Time is never time at all.

"I am about to make a decision that will change my life." 

We all hear and say those statements, but do we actually believe them? Do we actually believe that a 'decision' would change someone's life? Changing one's life is such a strong impactful word and it is not really a life/death situation, especially in today's connected world. In the past, if someone packed their bags and moved to another continent, writing letters to their family back home, letters that they would read months after they were written, and respond back, etc. I think these were times when 'decisions' such as these were, rightfully so, changing peoples' lives. 

When I moved back to Cairo a couple of years ago, I thought I was changing my life, but in reality, I was coming back home, to the place where I grew up and lived more than 60% Of my life, being around family and friends, working with familiar people and speaking a language of my own. I was changing environments, changing jobs, changing cars and lifestyles, but I wasn't changing 'lives'. 

So many things have been written and said about the value of decision-making and the correct timing. A phone call could change your life, they say. I remember a few days after my dad passed away in January 2010, I received a phone call from Khaled Elghandour, one of Egypt's best football TV presenters at the time, who I used to appear as a guest speaker on his show the year before. A week before that, he invited me to join him in the studio to cover the African Cup of Nations 2010 and I politely declined because I was busy with my dad, who was in a coma at the time, and mentally I could not have taken that role. He understood my decision, wished my dad well and that was it. The next day my dad passed away and a week later he called me. I still remember the day. I was sitting at home, on the sofa, doing nothing, and my phone rang. I looked at the screen and it was him. I didn't answer. I didn't know if he was calling me to check on my dad or if he - through the newspapers, maybe, knew my dad had passed away - wanted to pay his condolences. I don't know. And I never will, because I never returned his call. Do I regret not picking up that call? No. But I do regret not calling him back in the days and weeks that followed. 

I regret not being consistent. 

After achieving major goals (major by 'my standards') in life, I could assure everyone that there is no easy way to succeed. It is all compound interest. I train hard for months and years, follow a good diet, etc, and changes happen. There is no overnight success. When I had my fifteen minutes of fame on the radio and TV, analysing the sport I love, it was after years and years of spending so much time reading, writing about the topic itself, in magazines, on football forums, and talking with friends about it, every single day. When the chance came on, to be on the radio, I grasped it. People called me a 'natural', but I wasn't. It was just the culmination of a daily habit I've been doing. When I got the chance to go on TV, I was again called a natural. But it was just me talking about the topic I talk about every day. If I go on TV now, I would probably stutter and not have the same levels of confidence I once showed, almost two decades ago, despite the fact that I am now older, wiser and more knowledgeable. 

Khaled Said, the legend, gave me, or in other words, devised, a simple recipe on a piece of paper, during our last meeting together, where he explained to me in his own magical words, the theory of compound interest. A theory we all know, but very few of us follow. When I look back at my life and every single task I was happy to achieve, I can see how compound interest played a pivotal role in that success. 

As Steven Barlett said, 'Becoming great is being good every single day.' 

Consistency. That's the keyword here, and that's what I am trying to be. Consistent, proactive and optimistic. The rest will surely follow.