Every­thing be­gins with the mind. I am big on ex­pe­ri­ences rather than things. Every lit­tle thing we do is go­ing to make an im­pact. All young peo­ple want to be en­gaged, to learn and grow, and to be a part of some­thing.

A lack of ac­cess can be a huge ob­sta­cle while you dream about be­ing a suc­cess in life; how­ev­er, if you don’t ac­tu­al­ly have a place where you can go and cre­ate and learn, then your dream is nev­er go­ing to be­come a re­al­i­ty.

Two of the most im­pact­ful things in the lives of young peo­ple are mu­sic and sport. I was young once, but even though I am old­er now, I haven’t for­got­ten how it feels to be young and un­fair­ly judged or stig­ma­tised. I haven’t for­got­ten my Bel­mont ex­pe­ri­ence as a youth. 

I con­stant­ly hear peo­ple in lead­er­ship po­si­tions re­peat ad nau­se­am that tough de­ci­sions must be made. How­ev­er, when this is said, it usu­al­ly has to do with every­one and every­thing oth­er than them­selves. The hard­est and tough­est de­ci­sion is to hold your­self ac­count­able. 

Over­spend­ing and in­dul­gence

Christ­mas is a time of ex­cess, the se­cret San­ta and presents un­der the tree—gift-giv­ing is at the heart of Christ­mas Day, which is a spe­cial time. Christ­mas Day is for fam­i­ly and friends, but for those in­volved in a sport as chal­leng­ing as it is, it’s al­so a day that for many is ei­ther a nor­mal train­ing day or com­pe­ti­tion day.

There is a prepa­ra­tion walk from QRC to Mara­cas Bay on Sat­ur­day, De­cem­ber 28. Yep! a mere three days af­ter Christ­mas Day. It’s es­sen­tial to strike the bal­ance be­tween mer­ri­ment and the sober­ing re­al­i­ty that come Sun­day, Jan­u­ary 19, 2025, the jour­ney from Freeport to Port-of-Spain will de­mand phys­i­cal and men­tal ac­count­abil­i­ty. 

Every­thing be­gins with the mind, and Christ­mas Day is no ex­cuse. So come Jan­u­ary 19, the re­al­i­ty of the 26.2-mile jour­ney will com­prise many re­grets if Christ­mas is the ex­cuse for one’s lack of in­dis­ci­pline.

Back on June 22 and 28, 2010, this Things That Mat­ter col­umn fo­cused on the Dun­ning-Kruger ef­fect in sport. Just a quick re­fresh­er: The Dun­ning-Kruger ef­fect is an analy­sis of in­com­pe­tence in those peo­ple who are not com­pe­tent enough to even recog­nise their own in­com­pe­tence.

 It is said, “A lit­tle knowl­edge is a dan­ger­ous thing.” How­ev­er, no knowl­edge is even worse; ac­cord­ing to David Dun­ning and Justin Kruger, peo­ple who over­es­ti­mate their abil­i­ties in ar­eas where they lack skill or knowl­edge not on­ly reach er­ro­neous con­clu­sions and make un­for­tu­nate choic­es, but their in­com­pe­tence robs them of the abil­i­ty to recog­nise it.

Lead­er­ship mat­ters

It’s all about lead­er­ship—self-lead­er­ship, self-learn­ing, self-aware­ness, and the habit of ac­count­abil­i­ty.

In an in­ter­view with The New York Times in 2016, Bill Gates said that he reads around 50 books per year. Read­ing is, he said, “The main way that I both learn new things and test my un­der­stand­ing.”

Lead­er­ship is a skill, and it’s com­plete­ly up to any in­di­vid­ual to de­vel­op the skill and the knowl­edge. 

My Christ­mas wish is that those who hold lead­er­ship po­si­tions will hold them­selves ac­count­able for over­com­ing the Dun­ning-Kruger ef­fect.

Those who are mak­ing tough de­ci­sions start with them­selves. The prob­lems fac­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tion you lead are on you. Lead­er­ship mat­ters.

There is a lot to do if pos­i­tive change is to hap­pen. But pos­i­tive change can on­ly hap­pen with change. 

Have a blessed Christ­mas Day to­mor­row, every­one.