Hall of Fame

As I sat there thinking of what to write for this post, the song Hall of Fame by The Script came to mind. The first verse below reads:
Yeah, you can be the greatest
You can be the best
You can be the King Kong banging on your chest
You can beat the world
You can beat the war
You can talk to God, go banging on his door
You can throw your hands up
You can beat the clock (yeah)
You can move a mountain
You can break rocks
You can be a master
Don’t wait for luck
Dedicate yourself and you gon’ find yourself

This song is a hype song, and it described my feeling when I decided on Lagos Business School (LBS) for my Executive MBA course. One of the orientation sessions was a history of the school and its various alumni. These people have gone on to be successful in their respective fields, with some paving the way for the rest of us by becoming members of the faculty. It took dedication, hard work, and commitment to build and sustain the LBS Hall of Fame, and to stand in that hall, you have to put in the same level of dedication, hard work, and commitment, or even more. This hall of fame is intimidating, but I want to be a part of it. It didn’t help that the brush-up classes were immediately after the orientation and were also in between classes. Coupled with my daily work and home life, everything felt like a rush, and for a while, it was overwhelming. But would it be contradictory if I said I secretly enjoyed it?

For someone with a short attention span who gets bored easily, commitment and dedication are things I struggle with. The Executive MBA course runs for two years, and it’s been pretty intensive so far. The first-year calendar has me in a chokehold, and my greatest fear is half-assing it towards the end; completing it may not be a problem. The solution I have right now is to take each day as it comes, focus on one thing at a time, and not dwell too much on how challenging the journey ahead will be. Like Dory, the plucky, forgetful blue fish in Finding Nemo says, “Just keep swimming.”

An interesting observation is that getting admission to the Lagos Business School is the first time I have taken a step without crippling anxiety. I guess I have “the vibe” to thank for that. For many years, making a major decision was accompanied by anxiety attacks caused by an extreme fear of failure. Nobody enjoys failure, but for every decision made, there is always a possibility of failure, even when you check all the right boxes. This is, more often than not, a difficult pill to swallow.

This Executive MBA journey will determine how much I have grown and learned, as well as whether or not being in that hall of fame is truly important to me.