Success Lessons from the Samburu Warriors.

It is a lovely morning. I wake up to a short exercise before I begin to look for inspiration that will enable me to write this article. I am really interested to watch Bruce parry – BBC presenter for the documentaries of tribe and Amazon- give me some lessons for pushing me forward towards achieving excellence.

To put myself straight, Bruce Parry is not a literal motivational speaker. He is a motivational real life actor through his documentaries. The edition I choose to watch this specific morning is that of Samburu Warriors edition. Watching Bruce, a westerner, immerse himself deep into the extreme life of the Samburu people fully wakes me up into the beauty of the moving out of my comfort zones.

To take absolute risk means moving out of your comfort zone and trying all the scary things you have always dreamt of. You will never know how it feels to win until you compete and win. You will never understand what it takes to win a pitch until you get out and try it. You will never understand what it takes to build a world changing product or platform until you dust yourself off into the dust again to try one more time. To succeed truly – just like Bruce – you have to move out of your comfort zone.

For the Samburu Warriors, showing pain and backing out is a sign of weakness. When Bruce goes to correct wild honey with the other Samburu Warriors, he is amused at how they don’t seem affected by the stings of the bees. He keeps jumping and chanting out of pain from the sting. The other warriors see him as unfit for the coveted title of a warrior. He however redeems himself by going and getting stung by red ants until he can withstand the pain. He is fit to be a warrior now.

In the school of life, it is very important to understand your areas of weakness. However, that is not enough. It calls for an extra effort to improve on them. Success means understanding your weaknesses and going out of the ordinary to master how to leverage on them.

When Bruce fails to correctly and precisely struck a vein to get blood, he doesn’t give up yet again. For the Samburu people, blood is a stable meal and for the warriors, it is a delicacy beyond measure. If Bruce cannot get it right and give up; he stands to not become a warrior and at the same time miss this important meal. The next time he tries it, he gets focused and gives it his best. He finally succeeds.

To succeed, never give up. To succeed, be super focused and go for nothing less but the achievement of your dreams. FOCUS as Robert Kiyosaki puts it in his book Why The A Student Works For The C Student means Follow One Course Until Successful. Always keep that in mind. Don’t follow another course when you have not achieved the first one unless you decide to change completely subject to satisfactory justification.

Bruce understood the need to achieve his dream of being a Samburu Warrior. He could not become that by doing all things at once even though time was short. He could only take them one task at a time.

The success journey requires that you take baby steps towards your goal. You will have to sit in several meetings, some to late hours but be sure with those steps, you are making progress. The thing with progress is that you are racing against time and you can’t just sit without even little progress. Civil rights movement leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. remarked, “If you cannot fly, run. If you cannot run, walk. If you cannot walk, crawl but by all means keep moving.” Take the journey one barrel at a time.

After Bruce arrived the first thing he did was to get a mentor. He ensured he had fitted in with the Samburu people perfectly. You cannot achieve success and excellence alone. Get mentors and once you get in the path, fit perfectly well. If you want to rise in the corporate ladder or succeed in any area you decide to pursue, get a mentor. Once an opportunity comes that you step in for someone occasionally, make sure you fit in those shoes. Don’t complain, rise up to the task and success is for sure.

In the pursuit for success and excellence, persevere long enough to finish the race. Persist long enough to get the price, master enough confidence to deliver that that is bestowed upon you.

Before you can become a Samburu warrior, still you have to deliver the village herd to shift herders in the mountains. That means fighting fear, standing in the path of attack from wild animals which often calls that you die instead of the cows; the point being safe delivery of the herd. When you come back with the news of safe delivery, you not only become a real warrior but also get awarded for the success.

To succeed, you have to endure and overcome lots of challenges throughout the way. The difference between those who succeed and those who fail lies not in the waiting but the rise after the fall. The successful rise above their fears any time they fall, they dust themselves and plunge into the dust for another try until their objectives are met.

Finally among the many lessons from the warriors, is the ability not to wait for the wild animals and then prepare rather preparation in advance. The warriors sleep while set and ready for any ambush.

To achieve success, your life should not be about waiting. Gird up your loins and face the challenges. Walk the journey faithfully and just like the warrior who walks home to a perilous ululation and celebration, you will achieve success.