work at Innov8 Consultoria I do a lot of work with agricultural-related business and Non-Governmental Organization. I facilitate strategy development workshops, work on capacity building and organisational development interventions. The role of the NGOs in development and raising the standard of living in our rural areas in highly commendable and should continue. A number of other community actors have also taken the responsibility to make a difference at the grassroots and at household level. I have also met many individuals that have done many commendable things in their rural spaces. Efforts are there but they are not enough. Unless we start seeing the potential of our rural spaces and investing in them proactively, development will be a distant song playing on foreign radios. Should we choose, you and me can do something where we are, with what we have to change the rural development narrative. 

What is regrettable and disheartening is that there is a significant portion of capable and resourced people that have abandoned their rural areas and left them at the mercy of anyone-to-whom-it-may concern and whatever-may-happen there. To use a rural home is just a burial is to abuse a family and national treasure. We can never rise to greatness as developing nations so long as we ignore the rural areas and allow them to be abused for cheap political egos without tangible development. Many people have over the years been playing their part in rural development and it is clear that the new frontier of interest and opportunity is developing rural areas, empowering our people and positively impacting the grassroots. Tooting high sounding verbiage and development rhetoric to small pools of urbanites that are not willing to take personal responsibility while ignoring the great rural majority at the grassroots will hold future generations of our nation hostage to debilitating poverty. 

Take responsibility: If not you, who?

In most areas in Africa, even for city denizens your primary identity is the rural home of origin. In the colonial era, the first interview question used to be: "Where do you come from?" You could not be taken seriously is you referred to some urban area as your base. Much has changed since. 

In Zimbabwe your rural district is still identified in your national identity number. For a few senior citizen, even your kraal is identified in your national identity. To drum interest in the rural areas as a ticket into circles of power is to abuse our heritage. We must start taking active responsibility for our rural destinies. It is gross irresponsibility to treat rural homes as places to bury and confine the poor, aged, sick and dying. This change starts with a change in attitude and mindset. To be cloistered within the urban comforts and forget that the rural areas are not another country, but part of who we are is to be self-deceived. Without taking personal responsibility and interest in developing our rural spaces we will forever be a lost people with confused and stinking priorities. We will be known for singing great ideals and emotive choruses but doing nothing worthwhile to transform and uplift our own heritage. 

You are Strong, Even Though You May Feel Weak!

You are not weak but you are strong. Believe positively for you to progress positively. You may feel weak that does not mean that you are a weakling. You may be at your weakest, but that does not mean you are finished. 

The weak name the future the "Impossible Rock." When you are feeling weak you think that the future is too big to climb; too competitive for you to enter the race and too wide to embrace. Dare to challenge that narrative. Declare your strength and challenge your limits. Refuse to be boxed in mediocrity. 

Weakness is not the time to despair but to recharge. It is the time to declare and affirm that you are strong. So long as your spirit remains strong and resolute you can be delayed but you cannot be denied. Falling to the ground does not mean you have been defeated. You can fall but you will rise again to significance. 

No one and nothing can make you feel inferior without your permission. Once you have settled it in your mind and named the future as impossible, you cannot give your best strength. Never forget, weak today, strong next week. Never let the current tide discourage you from trying and growing. 

A little boy, David, will be the future king, if he can just confront and challenge his mountain. Never let the challenges of today stop you from seeing possibilities in the future. Hold on to your dream, possess your mission. What is impossible today will not always be so. The stubborn rock in your path, will give way. There is a way; there is hope. Do not die in the winter or wither in the storm. 

Rise with a new declaration of strength, confidence and assert your place in your space. You are strong! 

Committed to your greatness. 

Milton Kamwendo. 

Move Up, Don't Park!

My first taste of school was when I was enrolled by my parents at Tshabalala Pre-school. I loved the experience. I remember doing finger painting, taking soup daily, the sleeping session, the swings and then riding the tricycles at break time. It was such fun. I was taught one important thing: writing out my name. Soon it was time to enroll for Grade 1 at Masuku Primary School in Tshabalala, Bulawayo. I wonder today where I would be had I spent the next 30 years of my life learning the same lessons and never progressing. Apart from abusing myself I would have abused the system and clogged it. Learning, growth and progression are natural life processes. 

