Do You Want a Revolution?

A revolution is not a bed of roses. A revolution is a struggle between the future and the past. – Fidel Castro

          Our world has experienced countless revolutions through the ages. In recent times we have witnessed the Log Revolution in Croatia, the Tuareg Rebellion in Niger and Mali, the Green movement in Iran and, more recently, the Arab Spring. It is obvious from history that revolutions are a part of human community.

Revolutions create platforms for change. Every revolution begins out of the desire to change something. Without a mind for change revolutions are out of place. In addition, they are a generational thing – as political activist Abbie Hoffman says, "... a revolution is a perpetual process embedded in the human spirit." There always come a generation that becomes uncomfortable with the norm. They see a future that cannot be achieved if things remain exactly as they are. They understand that to create the future they want they must change the present.

As it is with societies so it is with individual lives. To make the progress you envision you must create drastic changes today. Without these changes the future is impossible. There are four revolutions you need to have; a spiritual revolution, an attitudinal revolution, a responsibility revolution, and a knowledge revolution.

A spiritual revolution sets you up for an all-involving success. By this I mean the whole of your being joins in the process. You will not feel successful, irrespective of your outward attainments, without a spiritual revolution. A spiritual revolution sets you free. Makes you feel limitless.

An attitudinal revolution begins with a change in your thoughts. You are an embodiment of your thoughts. Your thoughts do two things – they show you who you are and reveal to you who you will become. In addition, a revolution in your attitude will make you change your participation in worthwhile ventures. You will no longer remain passive but will become active. It will then build your character. Character, it is said, is developed in the stream of life – as you relate with people daily.

A responsibility revolution exposes you to the fact that you are responsible for your every action – Everything you do is your fault. It changes your expectations toward people because you see that nobody is responsible for you.

Finally, a knowledge revolution expands your mind. An expanded mind is one with broader capacity. You are able to understand more, to do more and indeed be more.

Do you want a revolution?

Negative Habits Will Stop You

…let us strip off everything that hinders us, as well as the sin which dogs our feet, and let us run the race that we have to run with patience

 There is one thing I have learned from my life experiences – and it is that I rarely learn from my life experiences. How else can I explain the obvious fact that what stopped me yesterday just stopped me again?

I am not alone in this. As you read your mind will take you on that short journey on memory lane and you will have clear glances at the things you know are slowing you down. It may be procrastination, or impulsive overspending, or a lack of basic integrity, or some moral flaw secret to the world but obvious to you. What it is does not matter much. What matters is that if you do not stop it, it will stop you.

Our success paths are like pipelines. As we journey through life we pick up (for lack of a better word) impurities that clog our path. Interestingly these impurities are scarcely big things. They are simple actions and habits that, when individually taken, mean little but after a while, and as they keep clogging, would block off your success completely.

You can stop these little things before they stop you by exposing them. Do not keep them as secrets. That is exactly what will ensure you remain trapped in them. Failure loves secrecy – don’t give it. Get someone you can speak to and open up. You do not have to look good or keep a “superman” visage when you know that you are going down.

Second, learn to follow mentors. I affirm that we all have unique individual paths but none of us is in a path that has never been threaded. Our paths are common to people though our experiences on them are unique to us. Keep these in mind: “There is nothing new under the sun,” and “There is safety in the multitude of counselors.”

Third, impose a firm stand for yourself. You should not dance around thoughts, ideas, attitudes, or friends that will add more to the clog building up in your success path.

Forth, Do not expect (though it is possible) to get it perfect the first time you try. If you are like me, you probably have built some habits for years. If/when you fail forgive yourself and try again. Don’t give up trying to get it right until you get it right.

Are You Becoming a Leader or a Tyrant?

Initially: God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; … Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and every living creature that moves on the ground.

Later on: God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; … The fear and dread of you will fall on all the animals. – God’s Blessings

Many folks love to see themselves as leaders. Unfortunately, when the word, leader, is mentioned their minds paints the picture of what is actually not leadership. This is a picture of someone who is feared and revered by his “followers”.

