Rethinking the Finish Line: A New Perspective on Success

Hello and welcome to the show. Today we're going to take a detour from sales and I want us to discuss something that I've been seeing has been going on for a while now. But I got a post on a group that I'm a member of. And so I figured, let me just hop on here and freestyle a little bit on this particular matter. And So what I want to talk about today is how we should stop shifting goal posts on what success means. I guess it's something that is relevant in Nigerian context because, you know, growing up here, you know, kids, primary school, you know, there's a certain model of what, what all that success looks like.

And for some reason, people have chosen to what's that word? Rebel. Yeah, to rebel and to refuse those models of success. And I think people are choosing to redefine success for good reasons. But I think ultimately what we're doing is we're just shifting the goal posts and and not really taking accountability for what it is that we actually like. So today I just want to have that conversation over here with you guys. You know, just a little family conversation between, you know,

you and me and a couple of other people who are listening to the podcast right now on why we should stop shifting the goal post on what success actually means. So if you'd like to connect with me and explore opportunities, then call me on 08064662140 or connect with me on the socials. I spend most of my time on LinkedIn. My name is Tavishima Ayede. Well, the country code is +234 for those of you who are not Nigerian. So like I said, I want us to,

you know, just have a small chitchat, small family meeting about why we should stop shifting the goal post on what success means. Because I'm one of those people who thinks that all those things they taught us in primary school about what success means. Whatever it is that your teacher taught you or whatever it is that the community in quote or the society in quote told you about success. Whatever it is that they told you success means, in my own opinion, I think it's actually fine.

There's no need to start redefining what success means to you. Now, the reason why this thing is on my chest today and The thing is really nagging at my craw this morning is because I was just chilling with my phone like most of you do, and I was scrolling through a WhatsApp group that I'm a member of. And it's the APVA. So I, I think it's APVAI think it's the association of is it professional podcasters and voice actors of Africa, you know, So because I'm a homeboy,

I like to keep to myself. If there's not money that's taking me outside, you won't see me outside. So I keep to myself. I don't talk to people. It's just money, wife, kids, in that order, kind of OK. And then, you know, once in a while Netflix. So yeah, but you know, my people, you know, wife, he says get out more, socialize more. Eventually I run into some of you and we end up getting into not just the coach client relationship, but then we also become friends.

And some of you say, dude, get out more. Mumsy has been saying since since when I was in university that, you know, I need to get out more, need to socialize more. So that's why I've been, you know, hanging around a couple of other people joined this group, the APVA we've had. I've been to one of their a picnic session there where I got to moderate on some of the events, got to meet other people, people podcasting in different space spaces, you know, gossip podcasts,

relationship podcasts, poetry podcasts, you know, all kinds of podcasts. So it's been good. Yeah. Anyway, so I'll scrolling through the group now. And then somebody put up a post about how success doesn't have to look like big players. Now, what the guy means is this, that if you have a podcast and you want to define how successful your podcast is, you don't have to look at what the big boys and the big girls in the podcasting space are doing.

OK, no problem. I agree. Then the guy also says you have to define what success means to you. And the guy also said reshape your journey or reshape your vision to fit your vision or to fit your goals. OK, now some of this stuff sounds really nice, but let me reel here. I'm not a psychologist, I'm not a psychiatrist, so take what I say with the pinch of salt. But from a common sense perspective, all I think all of this is crap.

And I think all of this is crap because you who is trying to succeed at something, You're trying to succeed in business, you're trying to succeed in podcasting. Heck, even if you're trying to succeed in bodybuilding or sports or whatever it is, you are drawn to that particular goal for a reason. It is OK, and it is human to reach for that goal trying and then fail. It is OK to fail, but I think it's inexcusable to start shifting the goal posts.

So if you are drawn to the vision of a perfect body and by the time you're a 17 year old, you say you're going to be a bodybuilder and then you start and then bodybuilding is hard. And then next thing you start talking about how I'm not defined by my pecs and you know, or what not. Well, I guess it's a healthy conversation to have. But in my own opinion, if you are drawn to this whole bodybuilding thing, it's OK to start and do the bodybuilding thing and then fail and not achieve your desired physique.

