Parable of the Blessing: FALCON EYES

Let your eyes look right on [with fixed purpose], and let your gaze be straight before you. Know where you are headed and you will stay on solid ground. Don’t make a mistake by turning to the right or the left. – The Bible: Proverbs 4

 In the proverbial “final stroke of the pen” (in this case keyboard), I would like to draw your attention to the ability of my favorite bird – the falcon – to focus on its prey until it hits it. The falcon can see its prey from over a kilometer. Its takes a dive at it – travelling at speeds of over 300 kph – all the while keeping its focus firmly on its target. In a short while the prey would not know what hit it.

For potential blessing to become productive blessing you must keep firm focus on the purpose to which you began. It is the purpose to which you are acting that will determine if you will succeed or fail. Young David asked his elder brother, “Is there not a cause?” He knew that the cause will keep him focused on the goal of fighting Goliath the giant.

Many countries do not focus on any serious cause. It is this that creates several discontinuities in leadership and in effect limited progress. One government comes into office and creates an agenda only for another to replace it with another completely different one. This is more worrying when it comes from different administrations of the same political alliance. Just the way the falcon won’t hit its prey if it tries to focus on more than one, people don’t achieve much when they have to continually change their focus.

Are you a focused person? If you would succeed you must have falcon eyes. You must learn to set your sights on your goal and focus on the purpose to which you began in the first place. Remember that the purpose will keep you. 

Knowledge Revolution

When you know better you do better. – Maya Angelou 

It is said that, “What is worth doing is worth doing well.” I really question this one-directional thought line. What happens when the folk in question does not know how to do the thing that is worth doing? His ignorance will not let him do it well.

There is probably nothing more incapacitating than ignorance. An uneducated mind is severely restricted by walls that can easily be broken. It is by far easier to exploit a man of his rights and worth if, in the first place, he does not know what those rights are!

In his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, the revolutionist, Nelson Mandela, wrote: “Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mineworker can become the head of the mine, that a child of farmworkers can become the president of a great nation. It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.”

If you would travel far and successfully on your success path, you must undergo a knowledge revolution. Your mind must be educated and liberated so it can live. How much do you know about your field? Have you increased in your knowledge in the past two weeks? What about the past month? Most advanced level graduates have never picked up a book within or outside their fields since they left school.

A knowledge revolution changes your outlook to the world. Gradually you will see things differently. Biases you have will be challenged. You will be pushed beyond your limits in every area. It will unlock you to endless possibilities that exist in the world around you and beyond.

A knowledge revolution begins by your acknowledging that you do not know it all. Greek philosopher, Socrates, said, “The only true knowledge is in knowing you know nothing.” When you have the “I-know-it-all” attitude you shut your mind from receiving further education. On the other hand when you know that there is still more to know, the window is opened for the fresh air of new knowledge to flow in.

In addition, revolutions are the children of specificity of purpose – focus (if you may). Zero-in on few specially selected areas and invest your time and resources on building your knowledge base therein. 

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

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 Formulation Stage: ALLOCATE MILESTONES

I love the scenery while travelling but when there is nothing else to see I put my thoughts on the milestones next to the highway.

So let’s say I am on a journey to Lagos from Kaduna – a distance of about 1000 kilometers. The first milestone I see is, “ABJ (Abuja) 200 kms”, then “ABJ 199 kms”, and counting down as the journey progresses. When I get to Abuja, I see, “LKJ (Lokoja) 300 kms”, and counting down. I don’t see, “LAG (Lagos)” until I get to Ibadan, which is the last major city before Lagos – and I am glad about that because imagine how discouraging it would be if I saw, “LAG 1000 kms”.

Milestones help us know where the road we are on leads to and the distance we still have to cover to get to that destination. Now, the fact that I am travelling to Lagos but see a milestone that says, “ABJ 170 kms” does not mean I am on the wrong road. This is so because Abuja lies on the way that leads to Lagos from Kaduna. If, on the other hand, I see “KN (Kano) 180 kms”, I am certain that something is wrong because Kano does not lie on the road that leads to Lagos from Kaduna. Milestones are then the same journey broken into sub-journeys, and for them to be of any relevance you must have an idea of the cities that lead to your destination.

As it is with milestones on the highway so it is with milestones in our success journeys. A person that has the goal of being a doctor knows that he must have good secondary education, university education in human medicine, internship in a good hospital, and employment. These are the major milestones that must be on the road that leads him to becoming a doctor. So, when a secondary school student with the dream of being a doctor wakes up in the morning, his focus is on getting all the credits required to get into medical school rather than on medical  practice. If he thinks only of the practice and not on his first milestone he will be discouraged and will eventually fail or give up. Also, if he gets admission into the university to study Geology, he would know that he is certainly on the wrong road.

