If you have a vision, starting with your small idea and connecting with the right people can help give your idea wings, says Siya Metane.

Siya ‘Slikour’ Metane is a founding member of celebrated hip-hop group Skwatta Kamp and the CEO of SlikourOnLife, a platform dedicated to helping the stories of musicians and artists be heard.

‘The way to be an expert is to become a master of small ideas.’

Are you always searching for something? Or are you the one who is supposed to provide what people are seeking? My life has been a constant navigation between these two realities – and the work that comes with the latter seems to be what has consumed me most.

In the public eye, it looked like a rap group or a celebrity relationship or a website or an agency or a sound mind. Yet, behind the scenes, it was a study of patience, because it’s only later that I got to know not only what it looks like, but what it really is.

The public may have had a perception about me, my passions and my work, but, for years, I had my own perceptions, too. I knew, though, that my assumptions about the strangers around me had to constantly be muted. I knew I needed to have no bias. To present a neutrality around the people who are catalysts to my role as a provider of what people are seeking. Sometimes, those people were, for the most part, disconnected from my personal reality, but crucial to my vision.

Having the ability to connect your vision with the people who can help it become a reality knows no race and no tax bracket. It’s something that, if we allow it to, can be achieved by any one of us. The only way to mentally level the ground in places and spaces you thought you’d never be in is by saying, ‘It was all done by humans.’ This is because when you recognise that we are all the same, it makes it easier to move into your power.

And never forget that all things start small. The way to be an expert is to become a master of small ideas. Once you gather with other experts and move them towards building your small idea, it’s only a matter of time before you make an impact.

The way small ideas become big is through the receiver’s imagination. Think about it this way: when you’ve been working hard on an idea for a long time, and someone recognises you for it, you feel elated. That small bit of elation you feel is tiny in comparison to the amount of work you might have put in, be it months or years, but the moment it reaches someone else’s imagination, your small idea could take flight and become an everlasting source of inspiration.

It’s that which you need to focus on, because the elation you feel in the moment can be hard to hold onto. Knowing the potential of your small idea in someone else’s imagination can only spur your passion on, and encourage you to keep building your vision, however small your efforts might seem in the moment. Because once your small ideas gain momentum, that’s when you are more likely to make an impact.

Today the pressures on people’s mental health are no different to when I was younger, and constantly being told to think big. I had to teach myself to think small and suggest that’s what we all should do, resiliently and consistently. If your idea comes from a true and authentic place, it will grow on its own.

Every tree has a seed, we all were once a foetus. We all have small ideas that organically grow and, when you remove your prejudices, you find yourself walking paths you never dreamt you would. I hope you value your small idea because, believe me, someone out there is in search of it.

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Slikour: The Life Story of a Hip-Hop Pioneer is out now.

This article was originally published in The Penguin Post, a magazine about books for book lovers from Penguin Random House South Africa.   

Categories Non-fiction South Africa

Tags Penguin Random House SA Siya Metane Slikour The Penguin Post