It's fine because you're going to learn a bunch of things along the way that you can leverage into future endeavours. The failure in quote is going to help you to grow. But then starting and then the journey becomes difficult and then you start shifting your goal posts and you say I am not my body. I think that's absolute crap. So those of you who are drawn to being successful, like I was back when I was a kid, you hear stories, you hear a couple of things teachers tell you things in school or society in quotes,

as people like to say nowadays, put certain visions of success in front of you. If you're dropped to that sort of thing as a kid, it's fine. Pursue. It's all right. You will try. You might fail, but it's OK because you're going to learn things along the way that you can leverage into future endeavors. That you failed does not make you a failure. But don't start shifting the goal posts. Somebody will start, maybe you want to be a big boy like Dangote, and by the time you start hitting 4550, you haven't arrived at Dangote's level.

And then you start saying, after all, there's more to success, that money or a man is more than his bank account. Or for me, success means it's for me. Success means that, you know, stop shifting the goal posts. You are drawn to this thing for a reason. Give it a go. Try. If you succeed, good. We'll all clap for you If you don't succeed, you will learn some things along the way that you can leverage into future endeavours.

So stop settling and stop shifting goal posts. So if you're one of these people, one of my brothers and sisters who belongs to associations like this, the APVA, you decide that you want to be a podcaster and of course, in the podcasting space for success, people think in terms of, you know, size of audience and downloads and how you monetize. If that is the if that is what success is, it's fine. Reach for it. If you get it, we will clap for you.

If you don't get it, you will learn some things along the way that you can leverage to future endeavors. But don't start shifting the goal posts. Don't start saying that yes they say 1,000,000 listeners is a successful podcast, but for me the quality of a podcast is not about the size of the audience. I am OK if I only have 10 listeners who listen to me all the time and I impact two of their lives. In my own opinion that's absolute bull crap.

If you are drawn to this goal of I want a million listeners then please by all means go ahead try and get those million listeners. If you get it, we will clap for you and you should clap for yourself. If you don't get it, you will learn some things along the way that you can leverage to future endeavors. But stop shifting the goal post because a whole bunch of you, you guys mean well. We're trying to cater to our mental health, but we're beginning to settle or we start the journey is hard.

The goal post is too high. So say no who say this is how success has to be. And then you know, you drop, you drop the by. Keep dropping the by, keep dropping the by helping yourself stretch yourself. It's OK to shoot for something and it's OK to fail. It doesn't make you a failure. It doesn't I mean think about it. Let's look at Olympians, for instance. Cheby Olympics finished not a long time ago. What kind of Olympian would you be?

If you say I want to be the best in the world 100 meters, but then you start and then The thing is, is hard and you say, you know what, I will be. I'll be happy if I I only end up competing or I'll be happy if I can just clinch #2 or #3 Every single Olympian who is there is given the best shot that they can to be #1 In fact, there's some people that clearly you can see that guy, this thing, you can make it, but he still gives it his best shot.

You tried, you didn't make it, No problem. It doesn't make you a failure. You learn some things along the way that you can leverage for future endeavours. So it's OK to shoot and to fail. It doesn't make you a failure. You don't have to keep redefining things. I mean, what would the Olympic sport look like if we have Olympians redefining what the goal of the Olympics is or what a successful athlete is supposed to be? These goals that we grew up with, they're fine.

Just give it your best shot. If you fail, no problem. You are not a failure. You will learn some stuff that you can leverage for future endeavours and that's just life. In fact, Speaking of athletes, take Mike Jordan, you know, the hero. For those of us late 70s, early 80s kids, you know, Jordan was our guy. I was shocked to find out that Jordan, the thing that was on his mind was he wanted to play baseball. He wanted to die on that baseball thing.

