Towards the end of the previous article, I referenced a couple of things that will happen as a result of living in the momentum of your purpose. One of the arguments I declared was “you will enjoy waking up in the morning and will look forward to each day”. This is not a well backed up and supported statement. In fact, how is it even possible to wake up, enjoy your day and look forward to it? It can only occur when you have fully permitted and surrendered to the DELUSION offered by your purpose. Purpose gives you coping mechanisms that don’t seem to make sense, and delusion is one of them. When nothing seems to be going right or the way you predicted, a good dose of delusion will always be available to you waiting to be taken.
The delusion is like a pill – wake up and take it! This literally means waking up every morning and:
putting your purpose first above anything or anyone.
thinking about all the people that will benefit from what you are doing
thinking about all the money you’ll make
thinking about all the places you’ll travel
thinking about how much you want to grow and where you’ll be in the years to come
Delusion is an asset well designed to give you faith when there is absolutely nothing in your present life that indicates you should believe in your purpose.
I have to have delusional confidence because if that is an advantage over someone who is realistic then I'll have that
Delusion will prevent you from being reward driven
In pursuing your purpose, there are only two things you have control over: your work ethic and your delusion. You cannot control the timing of your success. A good work ethic and a good dose of delusion will keep from being results driven, and will also keep you from losing enthusiasm and eagerness which creeps up when things are not moving fast enough.
A couple of months after quitting my job, it really hurt me that success from my purpose was not coming fast enough. I then saw a gap in the market for a retaining wall business in the township and started it with the little money I had left. I bought a retaining wall block maker and hired some guys to build the blocks and install them in people’s houses. The business started with a flyer with many orders in the first two months, and that came with tens of thousands of Rands in revenue.
Like any other business, I then hit a bottleneck – people’s houses weren’t getting finished, heavy rains came and some of the walls that we had installed collapsed, and some customers paid us and we couldn’t get their orders in time. It even got to the point where some customers wanted their deposits back. Remember, I started the retaining wall business because success from my purpose didn’t come fast enough. I was working really hard to get it off the ground (I worked hard) but I was too realistic (I didn’t take my delusional pills). These sets of events taught me that once you have set out for your purpose, solely focus on it until it becomes a success, and to do this you NEED delusion to get you through difficult seasons when nothing seems to be happening.
When you go to your job, a large majority of your inner self is driven by the reward (salary) otherwise you would not go. Right? On the contrary, chasing your purpose (being high on delusion) will keep you from being driven by rewards or outcomes. Delusional people just keep working and keep improving every day. They don’t distract themselves and disrupt their momentum with the constant need to look up and look around at reality. They surrender to the demands of their purpose instead of crumbling to reality and being petrified by uncertainty.
What is more important in chasing something: what you acquire or who you become?
The biggest threat to your delusion
The biggest threat to your delusion is the people around you. They will not understand your purpose and as a result you will be mocked, taunted and be asked questions such as “when will this thing of yours start to make money”. We get this mostly in black families and it is understandable because our parents and guardians don’t want the cycle of poverty to be repeated. I got this threat a lot from my parents because the stakes were much higher due to the caliber of job I left. This was largely why I started the retaining wall business because I caved to this pressure.
How then do you deal with such people? Sit them down and tell them your plan from the get go so that they do not expect anything while you are still navigating your purpose. Doing this is really, really hard because what if your parents/guardians are expecting you to provide at home and here you are “chasing your stupid purpose” which we don’t even know when it will bring in money? But then at the same time you cannot afford to dismiss your purpose at the expense of taking care of the wellbeing of others. I have seen individuals who were purposeful becoming angry and resentful of the very people they loved because the need for life’s essentials ended up causing an abortion of their purpose. Of course, we cannot hide from responsibility but should this be at the expense of our purpose? I don’t know.
Appreciate things that will feed your delusion
While navigating your purpose there will be things that feed your delusion. Dr Nkosinathi Sishi (now Director General of the Department of Higher Education and Training) was my early indicator of how tangible my dream was. I wrote an email to him about “how the educational system must change and how my book will do it”. Without judging my ignorance, he listened to what I had to say in a series of meetings we had in 2016. Without knowing it he fed my delusion, and as a result my audacious self-confidence fed into everything else—it gave more courage to put my work out into the world, it kept me striving to be heard, and it gave me the balls to think that I could do what I set my mind to. This level of delusion is the kind of insanity that is required for purpose. Below is how I ended up taking this book everywhere.
Since then, a lot people have fed my delusion. People such as Priven Reddy and Zakes Bantwini were individuals who were interested in what we ended up doing and provided us with a lot of insight into business. These experiences also brought us closer to “so called celebrities” and how things actually work in their world. This was very important for us because I believe we will be one of the biggest edtech company in the world.
Proof that God wants us to be delusional
In Christianity terms, we can interpolate delusion to faith or belief. Look at the passage of scripture below (Romans 4 vs 18 to 21) where it shows the foolish, crazy and senseless faith Abraham had towards his purpose:
18 Even when there was no reason for hope, Abraham kept hoping—believing that he would become the father of many nations. For God had said to him, “That’s how many descendants you will have!”19 And Abraham’s faith did not weaken, even though, at about 100 years of age, he figured his body was as good as dead—and so was Sarah’s womb.20 Abraham never wavered in believing God’s promise. In fact, his faith grew stronger, and in this he brought glory to God. 21 He was fully convinced that God is able to do whatever he promises.
What does this show? It exhibits that God wants us to be high on faith and belief that He will do what He said He will do. For me and you today, we have a purpose which we strongly feel in our hearts which God put, and will make it come to pass only if we believe (if we become delusional).
Here is another scripture where Jesus healed a person who had delusional faith:
Mark 5 v 34: He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”
This can be translated to “Daughter, your delusion has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”
In other words, unrelenting, uncompromising and ceaseless delusion in your purpose is essential, and it is waiting for you to take it.