The only way that you can change is to learn and grow. Learning the lessons of the past many times over will not create new discoveries. You cannot learn if you are not exposed. You will not be exposed if you prefer darkness to light; stagnation to challenge and comfort to exploration. You have to get out of your comfort zone. 

You may never see how much you are regressing if you see yourself as the gold standard of achievement. Wake up to the brutal facts of life: you are not where you could be given your capacity, potential and the sea of grace you stand on. To take the fame you have in your village as global acclaim is self deception. For a kapenta fish to think and then behave like a shark is unfortunate. Growth and change comes from the humility to learn, the passion to progress, the fortitude to maintain focus and the resolve to keep growing. 

Go to the next grade, take the next class, pursue the next goal. Don't park! 

Be Relevant Today

Life is not just a battle for significance, it is most importantly a battle of relevance. If you become irrelevant you will be ignored. If you get ignored you may end up discarded. This is the essence of creative destruction. 

To say relevant:

1. Give value - make a difference to someone. 

2. Keep your eyes open - study trends. See shifts in the market and in opinions. 

3. Listen - do not only hear but listen to the voice of the customer. 

4. Lead daily - never be content with yesterday's expertise or views. Keep upgrading your knowledge base. 

5. Read my blog! I share what I learn and would be delighted to get your feedback so that also remain relevant. 

When Dreams Are Deferred!

Dreams inspired and warm the heart. However, at times the dreams are deferred. I came across a poem entitled “Harlem” (A Dream Deferred) by Langston Hughes that touched my heart. 

The poem reads: 

“What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore–

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over—

like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?”

- Poem by Langston Hughes. 

Even is your dreams are delayed, do not lose heart or give up. The sun will rise one day. Let day break  not find you frozen, drunk and forgotten. 

Greatness is yours. 

Creativity in Action

In March 2014 I worked with the team at UNDP Zimbabwe facilitating their All Team Staff Retreat. We worked on the theme and were bent on delivering a creative and inspiring retreat. This is the Programme that the team put together. The theme of the retreat was Air Travel. 

Inspired to have worked with such a creative and inspired team. 

Think in New Boxes

There is nothing as stifling as being in a box without windows. In life there are many boxes. The cliche is usually, "Think outside the box." The challenge with this statement is that it is impossible to do. To understand reality you will always need a box or context. To shed new light you have to change the context. You have to switch on a new light bulb. 

Changing the context means adopting a new box. If you think you are a victim, everything you see around you spells limitations. Your mind could be your enemy or friend depending on how you use it. If you adopt the box of abundance you start seeing possibilities beyond your wildest dreams. 

What new boxes do you need to adopt? What new model could you use to look at your circumstances? What boxes that used to work do you need to discard? Never let history or adversity box you in. Adopt new references that make history just what it is - a fact of life and not a crutch or eternal convenient multigenerational excuse. 

Go fir greatness and refuse to remain in your limiting boxes. 

What is your winning aspiration?

 It is not enough to play, the keystone of strategy is to win in the market place. You have to be clear about the meaning of winning to you. What will winning look like? What are your goals? Where do you want to cut your opponent? Clear goals drive resolute action. 

In the Book of Five Rings, the great warrior, Miyamoto Musashi  says,"The primary thing when you take a sword in your hands is your intention to cut the enemy, whatever the means. Whenever you parry, hit, spring, strike or touch the enemy's cutting sword, you must cut the enemy in the same movement. It is essential to attain this. If you think only of hitting, springing, striking or touching the enemy, you will not be able actually to cut him." In strategy the key is not just to trade along but to execute a winning strategy. Your winning aspiration must be clear. Your goals must be certain and clear. Double talk is not for strategists but idle babblers.

Play to win.