Talking all things motivational, entrepreneurial, blogging & travel. Pretty much anything other than "How to Make Money Online"! (Because when I blogged MMO I felt like a clone of the other 12 million people doing it)

You! - A Role Model For Future Generations

19 August, 2008 - Guest Posts, Motivation - 10 Comments

Photo by Tookie

This is an (incredible) guest post by my good friend and long term reader, Ayomide! (spelt with an exclamation mark). Before you read this fantastic, motivating, butt-kicking post, I invite you to read a little about the young women behind the words.

About Ayomide! - Ayomeday.com

There is no good way to accurately describe Ayomide! Daring. Her first name is spelled with an exclamation mark on the end and pronounced ay-o-me-day. She can’t spell (thankfully Jamie and his editing team can), and passionately dislikes describing herself almost as much as she loves to refer to herself in the third person. She is young - younger than Jamie, but older than Nick Jonas. She dreams of a world where everybody follows the three R’s, illiteracy is a thing of the past and her B.G.T.F. model is taught in elementary schools. That’s the “Brilliant, Gorgeous, Talented, Fabulous model” a model for how everyone should view themselves (or some combination of four or more positive adjectives.) And since she is sadly not related to any politicians and can’t use nepotism to enact her brilliant ideas, she’s doing it the Gandhi way - by being the change she wants to see in the world. (And hopefully inspiring others to do the same.) She aspires to a career in business, hopefully as CEO of a large holdings company that sends all it’s employees out to do volunteer work in the community once a month. She’d love if you said hi to her! Ayomide blogs at Ayomeday.com, and is currently redeveloping her own concept of blogging.

When we look around today, I think most people would say that we have a surprising lack of good leadership in the world. Think about it for a second……

Did you think about it? Good. Because I beg to differ.

There is plenty of good leadership out there, it’s just that people have currently been paying more attention to the bad leadership, and getting so discouraged by it, that they’ve written the world off as a horrible, hopeless place. With all the war, poverty, AIDS, natural disasters, genocides and environmental issues going on around the world, I can see why it’d be difficult to find the good in it all.

Still Hope…

I think it’d be a mistake to write Earth off so soon. There is a Latin quote that states “at sesp non fracte.” - But hope is not lost. I agree. And not only do I agree, but I think we can turn the world around. We can all help make the world a better place by deciding we are going to become better people on our own accord and being a role model for future generations, and blah, blah, blah, sunshine, rainbows and lollipops, etc…

I say this with perhaps a bit of an edge because this isn’t exactly new - to the point that my saying this makes it highly redundant. It was Gandhi who first said “be the change,” and he’s been dead for years. When was the last time you followed Gandhi’s advice? This is what I asked myself the other day, and now I’m asking you because I think it’s a great question. Are we short of good role models, or are we short of personal responsibility? I quote from the book, “Do It! Let’s Get Off Our Buts“

“The reason we aren’t living our dreams is inside ourselves. For the most part however, we pretend it’s people, things and situations outside ourselves that are to blame…[but the truth is] we (ourselves) are one of the few people in this universe that have the right and the ability to change.”“

Perhaps the reason we’re short on role models is because each and every single one of us is contributing in our own way to the problem. “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.” We blame the media for 100% of our (possibly) over-sexualised culture without stopping to consider that maybe the reason sex sells is because people buy it. We blame the government for our issues without stopping to think that maybe we should stop electing such people to office. We blame our parents for our issues without stopping to think that maybe it’s us, not them causing our own problems. I’m not letting them off the hook and saying that the media, the government and our parents aren’t at all responsible. I’m saying that until we stop saddling them with 100% of the blame and become willing to take our share of the “issues” we shall get nowhere.

Focusing on the Worthless?

Maybe “the problem” is not a lack of role models in our world. Maybe we’re more concerned with obsessing over the bad, crazy, unimportant stuff - what Paris ate for lunch, what Lindsay and Samantha are up to or what Britney ordered at Starbucks. Are we giving the Craig Kielbergers, the Al Gores, the Romeo Delairs of the world all the support they need? When was the last time you heard about some sort of “bad news” and right then and there decided to do everything in your power to rectify it? Are you truly doing everything you can to be as good as you can be?

Don’t worry, I responded no to that question as well. But like I said, At sesp non fracte.

I’m not suggesting that if we all band together today, global warming will be old news by tomorrow. Rather, I’m suggesting that if we each take responsibility for our share of “world issues” (to use the generic term) we can start to rectify the problems we’ve created, and in doing so, we all become role models. And I think that being a role model fits in quite nicely with most people’s ideas of what they see as their best lives. And if it doesn’t fit in with yours, no big deal. Being a better person today than you were yesterday is a pretty darn good feeling whether you become a hero or not. So, with the help of a friend, I wrote up a list of things we could do together to start taking more responsibility, to create a better “me” and a better “we”.

What makes this list so amazing however, is that it will not impact your life in anyway shape or form. You will read it, think “oh that was a nice list,” and then you’ll move on. You will be no better, nor wiser, nor thinner, nor kinder and nor prettier for it. Why? Because it’s just a list, like any other list. Grocery lists, to-do lists, maybe even a life list. But they’re still just lists. And until you actually get up, go to the grocery store, and put everything that was on your grocery list into your grocery cart, it will still remain just a list. Nobody can change your behaviour, your thoughts or your actions. Apart from you. Until you act upon these suggestions they will remain just a list of “stuff”, like all the millions of other lists of stuff you may have. So, are you ready? Or should I say, are you willing? Are you willing to start living better and doing better to solve a problem or two?

