Between a noun and a verb

What is a noun? Cambridge Dictionary defines a noun as: A word that refers to a person, place, thing, event, substance, or quality.

While Merriam Webster Dictionary defines a noun as: An entity, quality, state, or concept.

Now what is a verb? Merriam Webster Dictionary defines a verb as: A word that characteristically is the grammatical center of a predicate and expresses an act, occurrence, or mode of being. And then Cambridge Dictionary defines the same word as: A word or phrase that describes an action, condition, or experience.

In other words, a noun is a state or a condition. And a verb is an occurrence or involves action. So much for our basic English lesson and the question now is: Where are all these leading?

There are many people who want to be a noun. They want to be in a state or condition of success. Many put their desire into action, they work hard on it because they become a “verb” in the process. And then when done right effectively and efficiently, their years of being a “verb” makes them become a “noun” of success over time.

Here is the challenge. Many people want to be a noun but they do not want to go through being a verb. They want to achieve success at the shortest time with the minimum of effort and labor. In other words, they all want to create a name representing success. But they do not want to go through the process of hard work in order to make it happen. Guess what? It will never happen.

Let me illustrate this. Young people tell me they want to write a book, but actually they do not want to write. They just want to have a book that bears their name and then use the book to propel them into a speaking career and make money.

There are many people who want to be speakers and trainers. Well, they actually do not want to speak and to train, they just want to use the craft as a way to be recognized and make money.

The real desire, though they will never admit it, is to see their names on flyers, email blasts and digital billboards. And they come up with all these platitude of: I want to make a difference. I want to motivate people to become better. I want to change the world.

This is not the way to do great work. If you want to be a writer, write. If you want to be a speaker, speak. But do not dilute your goals with selfish intentions that will stop you from writing substantially, speaking and training effectively.

You need to work like crazy, study, do research, ask questions, and collate materials. If you want success to fall on you, then you need to do hard labor as well. There is just no getting around it.

The objective of training and education is to produce transformation. Perhaps writing too, but how can anyone carry the ambitious goal of changing the world when he or she cannot even change themselves?

Wanting to be a noun before the verb makes the person falsify claims and make pretensions that would not be sustainable in the long run.

The gap between being a noun and going through the verb is the degree of desire and hunger you have in order to convert it into great work. This is why many artists are willing to sacrifice, starve and use every ounce of their resources because they believe in their idea, and then the process of labor brings them to producing great works of art.

I would like to see a new generation of great writers, speaker and trainers who produce great work because the need is immense and the laborers are few. But success cannot be hurried. It takes time to brew. Before you can become a noun, make sure you go through being a verb first.

Here is something I posted in my digital spaces that got a lot of reactions. And this would encapsulate everything that is expressed: “If you don’t work for it, you will never get it.”

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