For this leader only his opinion matters. Whatever he says is final. He is never wrong. At times when he is most obviously wrong the standards are simply changed to accommodate his misdoing. From him emanates the unspoken statement which says, “Do what I say but forget about what I do.”

You see this leader in every sphere of life. Yes, he is that religious cleric in your mind whose word is the unchallengeable word of God. He is the father whose children run in panic when they hear the sound of his motor car revving close to the house. He is the business owner who does not need his worker’s opinion because they are not part of his family. He is that Head of State who seeks your listening ears with pleas for your vote but does not incline his ears to listen to you any more until another election season.

Unfortunately for all these people, they are not leaders but tyrants. A leader is not respected because he is feared. He is feared because he is respected. This second fear is not that which cripples but which empowers. It is given willfully by the followers and not gotten by coercion.

It really does not matter in what area you are leading – whether it is being a father, business owner, governor of a state, or a class monitor – you should not be feared! True followership is never gotten where fear exists. In case you are wondering how to know if you are genuinely respected or merely feared, ask yourself this question: If I were not the leader will I still be respected? 

What to do When Your Dream Fails

FAILURE: to miss a personally set mark.

Joseph had a dream, and he told it to his brothers; and they hated him even more … then he dreamed still another dream and said, “Look, I have dreamed another dream.”

Is it possible for your dream to fail? Is it possible to take the reins of affairs, follow the formulas, cross the “T’s” and dot the “I’s”, and yet fail? I suppose it is very possible. Because of the various parameters that make for attaining any goal, attainment becomes subjective rather than an absolute.

So, then, what do you do when your goals fail? I would say, dream another dream. Get another vision. Build another plan. No matter what happens, do not give up on life.

Your success journey is like learning to ride a bicycle (if you have learned to ride one). One thing that is acceptably known by a hundred percent of bicycle riders is that they fell down – several times. Nonetheless they did not stop. They rose up, picked up the same bicycle and tried to ride again. If they stopped after the first fall they would never learn to ride. So in effect they accept that falling down is an integral part of riding a bicycle.

Most folks that can be termed successes had to dream another dream at one point or the other. This “another” dream may (or may not) be an extension and expansion of the initial dream. David started out with a dream of becoming a singing shepherd and ended up a warring king. Paul started out an adept Pharisee and ended up an apostle. Cup-bearer Nehemiah ended up a governor of a province. Have you fallen short of your initial dream? Dream another dream!

What matters is that you always have a dream – a reason to live. Dreams keep alive. They give you a reason to wake up in the mornings and to get headlong into the day. They give you hope. If you have dreamed before then you can dream again. Don’t let temporary setbacks keep you down on your back. Rise up and dream another dream. Keep this cycle going until you succeed – then dream another dream. 

If they can't kill your dream, they can't kill you

“Here comes that dreamer. Let’s kill him and throw him into one of these old cisterns; we can say that a vicious animal ate him up. We’ll see what his dreams amount to.” – Story of Joseph

 

All dreamers have haters. A young Joseph had his brothers, MLK (Jnr.) had Jim Crow, and Mandela had the entire apartheid system. Who is yours?

 

Before you go looking for enemies, hold on a bit. Chances are that they are not really after you. It is the dream in you they are after! They hate you because you dream! Imagine that MLK's speeches were titled, "I have no dreams!" He might have lived longer that way.

 

They want to kill your dream because they cannot imagine a world where a small you can achieve such extravagant dreams. They cannot imagine that you deserve to attain so much that your accomplishments alter the fabric of the world they know. Why should you be allowed to shake them out of their mediocre comfort zone and redefine the meanings of things around them? Why should they let you reconstruct what business as usual means to them?

 

My thoughts: If they cannot kill your dream, they cannot kill you! Well, technically. The point is that you are more than just your breath and physical existence. You can live beyond your time on earth because your very essence lives in your dreams. Be firmly rooted and founded in your dreams so that when (not if) opposition comes, you and your dream will survive it. Here are 5 tips on surviving dream attacks:

 

1.  Keep your focus on your goal
2. Allow like-minds to help you
3. Refuse to be distracted
4. Review and restructure your goals at intervals
5. Adopt a defense mechanism

Who Do You THINK You ARE?