Living Our Best Lives - The List

Keep it real - This means being honest - with both yourself and with others. This isn’t just telling the truth about who ate the cookie in the cookie jar. (Was it you?) This is about starting to pay attention to the feeling in your gut. That’s not indigestion my friend. That’s “Inner You” telling “Outer You” that something ain’t right. Keep it real, and pay attention to what’s really going on. Always remember what Vanilla Ice once said (can we ever really forget?): Word to your mother. Keep it real.

Love yourself and others, even when it seems impossible - Actually, I should say love yourself first, then others, because charity starts at home. One of the worst people I know also has one of the lowest self esteems of anybody I’ve ever met. We are our harshest critics because we know ourselves the best. We are acutely aware of all of our intimate flaws and inadequacies in a way that no other human being on planet Earth could possibly know. So naturally, it’s easy to fall into the trap of self hatred. Which is why learning to love yourself first is so important. If you can get over all your personal hangups about who your are, then getting over everybody else’s “flaws” will be a cynch. Learn to love yourself. From there, loving others will be a breeze. And while you’re feeling the love, love your enemies too, as they show you your faults. Even Mother Theresa had her critics, so when you meet yours, don’t get so discouraged that you sink down to the level of name calling and mud slinging that irritated you in the first place.

Always try your best at everything you do. By doing so, you’ll never fail - They say that success is getting up one more time than you fall. Therefore, failure is staying down one less time than you succeed. Failure is not losing money, or having a product line go bust, or falling on your butt in front of a cute someone at the mall who then laughs at you quite loudly (happened to me yesterday). Failure is when you don’t take a moment after losing all that money to see what you did wrong, and then trying again. Failure is not doing consumer research to find out why the product went bust and then redesigning it. Failure would have been not getting up gracefully, reapplying your lip gloss and smiling boldly at the cute someone who then proceeded to chat you up and ask for your number (also happened to me yesterday, although I didn’t give him my number when he asked. But if that’s your style, feel free!) So remember, failure is not trying. And it is also not trying again. And it’s not trying again if the second try didn’t work either.

Learn from your mistakes, big or small - And not just your mistakes either. Learn from other’s mistakes too. Read history books to find out what your forefathers and foremothers screwed up and then avoid doing that. Read news blogs and listen to news stations on the radio and watch news channels on television at least once a week to find out what’s going on around the world. Find out what’s working and what isn’t. Then keep doing what is working, and avoid doing what isn’t.

I find that keeping a journal really helps in my growing process. It’s a great way to keep track of your personal progress. Don’t feel pressured to show anyone your private thoughts. Unless you truly want them to read it, or plan on having your surviving relatives publish it after your death (Anne Frank) keep it to yourself. Not because a journal is necessarily secret, but because if you’re pouring your heart out into it, it can quickly become sacred. And things don’t usually retain their sanctity when they’re passed around for the world to see.

Accept that you are human, and sometimes humans need a break - That’s the advice given to me by a friend after I broke down and almost had a panic attack because I got an A- instead of the A+ I had been aiming for. Let me be the first to say that when your are perpetually exhausted, sleep deprived, cranky and lacklustre, you are useless to others. Honestly. I know you may feel as though the more you do, the better you are. I went through that too. I joined every single school club convinced that if I gave others everything I had, I’d feel better and more fulfilled and people would like me more. Wrong. I gave so much without stopping to refuel that I started to run on empty and eventually killed my engine. People would much rather have you do one thing really well than do a million poor things because you constantly seek approval from others to validate your self-worth. The only person whose approval you should never stop seeking is your own. Every once in a while, reject that dinner invitation, unplug your phone and take a long bubble bath with your favourite music playing in the background. Repeat on a regular basis for the rest of your life.

Never stop smiling. Enjoy the journey - Smile just for the heck of it. And when it gets really difficult to smile, know that your radiant upwards curve of your lovely lips will make someone’s day, even if you don’t know who they are. I’m sure you’ve had an experience where you’ve been having a horrid day, and just by someone extending a little kindness your way, the grey clouds above your head dissipated. Be that little ray of kindness towards others because you will constantly encounter someone having a grey-cloud day. Be the Millionaire Homeless Guy!

So there you have it folks. That wasn’t a self-help guide or a how-to article. It was one part social commentary, and one part proposal. It was my proposal to you (yes, you) that we start something new. We stop holding onto the past, desperately wishing for the golden age to come back. And we start looking to the future, to create a new golden age.

There’s a reason the time in an hourglass is measured with sand. Time slips by quickly and easily, like sand between our fingertips. Try picking up a handful of the stuff the next time you go to the beach. And then, try holding onto every single grain. If you do accidentally drop one, bend down and try to find the one you dropped and pick it up. That task is about as useful and effective as us trying to rebuild the past, no matter how good we think it may have been. The truth is, the past is gone. And we’re never getting it back. So instead of looking back wistfully, I propose that we look ahead excitedly. We do what we can, with what we have, where we are, to enjoy what we’ve got. And we go boldly into the future, each of us the masters of our own destinies, going where no other person has gone before. Just because we can.

We’re each capable of nothing short of incredible. How about it? You with me?

Others You May Enjoy

• 7 Tips for Better Customer Feedback
• Week 18 Round-Up & Comment Awards
• Exceptional Customer Service - Cab Story
• Firing a Client Increases Your Turnover!
• Week 19 Round-Up & Comment Awards

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Del.icio.us - Technorati - Digg This! - StumbleUpon
Posted on 19 August, 2008 by ayomide
Filed Under Guest Posts, Motivation |

RSS feed| Trackback URI

8 Comments»