Mind Over Matter.

I recently (and accidentally) experienced a deep moment from the most unlikely of sources. Soon after school closed last month for my baby sharks, I decided to check on my daughter’s progress on her laptop. I have come across trendy images in the past of teen celebs whom she admires. They appear wearing designer clothes and shoes posted as her screen saver and profile picture. Some look abit weird I must admit. I wonder who I’d have posted on my profile if I had a laptop when I was her age.

The late Mzee Ojwang perhaps of the famous Vitimbi blockbuster. He really used to crack me up. I can still recall some scenes from that series like when his wife, Mama Kayai would carry him like a kid from a fight. It was hilarious. Those were our small pleasures growing up. Maybe we should push for Vitimbi to be on Netflix ya? Ok I’m getting carried away but you get my point folks.

The pleasant shocker on my baby shark’s laptop was a proud daddy moment. It was a quote by Zig Ziglar – You don’t have to be great to start but you have to start to be great. I sat there staring at that quote impressed that her growing young mind is thinking that way. I felt somewhat validated that mummy shark and I are not doing too bad a job in bringing up this small Kenyans.

That quote by Zig applies in my current season because I have been in starting mode for quite a while. At least that’s what it feels like.  Corona has acted as a catalyst for me and many others I’m sure. Folks have been forced off their comfort zones and are tapping into reserves within them that they didn’t know existed. That’s a good thing but frightening at the same time. And that’s where I am. Nature abhors a vacuum. My current vacuum is having no plan and its beginning to get abit dangerous. I feel like I’m sliding back into the anxiety and worry I had a few years back. Losing sleep at night worrying about money is a clear indicator that I’m backsliding.

Sunny Bindra’s article in the Nation last Sunday shed some light on what I’m going through. He confirmed that my lizard brain is gaining weight and threatening to overrule the other part of my brain where positivity and possibility reside. According to Sunny Day, “the lizard brain is the primitive part of our brain that protects us and ensures our survival. It controls many involuntary responses and is usually based on fear. We need this part of the brain as it helps us flee danger leading to self-preservation. The other part of our brain, the neocortex is where our higher self lives. This part of the brain is much more beneficial than the lizard brain because almost all human progress and development originates from here.” But it’s much slower and takes huge effort to make the neocortex productive.

In this era of corona many lizards in our brains have eaten the neocortex for lunch. That is why anyone desiring to come out of this pandemic better must avoid that reptile at all costs. The way to avoid that is to keep generating and searching for positive and progressive stimuli to keep us growing and hopeful. If we fail then all we will exhibit is reptilian behaviour.

Ladies and gentlemen our first ever webinar by the Halftime institute East Africa is just the stimuli I need now to tame the lizard in my brain. It’s ok to be plan less but only for so long. I read somewhere that to sit and do nothing, you have to be sitting very high up and I’m not that high yet . I’m glad the Half time webinar is this week and it is a highlight not just for my journey of transition but for the institute that we are setting up in East Africa.

It’s sole aim is to help folks discover their calling and what they should spend the rest of their lives doing. We were made for much more but sadly many of us die full of the deposits God put in us and yet the plan should be to die empty. That’s the hallmark of a life well lived. I’m determined to die empty despite the grueling tug of war in my brain between the two opposing sides.

Tomorrow 8^th of August at 10am we shall be discussing the Sigmoid curve. Some of us may have interacted with it at work describing a product life cycle or other management and business conversations. In Halftime we use it to describe the flow of different seasons of our lives and how to maximize them. More importantly we dive deep in helping you identify the signs of when to end a curve in your life and when to start a new one. I wish someone spoke to me about the S curve in this context ten years ago. I enjoyed my curve so much and over stayed my welcome. I was blind to the signs to start my next curve and I’m still paying for that costly error.

It’s ten times harder to start a new curve when your current one is spiralling downwards. I’m living proof. It’s best to do it when your current curve is still climbing.But I’m determined to rise again and rise much higher. I’m burning both the midnight and early morning oil to achieve that. Doing this webinar is a sure sign of a rising curve. That’s the food my neocortex needs to feed on to overcome the lizard brain.

For those of you in transition (especially corona induced transitions) please consider spending an hour with me on Saturday morning. I believe it will be worth your while. It may just be what you need to starve the lizard in your brain and activate the bright side of life as you seek significance with a renewed confidence. For those who have registered asante sana and see you all tomorrow morning.

PS: you can register here http://lnkd.in/dNmCcAE