Posted by JuJuan Buford, Entrepreneur & Author @JSBUFORD
I’ve heard it said from business mentors on more than one occasion, that the most important story you’ll ever hear, is the story you tell yourself about yourself. There are always going to be those who desire you to remain within a certain mental construct they have of you. Reduce you to a static caricature. Normality creates comfort, even if the normality is unhealthy, untrue, or dated.
Nevertheless, your truth is your truth.
Approximately a month after the loss of Muhammad Ali, I still find myself musing over how much Ali’s life embodied the aforementioned truth. Despite the overflow of appreciation, respect, and love that inundated social media, television, radio, etc., etc., acknowledging him (all deserved), there was a time when Ali wasn’t so popular.
Adopting Islam as his faith and changing his name earned Ali the derision of his family and friends initially, and sent shock waves through U.S. society…. the heavyweight champion of the world a Muslim with close associations with the Nation of Islam. The only way to understand the significance of Ali’s decision is to understand that at this time in history, being the heavy champ of the world was tantamount to the massive ubiquity of the POTUS in U.S. society. Today, there is just not an equivalent in sports. It was HUGE.
However, it was Ali’s confidence, swagger, unabashed braggadocio, coupled with the moral independence and integrity he exhibited when he rejected the social imperatives associated with the Vietnam war that truly defined his legacy early on. During a time when African American athletes were expected to be gracious, docile, respectable,... in other words be as palatable as possible to the sensibilities of white America. Ali cut completely against the grain.
The Nation of Islam abandoned him. He was exiled for all intents and purposes from boxing for 43 months during the prime of his career. The tempest of dispraise was unrepentant. Yet, given the aforementioned circumstances, Ali didn’t denounce his faith, backtrack over the righteousness of his cause, nor did he stop believing that he was the heavy weight champ of the world, the greatest, the people’s champ. As public sentiment shifted against the war, Ali enjoyed increased support. In 1970 the New York State Supreme Court ordered his boxing license reinstated, and the following year the U.S. Supreme Court overturned his conviction in a unanimous decision.
Leadership often times requires the willingness to reach the fork and the road and go straight.
As a leader, change agent, or when fashioning your own personal evolution, you will often have to be the tip of the spear, requiring that you find ways to sharpen your resolve. How many times have we all hesitated to JUST DO IT, because we were dissuaded by others opinions? Voices proselytizing low expectations or diminished possibilities, particularly by those closest to us, can be the most damaging.
Who are you to achieve this? It can’t work for you. That’s not you. You’re not deserved.
They challenge a decision that is not theirs to make, and assault your commitment from all angles; attempting to keep you boxed into the caricature that fits their mental construct and comfort zone.
However, the matrix doesn’t define you.
Thoughts are things. And words have power. Take time to reflect on the story you tell yourself about yourself? Be encouraged to start your autobiography with, “I am the greatest!”
Thank you Mr. Muhammad Ali.