Big is Best

“One thing is that people listen much more to bigger guys; the bigger you are and the more impressive you look physically, the more people listen and the better you can sell yourself and anything else” Arnold Schwarzeneger.

In one of the best books I have read in recent times on personal branding Success Secrets of Top Leadership Gurus Michael Jeffreys, shares this quote.

Now, if you have been reading this kind of literature that we call motivational you know that Jeffreys is a good writer of that kind of stuff. He exhibits his utmost power in this said book which is arguably a master piece.

Perhaps it is his free-flow-style that makes the content an easy read. Or let’s just say he is a talented writer. So there is a way he keeps you glued to the book only you have to be careful not to miss the wisdom he shares with his artistic simplicity.

Such wisdom is the kind of lessons he shares through quotes as the one above, coz, you come to think of it being big is advantageous. Men – with the exemption of Jesus – have done whatever they can to be big; sometimes within their means, sometimes without. 

Being big can be viewed in two ways; you can either be big physically or be big psychologically. It comes with a cost though.

Anyway, let’s start with mythology and fairy tales. Whether you believed all the stories that oral history has handed over to us or not you know that bigness was the criteria that separated the two common worlds in such. In most cases the victor had to always assume greatness. Call into mind the story you’ve heard about say for instance Samson the great. He is said to have been big. Gor Mahia and Lwanda Magere were huge guys, right? Or the way we imagine God – omnipresent, omniscient, omni-big, omni-all.

Still in mythological context the villain is always a big guy as well. Consider the images we have about the snake that cheated Adam and Eve in the garden. It’s a mighty sapient. And ooh sure enough Satan is a big thing. They talk about him in Revelation that he has seven heads bla bla bla. 

Well, I know someone will say “David was a small guy but he killed Goliath.” Look here, smallness in some instances as these is used to exaggerate the bigness so that as we celebrate its quantity we only remember to be humble. 

Achilles of the Trojan war fame was fairly a small guy but you know where his fame in war had gotten to before they shot his eel tumbling him down. The hare was a small animal in the fairy tales we are told but see how it humbled the likes of elephant and lion the macho man. And ooh yes the Jack fellow in the Titanic story who is finally the male hero was a small boy, but he toppled a whole prince in a fight for female attention.

In all these circumstances though, the victor still assumes some level of greatness, thereby moving the crowds with him.

Let’s then come closer home and into our century. Big is still best. 

Many a times, we have revered big people. Consider the number of times you have run away from bouncers in clubs etc…simply because they are big. Most bad boys are big. Either they so imagine or we imagine them. 

Countries with a lot of wealth are big and we see their presidents as big. They control the small countries (small because they have small wealth) which have to dance to their tunes. Is it any wonder then that Barrack Obama is our big brother? Either he imagines himself so, or we imagine him so. 

Our leaders are literary big. We call them Bwana Mkubwa which translates as Mr. Big. Or simply we call them mkubwa – the big one or the master. Either they imagine themselves as such or we imagine them as such.

I know you are laughing coz you are either a boss, so some people call you bwana mkubwa or you have a boss who you refer to as mkubwa. You then know better than me that in some instances mkubwa’s word is final.

Being big though comes with a price. The big one has to stand above the rest. The big five in the animal kingdom are so called because they tower over the others…in height, in body size, in speed, or in noise, or something. When the lion roars for instance a gazelle grazing next to his pen will be excused for peeing unknowingly. With such simple privileges we call him King of the Jungle. On his part, the shark commands authority in water for swallowing smaller fish.

In the human kingdom bigness has the price of commanding more authority than the rest, more space, having more money, a good car and so on.  

Whilst one can ascribe to bigness, the best kind of it is the achieved one. In this you struggle to be on top of your game.

But one can also merely imagine he is big. After  all the entire mind is the reservoir of all human thought. Every other thought is set in there. 

Finally in the world of fantasy, one can merely dream big. NIC bank though encourages us to think biggest. Big dreams make big achievements.

Perhaps you and I have seen people who have assumed they are big and they make the whole lot of us treat them as such. Perhaps we have never liked the experience. Perhaps these people are the very crosses that Jesus warned us of their weight.

Still, that has not stopped us from moving on. Still that has not stopped us from dreaming. If we are not big does that stop us from dreaming big? Soul brother it pays to be big and or to dream big…let’s do the latter, at least.