Former T&T cricketer Daren Ganga has told emerging young leaders not to dismiss the importance of a establishing a healthy spiritual balance in their lives, while aggressively pursuing success.
Speaking on the topic Taking Change at yesterday's 16th Annual Secondary Schools Leadership Symposium hosted by the Sports Desk and held at the Cascadia Hotel and Conference Centre in St Ann's, Port-of-Spain, he cited that too often in life, people agonise over failure, but do not recognise the missing link as being the non-existence of a spiritual connection.
"A very important part, the glue towards accomplishing success and taking charge, is spirituality. Sometimes as young people, we take this aspect of life for granted. We tend to think that we are invincible. We tend to think that no one can stop us because of our energy, because of our drive; our care free attitude and approach to life. We tend to neglect God in everything that we do. I will like to challenge every single one of you here today to seek your divine master: to seek out and reach out for spiritual guidance. And to find a sanctuary in your particular place of worship," he said.
Ganga added: "This is very critical for you in all different stages of life. Even in times when you are enjoying success you must give thanks to God, for keeping you on the right track and for giving you the strength to accomplish your goals. I know many times we tend to look for divine help when we are in periods of failure... periods when we seem not to have any hope. We need to be consistent in our approach to life. I always believe that if you tend not to be honest with yourself, then you would find inconsistency in terms of the things you are trying to achieve in life."
The ambassador for sport said while charting his career, he lacked varying qualities such as drive, determination and the belief to go after his goals. Even though he was focused, somewhere along the way things became jaded.
Ganga admitted to being challenged while pursuing his cricket career, his law degree and his Master in Business Administration (MBA).
"I got jaded along the way. You have to develop mechanisms for dealing with the times when things seem monotonous; the times when you cannot see light at the end of the tunnel. This has been a reality for a lot of people who have gone on to achieve success. They often say that persons who have been able to achieve real success in their life, you have to go through great periods of failure, because in that experience of failure, that's when you get to know yourself. That's when you get to know your weaknesses. That's when you get an opportunity to retool�to strategise and to come back stronger," he said.
Ganga continued, "Have you heard the saying blaze your own trail, create your own destiny? When we speak about taking charge and blazing tour own trail, it refers to going where no one has gone before. And that's the sort of attitude and mentality we must have towards life. Many of us see ourselves as followers. Many of us look at our peers and try to emulate them and we are contented in that comfort zone. We are contented just being in between�as they say, a bit mediocre, not in the lime light�but not being at the bottom of the pack. We just like to be lost and not have that attention on us."
The ex-cricketer challenged young leaders to understand the power, they had and the capabilities associated with it.
He underscored the high degree of blessing they enjoyed, which would position them to be leaders, to explore and express their talent in ways never done before. "That is what is going to define you. That is what is going to define where we go as a people," he said.