Confront the Lions in your life

When in a jungle confront a lion, not a monkey. Many times in leadership, in the marketplace, and in daily life, we are faced with various fears aka lions in the jungle and the easiest thing to do is run and hide until the storm is over or we attack the monkeys. We act sometimes like the ostrich, put the head in the sand, and hide until the danger passes away. Sometimes this strategy works, even so in the military; you retreat and reorganize rather than retreat and surrender. In my career, I have met various kinds of people, and I will categorize them as three Cs, complainers, Conformers, and Creators.

Complainers do best one thing, complain about everything, and in the end bury themselves in the sand and complain more, these are the majority. Meanwhile, we have conformers who just accept the status quo and continue to do and live their lives as it is (these attack the monkeys). When confronted by a lion, they normally don’t resist, they willingly accept to be eaten without a fight. Lastly, we have the creators, these will not accept to be eaten lying down they will fight to the end. They undoubtedly demonstrate extra efforts in handling the lions in the jungle, they have an attitude of David when everybody saw Goliath as too big to hit; he saw Goliath as too big to miss.

Many times in the marketplace, we have so many challenges especially in positioning ourselves. In my early life in social work, I met an interesting group of young people under the initiative of the Slum Ghetto Youth Development fund initiated by Bogere Saul in Kampala. These young men who have grown up in a typically ghetto world have realized that they need to address many of the challenges which they face such as illiteracy in reading, writing and information technology, financial handicaps, character issues, and high crime rates. These young men have decided that they will confront the lions in their lives and create the desired change they desire. They refused to conform to their ghetto status or complain about life’s unfairness; rather they chose the best choice in life confronting the lion rather than the monkeys. They looked at the future rather than concentrating on today and yesterday. They said YES we shall and they boldly stepped into the future.

While growing up I admired public speaking and print media but my biggest weakness was stammering, oh how I stammered, I hated it when I had to say a word. This weakness made me an introvert in class, one greatest blessing that came out of this is that I read a lot and so was very knowledgeable in many subjects and of course, I became a consultant and also excelled a lot in my academics. When I received a scholarship for education I was totally disappointed, how would I speak to the students. By the end of my training, I was sure I wasn’t ready for teaching as a career, I joined a consultancy firm and one of the key areas I needed to master was public speaking and the rest now is history, I am now a self-made public speaker who has taught across the country in various forums. Stammering flew out of the window. I have also published four books and many more are coming. The moment I accepted to embrace and deal with the lions in my life I unveiled a great potential in my life that not only benefits me but also the society around me.

What are the fears in your life, find the lion and not the monkeys address them and you will be able to grow and excel. This applies also in our business, social and family life, when we address fears and weaknesses we blossom. We also move from the category of complainers and conformers to creators.

May you find wisdom as you face the lions in your life, your business, and your leadership journey?

Allen K. Baguma

Touch the UnTouched

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