Discover Your Greatness: Be a game-changer

"You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else", Albert Einstein

Life has been deemed as a game from time immemorial in most civil societies and cultures around the world.

Albanian-born Indian Roman Catholic nun, Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu commonly known as Mother Teresa of Calcutta, affirms this by saying "Life is a game, play It." Russian poet and essayist, Joseph Brodsky also believes that "Life is a game with many rules but no referee. One learns how to play it more by watching it than by consulting any book, including the holy book. Small wonder, then, that so many plays dirty, that so few win, that so many lose."

If life is considered a game, how are you fairing? Are you winning or losing? Are you on the offensive or defensive? Does it have you on a roller coaster? Or you are engaged in pulsating game that is changing lives and transforming communities? Regardless of your current activity or engagement, you can be a game changer!

You were born to be a game changer –a change catalyst; you have been introduced to the game of life to initiate the change eminently needed in this generation. You have been nominated to facilitate change in the game of life by using the divine and natural endowments bequeathed to you by Creator to make this world a better place.

Deep within your spirit lies an idea, a strategy, a solution, an invention, a gift, or a dream tailored to the present needs and plight of this age. Hence, don't short-change or deprive the world of a solution or an answer to a situation that you alone are equipped to execute flawlessly.

Your entrance into this world was not an accident; it was predestined before time for you to be the change agent in your family, community, country, and the world at large. You were created to change the course of history and that is why you are a game changer.

A game changer is a person, an idea, or an activity which transforms the course or outcome of a situation or the future. In the history of civilization, people have facilitated ideas and activities which have transformed the world in a positive way.

The first civilization known to mankind was the Hunter and Gatherer society: People basically lived by hunting animals and gathering edible plants wherever they find them and families need a large expanse of territory to explore to keep members viable.

Then came the game changer, the Second Civilization: the Agriculturalists age where someone innovated an idea that transformed hunting from a lonely, weary pilgrimage to a community experience.

In the Agriculturalists age, people domesticate animals and plants, and saved seeds from desirable plants and grew them systematically in one location instead of going out to find them wherever they happen to have sprouted on their own - like it happened among the hunter-gatherers. Then came the third Civilization - Industrialists age, this age was termed the Industrial Revolution.

In this civilization, industrialized mechanisms and new technologies were applied to agriculture and out of this came factories and industries as well as the transfer of a large scale of people from a rural to an urban setting, as they gave up farm laboring and cottage industries for work in the emerging trade and factories.

With the progress of time, the Industrialists age birthed the fourth and last civilization - the Information Brokers. This civilization aided the rapid development of computer-based data systems toward the goal of universal information availability, where information traveled at the speed of light.

In the information age, individuals who want to research or investigate any subject can find the desired material remotely without leaving the comfort of their home.

This has been a real game changer in the way politics, media, business, communication, education, and virtually every human activity is done.

During this ages of civilization nothing could have really changed without the gifts, talents, specialized knowledge and abilities of people who were inspired that it was their divine and civic duty to act upon the course of life by using their natural endowments to change the game of life.

On December 17, 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright became the game-changers in the history of aeronautics.

Henry Ford revolutionized Automobile manufacturing on January 12, 1900, when his Detroit Automobile Company released its first commercial automobile - a delivery wagon.

On March 10, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell transformed communication history with his invention of the telephone. Between 1989 and 1991, Englishman, Tim Berners-Lee became an agent of change in computer communication across the globe by inventing the internet.

Sarah Breedlove Walker, the daughter of former slaves, who became an orphan at seven and a widow by 20. She is credited with inventing hair lotions, creams, and an improved hair styling hot comb.

Ann Moore, a Peace Corps volunteer, saw how African women carried babies on their backs by tying cloth around their bodies, leaving both hands free for other work. When she returned to the United States, she designed a carrier which became the popular SNUGLI.

Granville T. Woods, known as the "Black Edison" invented more than a dozen devices to improve electric railway cars and many more for controlling the flow of electricity. His most noted invention was a system for letting the engineer of a train know how close his train was to others. This device helped cut down accidents and collisions between trains.

Alexander Graham Bell's company purchased the rights to Woods' "telegraphony," enabling him to become a full-time inventor. Among his other top inventions were a steam boiler furnace and an automatic air brake used to slow or stop trains. Wood's electric car was powered by overhead wires. It was the third rail system to keep cars running on the right track.

Bill Gates, Mike Zuckerberg, and their contemporaries are also making their game changing strides in computers, social networking, entrepreneurship, science, agriculture, etc. and you too can make your contribution wherever you are. Lewis McDonald Grizzard, American writer and humorist remarked, "the game of life is a lot like football. You have to tackle your problems, block your fears, and score your points when you get the opportunity."

All these great inventors in history, at some point in their lives were confronted with seemingly impossible circumstances either in their families, communities, countries, or generation, but it is also in these difficult moments that they reached deep into the recesses of their spirit to wrought change. Being a game changer has never been an easy stunt.

