The Power of Persistence by Isaac Oluyi

On Sunday, 23^rd February, 2014, I experienced two simple, but quite remarkable events. The events, to an ordinary mind, would pass for just routines, as there was nothing extra-ordinary about them. While daily occurrences are perceived by many as just mere routines, I strive to glean lessons from whatever happens to me daily. And so I have decided to share the inherent lesson in the two events with you.

The first incident: As I stepped into my car very early in the morning, preparing to go to church, I was welcome with the buzz of a tiny mosquito. The sound was so irritating that I decided to silence the mosquito so as to save myself from the irritation! By nature, I cannot hurt even a fly. But I had to give it a trial in self-defence. The more I tried to get rid of the mosquito, the more it tried to have a bite of my well-nurtured flesh, flowing with fresh blood. This ‘war’ between me and the mosquito lasted for almost seven minutes. In the long run, I killed the mosquito but not until it succeeded in biting and sucking my blood!

The second occurrence took place after the church service. On stepping out of the church, a beggar beckoned to me to give him alms. I walked away from him because I had to meet with a friend who was already waiting by my car at the parking lot. I thought he would turn away from me with the way I ignored him. How wrong I was! He followed me as I walked away, offering prayers on my behalf to the Almighty God. He refused to leave me alone. Like the Biblical Ruth, he followed me to wherever I turned to. When it became obvious that he would not bulge until I acceded to his request, I had to give out some money. He smiled and walked away from me.

When I reached my house later in the day, I took out time to reflect on the two incidents. After so much reflection, I came to the conclusion that God used the two events to teach me a lesson in persistence. While the mosquito refused to give in or give up even in the face of death, many of us abandon our lofty dreams because of minor disappointment (s) or setbacks. We give one thousand and one excuses why we cannot continue to pursue our dreams in life. My concern now is: If a mere insect will not quit even when it is staring death in the face, why do you have to abort your aspiration because of challenges? If a beggar, who ordinarily should not be a chooser, could choose to have his way despite my unfriendly countenance, why should you? I say it again, why should you?

Aspirations or dreams do not yield to talent, skill, education, hardwork or struggle alone, persistence, more often than not, bring them to fruition. I ask for the umpteenth time in this piece: What is your dream in life? What setbacks are you encountering? Do you want to give in or give up because of some obstacles on your way? Obstacles are mere stepping stones to your miracles. There is no gain without pain. I encourage you to learn from the mosquito’s experience. If a mere insect can, you can do much more. How about the beggar’s experience? All aspirations or dreams may stand aborted where persistence is not given a chance. 

How to Overcome the Fear of the Unknown by Isaac Oluyi

In the world of business, it is only a fool that would work himself to death for someone else. It is true that one should strive to justify what one earns, particularly if one is an employee, but it would be suicidal for an employee not to have a plan to be on his own at a point in life. This is because experience has shown that you cannot be richer than your employer, except if you are not 100% dedicated to your work or if you are cutting corners.

Some people work for security, while others work for freedom. This piece is not intended for those who work for security; it is targeted at those who are willing to take calculated risks in arriving at their desired destinations in life. Such people, I presume, know who they are and must be working consciously towards making it count in life. How can they make it count? This they can do by ensuring that what they know rubs off positively on others. That is why I say that it is not what you know that matters, but what you do with what you know.

Given that you know who you are, the challenge before you is to know what to do with it. It is not sufficient to know who you are, you must know how to maximize your God-given gift. What I have discovered is that if you do not want to lead, you are bound to be led. Put differently, if you do not want to be your own boss you will surely be bossed around by someone else. There is something in you that the whole world is waiting for. You only need to act on it as nothing moves until it is moved.

The greatest inhibition to taking one’s rightful place in life is fear. Fear has always been the bane of many a man that would have been great in life. Many, who would have become celebrities but are perceived as nonentities, have been victims of FALSE EVIDENCE APPEARING REAL (FEAR). Man is always afraid of what will happen next. He is often more concerned about tomorrow. He feels insecure and worried. This fear of the unknown has always prevented many a man from taking the bull by the horn. It makes many of us to leave our destinies in the hands of others to control.

