It’s not big ideas that change the world, it is the action that follows them.
Cinderella’s fairy godmother waved her magic wand, spoke some magic words, and Cinderella’s rags turned to a beautiful gown, her mice turned to horses and her pumpkin became a beautiful royal chariot…
When the wand is waved, that is when the magic in it is released. Before this, the wand looks like a worthless stick held in old crooked hands.
The same goes for all of us; we all have some hidden abilities that only begin to surface when we take a step.
When we choose to be a wand and wave ourselves rather than choose to stay idle, that is when life will start happening.
You can never fully know what you can do till you try something that you know you can’t do.
Life never gives us guarantees; there is no stage at which you can know enough to succeed without making mistakes.
And if you have a full map for where you are going, that means you are going where others have already been.
Your life’s purpose, and the dreams you dreamt by yourself rather than overheard from others, these are as unique as your fingerprints.
Your dreams will demand that you take leaps and jumps that the culture and society you were born in never expected or prescribed for any living soul.
Yes, sometimes life will demand us to produce results that the human race believes only God can produce.
And only if we dare try, that is when we find what we thought God alone can do, man can do, because the God who made him dwells in him.
In Cinderella, the wand is waved in sync with the fairy godmother’s magic words.
When words meet the movement of the wand, the magic in it is released and it turns rags to riches, sorrow to joy, and mice to horses.
That exactly is the same thing with your life. Don’t be just a person of words. Be a person who moves according to your words.
Your dreams are the words your soul uses to tell your mind how it wishes you to make the world to be.
Like the wand in the fairy godmother’s hands, be in the hands of God and the universe, the magic wand that moves in your life, making the words inspired to your soul happen.
Let the dreams of your heart be the rhythm of your life, and let the actions you make every morning be as the dance made in step with that rhythm.
Let there be sync between the sayings of your heart and the actions of your body.
You are the magic wand waved in rhythm with enchanting words. It is only when your words and actions become one that your magic of life shall be released.
That magic changes the ragged to richly, transforms the poor paupers into self-made princes and princesses, it pushes a stagnant life into a whirlwind life full of revolutions.
It is only when actions meet words that life begins to happen.
Is your life happening? Or what all your life has been is just all talk and talk and no spank?
Ancient texts read that when Jesus healed the sick, he would give them the words “rise up and walk.”
When the cripple stood to his feet, that is when he discovered he now had the ability to stand.
When he made a step that is when he realized he could walk. How do I know what I can now do if I never try my past failures again?
God speaks words, man takes action. When words and actions are one that is when miracles happen.
You are the magic wand in your life.
A light of hope flickers deep in the chambers of your soul.
Your heart whispers yearnings of a life higher than the one you embrace.
Live knowing that no one will come in to rescue you. You just have to step out somehow and make your dreams come true.
This is your life. Whether for good or bad, it will only change by the consent you give it.
The law of attraction is not a substitute for work. Prayer is not a substitute for work either, and hope is not a strategy.
If God is totally in charge of your life, then why does he need you to first pray before he gives you your heart’s desire? Why doesn’t He just blow all your problems away and drop all your dreams into your palms?
No! He wants you to pray first because this is your life! He cannot change something in it without your consent.
To spend your life fulfilling your faith, or to live it fulfilling your fears – it’s all up to you.
The God you are waiting on is actually waiting on you! Step out and make your dreams come true! It’s your Life!
Faith and Fear
Every day we make choices that express either our fears or our faith. Our faith takes us forward; our fear transfixes us to the same place we have always been.
Sometimes our fears even drive us backward. A progressive life is one that you live when your faith in possibilities is greater than your fear of impossibilities.
Most times in life, faith and fear occupy our hearts at the same time. You believe you are born to win, but at the same time, you fear to lose.
You believe the idea will work but you’re shivering that it fails when you try.
Most people think doubt is a sign that you don’t have faith – but that is not always true. Sometimes doubt is a sign of faith.
Because you can’t question the possibility of something unless there is a suggestion in your heart that it could be possible.
What is happening in your soul during a moment of doubt is that a new statement of faith in your heart is questioning the fear of impossibility that has long been grown in your soul.
Sometimes doubt is a sign that Faith is trying to grow.
You don’t have to destroy your fear; you just have to disobey it. Obey your faith and your fear starts dying.
Again let me say, for as long as you live, your fear of impossibility and your faith in possibility will occupy your heart at the same time.
A progressive life is one that you live obeying your faith and disobeying your fears.
One of the secrets to the success of Jesus was his belief in possibilities. He said,
“Nothing is impossible to the one who believes.”
– JESUS CHRIST
The word “nothing” shows that Jesus believed in total possibilities.
To win in everything you do – you have to face each day with the faith that life is full of endless possibilities.
Always believe there is a way even if you think there isn’t.
Those who believed men could fly – created airplanes.
Those who believed in lands beyond the horizon have gone ahead of us and discovered other continents.
Tim Berners-Lee was crazy enough to believe in the possibility of the internet and he made it happen, today we still have it and like fire, it is going to be one of the greatest inventions of mankind for quite a long time.
I say to you, believe in time travel and believe there are other livable planets like our earth out there.
Now, I don’t know where that belief will take you, but one thing I know – Faith has magic and power in it to cause wonders and miracles.
There is a possibility in everything, even the word impossibility has possibility in it.
What people call impossibilities are just possibilities that are not yet proven.
Just Start!
In my book Life Capsules, I write:
“It takes humility to start from nothing.”
