BORN TO BE A CHAMPION

(Modest Thoughts with Ayuba, Yilgak'ha, August 30, 2023; 08116181263)

This piece is goal specific. It is mainly to stimulate and balloon the readers' passion into works of excellence at home, school, workplace or anywhere. It is equally a practical and action packed catalyst for positive living.

Born to Be a Champoion (BBC) is a descriptive exposition on the making of champions. In life, there are upper and lower ends of life. Upper or higher ends of life relate to the pursuit of virtues. It is about cultivating big and noble dreams whose attainment create or add value to personal wellbeing of the dreamer or welfare of society. Lower ends, on the other hand, are distractive trivialities that slow or weigh a man down from achieving great feats in life.

Born to be a champion is a 'catching-them-young template for determined youth who want to make a difference in their lifetime or generation. It is a carrying-them-along process of creating a desirable future they can be proud of any day. This ambition is in line with the postulation of  

former President of the United States (USA), Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who stated that "we cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future." There is no better way of stating the obvious than this. If the future belongs to the youth, then, it is only appropriate that they are prepared and carried along in the process of constructing that future. 

The idea is that a youth whose head is shaved in his absence cannot appreciate it no matter how beautiful the shaving is done. This is because such youth will have input to make regarding the shaving style he/she desires. Therefore, objective and inclusive democratisation of the future of youth is the way to go so that they can be proud of their achievement when tomorrow comes.

Two scriptural text will be important in this discourse. The first is 2Timothy 2:20 that says: "But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honour and some to dishonour. If a man, therefore, purges himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master's use, and prepared unto every good work." This means that anybody can be a champion of good causes but this will be dependent on the choices he makes.

The second scripture is

Deuteronomy 28:13

(NIV) which says: "The Lord will make you the head, not the tail. If you pay attention to the commands of the Lord, your God, that I give you this day and carefully follow them, you will always be at the top, never at the bottom." This means that being the head (champion) is a bargaining assurance of God to man that is conditioned on obedience and commitment to God's instructions. No wonder, 

Isaiah 1:19-20 (KJV) stressed that, 'If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land: But if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured with the sword: For the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.'

In the light of the above scriptures, becoming a champion in the world of work is conditional. Being a champion is an excellent and exclusive feat of disciplined folks who are committed to loyalty rules and the rules of engagement. A champion is subject to critical evaluation before certification is granted. This means that championships are training-sensitive processes which require a potential champion to have requisite knowledge and experience.

For a potential champions to be champions, self development is key. Self development has to do with investing in one's self to acquire cognitive or requisite skills and experiences that can help purge undesirable motivations to allow for desirable ones that can make success easier and a reality.

It takes people who are different to make a difference. In other words, you have to be different to make a difference. Those who attach no value to themselves can fall for anything. Because such people have no concrete targets or goals, they can easily be distracted by trivialities, things which are not worth anything. And nobody gets trivial and becomes a champion!

To be a champion, potential champions will have to learn to think and act like one. Champions are positive in all circumstances but failureists often cultivate excuses which is their greatest undoing.Robert Kennedy painted the distinction clearly: 'Some men see things as they are, and say why. I dream of things that never were, and say why not.' The former are potential failureists; the latter are potential champions because their positive mindset will successfully drive them through the tough road of champions. Calep and Joshua in the Bible are classical examples of potential champions!

Champions are role models. They are mirrors upon which the performance of others are determined. Mere sighting of a champion is an inspiration and motivation to step up effort to be a champion too. The caveat, however, is that a champion who has suddenly lost touch with morality, ethical and professional standards could be a bad influence on society.

For youth, the future looks bright but how to go about it. It was Abraham Lincoln who said, 'prepare yourself and your day will come.' How to go about the future is to prepare for it. According to the Next Generation Legend (NGL) "Preparing the youth for the future is not just an ink-bound statement but rather an action-driven engagement in all facets of society."

The future is always new but the nugget from "The Mafia Manager" written by V., provides a hint on how to successfully navigate new terrains with ease. His words: "When you are new to a place, first educate yourself by observing the real players, learning how they act and react. Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut, shape yourself, acquire the tools, eliminate all possible traits you have that will hinder you." These nuggets corroborate Pastor Joshua Olumide's postulation that 'life is lived forward but understood backward.' when a youth carefully understudy the winning ways of older folks who exceled in their chosen career today, factoring the evolving dynamics of time and technology, then, he is sure to excel too.

The winning ways of past or present champions or both, can be learned through books: their memoirs, autobiographies and biographies. They can be accessed through written or video documentaries. The people we meet, the books we read and the media we explore change us in significant ways. Engage with them selectively.