For a goal to succeed it must have clearly identified and allocated milestones. This simply means that it must be broken down into smaller parts. The whole will be too big to handle. When it is broken down it becomes more achievable. 

Awaken Your Dreams!

Then he had another dream, and he told it to his brothers. “Listen,” he said, “I had another dream, and this time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me. – Joseph (the Prime Minister of Ancient Egypt)

There is a part I love in Disney’s Alice in Wonderland, and it is the point Alice tells of how she believes in six impossible things. "Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast,” she says. I like that statement because it summarizes the life of a dreamer.
The dreamer believes. He or she believes in some ideal that is non-existent at the moment – that is what makes it a dream! But what makes it interesting is the fact that many dreams dreamers believe in appear impossible.
Impossibility - this is what ensures that many sermons are not preached and many songs remain in song book and countless inventions remain in the mind and many ideas remain unheard of. It is the thought of impossibility that introduces fear in us and shuts our capacity to believe the dream-words we once boldly proclaimed. It is the attitude of impossibility that has left our multi-blessed continent centuries behind leading world economies.
The thought of impossibility must be killed! We must be like Martin Luther King (Jnr) who proclaimed in the face of grave impossibility that, “I have a dream…” Or like Eleanor Roosevelt who said, “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams,” Or reason like Walt Disney when he said, “No matter how your heart is grieving, if you keep on believing, the dreams that you wish will come true,” Or be like old Jacob and reawaken the dying dreams that once burned in our hearts, with the question, “What is this dream you had?”
Dreamers move the world. They are the Noah, who dreamed of a holy world, and the Abraham, who dreamed of a land that milk and honey flows, and the Moses, who dreamed of liberating a whole nation out of bondage of the most powerful authority of his time, and the Joseph, who dreamed of becoming a great man, and the Jesus, who dreamed of saving us all.
We cannot live without dreamers. Are you one? I conclude with an excerpt from Alice in Wonderland:

Door: Why it's simply impassible!

Alice: Why, don't you mean impossible?

Door: No, I do mean impassible. (chuckles) Nothing's impossible! 

Knowing Where You Are Headed

We are all in journeys. It does not matter if you know it or not, or whether you accept it or not. What matters is that you are headed somewhere. The question then is, "Where are you headed?" 

Not many folks, though I reckon it simple, can answer that question. I say it is simple to answer because all you really need to check is your actions. The decisions you make and the things you do are a precise prophecy of where you are headed. The student that invests his or her most productive hours gaming rather than studying is prophesying failure already.

Nonetheless, it is not ideal to identify your destination only from your actions. I advice that you define your destination even before you turn-on the ignition. 

In normal circumstances, before anyone sets out on any journey they have an idea of where they are headed. As it is with journeys so should it be with our success. What exactly are you trying to achieve? Where exactly do you want to get to? Would you recognise it when you arrive there? Clearly define what your dream is. Many have vague dreams. You do not get anywhere with vagueness and ambiguity. You must be able to state categorically what you desire to achieve.

Set dream-fulfilling goals. Set goals that take you steps closer to living your dreams. Ensure that every goal you set and pursue is important to the final destination.

Take a step daily. Make sure you do something daily that takes you closer to your dream. It does not matter the size of what you do. What matters is that you do it. Because of my dream to be a best selling author, I post an article I my blog daily. It is very difficult for me and seems small compared to my dream but it is a step toward it.

No matter the storms and difficulties that come your way, never, never, never give up!

To Succeed, Connect the Dots

I have killed lions and bears, and I will do the same to this heathen Philistine... – David (King of Israel)

So you played in the football team of your school, learned how to sew, did a plumbing internship, have a degree in biochemistry, and now you are managing your uncles restaurant. You sit down alone to ponder on your life and it does not seem to make any sense. So many scattered dots make the story of your life.

Cheer up! You are not alone. In fact, you are in good company as many other successful folks once felt their life was a chaotic mess. In a host of success stories the characters had to connect these dots to make sense of their lives.

To connect the dots simply means to make sense of seemingly unrelated events of your past as you look to succeed in your venture. When young David was faced with his epic fight with Goliath he recounted his experiences while tending his father’s sheep. He said. “I have killed lions and bears, and I will do the same to this heathen Philistine.” I am pretty sure that when he was protecting the flock he never taught it was preparation for the Goliath showdown.

As it was with David so should it be for you. To connect the dots in your life, you should keep in mind your experiences – the good, the bad, the ugly. Do not conclude that the things that have happened to you were mere coincidences. They all happened for a reason and though they are in your past the reason they happened lie in the future.

Develop a broad perspective over your life. A broad perspective would mean you are able to entertain basically everything that surrounds your life. These are the dots. The dots are important, very important. They make you. The present you is simply the result of the dots you have connected. Connect other dots and you will have set your life on success path. 

Dare to be Different!

