Do not Drop Your Baton!

Suddenly I realized that others would someday get everything I had worked for so hard … Who knows if that person would be sensible or stupid? ­– Solomon (King of Israel)

The most unfortunate thing that happens to a relay team is for a runner to drop his baton. The baton in the hand of an athlete is the mandate he has to compete. It is the only thing that qualifies him to continue with the race with the possibility of winning. The moment the baton is dropped, the athlete and team is disqualified from the race.

Every area of life has a baton. We have relationship batons, faith batons, career batons, and a lot more. Interestingly, many folks drop their batons in life’s races. They take the right faith baton, or the relationship baton, or family baton and drop it along the way. In so doing they completely lose even before the race is completed.

It is possible to drop life’s batons in many ways. Some ways include:

1.     Disobeying instructions

2.     Permitting jealousy (for other life athletes) to creep in

3.     Not giving due regard or respect to other people’s boundaries

4.     Impatience at low times

5.     Rejecting advice from experienced people

6.     Accepting advice from inexperienced people

7.     Maintaining a careless and carefree attitude

8.     Fear of doing things differently from your predecessors

9.     Placing personal gain ahead of team gain

    {To order for my new book, Do it Like Kids, click here}

All these points, and some others I may not have thought of, can lead to you dropping your baton in some areas of life. It is important you take them seriously. 

How to Know if You Have the Wrong Baton

If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading. ­– Gautama Buddha

At any given period of your life you have several batons in your hands as you take on life’s races. You have relationship batons, career baton, education baton, spiritual development baton, and a host of other batons you may have at the moment.

Sometimes, it may be tricky knowing if you are holding the right or wrong baton in each of these areas of your life. Interestingly, you may have the right relationship baton and at the same time carry a sorely wrong career baton. In addition, while some wrong batons, say choice of car, may be easily overlooked and lived with, there are some others, like the faith baton, that affects every area of your life.

I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that you may not realize fast the wrong baton in your hand but the good news is that the guiding rules identifying wrong batons are easily discernible. You know you have the wrong baton if:

1.     You must strive or cheat to get it

2.     It does not fit your talents, natural gifts and abilities

3.     You cannot make comfortable progress with it

4.     You did not choose it

5.     The best you get out of it is to impress some people

6.     You consistently struggle to provide finances for it

7.     People see you as a misfit in it

8.     You do not know its purpose

9.     You have no experience with anything related with it

    {To order for my new book, Do it Like Kids, click here}

The underlying principle behind identifying a wrong baton from a right one is your personal peculiarity. This covers your experiences, talents and natural abilities, and environment. What then to do with the wrong baton in your hand may be the next question in your mind? I will respond to this in my next article: “Doing the Best with the Wrong Baton.” 

Running With The Right Baton?

First he took my birthright and now he’s taken my blessing. ­– Esau (after his father blessed his brother, Jacob, in his stead)

Let’s take a short mind stroll. You are the forth runner in a 4 by 100 meters race. You are not just the fastest in your team but the fastest on the tracks that day. The cameras are on you and you can imagine the commentaries said of you to the listening ears of your loved ones back home. 
        The surge of adrenalin, which you are now used to and enjoy, flow through your veins and you are set to take another medal for your team and country. The gun goes and within seconds you spring to your swift feet, receiving the baton and hit the tracks with lightning speed. It is only when the race ends that you realize that more-than-normal excitement of the crowd wasn't just because you have crossed the finish line first, but that you crossed it holding on to the wrong baton!

“Impossible,” you may think, but many folks have won some life races with batons they weren't supposed to be holding. This makes their toil, energy and excitement, best described as, “wasted effort.” Some are presently in higher institutions reading the wrong courses, some are in relationships they shouldn't be in (disclaimer: this doesn't apply to marriages), some are in professions they care little about.

Indeed, we pick the wrong batons when we inherit prospering businesses we lack passion for, or when we continue to build our lives in the pattern chosen for us because the field is “professional,” or when we make life decisions based on fear of losing the favor of someone we earnestly want to please – say our parents.

 {To order for my new book, Do it Like Kids, click here}

Suffice me to interject that a wrong baton may not be wrong in itself. What makes it wrong is the fact that it shouldn't be in your hands. In the hands of another runner it is the perfect baton but in yours it condemns you to failure. Are you running with the right baton?