As a man thinks in his heart so is he. – Solomon (King of Israel)

Who do you think you are? This is a question many ask while gravely upset with someone and want to put the recipient in his place. It is meant to inflict that the deepest possible wound to the self-esteem in the shortest possible time. The recipient is taken aback and briefly considers what his response will be before retorting, “Who do you too think you are?”

It is this question I come to ask you: Who do you think you are? Your answer to this is very important. To a very large extent it determines the progress you have made and will make. A lot of folks have a sick self-esteem. They do not think much of themselves. Probably, they would give the excuse that they do not want to be caught up in pride but, the opposite is true. A healthy self-esteem is an accurately measured and acknowledged self-worth you have. To be proud is to think more highly of yourself than you should.

Poor self-esteem breeds inferiority complex where you cannot allow yourself to be noticed in a crowd. Your voiced must not be heard, you face must not be identified and your appearance must provide the best camouflage possible. You cannot accomplish much with an inferiority complex. If you think you are not worth it, you actually are not. If you think you cannot you most likely won’t.

I excel most easily in areas I have a healthy self-esteem. So, for me, the more self-esteem I have in an area, the more successful I am prone to be. I carry more enthusiasm, passion, courage to withstand the odds, and confidence in my abilities when I have a healthy self-esteem.

So, I ask one more time, “Who do you think you are?”

 

The Wandering Plane

A man found Joseph wandering around in the fields and asked him, “What are you looking for?” He replied, “I’m looking for my brothers. Can you tell me where they are grazing their flocks?”

Often in my success journey I feel like a non-progressive wanderer. I have you been in situations where I wondered what in heaven’s name I was actually doing. Such times don’t come because I have missed the mark. More often than not they come at times I am a hundred percent sure of your stand.

It is Joseph in the fields searching for his brothers, David in the cave of Adullam, Jacob in the house of Laban, and Moses in the desert wandering around with sheep. The wandering plane is the failing businessman with the most worked-out business plan, or the singer with a hundred songs in a songbook but with no song in a CD, or me with a hundred articles in a hundred and ten days and yet wondering if my writings are relevant in the first place.

Although the wandering plane is not the most fulfilling place to be, it, also, is not the place to give up. It is part of your making process. To refuse the wandering plane is to refuse success. Hang in there and stick to what you are doing. In a while you will walk past it.

Ensure you are guided by your goals. If you have clearly defined goals you will keep your focus on the end rather than the temporary wandering plane. Goals will help you know that what you are experiencing in the wandering plane is not what you envisioned or hoped for. And as long as what your heart sees isn’t what your eyes are seeing you need to keep moving. Compose another song. Write another article. Plan another plan. Dream another dream. No matter what you do, do not stop for any reason!

Aides to Destiny

A man found Joseph wandering around in the fields and asked him, “What are you looking for?” He replied, “I’m looking for my brothers. Can you tell me where they are grazing their flocks?” “They have moved from here,” the man answered. “I heard them say, ‘Let’s go to Dothan.’” So Joseph went after his brothers and found them near Dothan.

I have heard a lot of people speak up hoarding information of their specialized knowledge for fear that their ideas would be stolen. Many have a tendency of making sure they do not tell you anything pertaining what they do because they want monopoly of supply.

In as much as this perspective may do some initial good, on the long run it robs the world of productivity. I am rarely, if ever, afraid of telling what I did to get what I have. I think it comes from a healthy self-estimation. To replicate the success of a person goes beyond mere imitation to the point that you actually become the person in question. Success is the person and not just an act. If this is true then total imitation is not possible.

When I am asked how I achieved success in an area I count it an opportunity to point a person to a direction that may help in his or her future. Folks often need direction and I hate it when I cannot help out.

