Monday Memo| Detail No. 83| January 8, 2024

January Theme— Out with the Old, In with the New

Hi lovelies,

It's a brand new Monday.

Monday Memo is LIVE!

Today it's all about swinging the Pedulum. Let's get right into it.

Exactly nine months ago, I shared a Quick Memo on this space and I highlighted some important lessons.

As I look back on those past months, I realized it had some of my highest highs and my lowest lows. It is one of my best years so far, and of course a year of adaptations. I mean, I moved to a new city very well known for "gbas gbos" and wahala, but gratefully with the help of support systems, this writer pulled through or should I say— I'm still pulling through, lol.

In the course of the year 2023, I realized that life is not just about highs and lows, but about weighing it side to side. I mean, the pendulum of life.

Someone is asking— what's a pendulum? A pendulum is an object hung from a point that swings freely back and forth. The further you pull the object, the further it swings on the other side. When you pull a pendulum it will swing back to the same degree on the opposite side.

What if this pendulum represented our lives? Most of us live in the bottom middle of the arc. It we do is a little swing back and forth. Maybe it doesn't move at all.

You don’t want failure or risk but you also don’t have reward or fulfillment or perhaps you have fulfillment, with no failure and risks. Not very exciting. You’ve heard of the messy middle. This is it. The middle of the arc represents playing it safe.

But, my guess is that day in—day out, we all desire something bigger. More happiness. More excitement. Bigger rewards. More success. More money. More exploration. All of those big wonderful things are on the far side of the pendulum. And unfortunately, a pendulum doesn’t swing only one way. You need to pull to the other side.

On the extreme side of the pendulum are the big risks, the sad emails, the unmatched energy, low self esteem, the unreciprocated love. It's the hard stuff. It’s disappointment. Perhaps, criticism. It’s the hustle. And it’s where we all need to go, to get to the other side. On the other end of the pendulum are the big rewards, the highest achievements, the cheers. That’s where our big hairy audacious goals get filled. Trust me, everyone desires the other side, but are you willing to dance to the fundamentals of the game? You have to be willing to pull the pendulum.

Ask any billionaire, how many failures he or she has, and I’m pretty sure it will be equally matched to his or her successes. Ask any athlete about his strikeouts and missed shots and they will tell you that they are connected. Ask Messi, Djokovic, Dele Ali, Benjamin Mendy, Oprah Winfrey. They all had bittersweet experiences , forget the perfect paparazzi on Instagram. Even your dear self wouldn't agree less.

Your deepest relationships have risk of heart break. That talking stage has the risk of ghosting. It’s not an accident or a fluke. Yes, that can happen but that is not what you want to bet on. Bet on working as big as you want your successes to be. For every great success, there is probably a failure on the other side.

This is the rhythm of life. It’s in nature. It’s everywhere. There's In and Out. There is light and darkness . Yin and Yang. Day and night. Black and White. Breathing in and Breathing out. Rising and falling. Bloom and Gloom. Maybe that's why we studied words and opposites in English classes in our tender years, to appraise the reality of life early enough.

I’m afraid that we often fail to go after our biggest dreams, our big goals, our big vision because we have an equal and matching opposite fear of failure. So, we stay in the bottom of the swing. The boring back and forth. If you want something better, bigger, in your life, then pull the pendulum back farther.

In this new year, I want you to take action. It’s not that we all need to be best selling authors or athletes, careers babes or dudes or even entrepreneurs. Just find your best life and move towards it. You could start your own business. You could fall in love. You could travel, you could run an initiative. But then you have risk of failure. Fear of the numbers— of the opinions and little talks. So what! You’ll learn and you’ll get back up again.

Don’t let fear hold you back. Fear is just False Evidence Appearing Real. Every time you fail, you become stronger for the next time. When you do something hard, it becomes easier the next time.

In Year 2024 and beyond, I am going to swing that pendulum high. And I hope you do too!

You're a DIAMOND taking shape, swing the PENDULUM!

Omodolapo ❤️