This week on Loretta Reveals, the entire team members have spent it reflecting, x-raying, analysing or pondering – depending on your preferred term.
Over time, one finds that there abound different mentors for different sub-sectors of our lives. It is not unusual for some mentors to be far away in terms of geographical location and never be personally known to us, yet, we feel close to such persons in ways not explainable. Drawing inspiration from them, their life work and their positive influences. It would be naivety on anyone’s part to think that mentors, whoever they maybe, are a hundred percent perfect. It is our decision; to decide what positive influence we perceive in a man or woman’s life that we seek to emulate or that spurs us on. I have often stated that “a good mentee, is one who chooses to be influenced by the ‘perceived positive’ aspects of another individual while having the wisdom to ignore the ‘perceived negative imperfections’ not worthy of emulation. The operative words here are ‘choice’ and ‘perception’ because life is all about choices and negative or positive / good or bad is relative.
On our mission of “borderless motivation”, we continue to ‘stand on the shoulders of giants’. So it was, that one such giant exited the world to the great beyond 7 days ago. He will have a final public memorial service to mark his life and times today the 10th of June 2016 in Louisville, USA. Every mentor needs a mentor. Muhammad Ali, was a mentor of mentors. This week, as we reflect on the life and times of the ‘greatest’ we deferred featuring our LR planned guest, to enable us pay our own respect and tribute to the man who told us “not to count the days, but to make the days count”.
Muhammad Ali was born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. in Louisville, America. He changed his name to Muhammad Ali, after taking to Islam and stating that his birth name had its origins in the tradition of slavery.
Ali was a determined man who boxed his way to not only fame, but also into the hearts of many. His life reflected that of a man who stood for his convictions come what may. Even though he had the skills to woo the crowd, he never pandered to crowd mentality. This was clear when he denounced going to the Vietnam war on the conviction that it was not justified to wage war. He lost his earnings because of that, yet he stood firm in his belief that love and not war would change the world – “I wish people would love everybody else the way they love me. It would be a better world”.
Muhammad Ali and Nelson Mandela meet in 1990 image courtesy of Corbis http://www.bbc.co.uk/timelines/zy3hycw
Ali was a man whose determination was bigger than the size of the world’s greatest cathedrals put together. This is seen in not only his entire boxing career where he lost only five fights, but also, in the way he was determined to wrestle his diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease till the very end. Despite having Parkinson’s he continued his humanitarian works and social engagements, living with the disease and even attempting to make it look fashionable in a typical Ali manner.
1996 Atlanta Olympics Opening Ceremony courtesy of http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/boxing/muhammad-ali-life-support-family-8110536
His shaking did not stop him from managing to light the 1996 World Olympic Games Flame in Atlanta during the opening ceremony. Why would Parkinson stop Ali when he never believed anything was impossible? He told us how “impossible is just a word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they have been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing”.
Courtesy of http://www.nbcnews.com/news/sports/muhammad-ali-s-golden-moment-lighting-olympic-torch-atlanta-n585731
He laid bare his own short-comings to us and made us feel he is no larger than life when he told us how “it is not the mountains ahead that wear you down. It is the pebbles in your shoe”. With this statement, he re-emphasises the need to take note of and manage the apparent trivialities – our own little failings should not be underemphasised because only then, can we focus on the bigger challenges.
This man challenged our thinking. He made us realise the power of positive thinking way before Norman Vincent Peale, wrote the book with that title. He told us “the will must be stronger than the skill” and went further to explain ‘how the fight is won or lost far away from the witnesses, behind the lines, in the gym long before the dance under the lights’.
Ali’s message of self-definition was one of strong self-validation and identity consolidation. It was his message of freedom and our need to rise above the restrictions of race, nationality, class and the many constraints that regulate our behaviour and take the consequences for living our lives as we deem fit. “I am America,” he once said. “I am the part you won’t recognise. But get used to me. Black, confident, cocky, my name, not yours; my religion, not yours; my goals, my own; get used to me.”
Finally, he gave us the formula, to enable us conquer our world when he said, “I am the greatest. I said that even before I knew I was. I figured that if I said it enough, I would convince the world that I was really the greatest”. So, what are we waiting for? Let us keep saying it, even before we know we are!
Courtesy of http://www.freedemradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/ali_rotator.jpg
From all of us at LR, we say rest in peace Muhammad Ali. You inspire even more in death than you did in your life time. You have not only left non-shaky huge foot prints in the sands of time, but you have left your lasting inspirational legacies in the hearts of men and women worldwide. Share with us, your tributes to this great man in the comments section as we all continue to tell ourselves “we are the greatest”!