Nobody becomes a success on his own. There are always people that point you in the direction of success. Sometimes they do not even know that that is what they are doing! Why don’t you be that person in another’s life? Why don’t you point someone towards his or her success?

       The idea behind the Butterfly Effect is that when a butterfly flaps its wings the effect is felt in distant galaxies. I think this speaks more to people – as we are so intricately connected to one another – than to butterflies. Our actions, even when we do not mean them to, affect people that we have no clue exist. Now imagine if you, like that nameless man in the wilderness, direct a wandering Joseph to his appointment of destiny. How much good would you have done to the future of the soon famine-stricken world and ultimately the purposes of God? 

Helping Others Up...

Give and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full – pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into your lap. – Jesus (the Christ)

 It is a normal thing for many-a-folk to expect people to do things for them. We wait for people to make things happen for us. We rarely consider that we can be the persons that should make things happen for others.

Can people run to you when they are stuck in their goal pursuit? It is important we note that we will achieve our goals much faster if we help others achieve their goals. It sounds funny but true. The norm is that we should focus on our goals while others focus on theirs for when will we have enough time to achieve our goals if we are busy with the goals of others?

On the contrary we should make out time to help others achieve their goals. Your support may not be the ultimate load that breaks the camels back but it very well will take it a little closer to fulfillment. This is so because we are all intricately interconnected and to break this connection is to see all our goals fail.

You can help other people’s goals by giving your time. A lot of people just need you to listen and it will go a very long way in ensuring they succeed. The time you invest in their dreams can give them that confidence that their goals are worth the effort and hence make them achieve them.

In addition, you can help by putting in your finances. This is a grey area and many cringe away from it. The reality is that a lot of goals will be achieved if the finances are available for them. Unfortunately the “dreamer” may not have the money. The good part is that the dreamer does not have to be the financier. You can help bring a dream to reality by helping (if you can afford to) with your finances.

You can help another get what they want by contributing your knowledge, skill, and other abilities. Nobody knows it all – more importantly, nobody can do it all! If you find a person you can help ensure you do it. Help out, do your part. Don’t place your mind on the “glory” going to someone else. Remember that your goals will be achieved as you help enough others achieve theirs. 

Let's Begin to Learn...

Live as if you were to die tomorrow, Learn as if you were to live forever. - Mahatma Gandhi 

It is said that, “When you stop learning you start dying.” Hanging on this statement as true, I believe the next question to ask is, “What is learning?” Most of us have been rigorously taught in schools from childhood and we assume that we indeed have learned a lot, only for us to conclude our schooling and realize, when faced with real life situations that we have been taught to know far more than we were taught to do.

To learn is to regret your former state of ignorance. When some form of knowledge comes to you, you cannot yet say that you have learned anything. You have known though. You begin to learn the moment your new found knowledge creates a regret of your former state. Knowledge is to a mind what light is to darkness – you suddenly can see your way. Learning, on the other hand, is to you what your preference for the light rather than the darkness is. If you choose the former state of darkness then, irrespective of the knowledge, no learning has occurred.

Also, to learn is to change. A lot of folks claim to learn when they refuse to change what they do. Their regular habits are comfort zones – zones they are comfortable in – and they are not willing to let go. I must confess that to change is not as easy as I am making it look but, indeed, it is as important – probably more important – than I am making it look. If you will succeed you must be willing and able to change your mind, actions, habits, and attitudes.

Finally, to learn is to have goals. The human mind is a goal-seeking – for lack of a better word – machine. Goals move you from one state to another. Without goals you cannot be motivated to do more than the ordinary. There is a law in physics called Newton’s First Law and it states that, “An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion at the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.” If you are that object, then goals are the unbalanced forces.

Receiving Help from the Spirit of The Lord for Success

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor … - Jesus (the Christ)

When it is said in the Bible, “The Spirit of God fell upon …,” it normally is succeeded with immense – obviously unnatural – empowerment which leads to success in a venture. When the Spirit of the Lord fell upon Moses, he empowered seventy others to serve over Israel. When the He fell upon Samson, he conquered thousands. When the Spirit of the Lord fell upon the followers of Jesus, they preached and three thousand others joined them.