– MOFFAT MACHINGURA | Life Capsules
No one was born clutching gold coins; neither was any of us born dressed.
Life sets us off with nothing to a world filled with everything. We learn to receive what we want and we learn to preserve what we receive. That is what the business of growing up is all about.
There is a difference between a fantasy and a dream. Fantasy is when you only say “…if it could happen” and a dream is when you tell yourself “…I will make it happen.”
A dream is what you get when you take personal responsibility for making your fantasies a reality.
Fantasies are for escaping reality but dreams are for creating reality.
Fantasy helps us feel alright, dreams help us make things right.
Fantasy inspires stagnancy, dreams inspire motion.
Fantasize with action in mind, and you have turned into a dreamer.
I always ask my Wisdom Sessions attendees and people in various places where I am called to speak, “If you had to travel the world in eighty days how many footsteps do you need to take for your journey to begin?”
Some don’t get it, but the obvious answer is always one.
No matter how many steps you need to complete a journey, you will always need one step to begin.
No matter how far you should go, you always begin where you are.
No matter how big you intend to become, you always begin small.
It’s like climbing a ladder, you begin from the floor.
Perhaps one best thing about the floor is that it gives you a beginning.
If it’s a business, go out and start marketing to two clients. Make mistakes. Do something imperfect. Get good and bad comments. Improve yourself towards your dream.
Before I started writing, I wished to first meet and know great writers in my field. I thought they would show me the way.
I hoped they would give me a Midas touch that would turn my supposedly silver talent to gold.
One day it dawned on me. I wanted to meet them so I can be a writer, but the truth is they don’t have to meet me if I am not a writer.
I wanted a start, but my start was too high to be called a start.
We dream of the finish line and wish it was our starting point.
Only one thing was going to make me a writer, it was writing.
I didn’t have sales yet, but I was a writer.
Only one thing will make you a business person, it’s not monopolizing the market, its having a business.
It doesn’t matter if it would be so slow that you can’t say you are running a business – walking it or just nursing it – whatever you may call it, or wherever you would have started from, if you have a business then you are a business person.
If you want to be a singer, sing. You can only perfect your talent by practice.
When I published my first book, I thought all I had was a silver talent – but I was wrong. One day, a year later, I bumped into myself on the internet.
Sites from all the corners of the world kept citing my works and using Moffat Machingura quotes to coach their schools, government staff, and individuals in diverse circumstances of life.
I realized I had no need for a Midas touch. For the first time, I realized I was a river of liquid gold.
You just might realize you can do much better than you think!
Of course, I didn’t start perfect, no one does. We all perfect ourselves as we go. But one thing I noticed, there are things that you can only learn after you have started.
There are people that you will only be referred to after you have set a foot forward.
You have to gain sight of the destination before you begin, but remember where you are going will only get clearer by getting to it.
Decide the Change You Want to See
I once asked one of my Wisdom Sessions attendees, “What change do you wish to see in your life?”
And one replied, “To be honest, I don’t know…I just wish life was better than this…”
Then I said, “You don’t have to know, you just have to decide.”
It’s not that life is uncertain, but that we are undecided about where we want it to take us.
In Cinderella, the Prince had so many ladies to choose from, but so little time to dance with them all.
There is so much to do yet so little time, so make sure to only exert yourself to the things that are worth your life.
All the Princesses that came to the party were pretty. The Prince even danced with some. However, in the abundance of choices, the Prince still chose right. He chose Cinderella.
That’s because he had learned that in life many things can capture your eye, but only settle for those things that capture your heart. That is how you were born….
In your sperm days, nobody showed you the way to the ovum. You just found yourself swimming to the egg to fertilize it.
There is a part of you that knows the way to a greater you. If a good idea drops into your mind – just go for it.
Like Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world who started his company in a garage – start small, start where you are. Your heart is leading you to your greater you.
Maybe the Prince danced with other princesses before Cinderella came. But deep inside he could tell this wasn’t the best dance the kingdom could offer.
That’s the same with life, you will try many things. That way you will find out what is really worth losing and worth keeping. Those are the greatest lessons of life.
Most times the best idea comes when you have run out of ideas.
Sometimes the best people come when the worst of them had made you lose faith in the best.
Many times when you think you have done all you can, you will look at life and clearly realize you are required to do more!
O! If I knew that Cinderella comes last, I wouldn’t have exhausted myself dancing with all the other princesses.
But I thank God other princesses came, because without them I wouldn’t have learned to dance with my Cinderella.
That means no experience is lost, every moment of success or failure equips us for our next moment of success.
Not all things we do lead us to success, but they all lead us closer to a certain moment of success that we shall one day discover.
Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple (the first United States Company to be worth one trillion dollars), talked about the day he dropped out of university due to lack of fees and the days he practised Hindu meditation in search of enlightenment – but he mentioned that there is a day when you will look back through life and it will make sense why you went through what you went through.
He called that “connecting the dots.”
That day is the day when you realize every door that was closed in your face helped you look around, see and walk through the very door that was meant for you.
That is the day you realize everybody who rejected you wasn’t just pushing you away, but they were pushing you towards the people whose lives you were born to change.
You can’t decide which direction the wind at sea will blow from, but by adjusting the sails you can decide where it blows you to.
First, you need to decide exactly where you want to end up.
Be specific – exactly how many times do you want to grow your income? Specifically which habit do you want to break? Exactly which task do you want to start with and complete first?
Clarity breeds alacrity.
You will work fast if you decide clearly.
Next Chapter…
