As a recent college graduate, life can become quite daunting as you try to sort out the next few steps of the transition period, especially if you don’t have anything really planned for a couple of months like me. In the midst of these wandering thoughts, I kind of realized the weird feeling legendary athletes get when they retire from sport and wake up for days on end having nothing to do anymore. This isn’t to necessarily say that I’m legendary or anything, but I really am, but I could empathize with the so called conundrum that is the elation of retirement. Let me be the first to tell all of you looking forward to finishing a certain stage of your life and getting that all so well deserved vacation that it isn’t all that fun after a few days, weeks, or months of being unoccupied. It’s that or either I’m freakishly in need to be working on/towards something; guess that can be attributed to the fact that I’m still “young” and am still striving towards a specific vision that I’ve created for myself.

On one random night in January, which was likely one of my many late Monday night Musing sessions now that I think about it, I stumbled upon a video that would give some guidance and direction for myself. I had so many ideas that I wanted to act upon now being bestowed with as much free time as I’ll ever get but was a bit phased at the task of breaking up the large sum of goals into smaller, more precise mini-objectives. Thankfully, this video relayed a ritual of sorts that famous Shark Tank investor, Daymond John, follows every night to keep things focused but on as simplistic of a level as possible. What is this practice you might be asking: it essentially has been a deep inner look to myself to define 10 goals of mine and then to constantly refer back to these goals on a nightly basis before going to sleep. How these 10 goals are constructed is quite pointed however:

1. Define the first 7 goals you want to accomplish within the next 6 months and have them be specific and have definitive end dates for each one

2. Define the next 3 goals you want to accomplish with the first being something within 5 years, the next being something within 10 years, and the last being something within 20 years

Coming up with these goals is quite difficult when you try to envision what it is exactly you want out of the next few months and years for yourself and yourself alone. You would think it would be easy to knock this simple task out in no more than 5 to 10 minutes but it took me nearly 2 hours to deconstruct everything that I’ve done and how that has been either fluff up to this point or a driver towards actual goals of mine. If most of you are like me in any shape or form, you will come to this shocking revelation of the vast amount of meaningless s**t and have a moment of inner enlightenment.

Now one of these goals, mainly to keep myself accountable with my lax blogging habits of late (sorry to my avid fans), was to choose five different figures from different fields of interest by January 17, 2018. I would then pick at their brains and analyze their perspectives on life and their crafts and write about my findings in a blog post that would be published by March 7, 2018. As a quick aside, yes that is how specific I meant by developing the first 7 of my goals. And as of January 16, 2018, I did choose 5 figures of personal interest who are:

1. Kobe Bryant (former NBA player)

2. Denzel Washington (actor, director, and producer)

3. Daymond John (businessman/investor)

4. Kendrick Lamar (rapper)

5. Will Smith (actor/producer)

Now I chose these five specific individuals due to my foreknowledge of the unique perspectives that these individuals have on… well everything. Sure, they aren’t all from distinctly different fields but it’s the personal interest in a figure that really mattered to me. That being aside, I won’t really get into each individual’s mind separately but rather look at similar themes/patterns that I’ve garnered from them all.

The main, umbrella concept that jumps out from all of these individuals is purely the head space they situate themselves in. Some are more meticulous, calculated, and isolated whereas some are more vivacious, embracing, and gregarious. Now regardless of being on two polar opposite ends of the spectrum, there is one similarity that is at the core of it all: the undying focus to be the best and/or leave a perennial impact.

The undying focus aspect is a manifestation of something that can only be learned from the perspective that one gains from varied experiences, and these individuals were all lucky to have had those varied experiences occur to them much earlier in their lives than most people. For instance, Denzel and Daymond have an interesting way of focusing due to their “loose” relationships with their fathers with the former being more isolated from others during shooting for a movie in order to get into the zone and the latter being more family-oriented with his investment choices and business strategies. Perspective is something that I’ve tried to talk about in previous posts but don’t think I’ve done a particularly good job of explaining to all of you, partly due to the fact that I’m still adding layers to my own perspective on a near daily basis.

The hardest and easiest part in explaining perspective is the fact that it comes with time and that time is the most controllable element in human existence.

Now if you can help explain how I can teach the concept of time to you all, give me a ring, will you? But in all honesty, it is the desire and willingness to venture and seek out those varied experiences that will help give you more clarity and focus for sustained periods of time.

Being the best is like a double-edged sword. It has a fleeting, youthful aspect to its claim that makes it so naively beautiful. How you perceive being the best is different based on perspective though. For instance, Kobe viewed it as an internal quest to be the best basketball player by his own internal standards. Kendrick views it as a mindset that he is the best and allows that to carry forward into his lyrical composition which is aggressive and unrelenting. Will, on the other hand, had a more interesting way of looking at it where he was transitioning from the music industry to acting and used his failed relationship in high school as motivation to become the best actor in the business. Fortunately for these three individuals, they didn’t succumb to the pressure that so many other “next MJ’s” have in whatever field of interest. That pressure can fester inside and cause one to implode and do real damage to themselves (trying really hard to avoid coughing up a few names here). This mindset only lasts for so long until the realization sinks in.

And that leads to the last but all important final bit of leaving an impact that timelessly reverberates. This is something that usually comes full circle after one has spent a great deal of time at the peak of their powers. The realization that this is more important than being the best at a specific sport, acting, music genre, or business once again comes with perspective. The Maya Angelou saying, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel,” rings true at this stage. One of the individuals that resonates highly with this saying is in fact Kendrick who, after becoming known as one of the greatest in the game, is more in tune with making sure his lyrics leave a feeling unlike any other towards his listeners. Similarly, Kobe said one of the most important things ever for me personally at the close of his career when he said, “The most important thing is to try and inspire people so that they can be great in whatever they want to do.” It’s funny how he said this in his exit interview after the “I want to be the best” mentality faded after the tearing of his achilles tendon. But that’s where time has wings and perspective truly comes into play I guess.

Bringing it all back together, this is the life cycle of the mindset of these five particular individuals of interest for this post. It’s interesting how you can see the application of the idea that life is not like a line but rather circular as mentioned by Will Smith in an interview. The mindset is not simply born, developed, and then buried but rather evolves and is reborn at the end. What most baffles me about this is that most people view it linearly and, as a result, view the way one must adapt to the mindset as having to be the same as other greats. However, what I’ve been able to see with these five individuals and many others is that they all let their own personalities, experiences, and perspectives color the way they embrace the mindset; the personality and uniqueness of each individual is the foundation upon which the structure of the mindset can only be built. In order to build the best structure possible, you have to look both inward to look outward as well as look outward to look inward, for one cannot, nor rather should not, be done without the other. Now go out and live out your own personal greatness without sacrificing your individuality. And here is a little inspiration to get you going that worked for me.