Eighty percent off peak

Currently, I'm at a juncture where I'm trying to align my goals with the true input needed to achieve them. Not funny enough, I realised that at most times, I perform at only 20 percent of my true capacity - don't you!. 

And I think some people, if not most, are also caught up in a pattern of using only 20 percent of their ability - missing out on 80 percent of their potential. A potential that if one achieved by even a small margin, would change their rate of success and the outcome of most of their goals.

But as for me, I choose not to despair. As for you, if you're a kindred spirit (chances are you're), take heart. One step at a time. But the eyes on the mark - the bulls eye. The 80 percent mark. Whilst at it make persuasive and deliberate attempts to ensure that the stagnant 80 percent of your potential is drawn into the game. That it becomes part of your efforts. And only then will you achieve your peak. A peak that we're all capable of but are content with what we've always been operating within and achieving - basically,  content with little.

With that mark achieved, I have no doubt that life would only change for the better. More would be achieved. Life would be more focused and give back more to you and those around you.

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Will of steel

I’ve been meaning to ponder intimately on the idea of ‘will’. More specifically, will in terms of the determination to persuade and confront in action in order for one to achieve whatever it is that they are engaged with. And I’m yet to ponder in such an intimate way but by far I’ve come to realise one or two about will.

Will makes things happen. It is will that keeps one alive. It is will that gives one hope (albeit sometimes hope gives birth to will). It is will that connects one between the sweat of their brow and the taste of success. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. In contrast, no will, no win.

Best then, that if one is going to have will at all, to have one of steel. The kind of will that doesn’t break easy under enormous pressure. The will of steel that can carry you after all your hope, faith and last sweat has been ashed in a furnace of life.

With that kind of will, even a goal and a dream that seem far-away from reality will see the sunlight. Will be felt by your fingertips as you lay in the reality that was once only a ‘castle-in-the-air’ as skeptics always say.

So as you will, make sure you overdose that will. Put in a bit more than you often do. Do that extra mile. Do that extra minute. Make that extra stride. And as your will holds for the next few meters, it may be the time when the wheel turns. And your will of steel safes your day.

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Limited or imagined limits?

My puppy, Tommy – a replacement of the real Tommy my parents hawked some 3 years ago whilst I was at varsity – taught me something. (Because it virtually enslaves my kids during daylight, I leash it until night falls when the girls don’t need the playground no longer). Guess what, untied and free to roam the yard, Tommy ran only as far as the leash allowed it earlier.

Basically, the poor but cute puppy imagined and in fact, felt it still was tied. Limited freedom it imagined (if dogs do) that the reality is that it can't move beyond a certain point. Beyond a certain benchmark. Past the usual point. The puppy knew, for a fact that its ability to move any further from its area of wander was impractical, fluff and air-castle. That it doesn’t matter how strong it was, it was not achievable to move beyond the normal - the area of the leash.

Driving point home: as human beings, we often limit ourselves too. We often think that we can't achieve beyond what we’re not usually used to. That the higher and more rewarding benchmark can’t be reached by us because yesterday, or history, taught us that we can’t. Like Tommy, we get used to limits, and start to perform, innately, within those limits. Anything above and beyond seems like a wish-wash. Like wooz.

The reality is that, your leash sometimes comes off. ‘Every dog has its day.’ Every star (-human being) has their moment to become a superstar, if they’re up to it. But when your day of reckoning comes, the moment when the leash/the tie is off, will you know by pushing a few steps further above the limit, or will you let pass by sitting in the comfort zone imagining that you’re limited (like poor, but furious Tommy)?

When you’re day of reckoning comes, seize the moment.

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Star Performers Inc.

Bad performers somewhat have a right, even if not so innate, to perform bad. Repecursions very little unto them since they're use to them. But star performers. Great performers. Geniuses, on the other hand, have a responsibility to keep performing at peak. They can and shouldn't mellow their performance.

It's a responsibility of a committed perform to ensure that a project started on a high note is ended/closed/delivered on a high note. Or may be even a higher note. Once you set your performance benchmark levels higher, then you better haul those sockses higher as well. Always.

