MAD RUSH

For the past few weeks it seems to me that everybody seems to be in a hurry. In a hurry to finish what we are doing, in a hurry to get where we are going to. Nobody seems to have the patience of May or June any longer. When I asked myself the most important question ‘Why’, it then dawned on me that ‘time is up’.

I have noticed that naturally, in any examination, people seem to ‘take it easy’ in the first half of the exam. Everybody seems to be relaxed, trying to understand the questions, contemplating whether or not to answer which question, getting mad at the examiners for setting a particular question they do not understand and so on. The atmosphere is usually cool at this time. However, things change when the invigilator calls out that you have thirty minutes to go. It is then we seem to realize that we are really taking an important exam and we need to put up something substantial that will give us good grades at the end. When the invigilator calls out again that you have fifteen minutes to go, you can feel the tension in the room; palms go clammy, people will pens to fly and hate them for not cooperating. We will ourselves to achieve what we have failed to achieve in the past one or two hours of the exam.

When time is up, you finally hear different interesting comments like ‘the time was too short’, ‘if I had an extra fifteen minutes I would have finished that paper’, ‘the questions were too tough’ and so on. The irony however, is that while others are giving excuses for not completing the exam, others are happy that the exam was a piece of cake. I ask again ‘why?’ Is it that the second set of people is smarter than the majority? The answer my friend is NO. I remember my Dad used to tell me then ‘If you walk when others are running, you will run when others are walking’.

We all set goals for ourselves at the beginning of the year; with all enthusiasm we set deadlines but instead of acting on those goals, we go back to sleep, resting on our oars until one day we wake up, check our calendars and realize we have two months to go. Then another day we wake up and realize, one month to go. It was then the truth dawns o us - time is up and hence the mad rush.

We cannot continue to live our lives like this year in year out. That is why I have made up my mind to deliberately start acting. In his book “Where are the Goals I Set”, Sam Obafemi said ‘Enough of Planning, Start ACTING’. Let us join hands in this purpose to starting acting NOW. We have planned all our lives but have not acted enough. If we start NOW we can redeem the following years and find that by this time next year we do not have to be part of the mad rush. 

Let us act deliberately act and live life intentionally- life is not a game of chance.

Extra Time

December is finally here. A month we all anticipate with mixed feelings; some welcome December with joy while others do so with dread all for different reasons. A few weeks ago I was privileged to be on a group that was reviewing a book “Where are the Goals I set?” After the review session, several things dawned on me. Whatever feeling we have at the end of the year depends largely on how much of our set goals we have achieved so far. Most times, we all set high and beautiful goals at the beginning of the year only to realize as the year comes to a close we did not reach our own cut-off point.

Just today, an analogy of the year dawned on me. Each year can be likened to a soccer match. There are eleven players on a team and each player has the responsibility  to make use of the time given, lessons taught, experience gotten to bring home one result – a win! One thing I've noticed so far is that tension in the ninety minutes of the game is almost never as high as it is in extra time (dying minutes). And I ask myself the question ‘why?’ only to find out the same applies in life.

Let’s say the first eleven months of the year are for the eleven players on a team.  We apply ourselves to achieving our set our goals in the first part of the year but most time it seems we don’t apply ourselves enough and start to rush in the dying minutes (December). Since it has happened again this year, I made a resolve, take the lessons I've learnt this match and apply them to the next match. So for next year I put in all I have from the first minute so that by December I don’t have to worry about a loss.  Just like Paulo Coelho said, “it isn't what you did in the past that will affect the present, it’s what you do in the present that will redeem the past and thereby change the future.” 

Let's make the resolve together, let's start working NOW to make TOMORROW different. We CAN!

What do You Say

Many a times we take words for granted and say words that should never be thought of talk less said out loud. Not only shall every word we speak be accounted for, but words have the power of a thousand men over a thousand years.

Most ‘costly’ words are uttered in the heat of anger, pain, discouragement, failure, despair. Note I said ‘costly’ because one way or the other, these words come back to haunt us. However, it is in such situations that positive words should be uttered the most.

We would do well to take a clue from other people.

When the twelve (12) spies were sent out to Canaan, two of them came back with a good report – we are well able- although the other ten (10) gave a negative report. Should we say that the two that gave a good report did not see what the others saw? Definitely they went to the same place and saw the same things but by choice decided to see them in different perspectives, hence the different reports. One of my mentors said “You don’t have to say everything the way they look. You choose the way to see it and say it as you see it.”  In other words, you have power over what you say and what will happen as a result of what you say.