In the next few articles I will be writing about running with the right baton from different perspectives, starting with how to know if you are holding on to the wrong baton. . I look forward to having you with me as we make it a jolly-good read.

The Perfect Success Journey

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to take away. ­– Antoine de Saint-Exupery

I recently saw a video that tries to teach footballers how to take the perfect penalty. Out of curiosity for the word “perfect” I gave it my attention. Interestingly, it taught, in four minutes, what I consider pillar-principles that lead to success in any success journey. I felt I should share these principles here as you look to making significant progress in your success journey.

The first principle is practice. I often tell my students to learn as much examples as there can be in any subject because all examples are examination questions solved out. When you get extremely familiar with the examples the examination will not be a problem. The habit of practice is one of the biggest gift you can offer your success journey. Martin Perry, a confidence coach, says, “It's through preparation that you create the outcomes you want; through preparation you create future history.” I like the choice of his well-spoken words.

The second principle is simulating pressure. When demand is made of you it will not be made in the comfort of your room – reading table and cup of coffee setting. It would be made under the scrutinizing – sometimes pessimistic – eyes of skeptics. If you would produce great results irrespective of the environment you must learn to concentrate in chaos. Your perfect environment will not be so you must learn to do your stuff anyway and do it well. You can do this by introducing noise or distractions. To meet my goal, for example, of four outstanding articles every week for this blog I sometimes have to write in very noisy environment where I am distracted every five minutes. Introducing a deadline is another way of putting time-pressure on yourself as you practice.

           {To order for my new book, Do it Like Kids, click here}

The third, and Finally you produce outwardly what you have captured inwardly. If you can see it within you can produce it without. Learn to visualize the outcome you desire. I visualize virtually every assignment I have – including this article. If practice is outward preparation, visualization is inner preparation. When you visualize the positive results you desire you program your system to attract them.

Finally, On Financial Capital

Rule No 1: Never lose money. Rule No 2: Never forget Rule No 1. ­– Warren Buffet

 Ok, I have recently written articles – social capital, intellectual capital, and skill capital – that placed financial capital on a cross destined for its death. If you have followed these articles (and are like me) you will still have it somewhere in your mind the thought that says, “Money is important!” and you would be right. To assume otherwise will be to deceive the one person you shouldn't – you.

There are some principles overseeing financial capital. One of such is a savings culture. We must have the courage to save out a percentage of our earnings consistently. It is better to save percentages rather than fixed amounts. Second is the principle of investments. We must also learn to invest what we have in worthy ventures (not get rich quick schemes) and watch our investments grow.

Having said this, my focus for this article are the factors that makes financial capital elusive to most of us. The first is the basic human emotion of fear. The fear of losing our money cripples us and ensures we do not take the investment steps we should have taken. Therefore we remain on the same spot. 

Closely associated with fear is the strong desire for the oxymoron, “financial security” we all have. We say, or, worse still, act this out by our frantic search for jobs that have “financial security.” In our desire to secure the future we shortchange ourselves today only to realize tomorrow that the “security” we sought was all but a fantasy.

Third is permitting debt to hold us down. Personal debts are bites into future funds. In anticipation for the money yet to come we activate the flight mode from present day needs by asking for soft loans. Debts leave us subject to the person that gave them to us.

           {To order for my new book, Do it Like Kids, click here}

Finally is the waste factor. We activate this in various ways. To some it shows itself as impulsive spending, to others it is an addiction to trendy clothes, or phones, or gadgets. If you would take full advantage of the limited financial capital you have access to you must tend to your wastage.

Skill Capital

We must work our talents out and work them out skillfully and then our rainbow of excellence will show. ­– Israelmore Ayivor (Ghanian Author)  

 More often than not we place undue attention to one of the most effective idea-killer – finance. You get captivated by an enthralling idea and as you dig into its possibility and feel the energy flowing through your veins your mind drifts to how much it will cost and suddenly your whole being get flaccid. Unfortunately financial capital is a constant – you will always need it. Fortunately it isn’t the only type of capital you need and inasmuch as you can do little about it, you can do a lot about the other forms of capital.