The search for practical knowledge and practice, well nurtured attitude towards work and social networking will make a fruitful difference in the life of a youth who wants to be a champion. Make no mistake about it, a young chap who has no future ambition will surely suffer if he does not die young! On the other hand, nothing stops a young man from becoming a future champion if he is committed to virtues that matter and shun all youthful exuberances and distractions!

In conclusion, no circumstance can hinder a man of passion whose eye is on winning a gold medal prize. In the estimation of George Bernard Shaw, "people are always blaming their circumstances for what they are' but 'people who get on in the world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances that they want and, if they cannot find them, make them'. Are you a habitual complainant or a determined champion? The choice is entirely yours!

SELF DEVELOPMENT IN A COMPETITIVE WORLD

Modest Thoughts with Ayuba, Yilgak'ha, August 31, 2023; 08116181263)

Development is a multidimensional and multi-level phenomenon whose understanding can only be based on the context in which it is applied. The multidimensional nature of development relates to the scope of the concept which can be narrowed to economic, political, social, biological and historical dimensions of life or, broadly, understood in terms of the combination of two or more of these dimensions. The multi-level understanding of development stems from whether development relates to individuals (self), community (family, village, state, country, international) or even global development as a whole. 

Because the development of a champion can better be understood at the individual level, the focus of this exposition is on individual (self) development. In other words, the commanding heights and strategy of a champion is self development. 

In the postulation of Walter Rodney in 1972, self development or development at the individual level, implies increased skill and capacity, greater freedom, creativity, self-discipline, responsibility and material wellbeing of the individual that is being considered. In order to draw a distinction between self development and community ("social groups") development, the scholar noted that development at the community level implies increasing the capacity of the community members to jointly deal with their environment in such a manner that translates into the welfare of all or 'the greatest good of the greatest number'. This means that development at corporate level is the function of the combination of the actions of all members of the group. This means that every micro-action has macro-implications in the corporate world.

Self development is the commitment to of an individual to invest in personal skills, capability and understanding of how systems work with the aim of making useful and unique contributions towards achieving optimal results or making a difference. The idea is that whatever cause(s) any champion believes in, he pays concentrated attention in pushing for its realisation in a most distinguished manner. In other words, champions love curving a niche for themselves in every learning curve or process.

In extant literature, self-development process involves at least four basic activities. First, it is about action action, that is, work on achieving your personal development goals. It is an action packed phenomenon which reflects and reinforces the idea of "management by objectives". Secondly, self-development is about goal setting. That is, it has to do with developing short term and life time goals to turn your vision into reality. This is predicated on the time tested hypothesis that 'whatever is measurable is achievable'. Thirdly, it is about self discovery which has to do with identifying areas of strength and weakness by self assessing your skills to determine what you can readily do or not and making effort to improve for better performance. Fourthly, self development  has to do with self assessment which involves learning about your skills, personality and interests.

Self development is a continuum because 'in the school of life', they say, 'there is no graduation'. Luigi Barzini as cited in the preliminary page of "Now we shall be entirely free", written by Andrew Miller (2018), said, "the only art worth learning but which can never be wholly mastered, is the art of inhabiting the earth." This mean that you have not started life if you have not improved by learning the art of living.

Self development is about knowledge acquisition and creativity in specific areas of interest. While knowledge has to do with useful experience or experiences; the author is not known who remarked that 'creativity is the mystery of freedom' and that, 'man can indeed, create the monstrous as well as the good, beautiful and useful.' What this means is that, except it is properly guided, creativity can be a tool for evil entreprise.

In the 21st century, the world and its inhabitants are highly interconnected and interdependent. However, what determines the wellbeing of individuals is their respective decisions or choices given that the environment around them is a constant. It affects everyone either positively or negatively and so it behoves on every person to decide on how to manoeuvre his way around it, that is, the environment. When the sun bites, some will use umbrella or even step out in it like that; others will complain and stay in their comfort zone. All these are choices that can make or mare someone.

It was Both (2011) who wrote, "one choice decides your friends; one choice defines your believes; one choice determines your loyalties forever; one choice can transform you." In a solo world, everything rise and fall on the choices individuals make. Whether it is about investment, practice or apprenticeship, relationship or risk taking, choice is at the centre but choices men make must be rational within the context of contemporary realities of the time.

There is this theory of rational expectations theory that comes to mind here. This theory presupposes that people make decisions based on three conditions: Their level of rationality, past experiences and the information that is available to them and, therefore, argued that the future expectations of the future will affect the outcome of that future. This means that human beings have to acquire and leveraged on their exposure, in terms of knowledge, education and common sense (self development) if they actually want to make a difference in the future. In other words, self development enables an individual or individuals to create the future they want for themselves. Self development is all about equipping and activating human potentials to make a difference in the nearest possible future.

Rot, V. (2011). Divergent. New York: Catherine Tegen Books.

Andrew, M. (2018). Now we shall be entirely free(fiction).  London: Sceptre.