After the man of God had prayed for rain to fall after an unusually dry season of about 3 ½  years, the only result he got after the seventh time was just a small cloud. The natural tendency is to get discouraged getting such a small (almost insignificant) result after so much prayer. He however chose to see that small insignificant cloud as a precursor to a very heavy rain and he told his servant to go tell the king to run home, for there was a sound of abundance of rain.

Though the Shunnamite woman’s son had died on her lap, and should have been crying and lamenting, she knew what could be; she left the child, ran to the man of God. When he asked how she and her family were, she simply replied “It is well” and it was well with whole family.

At a time, the master was very tired after such a long journey and tedious work. He decided to go over to the other side with his disciples by ship. While he was sleeping, a big storm started that threatened to either capsize the ship or sink it. Everybody onboard was very scared thinking that was their last day of existence on earth, their Master however got up from his sleep, stood and simply said “Sea be calm”(Paraphrased) and that was exactly what happened.

When Matin Luther was threatened and asked to either renounce his new found faith or be killed, he refused to be moved and said “Here I stand”. Are you probably asking why he said that when he was faced with death? He knew what was ahead; he knew what his words could cost him, so he chose his words right.

Try to think of people you know either personally or have heard of that despite all odds being against them, took their stand in those difficult times spoke positive words to that effect, and got great results after.

You know what, it has never been easy, and will never be. You just have to make up your mind to do the right. When you are going through the rough times, through thick and thin, the normal urge is to say something negative like I can’t make it, I’m going through hell and many other costly words, but take note: you don’t have to say those words; In fact, it is abnormal. Someone actually said and I quote “if you have nothing good to say, say nothing at all”. Silence pays more in such situations because words are extremely costly.

What you say is entirely up to you. What happens to you as a result of those words is entirely up to you. 
The choice is yours today. What will you say? 

YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES

After going through the Scriptures and having done a little bit of reading, I have found out that we always have what it takes to make the difference we so much desire. We have what it takes to succeed.

Recently, I found out about the principle of foundation - everything created was created from something, however minute or seemingly insignificant. Every miracle performed was based on something already available.

The miracle performed at the wedding in Cana was performed with water;

The widow that had two sons with a huge debt left by her husband had a bottle of oil;

The widow at Zarephath had a little oil and a little flour;

The disciples had five loaves and two fishes;

Even the  man by the pool of Bethesda had his crippled limbs!

I could go on and on and you'll see that there was always something already available for something bigger to happen.

This goes a long way to show that no matter how broken, damaged or seemingly irrelevant what you have seems to be, it has the potential to catapult you to heights you've been thinking of and perhaps those greater that you've ever imagined.

The emergence of a man is a seed borne in him that is meant to be grown into a tree that bears fruit & subsequently produce several other seed. Your success lies in you. It is in you, it lies in no other. It's appearance today may be tiny, tender,  insignificant, unimpressive, sometimes even odd yet that may be all that you need to revolutionize your world, it may be a legacy that generations yet unborn are meant to celebrate.

That's why the wisest king who ever lived said "despise not the days of small beginnings". It can't be overtly correct to say that you don't have what it takes because there is always something that is left as long as the breath of life is still there.

To discover what it takes, Fela Durotoye said and I quote "you must look inward to find what child you are carrying & travailing with in your womb of destiny; it may be the pain, the oddity, the anomaly that your mind can't accept & live with".

Note: That it is your brainchild that would throw you into limelight.

It was the mobile toilet that turned a Lagos based business man, Otunba Gadaffi nicknamed "owo igbe kiirun" that is, "shit money, no dey smell" to a multimillionaire. It was Pastor Nick's 'Life without Limbs' that turned him into an international motivational speaker, maybe the world would not have heard of him if he had his limbs .

What is it that you have; five sense organs or less; tongue, eyes, ears, nose & skin, yet many with the same five you possess and a few with less, have turned history around, created a niche for themselves in the golden page of history with their resilence & persistence to create the change that had altered the storyline of history forever.

All you have to do is put what you have in the right place, at the right time and to the right person.

What are your own excuses today? Find them & break your limit! It is time for another child of destiny to be born.

Your Thought Fount

Sometimes it seems there is nothing there, no where to draw strength from, nothing to say; You can't even seem to think right. Calm down, look in - somewhere within you is a fount flowing with all that you need for that breakthrough. Find your Thought Fount!