It's when a star perform makes the slightest of sloppiness that the world around them notices. It's when a sloppy performer plays a bad, slumbersome note that no one even pays attention or is slightly worried. Because it is expected. In contrast, so is with the star perform: it's expected that you kick ass left right and centre all the time.

So once you start on a good note. Once you adopt a style and approach of one who delivers excellence, then excellence will always be expected of you. You should, in fact, expect, you yourself, excellence out of you all the time. Any time.

I'm going there. I'm getting there. Gimme a bit of time.

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Personal integrity revisited

Today I'm haunted by a thought which I wrote about several months ago: that if you you don't maintain personal integrity, you fail in most things. If not fail, you will experience shortfalls in your quality of life, of your goals, of you success. The quality will just short you in so many ways. But surely, as I've so often realised, with personal integrity, most things in life become less painful in the in longer run.

So if you say you're going to start a new regime at a certain time in your life and that time has arrived, change, start. Just do it. If your goals are due, make sure you will have put in the sweat of your labour and deliver on the personal promise.

That way, you have less of a haunting voice inside of you that says, "how often will you procrastinate, lazy", "why can't you made a single goal you yourself has set", "why can't you stick to that diet you swore in January you would stick to", why this, why that and many more whys and ifs. And where we cheat personal integrity, our heart of hearts always reminds us and once we remember, we become miserable as our own innerselves confront us on our habits.

Watch your personal integrity barometer. You actually only stand to benefit if you stick to it.

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I am not perfect

Of late, I learnt a hard lesson. Probably one of the few hardest ones. And I hope that it has sunken in deep so I remember it for much long.

I've learnt that although I think of myself most of the time as one who has to achieve things in only black or white, and not any other way, it doesn't always work like that. Life doesn't work like that. Life has the little cracks of grey in between the absolute black and absolute white. And it's those lines I have been missing.

I have been overlooking that I can be satisfied with achieving the best that I COULD. That it's ok that I didn't get it in the exact manner or order or colour or mass that I wished to.

Why this lesson is so important to me, why do I need to cherish it? Because my 'the-best-way or the-highway' approach sometimes hurts those close to me. Those important in my life. And even more, those that I interact with in various facets of life itself.

So my lesson learnt of recent: Nobody is perfect. I am not perfect.

But one thing for sure is that I don't have to lose mark of always aiming high. Aiming above the benchmark. For the best that can possibly be. That will always be part of me. I think now it will work best since I have come to the realisation or acceptance that none, as long as human as another average human, is perfect.

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My principles to true joy

I thought I should share a few principles that I've been aligning my life with lately. They're, in fact, extracted from one of the chapters in a book that I'm working on. In the book there's no reference to the Creed of Izz. That's just my pompous ego having a go at it.

Creed of Izz

- Seven principles to true joy

1. Seize the reign of fear in thy heart

2. Tame thy pompous ego

3. Make personal integrity the root of thy heart

4. Manifest thy heart’s desires by pursuing thy life’s purpose

5. Share the spoils of thy labour and sweat

6. Seek to genuinely display thy heart’s innate love to all thy fellow beings

7. Be content with little material riches, but constantly seek infinite inner wealth

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Believe in an idea

Sometimes I have this marvellous ideas. So awesome they could set my mind alight - live. Such ideas come when I least expect them to (when do yours come). They're most spontaneous of imaginary creatures. Some people call these moments their bulb moments. Einstein moment.

To me, they mostly come during a period of intense reading (the rests between such readings). Periods when I'm most engaged to full throttle with my mind. In stark contrast though, they also come when I'm most relaxed. When I'm so relaxed I virtually ponder nothing in my head and then POP, a bonfire of an idea explodes.

But alongside such brilliancy, I noticed something missing. Something probably more important and significant than the most-awesome idea itself. That most of the time there's lack of believe in ones own ideas. Lacking the believe that although common sense says 'ah-aaah, not doable', one trusts and has faith that it can be done.