There may be times you literally shed tears behind closed doors when you're really hurting, heart-broken, or have come to a point in your life which appears to be the end of the road.

No one may know your fears, struggles, pain, and failures but never give up; keep on pushing for the watershed moment that would bring the earth-shattering transformation is imminent.

American retired basketball player and current analyst on the television program Inside the NBA , Shaquille Rashaun O'Neal reveals that, "there are times when you've got to play hurt, when you've got to block out the pain."

Game-changers are individuals who in spite the hurts, pains, disappointments, and sometimes financial and physical restraints, still rise to the occasion with the residue of their strength to bring change in their personal lives, family , community , country, and the world at large. These individuals mostly spend a good percentage of the lives doing the following:

KNOWING THE GAME- It is impossible to be a game changer without knowing the game you're expected to change. Which sector in life is your talent, gift, or natural abilities are tailored to? It could be in agriculture, social services, craft, media, religion, etc. but you have to first, discover your game then learn the rules before you can proceed to hone your talent and acquire the necessary skill set.

American politician, a leader of the Civil Rights movement, and the first African American elected to the Texas Senate, Barbara Charline Jordan admonished that , "If you're going to play the game properly, you'd better know every rule."

LOVING THE GAME- Passion and enthusiasm for what you do are extremely significant if you're going to get to the apex of the game you want to change. Love for the game is what distinguishes the 'men' from the 'boys' and winners from losers. The love for the game would naturally supply the fuel needed to propel the engine of your dreams, vision, and purpose.

British Conservative politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War, Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill believed that, "Play the game for more than you can afford to lose...only then will you learn the game."

BEING COACHABLE - A coach is someone who transports people from where they are, to where they want to be. To be highly effective and impactful in the game you are destined to change, you need to employ the services of a great coach through personal training and mentoring, books, audio and video tapes, conferences and seminars, etc.

William Paul McCartney, former American football player and coach and the founder of the Promise Keepers men's ministry declares that, "All coaching is taking a player where he can't take himself." Find someone who has the values, discipline, experience, and wisdom to mentor you in the direction you intend to go in life.

POSSESSING A COMPETITIVE SPIRIT- The word "competition" has a negative connation in the contemporary world, but the original meaning in Latin denotes: agreement, come together, meet together, strive together. In other words, two or more people agree to come together to show their best not in a negative sense but to challenge the best in each other. Remember, a true competitive spirit is not negative but inspirational and admiring.

Agree to bring the best in people by engaging in productive, uplifting, and challenging activities; not to make others feel small by out-edging them. How many people - colleagues, friends, family - do you have in life who dare or stretch you positively?

PRACTICING THEIR GAME - Most times people seek for platforms to parade their talent, abilities, natural endowments to the world without being fully prepared. When you refuse to prepare, you would live to repair!

What you do in obscurity with and about your natural endowments in terms of preparation, is far more significant than what you show in the limelight.

Think about it, how can someone spend years if not their lifetime practicing for a one-day event if preparation is irrelevant. The game or event is an opening or opportunity to tell people what you've been up to in your "secret place." Always remember, "Success always comes when preparation meets opportunity," Henry Hartman.

Stop relishing big platforms and start incrementally where you are with what you have.

You may be doubting your ability to be a game-changer, but game-changers are not born geniuses, prominent, celebrities, or famous individuals. They are people who set out to chip in their quota in their own small way and in the process were used as the catalyst to wrought out enormous change in their generation. They are also people who changed paradigms in their lineage and challenged sterile traditions and established norms.

You too can be a game changer! Stop looking over your shoulders for someone else and be the change you except in the world. "Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek, " says Barack Obama.

Maybe in your family, no one has ever gone past high school or college education, you can be the game changer by acquiring your degree and more. You may be from a community where no young man or woman succeeds in marriage, you can be the game changer. You may come from the sides of the track where no one has ever crossed the middle-income line let alone to be wealthy or live in abundance, you can be the game changer.

Maybe among you friends and family no has made substantial strides in life by dreaming beyond borders with their natural endowment, business, or an idea, but you can be the game changer.

My dear friend, your country, family, and world eagerly need your contribution to change the trajectory of this generation. Do not disappoint us for we are keenly banking on you. "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are," Theodore Roosevelt.

Let me leave you with this thought: "The ideal situation for a man or woman to die is to have family members standing with them as they cross over.

But imagine, if you will, being on your death-bed and standing around your bed are the ghosts of the ideas, the abilities, the talents, the gifts, the dreams given to you by life that you - for whatever reason - never pursued.

You never did anything with those ideas. You never used those talents. You never used those gifts. You never took advantage of those opportunities. And there they are, standing around your bed, looking at you before you take your last dying breath. Looking at you with angry eyes saying, "We came to you, and only you could have given us life and now we must die with you forever" - Dr. Howard Thurman.