You need to appreciate that there is nothing to fear about tomorrow.  God has not given us the spirit of fear. The expression ”fear not” appears 365 times in the Bible, which invariably means there is a dose of fear not per day! We must always remember that today is the tomorrow spoken about yesterday. If your employer had not overcome the fear of insecurity or what most of us tag ”fear of the unknown”, you would not be in that your office working. It takes courage and absolute faith in God to live the kind of life you are destined to live. Today, I run a demonstration farm in Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigeria, where I rear rabbits, chickens, snails, quails, among others and still train people on the need to be self-reliant. This is possible because I confronted my fear. I could have raised several excuses why the farm should not start. Setting up the farm has come with its challenges, but the will to win has been my sustaining power.

What you must always know is that there is no gain without pain. You don’t have to fear failure. There are no secrets to success. Don’t waste your time looking for them. We pay a heavy price for our fear of failure. It is a powerful obstacle to growth. There is no learning without some difficulty and fumbling. If you want to keep on learning, you must keep on risking failure – ALL YOUR LIFE. Take that bold step now, fear not. Remember, what Orison Swett Marden said: ”many a man has finally succeeded only because he has failed after repeated efforts. If he had never met defeat he would never have known great victory

Self-Defeat: A Sure Path to Life of Mediocrity

The man who doubts himself is twice defeated in the race of life, as he has placed a barrier on the height he can attain in life. Doubt is the opposite of faith. It kills initiatives and prevents one from living out one’s dream. Self-defeat is indeed a sure path to a life of mediocrity.

Many a man has lost out in the race of life all because of doubt. They defeat themselves ever before they embark on a worthwhile endeavour. I have always believed that God created us for a just cause. There is a purpose for our existence on this planet. Besides, I also know that just as no man is superior to the other, no one is equally inferior to the other. In fact, all animals are equal. Forget George Orwell’s view in Animal Farm that “all animals are equal but some are more equal than the others”. I see that as a mere creation of man to give room for superiority of one person to the other. The truth of the matter is that no one is superior to the other!

But as much as I believe that we are all created equal – black or white, male or female, able or disable – many of us still face life with a self-defeatist approach. We give up easily on issues that could have turned our lives round. We allow doubt to tether us down to mediocrity level. Where we are supposed to soar like the eagle, we behave like chickens. Perhaps this story will make you understand what I am saying better.

I ran into a friend recently at the Department of English, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria, who was recently recruited as an assistant lecturer. He took me through what happened at their interview. But what struck me most in his account was how another friend of ours who came for the same interview screamed when he sighted him. 

According to my lecturer friend, he gave up before the result came out. It was not a surprise when he rounded off his story that the guy was not given the appointment. The reason for his failure? Self-defeat!

This friend is not alone in this game of self-defeat. So many people have actually been victims of this. One thing I know is that life is a game. And like any other game, you win some and lose some. Even when you lose there are still lessons to learn. Why then do you have to defeat yourself before you begin at all? The more you defeat yourself before you begin, the more you will keep on living a mediocre life. So, to shore up your confidence, you must believe in yourself. There is no other person like you. There is actually something in you that the whole world is awaiting. Start that project today, tomorrow may be too late. Remember, when you defeat yourself before you start at all you may end up a mediocrity in life.

Your Wealth is in Your Passion

Everything a man needs to be wealthy is in his passion. What he needs to move from point zero to point hero is all within his reach. But man seems oblivious of his precious possessions that are before his eyes, while he is busy with a search for what is not lost. 

Usually, several factors are responsible for the search for what is not lost. The factors range from societal conventions, peer influence to fix-it-quick mentality, among others. For instance, societal conventions have placed some professions such as medicine, law, engineering, etc. above others. So many people tend to believe that their licence to wealth is to study any of these courses. As good as the courses may be in terms of lucrativeness, they  are not sufficient to make one wealthy. After all, there are poor doctors, lawyers and engineers in the society. Professions do not make people rich or wealthy. It is what one makes out of a profession that determines where one will stand in the society, not necessarily because one is into a particular profession.