When the coaches look, this baseball thing that you're chasing will amount to nothing. Go and play basketball. He played basketball and he's now considered to be a legend. He's considered to be one of the greatest of all times. He retired from basketball and still tried to do that baseball thing, but the thing did not work. It's fine for you to say success means what would be the best baseballer in the world. It's OK, Chase the goal.

If you achieve a good, people will clap for you, clap for yourself. If you don't achieve it, you will learn some things you can leverage along the way. So somebody who wanted to be successful as a baseball player, guy who may come, but the thing that opened doors for him eventually was basketball but will shift the goal posts. These things happen all the time. I want to open ourselves. And these are small, small communities on WhatsApp,

Facebook groups and all these things, you know, where we keep redefining the goal posts. Just aim for it. Sometimes these things seem big and they seem impossible. Like, OK, you want to make downloads and money and then you look at yourself, like, from where? You know, I'm from a lower middle class family, blah, blah, blah. My father is this, my mother is this, my level of education, I don't have access to finance, blah, blah, blah.

Yeah, it seems like it's big. But if it's a worthy goal, go ahead, reach for it. But we start redefining the goal posts. Now, this is another reason why I don't think we should be redefining the goal posts because a lot of people of these in these movements, so excuse me, especially people on the work end of things, they redefine goals. It sounds good. You follow them and you'll be playing with them. But then eventually they wake up, they get sense, and you know, by then they've misled you.

Let me give one example. This one I was just doing with my wife, this lady Lizzo, the African American musician, pop musician. You know, nothing wrong with Lizzo. Like, I like her music. I battle her music. But The thing is, Lizzo was doing body positivity, body positivity, and the whole generation of children were following her body positivity, body positivity, living their life. Anyhow, now Lizzo has come to her senses.

She's now flaunting the fact that she's on this magical weight loss journey and the last time I had her gist, she has lost 27 kilograms. Now she's still big as per if you look at her like you know, she's still big like my size plus half kind of. But to lose 27 kilograms, almost no beans. I have 130 KG. I've been trying to see how I can just remove 5 kilograms and man, that's work. But I don't know how she did it. She has moved 27 kilograms.

I mean, that's a whole human being. That's how heavy my baby is. I mean, my last born is 27 KG. So her brain has now reset. She's no longer shouting buzzy positivity. She's now losing weight. And so those of you who are following her on body positivity journey, like what are you going to do with your life now? Sure, shouting body positivity, you will redefine the goal like, yeah, I can be my truest me and being my best body and blah,

blah, blah. What matters is that I'm happy in the body that I possess. OK, so now it turns out she wasn't happy after all in the body that she possesses. Those of you who are following her, So what what are you going to do now? Are you going to follow her now and then lose 27 KG or you're going to keep shouting body positivity? I'm happy in my body. Something, something, something, something. If for you, you think you'd like to remove 5 KG from your weight,

you know, like me, or you want to remove 30 KG or whatever. Yeah, please go ahead. Of course, for these sorts of things, you know, like weight loss in particular, you know, you talk to your doctor because some things are realistic, some things are impractical, some things are infeasible and some things are not recommended. Because it's possible that maybe your ideal weight, if you do BMI, your ideal weight is maybe 90 KG.

When you insist you want to drop to 70 KG so you can look good. But meanwhile, from medical perspective, if you drop from 90 to 70, you're putting yourself in a whole heap of trouble. So comes up with your medical professional when it comes to some of these things. But really, if you're like some of us growing up and you thought a man had to look a certain way because I'm from that generation, you know, during my time, it was he man, he man Masters of the universe.

And there was AWWE wrestling, you know, Hulk Hogan, who again, Hulk Hogan, Undertaker Mass mascara, who again, so you understand now like that was my generation. You grew up, you're big, you're buff, broad chest. You know, if you think that that's it for you, don't show. How about it just like I did. Anyway, let me not talk too much about myself. Anyway, I have strayed too much from the main thing and this supposed to be a business podcast, so I guess I shouldn't have gone on this right this morning.

