The Bushy Path

In 2016 Olympic games, Usain Bolt was participating in his third consecutive Olympic games. He had won a gold medal in the 100 meters race in the previous two Olympic games. Will he win for the third time? They got set for the 100 meters final. And the gun sounded. The 8 athletes raced. 1 second, 2 seconds, 3 seconds,... Justin Gatlin has got this. It seemed Usain Bolt was going to lose out on gold this time. Oh wait. Like lightning, Bolt rocketed, caught up and got to the finish line. First. Another gold.

What if you can predict the future? Would it make your life easier? Would it make your career more vibrant? Of the closest words to describe the future, one of them is uncertainty. Although many times, people make predictions, they give their forecasts, and are pretty confident about it.

Mike Tyson is a popular man today.  A large portion of his fame is a result of his illustrious career as a boxer. Even today, many years after his retirement as a professional boxer, you would think Mike Tyson is a tiger at first glance.  Until you look closer and discover he’s a man like you, but with a much tougher face. Mike Tyson was a valiant boxer. Tireless and an ever-present thorn in the sides of his opponents.

One dangerous conclusion we always make is substituting correlation to be causation. Many times, when it is convenient for the narrative we're trying to pursue, it is common to blur the lines between correlation and causation. Or even delete it in some cases. Yet, knowing the difference between correlation and causation can make all the difference in your career and life as a whole. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, correlation is the relationship between things that happen or change together while causation is the act or process of causing something to happen or exist. Causation is also called cause and effect.

So, you're one quite busy guy. But you can't really measure what you have achieved through your busyness. Being busy is good, but being productive is great. When your busyness leads to productivity, then you’re managing your time as well as you can. Productivity is a subjective word. Its definition depends on who’s defining it and what frame of reference they’re using. If you achieve all the goals you set for the day, that could be a good way to measure productivity. What is the expectation at your workplace for a day of work? Did you meet them?

Time is the most precious resource you have. Often, people lose consciousness of this and waste their time unconsciously. If you're one of those who do this, it's okay. I understand your plight. I fight every day to get the most out of my time. In fact, everybody you think is an epitome of time management goes through the same fight every single day. And you must go through this fight too if you want to get the best out of your time. Do you need time management at all? What are the reasons time management is worth all the effort you put into it?

One of the most amazing feats in architecture, Neuschwanstein castle, in Germany, took 24 years to be completed.  Dracula castle in Transylvania took nearly a century to complete.  So, how long do you think it will take to complete a skyscraper? Years. And you’ll be right based on skyscrapers that have been built in the past. But today, Broad Sustainable Building in China will beg to differ. The company built a 57-storey skyscraper , Mini Sky City, that has 800 homes and working space for 4,000 people. In just 19 days. Did I say it is earthquake proof? Yes, it is.

In the summer of 2008, during the Beijing Olympics, Michael Phelps had gone through his usual routine before his swimming event. He had done his 25-meter sprint in the pool to raise his heartbeat. After that, he put on his headset for his songs playlist before a race. He was getting ready for the 200-meter butterfly race. Minutes later, the athletes were beside the pool, ready for the event. Moments later, the gun went off and each swimmer plunged into the swimming pool for the chance at winning the ultimate medal: Olympic gold.

You have been thinking about it. And it has been giving you migraine. You had high hopes for your career. But now you feel your career has gone stagnant. You have been told to sweat the big things, the important things, and ignore the small things. You have followed that to the letter but your career is still stuck in mediocrity. Are the small things unimportant? This advice seems to imply it. However, it is a really bad idea to follow. Because the small things are more important than you think.

Ego can be a cause of downfall for anybody. When you have succeeded in a task or in your career, it is easy to think that you are the best. It is easy to think that you achieved success because you were flawless. Ego can blind you to things that people around you try to warn you about. It is even easy to think that those people are unqualified to offer advice to you because they have achieved much less than you have.

Sometimes, you think about your disadvantaged background. It becomes a source of discouragement to you. You believe that this could be a problem to the achievement of your lofty goals. You think people who have more privileged backgrounds would have it easier to fulfill their dreams and become successful.

No matter how bad a failure you are, you have achieved success in some things. No matter how successful you are, you have also failed in many pursuits. This is common to everybody but we usually differ in the number of failures and successes we have.

In the movies, it is usual to see people solving problems creatively without even trying. It is common to see a protagonist in a movie plot the antagonist’s thought patterns in under a minute of thinking hard. It can make you feel dull in comparison if you have ever tried to find a creative solution in 30 seconds without any success.

Every day, we take on risks. Some of these risks are so common that we no more see them as risks. Whenever you drive to your workplace, there is always a risk – no matter how low – of an auto accident. But how many people think of this risk? Very few. There are some other risks we often fear. We think about those risks constantly. In fact, these thoughts lead to full blown worry. Many times, your fear is probably misplaced because some risks are actually exaggerated but affect a very small percentage of people. There are some risks however, that are more dangerous but that we place little attention to.

You have worked for long hours, you have shed blood and tears. And you have made your first big achievement. You are happy. In fact, you want to host a party to celebrate it. It is a good development. It is a development that anybody yearning for their first break wants desperately. But you must be careful about this new achievement. Because even though you are happy you made your first achievement, it is still the beginning of the journey. It is a little milestone compared to your big dreams.

On a sunny day, on Thursday the 7th of September, 2017, John left his work with one aim: to quench the thirst that had made his throat desert dry. He walked up to the nearest restaurant he could find. When he sat down, a waitress came to meet him for what he would like to take. He was too tired to talk but he could see that bottle like a fully-grown woman with wide hips. He pointed at the bottle that had a red band at its middle.

When Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPhone in 2007, he said: “Every once in a while, a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything.” “Today, Apple is going to reinvent the phone,” he said. He said the iPhone will be a 3-in-1 device that combines its iPod music and video player, a phone and a ‘breakthrough internet communications device.’ It was a big promise. Even though Blackberry and Nokia were wildly popular at the time, Steve Jobs had no plan to underpromise. You should banish any plan to make an underpromise too.

Mr. Joe is an easy going man. He is tall, dark and handsome. He had beautiful dreams for the future and although he is still yet to manage to make his dreams reality, he is still very hopeful that one day, he would throw his fist into the air having conquered the world. When Joe was a young man, he had a proposed future. He would rise from the middle class that his parents have been hopelessly stuck for years. He would do business, he would become a business guru, he would build a beautiful mansion, he would buy exotic cars and travel to exotic locations in the world. And marry a beautiful wife. And now that he is married with two young kids, his wife is not a woman you would call ugly. Joe had achieved one of his goals but he still has many things to worry about. At least that was among the least of his worries.

Close to the top of Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is the self-esteem needs. This is usually the fulfilment needs we have as a result of our career or many achievements. Few people are able to meet this need and it seems those are the lucky ones who happen to stumble upon worthwhile achievements. But are they just lucky? What if their actions made meeting these needs inevitable? In life, some people wait for things to happen to them. They hope and pray for good things. Some of them even know what to do to make extraordinary achievements. But they always fail at the action. Because some of these things are difficult to do and guarantee nothing. These people are pushed around by the wind of life to wherever the wind blows. To these people, things are always too difficult. They even point at several people around them who had failed, and some of them woefully. They use this as evidence that things are generally hard and the world is unfair.

In the beginning, or in the ancient ancient days, there was little education. There were few technologies, there were caves, not mansions, there was no electricity, no solid transportation network, and generally low standard of living. It was the time that people referred to as pre-civilization, or the much more common term, Stone Age.