FANTASY LIVES

No one can silence you from dreaming or sharing your dreams. You have a democratic right to fantasize about any aspect of life. In fact, many people live more out of their fantasies and memories than present day reality. If you’re so unfortunate to be their friend, sibling, workmate or neighbour, you will be drowned in make-believe lifestyles or stories.

Fantasizing helps some people to deal with reality or simply to dull pain, loss, fear, inadequacy and confusion. They make up love

Betrayal, success, greatness, friendship and happiness stories. These people can magnify or amplify a small thing, fleeting experiences, casual encounters with famous or rich people or events into Hollywood, Bollywood & Nollywood blockbuster combined in one with all the requisite stunts, sound effects, emotional expressions and backgrounds!

Sometimes people make up missing people in their lives i.e fathers, mothers, siblings, uncles, aunties, lovers etc) or create past realities that never ever happened e.g. trips, holidays, gifts, fights etc!

Others auto edit their past to remove poverty, dysfunction, abuse, rejection and even some unpalatable relatives and moments! Other people change their ethnic, racial and other such attribute.

Look your history is perfect in its imperfections. You don’t need a perfect past to be the perfect you. This stuff is real folks! People that fantasize a lot often become conmen, public figures, creatives or simply fantastic writers. A majority become avid politicians or activists for some cause! There is a very thin line between serial liars and serial fantasies!

Serial Fantasies are often a sign of delusions of grandeur, great creativity or a narcissistic disorder. Fantasy Manics are likely to be extremely sensitive, vindictive, needy, moody or downright abusive.

Let me sum it up for you :-

(a) They don’t really care about you, your thoughts, feels and personal vision. You have the same worth to them as a selfie , pendant, piece of jewellery, perfume or antic artifact! You are held very close because you fit the frame of their fantasies. You either have the right family background, educational qualifications, artistic talent, looks, social media profile or you pay them homage regularly. You are showered with attention and gifts in order to keep you enslaved, to enslave you or in order not to allow you to worship at any other altar.

(b) Fantasy Manics are the centre of their own universe and they worship themselves and expect everyone else to love, adore or worship them! Don’t you dare bow to their nonsensical delusions, because if you do, you will be manipulated from here to Gujarat, Timbuktu, Hawaii or Honolulu!

Call this abnormality out. Please don’t normalise the abnormal! Start with yourself though. Move yourself from information and image peddling to practical personal transformation and growth .

INFORMATION vs. PRACTICAL LIVED EXPERIENCE

Turn book, Internet and TV information into locally relevant and practically applied knowledge!

I have met plenty people that can eloquently describe how to make money, build wealth or even influence. They can talk about the law, politics, health , education, technology, spirituality, music, arts and culture, leadership, service, environmental consciousness, recycling, integrity, parenting, marriage and etcetera. After I have been impressed by the eloquent articulation, I have always asked how many times , in how many places and for how long have they have done what they have just talked about.

What have been the five major results for other people and for yourself? Where can I get evidence of this great set of achievements from at least five different people ? At that stage the eloquent often start describing sermons, meetings and workshops or just start to stammer!

Friends, it is possible to write books about leadership based on other people’s stories and experiences. You can talk about great miracles, blessings and wonders referencing other people’s experiences and achievements. You can take anecdotes about leadership, saving, investment from Rich Dad /Poor Dad , John C. Maxwell , Covey,etc cram and regurgitate them eloquently. BUT doing and saying are two different things and I dare say experiences. In other words , WHAT IS YOUR OWN STORY?

INSTANT SUCCESS

You can start something and be an overnight success. You can make a song and it becomes a global hit. You can start a movement and it captures public attention like a wild fire. You can say the right things and even become a struggle icon or poster child. You can make one investment decision and strike it rich. BUT instant success without a sustainability formula can destroy you more than repeated earlier failures.

NO ONE CAN TEACH YOU SUCCESS!

The greatest teachers on any subject are not the insanely eloquent, flashy or even celebrated. It’s men and women who have tasted failure several times and made costly mistakes that they have owned up to. No one can teach how to succeed really, BUT there are people out there that can teach you how to handle the very cold winter of failure, rejection, loss and eroded self-confidence.

So, I always ask great leaders two questions:
(a) Have you ever failed in life, if so, how, when & why ?

(b) What lessons did you learn from your failures and how did you rebound from it?

We celebrate a boxer for their triumph in a 15-round bout of boxing and forget how many months and hours of preparatory pain it takes. We celebrate a Sprinter that breaks a world record in under 10 seconds and totally forget that the few seconds victory took months to prepare for. In preparation, what you do everyday matters as much as what you eat, say and think. Feed yourself the right stuff, say and do stuff aligned to your dreams!

PLEASE ABEG, DO !

My friend, you most probably know too much about many very important things but you are either broke , broken or are about to break!

Do, don’t make up ideal pasts, create an ideal future. The things or people you didn’t have growing up created opportunities for imagining a future not based on past deficits but optimums.

-Don’t make up friends, lovers and great connections: deliberately build them. People don’t really care whether you’re great or not, but folks will respect your hustle, your talent, passion and authenticity!

-Fantasies can be turned into something awesome and rewarding if you invest time and skill. Stop describing the ideal , do it , try it and be vulnerable enough to accept that you may fail spectacularly! What is there to lose given your current true status? Not social media status – real state of your finances, relationships and self-confidence!

-If your level of knowledge and quality of life are miles apart, it doesn’t make any sense at all. Truth is, you don’t have bad luck at all. No one bewitched you! You are like someone that buys a fully-kitted gas heater or stove and freezes because of the cold or starves to death because they have the manuals but somehow are afraid to ignite the heater or stove. You have all the resources and even the need to turn your wonderful theories into practice. BUT you are not focused or disciplined enough to take the journey from FANTASIES to practical ACTION! You are not sure, you fear taking baby steps because you fear falling? Falling is part of learning to WALK by yourself. SO, please STOP this your THEORISING and DO! Fail whilst doing ! Who knows, you might just succeed!