Commit to your mastery

Whether you are a business executive, taxi driver, university professor, comedian, legal counsel, grave digger, coder, police officer, firefighter, or Silicon Valley start-up business entrepreneur, honor your specialness. Get this, ‘. . . don’t call what you do in your workspace a job, a hustle, or a toil.’ It is your artistry. Your craft. Revere it as your magnum opus. Shower it with compelling potency and distinct veneration. Your craft not only offers you the opportunity to serve mankind but also provides you absolute responsibility to bid your best, nurture, and grow it. All I am saying is that you and I are artists. Our line of vocation acts as a lighthouse to our innate artistic ability. Let us cultivate a culture of using winning [and positive] words. In life and commerce. Always. That is how the virtuosos and titans of industry honor their greatness. They have generous faith in and value their specialness. Why? Because it nurtures their native distinctiveness [and enriches service to mankind].

Movie lovers in particular and the world at large woke up to a rude awakening on 9 September 2024. James Earl Jones was no more. Jones was a giant and gladiator not only in film, stage, and television casts but in the whole entertainment industry. He starred in dozens of box office movies, including ‘Coming to America – as 'King Jaffe Joffer’ and Disney’s classic animation, ‘Lion King – as Mufasa.’ He was an inductee of the Hall of Fame. Jones is perhaps one of the few actors in modern age to have been nominated and honored for exceptional achievement in four different cast categories and at different times, viz - Oscars, Emmy, Tony, and Grammy awards. We revere and idolize him as a record breaker and one who committed his whole life to a designated craft - but what you and I do not know about Jones is that the trait that made him look dull and disqualified him from appearing on the dean’s list during his high school days was the very trait that shot him to stardom and celebrity status -  his voice. 

Jones was born a stutter. He hardly talked. He was teased by his classmates. He was heckled by his peers. His teachers neglected him and he was labelled a failure. They told his parents that their son showed no sign of any potential and that he would amount to nothing [quite a painful experience for a parent – if you know what I mean]. Kudos to his poetry teacher, who spotted some sparks of brilliance in the young Jones, who took him through her wings and assisted the young man in shaping up. She saw something in Jones that no one else saw. The rest is written in the annals of movie entertainment. The bigger point, dear reader, is that the movie fraternity in particular, and entertainment fans, in general, cannot talk about James Earl Jones without saying something about his trademark voice mastery [the very peculiarity that his critics said he lacked and was mocked for]. In fact, Jones became an international celebrity for his voice role as Darth Vader in Star Wars movies. 

We can draw a big leadership and personal mastery lesson from Jones - sometimes the attributes that we think we do not possess or are deficient in or are not good at or lack mastery in, are the very attributes that, when discovered timely, nurtured and advanced purposefully, catapult us to success. You have perhaps heard of the saying that ‘. . . the cave that you are afraid to enter is the very cave that holds the treasure you seek.’ The key point for you and me - just like Jones Earl James discovered, nurtured, and committed himself to his artistry from nonentity to become a celebrated expert in his field - is to find our niche and hoist flag on the space [of our pristine craft]. 

There are times in our lives when things do not go according to our liking or do not improve as fast as we would want them to. We pray for healing mercies, but our health keeps deteriorating. We apply for a bank loan, but the relationship bank manager turns down our application. We pour ourselves into our craft hoping for an advancement, but promotion eludes us like morning dew. We send our kid to an elite high school hoping that they would bring home prized credentials, but the young chap gets expelled for bad behavior. We rate ourselves as gurus of our craft, only to be discounted, snubbed, and uncared for by bitter detractors and hecklers. There is no denying that you and I see these episodes as being negative. We may be discouraged or lose the zeal to keep on going. Yes, it is human to experience this feeling. Life is full of things that we do not like or want to experience. When no one believes in you, you most need to believe in yourself. One hundred percent. The point of wisdom is that the things that allow for genius have a dark side to them. 

Read history - every person who did something great went through a dark period. Nelson Mandela is considered a great leader of his time – he was shaped and sharpened by a twenty-seven-year incarceration in prison. Rosa Parks was rudely asked to surrender her seat to someone and to take hers in the wagon at the back of a bus. Her response sparked a national civil rights revolution and worldwide condemnation. Robert Gabriel Mugabe, Martin Luther King Jr, Mahatma Gandhi, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, Samora Machel, Abraham Lincoln, Marcus Garvey et al share the same narrative. Thomas Edison is said to have failed more than one thousand times before coming up with a working lightbulb. You may hate the experience. You may loathe the tiding. You may blame someone for it. Verily I say unto you, it is these dark side times that grow us. Setbacks toughen us. It is part of the process of personal growth. The most important point is to use these dark times as sandpaper to rub rough edges and dross off our mental ability. Scenarios work perfectly if we keep the right attitude and commit to our craft.  

Life is communicative. When things do not work for us, let us not treat it as the end of the world. Sometimes things are made to not work for us by the invisible hand for good reasons – maybe the invisible hand is keeping us from accidents. Maybe, the high power is shielding us from public embarrassment or ridicule. Maybe, nature is developing our character, shaping and readying us for glory. The things that delay our dreams or keep us from being our best are suitable fertilizers for our growth and ideal entry points to our dreamland. 

Life is full of contradictions. We treat ourselves honorably, only to see the world treating us offensively. Do not let contradictions crash your mastery and kill your dreams. Learn from James Earl Jones' speech impediment condition. Entertainment fans could not have been wowed by the level that he ushered them to if Jones had thrown in the white towel at his first encounter with public criticism and mockery. The larger point, dear reader, is that sometimes our strength is made perfect by our flaws and weakness. Commit to your mastery even amidst trying moments and adversity - that is how you become great.

Lester Chinyang’anya | General Manager – Operations | Minet Malawi