The Spirit of the Lord obviously will come upon every person who is willing but, there is a fixed (by this I mean immovable) condition. The condition is that there must be a prior, clearly understood and defined assignment. The Spirit of the Lord will not come upon a person that is going nowhere. It makes for reason that a person that has no need for power should not receive it. If you want to be empowered you must have identified a reason why you should receive that power.

How then do you identify a reason for empowerment? I would strongly suggest you search your heart for the burdens that lie therein. Since the Spirit of God is on a re-creational mission, then your burden will tend the path of correcting what is not perfect. There are enough burdens in our society to go round every folk who desires them. It may be the rot in the education sector, or the nonexistence of good drinking water for the masses, or the plague of drunkenness upon our young men. It does not matter what it is, what matters is that the burden points to the area you will receive the empowerment of the Spirit of the Lord.

May I note here that your burden, though may bring some, will not revolve round selfish (I mean this word in the best possible context) needs. Rather they will serve a need in society. Your burdens would be such as Jesus (the Christ) proclaimed, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor …”

Take it Easy, Success is a Process

I often pride myself with the story of the double promotions I got in my early education. Twice in a process that should take eight years I was taken a year ahead of my peers. It was to me a batch of great honour and in my mind imagine it been said of me, “Here is a lad who jumps the process.”

It may be desirable – indeed almost harmless – to see that your child can be intelligent enough for his teachers to recommend a double promotion (as that will mean you don’t pay the fee of three terms – or in my case six) but in your personal success journey you cannot jump the steps. The moment you get on your unique success path you discover, more sooner than later, that it is a process, which you cannot help but follow.

The problem is that in or world of speed – speed boats, speed trains, sports cars, and fast food – nobody wants a process. Processes are too slow for us. We seem to ask, “Why do I need to learn ‘A’ before I learn ‘A, B, C, D, to Z?’” We see very little sense in following processes that can be truncated.

God, though, is a God of processes. With God it is, more often than not, one step at a time. Isaiah (a prophet) says, “The LORD is going to teach you letter by letter, line by line, lesson by lesson”. Another way to put it is: “GOD will start over with the simple basics and address you in baby talk, one syllable at a time—“Da, da, da, da, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's a good little girl, that's a good little boy”. I conclude that God wants us into the process so he makes it slow enough for us to understand.

I once taught computer studies at a primary school and the way these minors establishes the fact that we were wired for processes. The moment you take the shortcut of jumping steps, you realize that it wasn’t a shortcut after all. You have to be patient and wait until they learn a step before you move on. God also teaches us that our success journeys are that way, carefully, patiently, one step at a time he waits for us to understand before he moves on to the next level. 

Goal Action Stage: IGNORE DISTRACTIONS

In this article I conclude on the topic: HOW TO ACHIEVE GOALS.

You will never reach your destination if you stop to throw stones at every dog that barks. - Winston Churchill

Three boys were set for a race and their fathers served as their motivators by staying at the finishing line and waiting to receive their boys. When the whistle sounded, they all shot up as best they could. In a short while one of the boys took an early lead, clearly having the momentum to win the race. He began to look behind him to see how far ahead of his competitors he was. Suddenly he lost his footing and his lead. The second boy hence took the lead and was in front for some considerable distance but he was too obsessed with the cheers he received from the crowd that he lost his footing too. The third boy then took the lead and won the race that he began as last. When asked what made him win he said, “All I did was keep my eyes on my Dad and ensure I wasn’t distracted by anything.”

Every time we desire to achieve a goal we will be faced with distractions. There are a thousand distractions around us. Failures in the past, fear, low self-esteem, are some of the things that commonly distract folks from their goals. Interestingly not all distractions are bad things. We could be distracted by very good things like money, fame, and success. So I would say that a distraction is anything that takes your eyes off the goal.