Others have equally missed it in life because of peer influence. The expression that association can make or mar one is very true when viewed against how many people join the bandwagon to choose what they do in life. Many that would have made it effortlessly in some professions are into other ones where they remain strugglers, not achievers. But for a chance encounter with one Samuel James Akpomiemie, the Assistant Head Boy of my alma mater, Fatima College, Ikire, between 1990 and 1991, I could have ended up in a profession I am not cut out for.

It will interest you to note that I was a vibrant member of the Press Club and the Literary and Debating Society of my secondary school. My gift of the garb made me a cult-hero of sorts in my school and its environs. I represented the school at so many competitions and won several laurels. But when we were to choose subjects, the school counsellor put me in science class, not because I wanted it but based on brilliance in science-related subjects. What I had passion for took the back seat. Like it happened to me so it did to my classmates. I struggled all through. Although the school still considered me to be one of its best students, the reality became apparent when the West African Examination Council released our results. I bungled Physics! This devastated me. It was while I was brooding over what had happened that I ran into my Guardian Angel whose advice put me back on the right track. Today, I do what I do effortlessly and people still pay me for it.

Let me say here that despite the fact that I do what I do effortlessly a lot of preparations still go into it. People with “fix-it-quick” mentality will end up as imitators rather than originators. Even when one knows what to do one needs to still work at it until it becomes a second nature..

Societal conventions, peer influence and fix-it-quick mentality will not bring you wealth and happiness, but struggle and sorrow. What will bring one joy lies in what one has, not in what one does not have. So what do you have? What is your gift? What do you have passion for? This is where your wealth is, not in any societal convention, not in blindly copying what your peers are doing  and above all, not in trying to fix it quickly. Enduring wealth comes from what you have passion for, and it requires patience and perseverance.

The Power of an Open Mind

An open mind is a theatre of opportunities. A man with an open mind listens with rapt attention, observes with an eagle eye and asks the right questions at the right time. He is not afraid of change. Rather, he responds to change and exploits it to his advantage. A man with a closed mind, on the other hand, tends to see difficulties, not opportunities. He becomes transmogrified to a “Pharisee” or a “Sadducee”, who only becomes enamoured by what is beyond his reach or only sees sad situations around him.

In 2005, shortly after the birth of my second child, we had some financial challenges as a family. We were living in Lagos, the commercial nerve centre of Nigeria. The situation was so challenging that we had to move out of a three bedroom flat to a room and a parlour. It was as if the end had come as everything we touched was not working out. At this point we sought the face of God through prayer. We had a strong conviction after the prayer to relocate outside Lagos. To where? We were not sure. To prove to us that God is not a man that would lie, an offer came my way from a far, but a remote town called Ede in Osun State, Nigeria. When I told my siblings and in-laws about it, they were like “never!” How could you leave Lagos for Ede? Impossible! They tried to talk my wife and I out of our relocation plans. But when we stood our ground that location is not limitation, they concluded that we were embarking on a journey to nowhere. They saw us as crazy people! Although the pressure from friends, kith and kin almost got to us at a point, we ended up leaving Lagos for Ede with a mattress, few clothes and some kitchen utensils. Most importantly, we left Lagos with hope of a better tomorrow.

We were in Ede as secondary school teachers only for seven months. But with an open mind we were able to learn some tips about farming from our neighbour. Above all, with a salary of less than $100 a month we were able to procure a plot of land before we left the town. From Ede we moved to Ile-Ife also as teachers. After a while in Ile-Ife, I joined a Federal Government establishment. At the moment we are on a mission of turning a jungle into a beehive of business activities. We believe strongly in God that this environment deserted as a result of internecine war shall be turned to a paradise sooner than expected. We have consistently maintained an open mind to everything since we left Lagos. No doubt, the result has been phenomenally rewarding.

The remarkable thing about our relocation from Lagos to Osun State, an agrarian region in Nigeria is that we are no longer strugglers, but achievers. We left Lagos with just a single mattress, but today we live in our own house and also an employer of labour. Those who thought we were mad then now see sanity in our activities. Trials, challenges and difficulties are part and parcel of life. It is thus not how many times we fall that matters but how many times we are able to rise above challenges. To turn challenges to chances one needs to be open-minded. To see opportunities in difficulties, one needs an open mind that is not afraid of taking calculated risks.

