Dream but Do.

April 8, 2024 In Uncategorized 10 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake up in the day to find it was vanity, but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.” – British Army Colonel T. E. Lawrence, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom:

Dreaming is cheap; almost everyone dreams, but executing the dream is often expensive. Your dreams will only be wishes until you start doing something about it on a daily basis. You don’t have to be great to start, but you must start to be great. We all have greatness in us and have potential energy inherent in us, but we need kinetic energy to bring forth our potential. For most of us, our potential energy gets unused as a result of childhood programming, societal indoctrination, religious dogma and familiar naysayers that disrupt our kinetic energy. There is a price to be paid to achieve your dreams, which involves betting on yourself, showing up daily, having faith and executing relentlessly. Dreams are free, but executing them is expensive. Your dreams are valid, but you must do whatever is necessary to achieve them.

Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Book Summary: The Power of One More by Ed Mylett.

April 7, 2024 In Book Summaries 4 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

In The Power of One More: The Ultimate Guide to Happiness and Success, Entrepreneur and host of the Ed Mylett Show, Ed Mylett, provides a framework for making incremental improvements in our daily lives. Ed’s father struggled with alcohol addiction, and he had tried many times to quit to no avail. But he eventually gave up drinking when Ed’s mum gave him an ultimatum :

“Either you get sober or lose your family. You won’t get another chance,”

That was the moment he knew he had to change, and he did. He embraced the Alcoholics Anonymous idea of living One More day sober. It became the entire premise of his life, and it is the core idea of “The Power of One More” book.

Change Your Standards, Change Your Life.

April 6, 2024 In Musings 6 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

“We don’t rise to the level of our expectations; we fall to the level of our training.”― Archilochus

To paraphrase the Greek poet Archilochus, ” We don’t rise to the level of our goals or wishes; we rise to the level of our standards.” Our standard determines what we are willing to tolerate and the expectations we hope to live by. One of the standards I have set for myself in the past 2-3 years is doing the following daily: Meditate, write on this blog and exercise. I have tried to uphold that standard for myself daily, but they have become non-negotiables. It took a while to get to this level of consistency, but everything is possible with determination, persistence and focus. We get what we tolerate in life, and our standards are a benchmark onto which the world will treat us.

The Company You Keep.

April 5, 2024 In Musings 6 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

Your parents were right “Birds of the same feather flock together”, and “If you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas”. These are some of the cautious statements parents give to their children on the importance of choosing their friends, relationships and associations. Parents know viscerally because they know in hindsight how the right or wrong association shaped their lives. As the saying goes, “You are the total of the five people you spend the most time with.” You cannot outperform your inner circle as they calibrate your baseline and, ultimately, your threshold. Two of the most crucial relationship decisions we all must make include choosing a life partner and the choice of work. You will spend at least two-thirds of your life with your partner and at work. The company you keep is essential in how far you go in life, so choose wisely.

Tune Out the Noise.

April 4, 2024 In Musings 8 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

Noise is an unpleasant sound that is undesired. ¹ Noise can also be anything that does not give us the desired sound signal. One must tune out the noise to listen to one’s intuition/gut. The naysayers are often the loudest. They will tell you with certainty why your goals are impossible and call you crazy. It can be tough, as most of the noise comes from people closest to us. Self-doubt will definitely creep in at some point, but you have to trust yourself and the universe. As American film director and screenwriter Steven Spielberg noted in his 2016 Harvard University Commencement Speech ² “Your Intuition Whispers,” I want to be clear that your intuition is different from your conscience. They work in tandem, but here’s the distinction: Your conscience shouts, ‘here’s what you should do,’ while your intuition whispers, ‘here’s what you could do.’ Listen to that voice that tells you what you could do. Nothing will define your character more than that.

And again, this is why it’s so important to listen to your internal whisper. It’s the same one that compelled Abraham Lincoln and Oskar Schindler to make the correct moral choices. In your defining moments, do not let your morals be swayed by convenience or expediency. Sticking to your character requires a lot of courage. And to be courageous, you’re going to need a lot of support.

Conquer Thy Self.

April 3, 2024 In Musings 4 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

Chinese military strategist and author of The Art of War, Sun Tzu, wrote, “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” The battle to conquer oneself is a life-long journey, as what got you to become good would not necessarily get you to become great. The key is to lose the battle and win the war. The battle never ends with the vicissitudes, trials, and tribulations of life, but by conquering oneself with self-awareness and self-compassion, the war will be won. As Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung once said “One who looks outside, dreams. One who looks inside awakens.”

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Intensity Expands Capacity.

April 2, 2024 In Musings 6 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

I ran six full marathons in 2022 and another nine in 2023, bringing the total marathons I ran in the past two years to fifteen. I participated in my first marathon in 2013 as an avenue to deal with the grief of losing my closest cousin. Finishing that first marathon in Accra, Ghana, took me over five hours. I have since participated in and finished 28+ Marathons in 19 different cities (Accra (4), Toronto (4), Cotonou (1), Lagos (2), Nairobi, Mississauga, Ottawa (2), Montreal (2), Vancouver, Edmonton, Hamilton, Fredericton, Halifax, Calgary, Manitoba, Regina, Quebec, Victoria and Prince Edward Island. I reduced my marathon finish time from 4 hours+ (pre-2021) to 3:44 in 2022 and 3 hours 20 minutes in 2023. It took a lot of intense training and consistency to pull it off, but it was worth the grind.

One More Try.

April 1, 2024 In Musings 5 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

Failure is a trickster with a keen sense of irony and cunning. It takes great delight in tripping one when success is almost within reach.

Every day is an opportunity to give your best shot and make progress in achieving your goals. Good better best; never let it rest until good is better, and better is best. The gym is an excellent example of the One More Try mentality; real progress starts when it hurts, and we can feel the pain. Whether running on the treadmill, lifting weights or engaging in other fitness activities, the more we can go beyond our perceived pain threshold, the quicker the progress. Boxing legend and former world heavyweight champion Muhammed Alli was a proponent of this philosophy; he once said: “I don’t count my sit-ups; I only start counting when it starts hurting because they’re the only ones that count.”

“Most people give up just when they’re about to achieve success. They quit on the one-yard line. They give up at the last minute of the game, one foot from a winning touchdown.” – H. ROSS PEROT American billionaire and former U.S. presidential candidate”

April 2024