Strategy is a Step Forward

The key to starting is starting. Start with your strategy. Plot your action path and commit to action.

Right now, right there where you are you are standing at the centre of your pool of possibilities. You have a choice, use it well. Eyes that look are all too common, but eyes that see opportunity are valuable and trained for greatness. It is not what happens to you or around you that matters the most but the way you think and what you choose to do about it.

Giving up is not an option; then what? Thinking that everything will just change at the tap of a finger is not realistic either. Rouse the lion in you and get back to your hustle. Start by looking at your strategy and making some solid decisions. Where will you play? How will you win? What steps will you take? What will make you different? What is your strategic and economic logic? What capabilities do you need to develop? What will you do on Monday morning?

Take action...start by looking at your strategy. Will it get you there?

Committed to your greatness.

Milton Kamwendo.
(c) 2018 

The Life Leverage Number: 10 - 90 Rule.

 Life is 10% what happens and 90% what you choose to do about it. It is true that bad things that happen. It is true that difficult times come. It is true that some winters are bitter. It is also true that adversity strikes. All that is just 10%. It is what you do with whatever happens that makes the real difference. Whatever happens to you, you have a choice. Use that choice wisely otherwise you imprison yourself and kill your potential and initiative. Regardless of what happens never lose hope and do not let the fight in you die.  

Whatever you focus on grows in your eyes to become significant. Wherever your focus goes, there your life will go. Focus on the negative and you will enlarge your darkness. Focus on possibilities and you will start seeing them everywhere. There are too many opportunities and few takers. Your focus feeds either your faith or fears. Most situations that we face in life are neutral. It is our focus that gives them meaning and significance. Never give your problems and challenges special trophy status. You are not a victim, just a warrior posited to win. 

Whatever happens to you regardless of how bad or ugly it is, it is only the 10%. You are the one that supplies the rest of the story - the vital 90%. If you choose you can talk, think, preach, act and fellowship like a victim. Misery always has friends and disgruntled partners. If you are looking for someone to pity you, you will always have ears that surround you. Greatness does not come from pity, but a fight that starts as an attitude within you. There is something so strong inside you. It is up to you to unleash it or lie on it. Have ferocious focus and refuse to be deterred or distracted.  

Invest in Brand You!

Invest in your personal brand. Brands are everywhere - Coke, Nike, Mike, Royco, Buddie, Roil, You, Me and many others. You are also a brand and you have a category or space you influence. 

No brand ever grows without any investment. People will never stop talking about anything they choose including you. What they say when you are present is not as important as what they say when you are absent. What they say when you are not within ear-shot is your the real character of your personal brand. 

Invest in your personal development and build your capacity and competence. Whatever you invest in building your brand will always come back to your with multiplied benefits. 

Any thing you invest in learning and growth will always come back to you compounded. You can never be made smaller by learning anything from anyone. Learn daily and from every source. Learn in any style that works for you. 

You want your personal brand to be a premium brand that delivers something valuable. Me too is never good enough. Personal branding requires your commitment and attention. You can never shine without some polishing. Greatness without some work on your part is mere gambling. Polish yourself daily, consistently. Pick yourself up if you fail and keep learning. 

Learning allows you to reinvent your life daily. Improve with age. If you do not get better, you will just grow bitter. Buy a book, take a class, watch a documentary, write a paper or blog, attend a seminar, do a research, meet a mentor, participate in a group. Whatever you do, refuse to let a day pass while you remain the same. Grow daily and you will shine gradually. 

Application ideas:

1. As a brand what do you represent? What words are associated with your name? 

2. What are you learning daily this week? This month? This year? 

3. What is your brand vision? What are you becoming? Don't be arrested by your present situation. 

Committed to your greatness.

Milton Kamwendo

©2015

Negative is a luxury you do not afford

You do not afford the luxury of a negative thought and orientation. Facing the wrong direction is a costly venture. Brooding on negative thoughts creates in your a disadvantage complex that holds you back. Cut the code of negativity. Refuse to eat negativity, talk negative or be negative. 

You life will never change until

Your thinking does. Change your thinking to transform your life. When you think negative you block your mind from creating and imagining. Negative mindsets never breed winning strategy. Worry is distorted imagination. 

Think possibilities. See possibilities. There is always a dark, dysfunctional side to anything, but choose to face the light and dreams of possibilities. Above the cloud of despair there is always a light shining and a future that beckons. Choose light, not darkness; faith not fiction. 

Create space for thinking and reflection. Starve your mind of the opportunities for worry, regret and fear. Replay your vision of the future and stop terrorizing yourself with your personal horror movie. Read, think and reflect. Invest time into thinking and reading. 

Unless your broaden your canvass your thought, you shrink your universe of options. Your issues cannot be solved by the thinking that created that birthed your problems. To do differently you have to know and understand better. Negativity assumes that the past and present is a continuum into the future. Do not let anyone rob you of opportunities of today and the possibilities of tomorrow. The problems and opportunities of today will not be there forever. Go grab them!

Committed to your greatness. 

Milton Kamwendo. 

Build new capacity!

Wherever capacity exists, blessing abounds and excellence is expressed. Wherever capacity is lacking simple things take longer to get done, if done at all. 

Building your capacity means that you are able to do more than you could before. You can go further and maximize your potential and opportunities. You are able to handle bigger challenges, think in a more structured manner and resolve bigger challenges. 

You are not building your capacity if you let your competence level stagnate. You cannot do, be and have more if your capacity is not growing. 

