Saturday, 30 May 2020

It's FINAL


Don’t ever allow your belly control your brain. In risk appreciation, it’s easily discernible that focus on value without mining and unearthing hidden hazards leads to unmitigated entrapment. Can you think of the rat chasing after the juicy bait that has been nicely set on the trap by “the special being” with reckless abandon? The next thing you see is “Bang” and it’s FINAL!


The 1996 summer Olympics game between Brazil and Nigeria was memorable in all ramifications. It was the final before the final – a semi-final encounter. Both teams had emerged from the same group with same points and similar statistics except “goals for and against”. In the semi-final encounter, Brazil scored first within 1 minute and Nigeria equalized around 20 minutes into the game. Brazil then added 2 goals in 10 minutes between 28 and 38 minutes. At 3-1, the game was over? Not so! After a dramatic turnaround in the second half, Nigeria won the game 4-3 via “the sudden death rule”.

Incipient failure doesn’t define you neither does it define life’s end game. There’s no failure until you fail to believe. It’s not over until you quit! Giving up is the laziest and the craziest approach to handling failure. The other approach is failure to learn. If you fail to learn, recurrence is imminent. As you may have heard, repeating same things and expecting a different result is tantamount to insanity says Albert Einstein. The third and the most rewarding approach is learning the right lessons and applying the right principles to avoid recurrence. This is the attribute that distinguish successful individuals, corporate organizations and progressive societies from those that are condemned to failure.

Most atrocities in life are borne out of lust – either of the flesh or of eyes. A people consumed by “belly-cravings” will sell their birthright. They will be consigned within the rubbles of irreparable failure. If anything, a “self-aware people” can turn the tide just like the Nigerian team referenced above by consciously engineering their ways out of unfavorable confines. At individual level, it doesn’t matter what manner of failure you have suffered. You can evaluate where you are, marshal out a plan, make a decisive “u-turn” and then tow a path of success. You can say to yourself that “Failure Is Not Allowed Lai-Lai”. It’s FINAL indeed!!