You must have the tenacity to keep hitting at the direction of your goal. All too often beginning is not a problem it is finishing that overwhelms us. Solomon (king of Israel) noted that, “Endings are better than beginnings, sticking to it is better than standing out.” When you have such an attitude it won’t matter what comes to you. Suddenly, no obstacle will look insurmountable, no fear will cripple, and no failure will be permanent.

Distractions will come – in fact they should come because they are refiners of character. The people that win irrespective of them are the true winners. If you can stick to it irrespective of the distractions, you will eventually be like Joseph (Prime minister of Egypt) of whom it was said, “Until the time came to fulfill his dreams, the Lord tested Joseph’s character.”

Goal Action Stage: LIKE-MINDED HELPERS

So far you have kept your goal to yourself (I sincerely hope you have). Now it is time to share your burden (remember the initial burden?) with some people. By now you would have identified some people that are not dream-killers. These are like-minds that may be able to identify with your burden if shared with them. Only very small goals can be achieved without help. Every other goal takes the joint responsibility of like-minded people.

The most important thing in sharing with like-minded people is that you share the burden and not just what you seek to achieve. This is what I mean: if you desire to make a difference in the education sector of your locality, share the burden of the effects of poor education to the society rather than simple saying you want to build new classes or buy new textbooks. Like-minded folks will respond to your burden because they have, at one time or the other, had such a burden too. This is absolutely important and there is no way your team can achieve great heights of success if the people in the team are not of same mind. Amos (a prophet) asked, “Do two people walk hand in hand if they aren't going to the same place?”

In sharing you burden a few tips may be helpful:

Admit your need for help: I can almost bet that it seems bigger than your abilities. This is your mind telling you that you need help. It is your mind telling you how helpless you are on your own. Admit your limitations and seek appropriate team players to help you accomplish your vision.

Make “you” desirable: in a team, the people involved work with each other and not for each other. People do not want to work with an undesirable team head and team players. Make yourself someone people want to be around. Cut anything in your life that limits your ability to get people around you involved with you.

Seek fun-people: never work with someone who shows signs of disinterest in your vision or who will surely not derive pleasure in the process of accomplishing the vision. Everybody you are to form a team with should enjoy the process from start to finish. Success comes faster if everybody derives pleasure from the work.

Goal Action Stage: IS YOUR GOAL FEASIBLE?

So I arrived Jerusalem. Three days later, I slipped out during the night, taking only a few others with me. … after dark I went out through the Valley Gate, past the Jackal’s Well, and over the Dung Gate to inspect the broken walls and burned gates. Then I went to the Fountain Gate and to the Kings Pool, … - Nehemiah Hacaliah (when analyzing the work to be done in Jerusalem)

       I have had friends meet me with verbal business proposals and the statements that follow is, “I am certain that this venture cannot fail because of this or that.” Then I ask of some questions that I feel are basic in determining if any venture will survive or otherwise. Questions like: “Have you done this type of work in the past?” or “Have you asked around if there is a trade union governing this type of venture?” and in more cases, “No” as a response is not an exception.

      It is easy to stand outside the “gates” of a venture and declare it “easy”. You look at it and imagine a home-run with the profits and other benefits rolling into your “barns”. But it is the very thought of, “I cannot fail,” without any plans that makes people fail.

      Before you set out to accomplish your goals, do a feasibility analysis. This simply means that you drop your paperwork and get into the fields to see and feel things for yourself. It is important to plan but note that all plans on paper never work exactly as they were written. Sometimes a complete overhaul and change of plan is needed. That is why you must carry out a feasibility analysis.

      It does not matter what venture you want to get into – skydiving or selling groundnuts – you must carry out a feasibility analysis because the fields are by far different from what you assume it is.

       Some questions you should ask (but not limited to) in a feasibility study include:

       What level of education is needed for this venture? Do I have it?

       How much money do I need?

       Have I done anything like this in the past?

       Is this venture as profitable as I thought?

       What is plan on how to succeed in this venture?

    These questions should be tailored to your unique venture. There is no blueprint on how exactly all feasibility studies should go but the point is that you must do one on the field.