One of such forms is your skill capital. Have you met folks who constantly rant about how they do not have enough money and if only they did they would be better-off in pursuing their dreams? When next you do, ask how much self-developed skill they have in line with their dreams and it will shock you how grossly ill-prepared they are to deliver even if the finances show up.

Developing skill will do seven things for you:

1.     It will push you to dream deeper and better

2.     Make you self-dependent as opposed to people-dependent

3.     Will make you a leader in your field

4.     Will make you take all jobs – big or small – seriously

5.     Help you plan your own future

6.     Set you out of a crowd of lay folks

7.     Give you opportunity to name your wage

      {To order for my new book, Do it Like Kids, click here}

To develop your skill capital you need to operate in your area of passion. You will rarely develop skill when you are not passionate about a thing. I addition you must develop a disciplined habit. A pattern must emerge in your activities if you would be skillful. Finally you must repeatedly practice on duty. The secret of the best of best? Practice, practice and practice!

Intellectual Capital

When you know better you do better. ­– Maya Angelou  

One of the biggest misdoings we bring into a free-flowing idea process is the consideration of financial capital. Of course money is important – only, not as important to our success journey as we make it. Sometimes there is little you can do about the money you do not have. Instead all it does is shut your thinking down.

While there is little you may be able to do about your needed financial capital there is a lot you will be able to do about other forms of capital. One capital you can have unlimited supply of is intellectual capital. To not know is to be limited. A maxim goes: “If you think education is expensive try ignorance.” Indeed ignorance is expensive and its exorbitant price is clearly experienced in developing countries that pay little attention in educating their fast growing young population. Your intellectual capital will set you apart from a world of lay men.

Intellectual capital is transferred through various ways. The first, and most natural, is the seamless transfer from one generation to another. Life is a school and those that go through it have lessons to teach those coming after them. Do not be so haughty as to say you have no need for “old” folks’ knowledge. By doing this many have traded their potentially great futures for meager presents. Depending only on the wisdom of your generation makes you produce repeatedly poor results.

Second, an ocean of intellectual capital is found in books. Is there a book you are reading at the moment? Why not? Good books are researched for, written, and rewritten over years. When you purchase a book and read through it you are getting in a matter of minutes what took the author years to write.

           {To order for my new book, Do it Like Kids, click here}

Finally, you can increase your intellectual capital through readily available media resources. From eBooks, through the internet all the way to audio books, we have myriad options to know more and be more. Why not take advantage of them?

Social Capital

Simon Peter and another disciple followed Jesus. That other disciple was known to the Chief Priest, and so he went in with Jesus to the Chief Priest’s courtyard. Peter had to stay outside. Then the other disciple went out, spoke to the doorkeeper, and got Peter in. ­– John (the apostle)  

Let’s say you want to start your dream business. You think of every item you need, you search out a location and find a perfect one, and your heart is racing to see it begin. Then you receive a report from your financial adviser who says to you, “This business will need N2,000,000 to get off the ground.” At that moment your mind goes to your account balance and you remember that you barely have N2,000 left. The next thought that goes through your mind is, “You stupid dreamer, you better wake up!”

If you are like most of us, this story describes you and your response to the universal start-up enemy: financial capital. It is easy to place a money-estimation on virtually every aspect of your life. The interesting thing about money is that the moment you bring it into a free flowing idea thought line you go blank. It often seems like the brick wall that cannot be surmounted.

Financial capital blocks our ideas because we fail to look at other forms of capital. One of such capitals is the social capital. Social capital involves every single person you know; relatives, friends, acquaintances, and the like. Social capital will open doors that financial capital may never be able to. If your dream is to meet one-on-one with the UN Secretary General, for example, you may not have the wherewithal from where you are to achieve this dream. But what if you knew the president of your country on a personal level? All you need is to hop in an official trip to the United Nations Assembly and your dream may be achieved.

           {To order for my new book, Do it Like Kids, click here}

        Do not look down on the people in your life. They are all there for a reason. I regularly remind myself that people are more important than things – because they truly are. 

Association: Nurturing till it Blooms

A man who has friends must himself be friendly, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. ­– Proverbs  

I stated in an earlier article that people are peculiar in their own right. Everyone of us is different and relate completely differently to situations that confront us. This brings to mind the fact that the ways we relate to different people must reflect their peculiarities. When you understand this you would see that the statement, “One man’s food is another’s poison,” comes to life.

