Rise and Shine

Do you believe?

Christians know that Jesus once said that if you believe, then with faith you can even move mountains. This also applies in real life situations. Those that believe end up achieving their dreams while those that don’t believe fail completely. Belief is a key success factor. In any fight or pursuit, you need to ask yourself whether you believe or you do not.

Twelve years ago, I came across a friend who was competing in international speech contests. He won several levels of the competition. At the time I met him, he had just won at level of United Kingdom (UK) and Ireland. He was now to go to United States of America (USA) to represent the UK and Ireland region.

In his acceptance speech, he spoke of how he believed that he was going to America to bring the public speaking champion’s trophy to the UK. He described the trophy and he was visualising it.

He imagined how the award ceremony was going to be like in the USA. Then he explained to us in the audience that he was doing that to demonstrate how much he believed that he was going to win it!

When he went to USA some three months later, he did not win the trophy, but he still ranked very high—he was ranked third best public speaker in the world. Quite a feat! I believe he achieved that big feat because he believed so much. He believed in himself. He believed he was going to be champion. He believed that he was going to be a winner and winner he became—may be not at the grade he wished but not far from it.

The story of my friend above is a clear testimony of the power of personal belief. You too will become what you believe. And, if you do not believe, you will not achieve it at all. You need belief to achieve. But let us be clear and realistic here. Belief alone will not win you trophies. You need to match your belief with some plan of action, with some strategy and practice.

What I did not say about the friend above is the plan he had for winning. He told us that for him to become champion of UK and Ireland, he had practised his speech a hundred times. And he promised us that ahead of the international competition in USA, he was going to practise his contest speech many more times than a hundred. He had an action plan that matched and backed up his personal belief.

The added advantage of belief, especially when you communicate to friends and relatives is that it becomes a promise and you don’t want to fail on a promise. The belief makes you compelled to achieve what you believe. This then tells us that when we believe, we need to profess our belief to some people. We need to write down our belief. We need to ‘promise’ to some of the people that are close to us. By doing this, we make a promise and that compels us to work towards achieving what we believe.

You may have heard of Kingdom Bank of Zimbabwe. This is the institution that initially paired up with Thom Mpinganjira in establishing FDH Bank. I had the rare opportunity to have a one-to-one dinner with the founder and owner of Kingdom Bank Nigel Chanakira around the year 2011 or 2012.

I wanted to understand how he managed to set up that big bank in Zimbabwe while pretty young. In the long story, he told me how when he was a young boy, he used to tell his mother that when he grows up, he would own a bank! The young Nigel boy believed that he would own a bank when he grew up and so when he grew up he did own a bank! Because he believed that he would own a bank.

Do you also believe? If you do not believe, start believing now and then you too will rise and shine! Good luck!

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