What is a G to a 5 year old?

I asked my friend Seyi to write something I could upload on the blog today, within minutes he scribbled something and emailed to me. After I read his article which was full of abbreviations (rather lazy of him) I laughed and spent the next few minutes thinking of his ‘message’; it truly amazed me how the mind works and how we learn lessons from seemingly unimportant situations. Enjoy…….

I grew up thinking a ‘G’ was just the alphabet between ‘F and H’, I guess I could never have been more wrong. (I will not bother to define what a ‘G’ is but am sure we know in what context this is used).

My perspective on life’s general issues has always been broad, may be because I’m the middle kid and try to see stuff from my big brother’s angle and from my baby brother’s point of views too (Which I grant you isn’t the best for any growing child; having to consider what everybody thinks)……obviously I turned out to be a ‘people pleaser’.

That aside though at the age of 5, a ‘G’ to me was any one taller than I was and I’m very serious, it was as literal as it gets, if I have to bend my neck backwards to look at you, then you had to be a ‘G’…………….and come to think about it the tallest person I knew then was my Dad : ) so the logic is right.

Well as I matured and got over my height=G mentality, I learnt that D(G)ISCIPLINE is Key to a “G” (need I remind you, the ‘D’ is silent *wink*). Forget about right or wrong or good or bad, trust me that’s not what this is about, most folks who actually excel at whatever it is they do have put in the time and paid the dues.

You can’t expect to drag babe with D’banj, he has been in the game and whether yours is built in, his has been polished over time by repetition and with that comes experience. Might sound frivolous, but he has been disciplined in his pursuit of women and money. You also can’t expect to knock Warren Buffet’s hustle in the capital market….that man eats, drinks and breathes stock and I definitely won’t want to enter the ring with Mohammed Ali in his prime.

Discipline makes you stick to your task; American Navy seals who we often admire in movies always seem to win the war, not necessarily because they are physically stronger than the opposition or possess better arsenal (although those ship and weapons in the movie Battleship no be from here sha) but it goes beyond physical strength to intellect; for years they have mastered the art of reading, sleeping less, quick thinking under pressure, living to survive in seemingly terrible situations etc.

An Olympic gold medalist will probably train every day and not wait for 2 weeks to Olympics; the world’s best instrumentalist will stay awake for hours practicing what lay men call “Do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do” before an award winning production or a performance. Discipline is that ‘thing’ that will get you going when you feel like you’re about to drop dead or give up.

For me a classic example of a ‘G’ and how discipline improved his life as a whole is Mr. Iron Mike Tyson; I’m an avid Boxing fan and I hate when people judge Mike based on the 90’s. Yes in the totality of his career he could have done better, but in the 80’s, he was unstoppable and I mean UNSTOPPABLE!

Mike had all the physical attributes to succeed in the world of Boxing and beyond……..but prior to when he met Cus D’ Amato his legendary trainer he was unable to qualify for the US Olympic team of 1984 losing twice to Henry Tillman but this same man cleaned up and unified the Heavy Weight Division after a couple of years with Cus. Guess Cus kept him focused, put him on the right track and basically just never giving Mike the option of saying no. And that was it -we had the shortest and youngest World Heavy Weight Champion; a 20 year old standing at 5 ft 9inches.

Left to me I could write about Mike forever, but I’ll leave you to run stuff through your mind as to how much Cus’ training and discipline changed the 80’s for Mike. Undeniably, Mike Tyson in his Prime was simply a ‘G’.