Entrepreneurship…It’s about more action and less talk

It is much-talked about, but it is less-acted upon. Most people, if not all, desire to create or run one business or the other. Many people inwardly covet proffering solutions to the problems around them. They know they can do this via an entrepreneurial venture; but the will to travel through this much-talked about road is missing! No one achieves what is not begun. You cannot finish a race you refuse to start. It is not in talking about it; it is by taking a decisive action.

About 4 months ago, I read about the lucrative opportunities in quail farming. For like 2 weeks after reading about the opportunities, I was talking excitedly about it. Before I knew what was going on people started asking me how they could get quail eggs to buy. I had no clue how or where they could get the eggs. I was only a paper entrepreneur – all talk, no action! It was at this point that I realised results only yield to concrete actions on your ideas, not by talking about the ideas. This realisation jolted me into action. I got few day old quails, nurtured them to maturity and today we do not only supply quail eggs but also help people to set up quail farms.

The kernel of this gist is: An entrepreneur that will succeed must do less of talking and more of action. It is not in your talking, but in your action that your celebration is. So, I recommend you take a cup of MALT today – More Action, Less Talk. See you at the top!

The Path to Success Is Not Linear

There is a story behind every glory. It is only in the dictionary that success comes before work; it is only because ‘s’ comes before ‘w’. Success does not happen overnight.  There are bumps, potholes and even gullies on the path to success. More often than not, it is the glory we celebrate, forgetting that there is usually a story behind the celebrated glory. In this piece, I have decided to share 5 fascinating stories behind the glories of some successes with you. Enjoy the following stories and pick up the inherent lessons:

1.      J.K. Rowling came up with the idea for the Harry Potter series on a train - Rowling was 25 years old when she came up with the idea for Harry Potter during a delayed four-hour train ride in 1990.

started writing the first book that evening, but it took her years to actually finish it. While working as a secretary for the London office of Amnesty International, Rowling was fired for daydreaming too much about Harry Potter, and her severance check would help her focus on writing for the next few years.

During these years, she got married, had a daughter, got divorced, and was diagnosed with clinical depression before finally finishing the book in 1995. It was published in 1997.

2.      Warren Buffett worked as an investment salesman in Omaha - In his early 20s, Buffett worked as an investment salesman for Buffett-Falk & Co. in Omaha before moving to New York to be a securities analyst at age 26. During that year, he started Buffett Partnership, Ltd., an investment partnership in Omaha.

New York just wasn't for him, Buffett told NBC. "In some places it's easy to lose perspective. But I think it's very easy to keep perspective in a place like Omaha."

3.      Ursula Burns started out as an intern, but worked her way up at Xerox throughout her 20s - Burns overcame a tough upbringing in a New York City housing project to get a degree in mechanical engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of NYU and then a master's from Columbia University.

Since then she's been a Xerox lifer. She started as an intern at age 22 in 1980 and joined full time a year later after getting her master's. She rose rapidly through the ranks, working in various product development roles and was named CEO in 2009.

"When I came to work at Xerox, I just chose to work. Somebody said 'how about this?' And I said OK, and I would go do that in the lab," Burns said in an interview for the PBS documentary, "Makers." "Then somebody said how about doing some business planning. Then I started leaning more towards larger global systems problems. And systems problems are the business."

4.      Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook was cash positive for the first time and hit 300 million users: Zuckerberg had been hard at work on Facebook for five years by the time he hit age 25. In that year — 2009 — the company turned cash positive for the first time and hit 300 million users. He was excited at the time, but said it was just the start, writing on Facebook that "the way we think about this is that we're just getting started on our goal of connecting everyone." The next year, he was named "Person of the Year" by Time magazine.

5.      Richard Branson had it tough at the beginning: At age 20, Branson opened his first record shop, then a studio at 22, and launched the label at 23. By 30, his company was international.

Those early years were tough, he told Entrepreneur: "I remember them vividly. It's far more difficult being a small-business owner starting a business than it is for me with thousands of people working for us and 400 companies. Building a business from scratch is 24 hours, 7 days a week, divorces. It's difficult to hold your family life together; it's bloody hard work and only one word really matters — and that's surviving."