With me, I realised that if I pursued something that I doubt. Something I don't truly believe to be fruitful in its nature, I tend to go half at it. Sparing the other energy and resources for another. Divided attention I tell you.

It takes a lot to believe in your own idea. A lot more than it takes to even work on that idea. But at the same time, no work, no pay. No sweat, no mass. Simple as that. So my own lesson for today is that I must harness my ability to believe. Reignite it. Light it back up. And then quadraple that with 100% pure hard work. Let alone with pursued imagination.

So once you capture that brilliant moment. Once you net that awesome idea. First believe truly in it, then stack up the hard work and bring it home to roast - success that is.


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The bitter with the sweet

A bowl of sour grapes. Bitter, sour grapes. One would describe the journey of life like that sometimes. Or is it often. But then again, in life, we have to take teh bitter with the sweet. For times roll, the good old days return. Times roll a slope further, then the bad old days pay us that dreaded bitter visit. And it is during this time that we wish this, that, and that.

Someone just recently said to me, whatever you're going through Izz, take the bitter with the sweet. And remember a coin always has two sides and more often than not, the other side is always good. And that good side, once the coin rolls over like time does, it will be your opportunity of enjoying a busk or two in the sun.

Not cultivating thick skin, the kind that can stand the cold days in your life, will always make one pessimistic. For you wouldn't see the silver lining in the clouds. That thin, very thin silver line that says, 'there's light alongside this darkness'. That the tunnel ends with the light. But if we can't take the bitter with the sweet, our hope will not last us to get to the sweeter part of the journey of life.

I better try and re-engineer my skin to be a bit thicker than it is sometimes. It does get to be a bit too thin, especially when I have lost all hope in something. Sure you can also do that as someday you will need that thick skin when the bitter period cuts in.

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The bitter with the sweet

A bowl of sour grapes. Bitter, sour grapes. One would describe the journey of life like that sometimes. Or is it often. But then again, in life, we have to take teh bitter with the sweet. For times roll, the good old days return. Times roll a slope further, then the bad old days pay us that dreaded bitter visit. And it is during this time that we wish this, that, and that.

Someone just recently said to me, whatever you're going through Izz, take the bitter with the sweet. And remember a coin always has two sides and more often than not, the other side is always good. And that good side, once the coin rolls over like time does, it will be your opportunity of enjoying a busk or two in the sun.

Not cultivating thick skin, the kind that can stand the cold days in your life, will always make one pessimistic. For you wouldn't see the silver lining in the clouds. That thin, very thin silver line that says, 'there's light alongside this darkness'. That the tunnel ends with the light. But if we can't take the bitter with the sweet, our hope will not last us to get to the sweeter part of the journey of life.

I better try and re-engineer my skin to be a bit thicker than it is sometimes. It does get to be a bit too thin, especially when I have lost all hope in something. Sure you can also do that as someday you will need that thick skin when the bitter period cuts in.

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Patrice on cover of Forbes as BILLIONAIRE

Patrice, a man I'm lucky to often shake his right had whenever ever I'm at Nelson Mandela Square (by Sandton City), has made the cover of the international benchmark business magazine, Forbes.

He is introduced as the new kid billionaire (only black South African national) with riches amounting to about R6.6 billion at todays rates. He makes all his riches from resources. His empire is African Rainbow Minerals (ARM).

I hope that having rubbed his hand some of the business aura/mysticism/shrewedness/attitude/energy of him has somewhat transformed into me for use tomorrow.

At the time, during the Audi/Joburg Fashion Week, when I networked Patrice and asked on what made him tick and what it takes to get to where he is, the answer was: nothing makes me what I am. I just believe in what I want and I work hard for it. And yes, he did seem and sound very normal and like your neighbour. So he is not wired differently in his biology, it's his attitude and approach that he has re-wired to be of a go-getter, or shall I say billionaire!

A mention of note is also that Bill Gates is now former richest man on earth alive. He has been unseated from the top golden throne by the modest investor guru and villager, Warren Buffet.

