In the words of Maya Angelou, “there is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you”. A great way to start with is to self reflect, then explore and dig deep from your outcomes. Dig deeper. In business and careers, “Bullets have killed many men, but ignorance has killed much more people”. A self-awareness of self is priceless. I have attempted to summarize life into a simple mathematical equation:
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LPV= MPL – MAL
Where:
LPV= Lifetime Performance Variance
MPL= Maximum Potential Limit (Constant)
MAL= Maximum Attainable Limit
The LPV indicates the difference between what you were created to be (MPL) and what you choose to be (MAL). The larger the LPV, the lower your MAL, which implies that such an individual’s potential, has been underutilised. On the other hand, a low LPV corresponds with a high MAL indicating high utilization of potentials. The best situation is when the LPV= 0, this indicates maximum utilisation of potentials. LPV can be referred to as your ultimate’s life dream. This is the point, which every individual must strive to attain. However awkward it may sound, you must strive to die empty. This is supported as to why the ultimate LPV becomes zero. In other words, there is no gap between your life dream, what you were created to be and what you become.
If you don’t define your LPV then you live not strategically but tactically. Beyond the activities and being B.U.S.Y (which I like to code into an acronym Being Under Satan’s Yoke-B.U.S.Y), success is not always by doing things right (tactics), it’s by doing the right things (strategy). Being busy may just be living a life full of activity. But a subtle reminder is that activity is not productivity. In other words, you can spend your whole life doing the wrong things right. But to do the right things, progressively add value where it matters best. Value.
The first set of living an optimal life is to do the dreaming and then dream the doing. In other words, have an enthusiastic life theme and the big picture, and then define your core values for it. Define the things you can do and will never do (in other words, the things that can get in the way of where you want to be around your critical path). Define the critical path and voyage into it as a journey and a process. It’s sad when we keep doing the same things and then expect a different result. As we count the days like an event, we forget that it is more of a process.
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There’s a big difference between living 365 days in a year and you repeating your usual day 365 times in a year. Like a process without looping, make your life progressive and not repetitive. Success involves a growth process, a closeness of three gaps, where we were, where we are (MAL) and where we should be (MPL). Success doesn’t come by accident but by a progressive realisation of the big pictures (LPV) that inspires you. It’s this vision and will that creates possibilities, even out of things that seemed impossible.
Like Nelson Mandela would say, some things “always feel impossible until it is done”. People, who start doing them, naturally overtake people who say that things cannot be done. Make your LPV a process and not an event, a journey and not a destination. True success develops daily and not in a day. So in the words of the great novelist, Ayn Rand, it says,
“Throughout the centuries, there were men who took first steps, down new roads, armed with nothing but their own vision”.
Lastly, as you journey to close the variance between what you are and what you could be, create signposts and catalysts. Catalysts are those remarkably developed events that strike the beginning of the mission of your success. It refers to predefined milestones in our lives that traceably lead to the most accelerated result in your life or business. Mine is that day I decided against my parents’ will to take that overnight bus trip to Owerri (FUTO) to fight for my admission when it wasn’t forthcoming to me.
Another was when I emptied my entire account to have my company registered at 22. Examples of some you may have had in your life unknowingly may have been, a course you took, the business you started or perhaps a person you met and invested time in (that connect you to the most opportunities into where you are). Create more catalysts in your life and watch your life accelerate.
A default catalyst to keep having is to keep learning and doing and then unlearning and relearning again. The truth is that you’re not that smart if you have a lot in your head and nothing in your pocket. But then, you’re also not that rich if you have a lot in your pocket and nothing in your head. So there should be a balance. But also, there is no absolute knowledge that can guarantee a man’s success. But there exists a series of catalytically knowledge and principles that when stumbled upon and applied can close down the gap between your MPL and MAL.
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