When The Mouse Eats Like An Elephant

Long time ago, when Dinosaurs roamed the earth, the mouse and the elephant had formed a formidable friendship. In their daily strolls, one day the came across a long rickety bridge that they had to cross. The valley down that bridge was filled with rocks and a thick forest. As usual, the mouse climbed on the elephant’s back and off they set off to cross. As they did, the bridge shook and shoved, swayed and quacked, basically threatening to give way. All along both parties were silent…their hearts in their mouths. Eventually, they made it across the bridge…and that is when the dear old mouse spoke, “Boy WE sure shook that bridge didn’t we?”

Ok, today I am delving into creative writing. I am just writing as I go, so hopefully, by the time the post is complete there will be a message to take home. If you are the kind who is busy and not willing to persevere my writing escapades, you are excused from this moment on. Actually, the elephant and mouse story has no direct relation to the topic I desired to share today…and am thinking that as I go, an entirely new message will develop…hehehe, not so encouraging is it. Reminds me of a concerned mum who took her son to see a doctor…but I digress. That’s for another day.

My readers will by now understand that I have been focusing of late on lessons from ‘My Jog To Success’, a personal initiative that has transformed and is transforming my life. There are pertinent lessons I learn every single morning I go out to jog. I got a major nugget today that I intend to deliver with this post. However, I already threw my hat in the ring with this creative writing business…so If I take a completely different angle today…I will basically come back in a later post and share my power nugget. That’s why you all ought to be authors…you got freedom to do what you want and nobody can sue you. Did I see someone logging off?

Anyway, a few days back, I read a concept called ‘ACT AS IF’. Basically, if you want to be a manager, act as if you are one. Dress like one, sit like one, talk like one, walk like one. Soon enough you will be one. I know that works, I have done it. I was sitting in an obscure office, churning out work and making my manager and assistant manager shine. However, deep inside of me, I knew that as much as they kept saying ‘We sure did shake that bridge didn’t we?’, they were more or less celebrating my efforts. Point of Correction…they were gloating over my efforts as if they were the ones who pulled it off! Needless to say, I always projected myself as if I was a manager. I dressed day in and day out like one…no not like my manager was dressing…but like A MANAGER would dress. I was not surprised when this guy got scared of me later on. Now, let’s make one thing clear. He also knew my potential and celebrated it. He championed it and brought it to the fore.

However, he crossed a line that eternally made me sort of lose respect for him. He basically abdicated most of his responsibilities to me in the name of…guess what? Delegation. Hopefully by now you know that the boss is not an elephant…but he actually is the mouse.The most paining thing in that set up was when I did some mistakes (like I always do and will always do, no excuses here), he literally would dump me like a hot potato. He would leave me to fend for myself. On flipping the story, whenever there were matters to celebrate and applaud, he would be caught smack in the middle savoring all the glory and splendor as if he was the one who pulled off the stunt in the first place!

Of course the biggest difference between me and him was the pay check. Here I am ‘elephanting’ the company to success while this guy is busy “mousing” his way to mediocrity…then when it comes to eating….the mouse eats the elephant’s share. Ladies and Gentlemen, this state of affairs repeats itself times and times again and again the world over. Let me tell you why: People UNDER-ESTIMATE THEIR WORTH, and THEIR POTENTIAL. Its called working like an elephant and eating like an ant!

I remember there was a day that my young brother Tom needed some medication due to his Dialysis at that time. I had to get permission from work and go sort him out. You would not believe this. As I was in the streets of Nairobi hustling to find medication for my kid bro, I got a text from my boss. It read, ‘I know you have gone for an interview…and we wish you well’.

I have never been so ‘mad’ at a human being…however, the good news is that the boss knew I was too good to stick around the ‘obscure’ office I mentioned earlier. That of course was a self-fulfilling prophesy, in that few months down the line, I who was dressing like a Manager got an opportunity not only to be a Manager, but an expatriate Manager at that. And no, I was  not the next in line for that position. I was to be honest six scales down the pecking order. However, I had positioned myself for success as appropriately as I did.

The most amazing thing is that I did not do this consciously. I just wanted to dress up and look smart. One day the CEO asked me if I was attending interviews. I told her that I dress up to look nice because in turn, it makes me feel good, and motivates me.

The Moral of the story is the crux of this post. This by the way reminds me of my dear friend Ngina Otiende who is posting amazing stuff at her blog. She talked about Preparation in one of her latest posts. There we go. The key operative word here is Preparation. I have come to understand that whether it is done consciously or unconciously, we are always in a cycle in which one phase is preparation. I kid you not. My actions today are inevitably preparations for my tomorrow, whether success or failure.

As usual, I have my questions to pose. First, are you Preparing yourself Consciously? If not, then you are bound to be clueless when the next level demands that you step up to prove that you are worthy of it. Secondly, what are you ‘acting as if’ on today? Acting like a fool? You will be one. Acting like you will always be beneath and not above? That will happen. Here is the thing…do not wait until you are there to start acting like it. Your acting like it now…will most assuredly land you there…and when you get there…you will already have done enough practice to comfortably ride the storms of that level.

DID YOU KNOW?

‘It is not true that elephants are scared of mice!’

Have an acting week won’t you?