Nonetheless, there are some principles that cut across the barrier of individual uniqueness. The first is that you should seek the good of your associate. Do not seek to harm or breakeven with hurt. Search out ways that would add positively to the person. If you would regularly seek the good of your associate, you can be sure to get the best out of the person – most of the time.

Second, maintain a positive mental attitude toward your associate. You will not be catering for your associate if your thoughts toward him are always negative. note that you will find what you look for so if you seek negatives from your associate you will find negatives. If you seek positives you will find them. This is so because we all have a good share of both.

Third is a principle I learned from Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. It states that in times of sharp disagreements, go for a compromise. What this means is that if you want option A and your associate insists on option B do your best to get her to consider option C, in which none of you would ordinarily have wanted but that suits both of you to an extent.  

           {To order for my new book, Do it Like Kids, click here}

Finally, always seek a win-win situation. Always consider ways that your associate will win while you also win. What this means is that you clearly understand your associates point of view enough to feel what they feel. You must, like the proverb says, “Be in your associates shoe.” Unless you get to that situation you will always try to be understood irrespective of if you understand your associate or not. A win-win can’t be achieved with such an attitude.

Associations: Building Your Inner Circle

A man who has friends must himself be friendly, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. ­– Proverbs  

 It seems natural to us to have great associations. “After all,” we say to ourselves, “I have had splendid friends all these years.” In truth, leaving your associations to chance is the biggest mistake you will ever make. This is so because although you can choose your associations you cannot choose the consequences of your choice.

It is important to note that not all unneeded association is necessarily evil, at least from a moral point of view. A medical doctor, for example, with the intention of being the best in his field should not have missionaries as the most important part of his inner circle. He should build an inner circle of like-minds. Missionaries aren’t a moral evil but may amount to career evil.

There are some factors that influence the building up of inner circle associations. The first is your association’s value system. It is very important you critically consider the values of the person coming into your circle. The person must share similar values as you. Your values are the cumulative of your ideas and beliefs. This includes every opinion you hold about life. If you open the way for folks with completely contrary values from you, it will set you up for failure.

Second you should build an inner circle of folks who believe in you and your dreams. The following cannot be overstated: Do not surround yourself with people that do not believe in you. If you overlook this you will certainly not attain your goals. Sometimes we tell ourselves that we would keep the people close so that we can prove them wrong but how many times have you seen that happen?

      {To order for my new book, Do it Like Kids, click here}

Finally, and in sequel to the people who believe in you, your inner circle should be made up of people who would not let you rest until they see you attain your goal. Your inner circle associations must be people who would lose sleep for your dreams. Then – and only then – can you boldly say that you have met a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

Associations: How to Severe from Harmful Ones

{The scope of this article DOES NOT cover for marital associations}

For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. ­– Paul (Apostle)  

Since there are many forms of relationships that take without adding to you I would suppose that you would be wondering how to severe yourself from all such. Indeed it is important you separate yourself from detrimental associations just so that you have enough time and resources for productive ones.

Your associations’ capacity is like a soil which shares its nutrients to as many plants on it. If the soil it is preoccupied with giving nutrients to weeds, it will have very little to give to the productive crops. If the productive ones will perform optimally, the weeds must be taken away to provide for enough nutrients.

All the associations in your life – symbiotic or parasitic – are made up of human beings. One denominator common to every one of us is our feelings. Whoever you need to severe from has feelings and you need to take care not to destroy the person as you tend toward severance. Some folks never recover after a severed association. They may never become open minded enough to accept that they were parasites to the person that severed the association. With such folks I advise that you severe with care. Do not seek to hurt but at the same time do not remain in the association. This will take a lot of self-control and courage from you as it may mean you physically go as far as possible from the person. Remove from you all connections that will draw you back to the destructive association.

Second, you must remain as objective as possible through the process. Never ignore the signs and pointers of a destructive relationship. There are often things that point to the fact that an association is negative to you. These pointers begin very small and ignorable but certainly grow to humongous proportions. The moment you identify clear pointers like strife and unnecessary envy, seek to severe. Remember that what begins small will grow.

The aim of severance is to allow for better productivity and progress from you. Your success journey is important and the people you associate with will help you or stop you from getting to your destination.