It's Thursday, and today's Message from a Listener comes from Farouk Nii Tetteh Nettey. He wrote this one himself, and he calls it Audition. 

*******************************************************

Whenever I am working on my computer and I get bored or need a break, I simply turn to YouTube to entertain myself. I will watch anything from music videos to the latest gossips, lol, but my favorite channel on YouTube is the reality singing/talent shows like Brittan Got Talent, its American version, America Got Talent, X factor, The Voice etc.

These shows are very entertaining and quite frankly they have taught me a few valuable lessons I would like to share with y’all. One very intriguing aspect of these talent shows are that usually, performers that audition very well and succeed in getting a standing ovation from the audience and judges alike almost never win the show (I must confess, I have cried a few times from watching stellar performances from these performers, but rather those who have an “ok” audition and barely make the cut for the main show usually emerge overall winners.

Per my observation, this phenomenon is so because performers who audition very well invest a lot of energy into the audition but unfortunately is unable to sustain their quality throughout the show. They usually bask in the former glory and hardly never improve on themselves but rather, performers that were not so good at the audition stage and were criticized, learnt and improved on their skills, slowly and steadily becoming better performers on the show.

In life, there are usually two interesting categories of people, the category that pumps all their energy into a great big first impression but are never able to sustain it and those who are willing to learn from their mistakes improve upon themselves and get better.

Criticism is good for personal development. If no one criticizes you, know that you are doing something wrong. As we start this new month, I pray that the Good Lord helps us all to have an open heart for criticism.

My name is Farouk Nii Tetteh Nettey, I am open to criticism and willing to learn from my mistakes.

Twa Omanye Aba!!