Keep Showing Up.

Keep showing up until they call you chairman. Until they call you a genius. Until they call you the greatest of all time. – Jay-Z

One of my favourite things to watch is acceptance speeches of award ceremonies. I find them very inspiring, and I often tear up listening to some of these speeches, especially in real-time. The award winners are usually overjoyed, and they mostly talk about how hard it took to get to the award moment.

One of my highlights of the 2024 Grammy Music Award was the inspiring acceptance speech of rapper Jay-Z. He was honoured with the Dr. Dre Global Impact Award, inaugurated at the 2023 award. Jay-Z is one of my favourite people in the world, as we were both born on December 4. Jay ended his speech with the following profound words:

“Just in Life, you gotta keep showing up; forget the Grammy. Until they give you all those accolades you think you deserve. Until they call you chairman. Until they call you a genius. Until they call you the greatest of all time.”

Hearing those words from someone I respect is very validating. It is a common theme that the highly successful always echoes: success takes time, but one has to keep showing up daily. As Wooden Allen famously quipped, “80 percent of success is showing up.” Overnight success usually takes twenty years of deliberate, unrelenting zeal to achieve a goal. The road to success is not a straight path; with anything worthwhile, it takes a bit of time to figure it out. Keep showing up for your goals, dreams and aspirations. Showing up requires having integrity in yourself. If you say you are going to do something, do it. As the saying goes, integrity is what you do when no one seems to be watching.

“You can map out a fight plan or a life plan, but when the action starts, it may not go the way you planned, and you’re down to your reflexes – that means your [preparation:]. That’s where your roadwork shows. If you cheated on that in the dark of the morning, well, you’re going to get found out now, under the bright lights.”― Joe Frazier

We get rewarded in public for what we diligently practice in the dark. Everything might not seem to be working right now, but you get closer to your goals by showing up daily. One day and step at a time. Keep pushing, striving and showing up to become the most excellent version of yourself. Whatever you find yourself doing, do it with passion. As Martin Luther King Jr. puts it:

“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.”

Daily Calm with Tamara Levitt – Gluggavedur

Gluggavedur is an Icelandic word that translates as window weather. The sought-after weather is best appreciated from the comfort of indoors. From a distance, we can enjoy stormy weather until the sun shines again. Gluggaveður: Weather that looks appealing from the inside but unpleasant to be outside.

“When the dark clouds of doubt, anger or worry begin to move upon you, steady yourself in the knowledge that in time, the storm will pass.” ― Bryant McGill

Daily Jay with Jay Shetty – Build Equanimity

Life is like a box of legos; there are times when despite having the best-laid plans. You feel like everything is a big mess when you are close to an objective, but one crucial component is missing, and it takes an eternity to find it.

No matter what you do, you can’t get things to work the way you see them in your head. When you are struggling, you may feel a bit disheartened. You may feel an urge to give up on your goals, that is just part of being human. Like Legos, it is all part of the deal.

In life, you would experience highs and lows. Moments where everything clicks and moments that are worse than stepping barefoot on a Lego grid. But if you can embrace the process, the journey, realizing that there is no rush, no race, and you have the power to craft your path.

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