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Develop a love for design

All things equal, life is pretty good. All things equal, design is life. Design makes life. Design is the entire beauty of life.

At least that's how much Izz loves design. I realise that most of my good ideas (including my poetry and some writings and my home decor) were inspired by the passion for design and by other designs that I come across. Even the 14-chapter novel that I'm working claims as its source, design.

We always buy one or two products in a day and overlook the attractive, often (at least to me) inspiring designs that adorn them. The house designs, signage design, automobile designs, decor designs and even ideas designs. The conglomerate of all that. All that cocktail, if you think long and hard about it, would inspire one to develop intriguing ideas that one hasn't even thought of as yet (obvisouly for fear of being a little crazy - for being non-comformist is called CRAZY). At least for me noticing design patterns has gotten me that far, and even on a path to a creative highway. Once on that highway - and am sure am on my way there just now - the achievements will be numerous.

So today my word is only that do pause everytime you have yourself a product with catchy design, when you go passed a well designed product of any kind. Make a mental snapshot of it. Do so often until it almost becomes second nature and I have no doubt that when you need to get creative with something, anything, a conglomerate of all that design patterns you had consumed will come to your marvellous rescue.

Something for me to keep working on.

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Read my poems

I have updated my poetry blog with a few interesting poems. Please check them out on this destination: http://izzonlinepoetry.blogspot.com/. Happy poeming.


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Fight for what you believe in

It's not that I'm advocating a belligerent 'I-take-no-shit-from-anyone' attitude. That you should go on even where sense says step back. Be put. Let it go. Don't fight or fight back. But where you're heart tells you it's all so wrong for some people or institutions to mal-treat and just get away with it, fight. You just gotta know in your heart of hearts that it goes against your values, at to take out individualism, that on average it is wrong for someone or some institution to treat you there way they have.

Yesterday, I was walking down town Pretoria within the buzz and hussle of humankind. Then, innocently as we looked, I'd like to believe, four 'reservist (training) policemen apprehend us in an unlikeable manner. They then say to us without even greeting, "we want to search you, we suspect you'. Needless to say, I was more than appauled. I was freaked out. I was angered. I went belligerent and launched into the same attitude they apprehended us with. I demanded they present us with a search warrant if they were to successufuly and lawfuly search me or my brother. Again, needless to say, I grabbed my brothers hand, amidst my fury, started walking away from them since they didn't greet me, they didnt present themselves in a lawful manner, and couldn't produce a search warrant and chose us two, within a buzz of more than a hundred people. Well, they gave chase although we weren't running. Following a long exchange of words, they decided 'you seem educated and you think you know too much than us'. They then cuffed me. Cuffed me without saying that famous line of , 'you have right to remain silent... to a lawyer... and all that.' I asked what was the cause of my arrest. Aaah, you talk too much and we want you to tell that 'shit' to our commissioner. Well, I demanded then they take me to conference with their boss. Half way to the police station, me in total shame from the stares and embarrassment as I was handcuffed like a flight risk, hardened criminal, kept on asking them the cause of my arrest as they didn't even search me to find a weapon. Realising they went for wrongful, unprocedural arrest and having had a bit of tough questions to answer from me, they decided 'we giving you a warning for resisting a search'. I demanded the promised conference with the commissinor. Well, needless to say once again, they wrote down my name (wrongly spelt), took down my incorrect number (as I was so shocked I couldn't recall my real number), and as I demanded one of their names and service number they said: "to do what with them". They dashed off into the alleys of the streets. Pity they didn't have names tags, or rather, luckily for them they didn't take me to the commissioner to explain that they arrested a cooperative guy because he asked what were his rights during and arrest or a search, but, the night before that, they didn't catch a guy who robbed my little sister of her cellphone and cash at knifepoint, and a month earlier, they didn't come to attend to a racist and physical assault incident after I had called 10111 and was just given a reference number.