Lifting the same weights will not help you build strength. Merely doing things out of habit does not in any way mean you are building your capacity. Stretch a little more. 

Never be satisfied with old capacity, limited thinking and mere repetition. Do not die while living. You are no longer learning when you are now stuck in routine. Keep building and growing. 

Ideas for action

1. In what areas have you stagnated? 

2. What new thing did you do or learn in the last 6 months?

3. What could you do to start stimulating growth and development in your life? 

Committed to your greatness. 

Milton Kamwendo

Be Negative and Win Complaining Friends.

Negativity is the shanty dormitory town that many run to for refuge; where their excuses are validated and approved. Negativity has friends, relatives, comrades, cousins and neighbours. However all the kinsmen and friends of negativity are loud, always complaining, cynical, glum and depressed. 

If you are negative you have conversation advantage. In a queue you will always have someone to complain to and commiserate with. If there is no one you will always have the weather to curse. Negativity makes you a sharp analyst. Suddenly you give eloquent analyses of what is wrong, who caused it and why it is broken. You always seem intelligent and clued up. Negativity bequeathes you with prophetic powers. Suddenly you can foretell the gloom ahead, the doom we are in and the mess that will never go away. Many nod, shake their head and walk away. You feel vindicated and satisfied. At least you have followers who also see what you see and hopefully are experiencing what you are. Negativity makes you feel needed, appreciated and listened to. In a conversation you are never odd, because everyone is complaining also. You fit in perfectly. That helps your feelings, but takes you nowhere like a rocking chair. 

The only problem with negativity is that it is like sun glasses. When I was young my father has some dark green sun glasses. I used to sometimes try them and they were fascinating to look through. Putting on the glasses, everything around me had a greenish tint. The color was so real. I could swear that the whole world was greenish. That was true until I removed the glasses. Negativity is like my father’s green glasses. Once you are looking at everything through the green negativity glasses everything is negative. Even in the midst of opportunity you will see negativity first. 

Never forget that while you are putting on your green negativity glasses, not everyone is putting on the glasses. Never let opportunity pass you by while you linger in negativity. Do not allow other people’s negativity become yours. As you assemble your choir of negativity singers, do not forget to look closely at who is in your audience. It just may be that you those who see what you do not see are too busy with life to be entertained by your negativity. Never let those who are not going anywhere, discourage you from exploring the world. Never create your world on the negative and dull templates of the prophecies of the lazy. 

You do not afford the luxury of a negative thought and disposition to life. 

Committed to your greatness. 

Milton Kamwendo. 

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. 

Be Prepared Daily & Primed for Action.

The key to great performance is deep and consistent preparation. There are only three keys to anything great. The keys are: "Prepare, Prepare, Prepare." In the great book of Strategy entitled, The Art of War, Sun Tzu says: "He will win who prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared." The prepared will always outclass and shock the unprepared. 

Your preparation is the prophecy of your greatness or doom. Prepare and perform in a way that begs prophecy. If people cannot prophecy your future when they see you in preparation, you most likely have none. 

Jokers should attempt comedy, but even there they will find that what looks spontaneous on stage required preparation off stage. You can never be taken seriously if you set out to build a huge building with a foundation of a mud hut. The foundation of preparation allows you to get the edge and perform with excellence. 

Greatness is for those who prize preparation. 

Childhood Friends

Chance meeting with Payen. I childhood friend. We used to play soccer together. Used to walk about 10 km to Church. 

How times and situations change.

Celebrate and Serve

Celebrate every opportunity that you have to serve. Be led and be a worthy follower. Following is not delay, it is processing and ripening time. Serve with passion and vision. Celebrate every grace that knocks at your door. Life is a celebration and opportunity is everywhere you are willing to serve. 

Take Positive Advantage of the Boomerang Effect

A boomerang is a device that when thrown swirls in the air and returns back to the thrower. Traditionally boomerangs were used for hunting and sport. They helped rouse hiding prey and at times were used as weapons. There were made of wood or bone and today they are made of various modern materials that promote aeroflot. 

You may wonder what a boomerang has to do with you? Everything. You are a product of many boomerangs. Whatever you do or say obeys the boomerang effect. It all comes back home to roost. What you reap is a result of what you would have sown. The key to greatness is understanding the boomerang effect and using it to your advantage. If you do not, the law will just work against you and you will keep wondering why you remain stuck, confused and frustrated. 

Start a new boomerang effect. Carry positive thoughts. Speak positive words and take positive and determined action. 

Dream Radically Big and You Will Go Places

Dream Big, You'll Be Great!

Everything forest starts with a seed. Every nation or movement starts with a progenitor. You are not small and your dream matters. 

Every great building starts as a simple dream narrated to an architect. Simply paper napkin sketches have been known to develop into mighty ideas, concepts and edifices. 

Do not despise your dreams and simple thoughts. Dreams are pregnant with possibility. Capture your dreams in your notebook or journal. Sketch and preserve the dreams. Ask someone to draw the model, plan or do the numbers. 

Your imagination is the drawing room of your life. Your simple ideas are the sparks that you need to start your greatness engine. Dreams today; brick and mortar tomorrow. 

In every dream there is a seed of something great that can be built. Seeds must never be wasted, or aimlessly scattered. Without the power to dream, life is empty space and lacks colour and purposeful action. 

What dream are you pursuing? What dream had you given up on? Start dreaming again?