But bottom line, what I was trying to say was this, because it has implications for business. Whatever it is you think the goal is, is fine. Just aim for it. There's no point in redefining success. So if by the time you are growing up you are told that being successful means being a billionaire and you want to be successful, it's fine. Aim to be a billionaire, try to be a billionaire, hustle to be a billionaire. Do what needs to be done to become a billionaire within ethical bounds.

But don't redefine the goal because The thing is hard. You start the game, you want to be a billionaire, and then it looks like it's hard. And then you now start saying that, look, so long as you know, just me and my wife and my kids and my children are happy, I'm fine. That is success for me. No, that is shifting the goal posts And that's, that's, that's giving up. Go ahead, continue. Try to be the billionaire, try to be the XYZ, try to be the whatever it is that you are taught that success is try and achieve everything.

If you fail, it's not a problem. There are people who fail all the time. They don't consider themselves failures. Most important thing is you learn some things along the way that you can leverage to future endeavours. And it's always a period of growth. It always is. The Olympian who decided he's going to be #1 but never got there, but who still does, who still went ahead and tried to achieve, has probably learnt a lot of thing about discipline,

about resilience, about focus, about self motivation, about, you know, all kinds of things. And they carry over into different aspects of life. Like when I was watching, was it Bloomberg or CNN, one of those things. And one of those Olympians was there who is now a successful billionaire. And he, he ties in some of the, the work ethic and the discipline and everything from his days training from the Olympiad, That's what made him successful in business.

So he's one of those things. He doesn't consider himself to be a failed Olympian because he didn't carry gold. He didn't carry bronze, He didn't carry silver. You know, he's one of those guys that, you know, nobody remembers because he didn't. He didn't stand on the stage. You know, he's not a failure. He tried. He didn't make it. Oh, well, it happens. He learned some things along the way. He leveraged it into future endeavors.

He's not a successful businessman, but at least he tried. He didn't shift the goal post. I say if only I can, if I qualify for my country, then that's enough. I don't have to be there on the Olympic stage. So please, let's stop all that crap. Especially since all the people on the walk and who are selling us these things, half the time they don't even know what they're doing. So all these body positivity people, I'm OK in my skin.

I'm OK in my skin. That's what they're shouting for. Now. The next thing you now see them supermodel physique like what happened now. I thought you were OK in your own skin. And then you guys, you'll be following them. So please just aim for your goals, whatever it is. The goals in itself are fine. But yes, the world people are correct. Losing yourself in these goals, basing your whole self worth on these goals, Yeah, that's a problem.

So the whole thing of if I don't become a billionaire by 30, then I will kill myself. OK, that's a problem. But because we're trying to avoid that other problem of tying ourself off to these goals, we start shifting the goal posts now. We're not. We're not doing ourselves a service anyway. This is your first time of listening to the podcast. Don't be afraid. This is not what we talk about here. This actually is a business podcast.

This is a sales podcast. Before the Detour, we were actually talking about how to solve business problems, especially if you're having revenue issues that come from a lack of lead generation. Lead generation being you're getting people to raise their hand, to signify, to indicate, to do something that shows they might be interested in your product or your service. Those are the kinds of problems we're talking about. And in tomorrow's episode, we're going to get back on course and finish that discussion.

So once in a while, I'll still come up here because I see something that pisses me off and then I make a podcast episode. But during tomorrow, we're going to get back to business. So that's it. Thank you very much for your time and attention. If you'd love to connect with me to explore opportunities for the future, call me 08064662140. The country code again is +234. You can connect with me on socials, LinkedIn in particular.

My name is Tavi Shima Ayidi, That's the name to look for. So thanks for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys again at the next episode. Well, by the way, if you connect, please don't connect to discuss personal matters with me. I'm not a priest, I'm not a psychologist, I'm not a doctor. So sales, business, business development stuff, maybe marketing, sure, no problem. We can have those conversations. So I'll catch you guys tomorrow.