What My Ancestors Taught Me About Running With Purpose
There is a Shona (Zimbabwe) proverb that says “kumhanya hakuzi kusvika…”Loosely translated it means, “to run does not mean to arrive…”
That is the core of Kairos, the name of our business. It is one of 2 Greek words for time. There is chronos, which refers to chronology and sequential time. But this instead refers to the opportune time. Kairos is the “fleeting rightness of time and place that creates the atmosphere for apt action, words or movement.”
The rightest, right time to take action…
We believe that time, that moment is now for young entrepreneurs to take hold of their fate and gear their businesses and ideas for growth.
My ancestors echoed the same in their words. “To run does not mean to arrive…”
As humans, we often measure our success and our growth against what we see others have done. We entrepreneurs most certainly do this. It’s a constant race against the other guy! I know I’m not the only guy that has a career “nemesis”, though he likely doesn’t even realize the imaginary race I’m running beside him. We peg our goals and our picture of success in relation to what others are or have achieved.
We constantly fail to look at the time in the correct manner. We want to race past the current moments and on to the day where we’ve catapulted to the heights we’ve set for ourselves. We can’t look at the right now and often knock everything down as we run blindly towards the “future me.”
Just because we run doesn’t mean we’re ever going to get there. It’s about embracing the journey. It’s just as important to have a clear direction of where you want to be. Quite often we haven’t spent enough time closely defining what “success” actually looks like. Imagine Usain Bolt hearing the gun and taking off with his eyes closed… So why do we do it?
Rather, the fastest man in the world has already envisioned the finish line, the experience of crossing it first and most importantly the work required to do so. Instead of getting so caught up with being the fastest one around the track we often fall flat on our faces doing too much.
But don’t misunderstand me, I’m not saying don’t run…
Quite often we are also just as guilty of sitting on our hands for too long, not taking hold of ideas at the right time, of letting opportunities pass us by. How many talented individuals have you seen never even get to the starting blocks? How many times have you told yourself I’ll work on me tomorrow? I’ll hit the gym tomorrow? I’ll put some time in on this business tomorrow…
Embracing kairos in your life means take advantage of the supreme moment when things come together. That’s typically a fleeting moment. Coincidentally, the first guest on our weekly radio show, Joey Khuvutlu, a good friend and fellow entrepreneur noted his greatest career advice thus far, “You have to take advantage of the opportunity of a lifetime… in the lifetime of that opportunity.” The lifetime to make life a life worth lived is typically very short.
For me, kairos is about seizing every single day and moment as the opportunity to grow further than I did the day before. It’s about not wasting any further time. It’s about pushing my self to learn and learn right now. It’s about pushing my businesses and ideas to the next level to take advantage of everything that’s currently set before me. It’s about keeping a very clear picture of what the end of the race looks like. It’s about running because that’s just what I do.
So, Run…
Run right now…
Run with purpose…
Run with a target…
Run hard…
And then run even harder…
The target will appear in it’s own time…
#kairos
For more insights, rants and motivation tune into our weekly show on entrepreneurship, The Opportune Time, Wednesday 4–6 CAT on jozimabonengradio.co.za.
