Confession, growing up, I always wanted to be a musician. Whatever form that took, it’s just what I wanted to be. Bigger confession: at first I wanted to be in a boyband. I mean, when girls watched them on TV, they went crazy, and started screaming their names out loud saying: JUSTIN! JC! LANCE! JOEY! CHRIS! WE LOVE YOU! (I didn’t just recite the names of all members of ‘n sync from memory. No I didn’t. I said I DIDN’T!). After that, wanted to be an R’nB superstar. After that I wanted to be the illest MC from the east coast (I’m not really sure what east coast and west coast is, but apparently they are important in hip hop for reasons only known to Lil Jon and the Eastside Boyz, whatever happened to them).
I look at the lights, and the cameras, and the action, and the influence, and the tour bus, and the free Louis Vuitton underwear, and I wonder, wow, what a life! That’s exactly what I want for me: grace the stage and spit lyrical to the hundreds of brainwashed idolatrous fans screaming: PATTY K! PATTY K! PATTY K! Oh the picture is so sweet. After this run to my hotel room with some bottles of soda water and get into an exciting thrilling round of 30 seconds. TIME! Doesn’t one just love it.
But the road to the top is filled with potholes. Yes, it goes through Mthatha in the Eastern Cape. Big potholes. The size that hosts their own ecosystem and haven’t been fixed in years (if anyone reading this works for any municipal office in Mthatha, I am judging you!)
So in the past few days, been reading of this guy David who once ruled over Israel. David is an average shepherd. Yes, he looks after sheep. And plays a harp. The modern equivalent would be working in a bank and playing a guitar. While herding the sheep, he encounters lions and bears and other vicious animals, and defeats them in attempt to protect his sheep. Then this giant called Goliath comes and starts taunting the Israelites. Like an over-sized version of that stupid mosquito that wouldn’t leave me alone last night. And David gets irritated, and defeats this beast in an attempt to save the Israelites. Then he fights in the king Saul’s army, and consistently shows himself, rising up the ranks. Then like sand through the hourglass, so are the days of his lives, and drama happens. Eventually, he’s king.
One thing I noticed about that is consistency. Someone isn’t going to become a self-made millionaire by sitting in his room with his boys, doing nothing but rating women and chatting about how one day they will be self-made millionaires. Someone isn’t going to become a worldclass musician by talking about how they’re going to buy a guitar one day, and never doing anything like actually buying the guitar and practising. Someone isn’t going to graduate top of the class by drawing up a study timetable one day, and feeling warm and fuzzy about having a timetable but never following it. And someone wouldn’t have become king by just sitting around and waiting for his fairy godmother to arrive to wave her wand and nationalise all the mines in the land and give them to him (you get the point).
Greatness is built by consistency. We often see the public victories but those are won over a countless number of private victories. It’s built over time, and with hard work. So if you want to be an entrepreneur, start by being entrepreneurial wherever you are, whether it be in a bank, church, post office or the ANCYL. If you want to be a musician, start practising and getting trained. If you want to have a strong intimate relationship with Jesus, start by doing the normal every day things. And if you want to be a strong, dark, handsome, intelligent gentleman, umm… sorry, but that’s reserved for me.
Patrick Kayongo 