When I met Jimmy, he was going through a very hard time. He was doing design work. A poster here. A small job there. A thousand shillings if he was fortunate. But even those small jobs seemed to take an exhausting amount of effort. He had to self-promote continually by calling and messaging people, explaining his capabilities, and persuading them of his skills. Often, he would almost beg for a chance to showcase his expertise. Yet, despite all this hard work, a client might only give him a single job before vanishing. Jimmy didn’t just see it as a client disappearing; he interpreted it as something significant. This distinction is crucial because in the Clarity Room we’ve repeatedly discussed that what happens to us and what we make of it are not the same thing. An experience occurs, and we assign meaning to it. This meaning begins forming beliefs. Beliefs influence what we notice. What we notice influences how we feel. Our emotions influence our decisions. And eventually our decisio...
Cliff was tired. Tired of trying. Tired of beginning. Tired of explaining. Tired of watching other people’s lives seem to move forward while his seemed to circle the same drain. He started a printing business. It failed. He tried selling clothes. That failed too. Then he opened a barbershop. A few months later, that was gone. Each failure seemed different on the surface. Different product. Different customer. Different location. Different excuse. But beneath them was the same man. And the same beliefs. Unfortunately, Cliff couldn’t see that yet. All he could see was evidence that things didn’t work for him, that people didn’t support him, and that some people were simply born with advantages others would never have. And perhaps his father had been right all along. “MEDIOCRE.” Cliff was twelve when his parents separated. Until then, life had been reasonably predictable. His family was middle-class. There was food. School fees were paid. His mother cared deeply for him. His father was pr...