In short, if something is believed to be wrong. You believe it to be wrong, fight all you can. Just don't let your freedoms stripped of you and all you do is absolutely nothing whilst your heart tells you: I believe this is wrong'. Many people's blood was spilt fighting for our freedoms. That the police say we can do this and that, does not make it right or lawful or even constitutional.

Aluta continua!


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Real change takes time - patience

It's heavy stuff. It's hectic. It's a difficult challenge to stay on top of your game. In form plus constant and consistently. Of late, in the past months, I realised that sometimes it is not that important to do one good big thing in a blue moon. But doing drips and drops of good on a consistent basis.

Imagine trying to change things in your life. Your way of living, your style, your approach to problems and resolutions, your vision and in fact, re-adjusting too; what you believe you stand for. All that happens may be say in a day, a week, or even a month. All perfect. It's big, it's change, it's positive. You're a better person that you've always wanted to be. You've met the high and mighty benchmark. But then, months later it all fades away. Almost everything starts looking exactly the same. The way it was before the overhaul. It's almost like those ten steps ahead drove you about thirteen steps back.

I figure that it's rather more productive and qualitative to go one step at a time. Instead of swallowing the entire monster at once, do what the ant did to the gigantic elephant: take one small bit at a time. That way, the change stays with you. The change builds on you, in you. It starts to become intrinsic, almost to say it becomes your second nature.

My little daughter, Tinyiko, is crawling now and started standing with my coffee table, couches, and ooh God; my dear CD rack as crutches. But just recently, she stands all on her own. No crutches. The previous crutches only come in for the SOS as she becomes unstable from attempting to put one leg ahead of the other. But I can tell you one thing, her stages seem to internalise before the next one kicks in. And the whole effort seems, well, effortless. Now imagine she skipped the learning-to-walk stage and just believed she could suddenly sprint like a her big sister Talia. Needless to say, she will be dissappointed and just get frustrated at the damning outcome.

So in short. Let change happen over time. As we strut in this instant results modern age, we must also remind ourselves that instant, for the majority part of it, lacks staying power. It lacks quality over time.

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Staying positive in the darkness

Challenges come and go. It's what we make of them that actually stays with us. The lessons we take from our daily challenges. Think of the darkness that comes with the blackouts from Eskom, the traffic chaos, the increased rate of accidents, the lot of fuel now spent in snail traffic, the delays in all aspects of life and business. The sum cost of all that is just one big headache and nothing but a super blackout.

I hear of people emigrating. The blackouts having been there for a much longer period, albeit the time the have been with us have been pretty much costly and inconvenient. However, we need to see this as a challenge. A challenge that needs collective effort in order for solutions to come forth. That said, Eskom has to come out of the light, join us in the dark and spell out the truth of this situation. Honesty can tell us that they, at Eskom, can somewhat be trusted to be trying hard.

In life, as in blackouts, one needs to stay positive. Patience may run dry, but as long as we stay positive and see the situation as a challenge, then we might together be able to come up with solutions - be it using energy sparingly or by other means. Where there's a challenge, there must be a solution. I hope that Eskom is willing to play truth and cooperate a lot more with the public.

Surely though, notwithstanding the damage in the aftermath of blackout era, we will look back to this dark days and think that it taught us a lot about developing thick skin and being positive. Being negative will not produce enough energy to light even one bulb, let alone all those traffic lights in Sandton and Brooklyn. But being positive may keep us above the water as we pester Eskom to cooperate with the public and industry.

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A heel snaps, and you stay calm under pressure

I laughed my guts out yesterday. I learnt my heart a good lesson too. A friend popped into my office, hilarious and all, to story-tell me that en route from the main gate of University, as she swankily walked across something embarrassing and dangerous happened. As she walked, she noticed a green stilleto fly in front of her with a snapped heel. She was discomforted and felt the heat on the ground at the same nearly landing herself on the ground. "I wondered, now whose show is that," she asked herself as she slowed down feeling some pain in her feet (all in this in split seconds, I imagine). Little did she know her shoe was, today, green and it had snapped the heel and flew right in front of her.

