The Audacity!
Build readiness to die.
It's been almost a month since I last wrote to you. Technically, it's the longest I've gone without writing a newsletter since I started writing them some 8 years ago. How I've missed this! How I’ve missed you!
You see, since the last time I wrote a newsletter, the most amazing things have happened in my life. I would have said that you should permit it as an excuse for why I haven't written to you, but even I wouldn't permit that right now, with all I have learned. For I now understand that nothing, absolutely nothing, can get in the way of you and what you want.
Perhaps in another newsletter, I'm going to tell you all the amazing things that have been happening in my life, but this time around, I want to share what I have learned in the past three weeks; what everything that has happened to me and around me has taught me. I know without a shadow of a doubt that this is stuff that will transform your life if you heed it.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, can get in the way of you and what you want.
The last newsletter I wrote to you was about respecting your desires and not delivering yourself like a chicken into the hands of people, respecting and alluding to their desires, while spitting on yours. Remember I called that foolishness? Oh yes! You do! Remember I also said how foolish I had been, and I needed to learn a little selfishness, too? Yes! You remember!!
I learned something that would put you in the top 5 percent of the top 5 percent of any journey you have decided to embark on in life. The special ingredient necessary to be able to put yourself first, regardless of other people's position. That ingredient is called Audacity.
A-U-D-A-C-I-T-Y
This is the ability to freaking go! Go go go go go home, Cynthia Ofori! You know what? It was the same audacity that made Cynthia Ofori stand in front of the principal to say that her mommy said... She didn't care if her mom had the capacity. She wasn't going to let the fact that other students who were being sent home didn't try to stand up for themselves. Cynthia Ofori stood up to speak. That's Audacity!
Audacity is courage on steroids. It is showing up to where you have no business showing up to. It is applying for opportunities you do not qualify for. It is demanding for what you believe you deserve, regardless of what other people think you deserve. Heck, it's about asking for things you don't even deserve and seeing how the world responds!
Audacity is tenacity on steroids. It is showing up again and again, even after you have been rejected. It is stifling your ego, sacrificing it at the altar of your goals. It is pulling a Thomas Edison and failing a hundred times, a thousand times, just to go again. It is showing up to the company with your CV even after getting an email that you didn't make the second stage. It is responding to the HR's email, rejecting their rejection, and demanding a chance to prove your quality.
Audacity is hope on steroids. It is jumping off the cliff even though you're not seeing the floor, in hopes that someone catches you, or you land on soft ground. It is paying for a flight ticket when you haven't even received the visa. It is spending your very last cash on a gamble, hoping that it becomes a success. It is showing up at the airport even though you haven't booked a flight or have any money to do so, in hopes that somehow, you will get on a plane to your destination.
Audacity is the arrogance needed to put the kind of value on your brand that nobody else thinks you're worth. It is the arrogance that makes you say no to offers that you know, at the core of your heart, are beneath you. It is the arrogance that makes you say to an employer that they need you more than you need them, and if they don't give you what you want, you can get out there into the market and find who will. It is the arrogance that makes you quit a job without anything to replace it immediately.
Audacity is also respect on steroids. Respect for the people you are negotiating for. Respect for yourself and your desires. Respect for that child you want to set up a trust fund for, which is why you know you need to lock in. It is respect for your family, the people you are responsible for.
That's audacity!
Audacity can go wrong; in fact, more often than not, audacity does go wrong or yields nothing. Still, knowing that audacity can go wrong and still going ahead to do it, that is audacity in itself. The only way you can live the kind of life that you want is by going at it, regardless of what the outcome would be. The kind of person who achieves all is the person who determines and says to himself, 'I will get it or die!'
The only way you can live the kind of life that you want is by going at it, regardless of what the outcome would be.
Some time ago, Jim Rohn told a story about a man. I’ll repeat it here:
The man says, "I will climb the mountain. They've told me it's too high, it's too far, it's too steep, it's too rocky, it's too difficult. But it's my mountain. I will climb it. Pretty soon, you will see me waving from the top or dead on the side because I'm not coming back."
Time, Faith, and Circumstance all called a hasty conference, and they all agreed that they might as well let this man have it because he says he's going to get it or die."
That's the kind of fearlessness, or even recklessness, needed to make anything of yourself.
We have read from the Alchemist how if you want anything with all your heart, the universe will conspire to get it for you.
We have also read from Think and Grow Rich how desire, backed up by faith and a strong will, gives you anything you want.
That's audacity. The preparedness to throw it all out and continue throwing it out until it works. To put all your eggs in one basket and keep your eyes peeled on that basket. To rather die than continue to live like this. If you are not mad enough about what life looks like right now, you have no incentive to change it. No audacity!
If you are an active X user, you'd have seen the thread about asking what the most unhinged thing people have done to get ahead. Every answer on that thread affirms all I have been learning in the past few weeks. You need some type of stamina, some type of sitzfleisch to pull off unhinged things like that. You need audacity. If you go through the thread, you'd discover that none of those things are conventional or rule-abiding. They require audacity. A-U-D-A-C-I-T-Y!
Finally, one thing you need to know about audacity is that it is a muscle. Nobody is born with it. It needs to be built and exercised. And the only way you can build audacity is to be audacious. What's the worst that can happen? What is the very worst that can happen? Death? Come on! What's so bad about that? You wouldn't even know it if you died. If you are not prepared to die for something, then you don't deserve to have it. You might as well stop chasing it. Martin Luther King Jr. hinted at it when he said, 'No one really knows why they are alive until they know what they'd die for.'
One thing you need to know about audacity is that it is a muscle. Nobody is born with it. It needs to be built and exercised. And the only way you can build audacity is to be audacious.
And the truth is, there's no death in many of these scenarios, so why are you scared? Think about it.
Build enough audacity to break the rules set by society to keep you small. Everyone who follows these rules will only be that — followers! You've got to become a maverick. Make your own rules. Change the game. Be unhinged. Exercise your AUDACITY. Get ready to do it or die!
Otherwise, what's the point of it all?
To your growth
Your Coach,
Abiola Okunsanya,
Handzinspired.
Well said, sir! 👏🏾
Why do I feel like you were raising your voice throughout this letter?
Anyways, I heard you sir, loud and clear!!