You laugh at me because I'm different. I laugh at you because you're all the same. Jonathan Davis (Audio-book Narrator).

You are the only you that there is. There cannot be another you. You will never be someone else. You may act like them, talk like them, dress like them, but will never be them. Why not give up trying to be someone else and simply be you?

The basic problem with people is conformity. Everybody seems to want to be like another person. Rather than be originals we want to be copies.

I understand that we all learn by copying. Indeed, the primary means of learning is copying – so in essence a child walks like its parents, talks like them, smiles and laughs like them. When the child grows he or she discovers that there is a difference between it and its parents. Gradually it breaks away from total connection from its parents.

The problem is that although we may disconnect from conforming to our parents we submit to conforming to people around us. We conform to our peers, work colleagues, and even foes. We bend and act the way people make us act. When we are faced with some situation, rather than react creatively, we act with some degree of spontaneity because the scripts of our actions have already been written.

Real ingenuity does not come with conformity. At best you will become as successful as the person you are copying, never better. Jesus Christ noted that, “A student is no better than his teacher. But anyone who is well-trained will be like his teacher.”  You will stop to grow. Since they have limits you know your limits.

When you religiously conform to other folks you lose your freedom and become bound with the shackles of their own boundaries. Nothing more brings depression and sorrow than the thought that a person’s life is externally controlled.

Worse still is the fact that you lose the ability to think creatively. What is there to think any more since you have a blueprint already?

Stop! Slap yourself awake! You are a person also! Your life has dignity! Live your own life to the fullest. Rather than conform, create! Create your world. Encourage you friends and loved one to create theirs also. No joy of success can be compared to the joy of having lived your own life. 

Prepare and Win or Prepare to Lose

And when it was being built, the house was built of stone made ready beforehand. (1Kings 6:7).

It is easy, very easy indeed, to applaud excellent work in any given field. Sometimes we are tempted to think that the excellent work is an act of extraordinary genius that cannot be replicated but all too often that is far from the truth. Excellence is often a result of hours, days, months, sometimes, years of preparation. While the preparation is going on it is scarcely celebrated, if at all noticed, by people but the brief moment of success is resounded by many. King Solomon once advised, “Prepare your work outside, and make it fit for yourself in the field; and afterwards build your house” (Proverbs 24:27). 

Preparation is not easy but makes your work easy. It cuts-out all the excesses, makes your work less cumbersome, and certainly, it is cheaper on the long run than when you are not prepared.

Many think they have no opportunities but they do have daily opportunities, which come disguised in the cloaks of:

-          - Talents and gifts.

-          - People.

-          - Problems and difficult circumstances.

The average folk has loads of the above daily. This means opportunities come but how prepared are we to meet them?

Let’s say, for example, that you are a gardener who loves everything about grapes – its taste, its look, its feel – and would want to have some fresh home-made wine. You would only be able to achieve this today if you planted your grapes two years earlier. Without that preparation I’d suggest you buy a bottle of wine in the nearest kiosk. Nonetheless if you would make yours in two years then you should rise and plant today!

Preparation is difficult – indeed painful sometimes – but it is inevitable if you would have predictable success in the days ahead.

Learning to Focus

Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus. - Alexander Graham Bell

The Sun: The Sun is the most prominent feature in our solar system and nature’s energy warehouse. It contains approximately 98% of the total solar system mass. Its disk can conveniently accommodate one hundred and nine Earths. Its interior can hold over 1.3 million Earths. The Sun's outer visible layer is called the photosphere and has a temperature of 6,000°C. This layer has a mottled appearance due to the turbulent eruptions of energy at the surface.

It is oddly funny that with all these known about the sun, humans, infinitesimal creatures in comparison to it, enjoy bare-chested tanning under the sun’s intensity daily.

The Laser: The laser is used for surgeries, joining of objects and in some intensity can cut through steel. At best, the laser emits energy so small, it would not stand anywhere close to the sun.

One thing makes the laser able to cut through steel while the sun is used for tanning - FOCUS. The principle behind the laser is simple. All its rays are focused on one spot while the sun disperses its rays to a zillion different directions.

Focus is a major virtue of all high-achievers. Simply put, it is the ability to stay on one thing at a time until it is completed.

Focused living is the crux of successful living. We need to be focused in every aspect of our lives. Anyone that does everything at the same time actually does nothing. Want to be focused?

Know your areas of interest: There are many things you could do but I am pretty sure there are only a few you will be interested in at any given time. Discover your areas of interest and focus on them.

Prioritize: On a piece of paper, write down all the things you need to accomplish. Attach numbers to them in accordance to their relevance. Pick the most relevant and work on it immediately. Work your way down the list.

Don’t leave anything unfinished: Each item selected on your list should be completed before you move on. Never leave a work unfinished. Unfinished work is no better than untouched work. If a task can be finished once, make sure you don’t do it twice.