She tells me she was embarrassed. "Then I noticed all sorts of people staring at me, being me, I kept my calm, walked forward and picked my shoe, took out my other pair of flat reliable ones, and off I walked," she said. Being her, I'm sure she continued to walk with the same swankiness and grace le grande not caring what others made of her near-ankle tearing misfortune. When she got to my office to tell the story, she was laughing hilarious.

Lesson for me: Don't take yourself too seriously. Insomany things, just don't take yourself too seriously, that may work against you, it may make it possible for you to hurt whereas if you went light on it, you would laugh at the situation/problem and carry on with the same confidence. There may be pain, embarrassment inside from the failure, but hey, if you stayed calm under pressure and cared less what most people think, you are sure to bounce back equally well or even ten times better and continue to succeed, fail, succeed and succeed even more.

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Pressure inspires

Us humans are a funny and paradox-filled species. In May I had a tooth op due to some chicken feet bone shrapnel being lodged between the tooth and the gum. The pain was so unbearable hell had no fury. Now the funny part of the human species: in the midst of failing to endure the pain, I made so many promises. No, I made oaths. Countless solemn oaths about what dedication, committment and creativity I'll demonstrate should God only let me go pass that pain - yes, it felt deadly. And then the angels removed the pain - they came in white coats, one looking up my mouth with a drill in hand, the other passing all sorts of sharp needles. Then the months later, I never did all that I said I'd do when I was on my 'death-bed' - it was that bad.

It's true that us humans we do most awesome things under pressure. All sorts of pressure. What with me jumping an awesomely high fence in the village running from fierce dog that I was show intended to murder me. That fence is so high, when I told people I jumped it unscathed, they never believed. Call it adrenal moments. Now, when we're under pressure or at our lowest, we seem to connect far much better with some dormant, silent power from within us. A power that we know or suspect we posses, but never really strive to tap into.

I'm sure you do relate here. The things you've always wanted to say but never said because the was no pressure, be it emotional or otherwise pressure. But just that one time when the situation is so heavy on your heart more than your shoulders, you spit it the way you normally wouldn't.

I asked myself this question today: How would harness that kind of inspiration positively and use it at a time when I choose to constructively? What would happen? Wouldn't I be awesome, great? I got no doubt.

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The key word in Team is Player

Funny enough I'm at a point in my life where I'm forced to acknowledge a long known truth: things work out amongst people, teams, families, communities and nations because all involved have an active and practical vested interest - they're players in a team. Therefore, all parties involved hold dear the success of the goal and vision of what they either want to achieve or has to be achieved.

However, in most cases, especialy where feuds erupt, all parties involved may see the same vision, all hold dear to their heart that such an enriching destination be achieved, but paradoxically, some amongst the parties/team will not stretch their minds and hearts and sweat enough to make reality such a dream. This means that some people in a team naturally forget that they're in a team as players. Practical players. By virtue of a player being in a team doesn't mean that they are playing.

You find misunderstandings turning into feuds, simple feuds into complex conflicts, conflicts into irrepairable relations - therefore, a chain reaction: more and more conflicts. At the end, none wins, for we have been taught by our fores that sometimes winning in a 'war' is in fact losing more than that which you overpowered with your strength and tactics.

For me, there's no easy-go fastfood type solution to avoiding this disturbance of the peace and harmony which prevents the joy of life from thriving. I say so because as people, we're different, we have different approaches. But at the same time, we're so the same that in many ways that we forget that we share a vision: to live together peacefully with each of us being respected for their ways and personalities.

The danger with too much diversity too, and Kings and Queens would be happy I reiterate this, is that we all, as a team, never really move just in time to arrive at a common decision. Too much democracy kills advancement.

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Being the wiser

It is no offence to be a bit vague every now in then in life. So today I'm to say: As much as it's important to fight, to endure, to hold in there, there are times when it becomes a weighinly important to just let go. And most times, letting go is not as easy as fighting, enduring, sticking in there. But when let go time comes, just let go. It may be meant to be.

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