Take a Quantum Leap to Success!

When You get to the other side you
become a different person!

Taking the leap felt appropriate. Only it wasn’t just a short hop. It was a full plunge off a cliff. ­– Maya banks, Rush

Success depends a lot on how you see yourself. Your self-image, or personal mind picture or personal definition – whatever you call it – determines how far you go in life and the quality and quantity of goals you achieve in your lifetime.

          We all have a mind picture of ourselves in every area of life. The way you see yourself determines the extent of your success in an area. For example I consider myself a very good inspirational writer – not the best – just very good. Because of this self-image I write good articles – if the responses I get from my posts are anything to go by with. On the other hand I consider myself a horrible dancer. When I am anywhere around dances I immediately look for something else to do to take the attention away from me.

          Your self-image is developed over several years and through various experiences and environments. It grows so strong that it more-often-than-not keeps a strangle hold on you. It ensures you don’t become anything contrary to the image – you see why I may never be a renowned dancer? The same can keep you sick, sad, poor, or an all-round failure for the rest of your life.

There is some hope for folks like me. If you want to do greater things in the area your self-image cannot permit, you need to shake things radically. You need to set and accomplish a goal you could never have imagined in your most wildest of dreams. The type of step I mean is the glutton going on a forty days fast, or the lazy woman joining the marathon race, or me registering for a highly publicized dancing competition.

When we set such goals and are able to achieve them, something happens within. The image changes! We suddenly see ourselves differently and will be more able to accommodate more possibilities.

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

If you take this seriously you will have set yourself up for huge accomplishments. It will happen as such because your boundaries of limitation will be expanded with every goal achieved.

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!

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.

Goal Formulation: BE SWIFT ON OPPORTUNITIES!

Before reading this you, hopefully, understand what it means to build on a burden, seek God’s direction and keeping your goals to yourself. These steps are very important in goal achievement. I would proceed on how to formulate your goals. From a point of view, I would be writing on preparation for goal achievement.

TAKE OPPORTUNITIES PROMPTLY: some of the best hunters of the animal kingdom are extremely fast - the Peregrine Falcon (200+ mph), the Cheetah (70 mph), the Lion (50 mph). They need this speed to catch up with some rather fast prey – like the Antelope and Wildebeest. When the Falcon spots its prey it swoops down at it and hit it before it realizes what has come on it. This speed makes it possible for the Falcon to hunt even other birds in flight.

If you would succeed in goal achievement you must be able to swoop on opportunities with great speeds. We, more often than not, debate within ourselves and with others about what to do with opportunities when they come. Your goals will seem unattainable if you must set up a committee every time you meet an opportunity. King Solomon observed that, “The fastest runner does not always win the race,” but it sure helps to be the fastest.

Develop the features that make for speed. Fast animals (or people) do not fly around with huge baggage strapped to their backs. They travel light. My advice is that you drop-off everything that weighs you down – it may be failures of the past or a low self-esteem – no matter what they are, drop them now so you can fly swiftly toward your next opportunity.

Develop focus. When the Cheetah goes hunting it does not try to get all the animals in the herd. It focuses on one and isolates it. When it begins its chase it goes only after that one prey ignoring every other one. Our problem is that we often go after one too many things at a time. This causes internal division and we end up not achieving our goals.

Develop the glide effect. By this I mean that all your various goals should align toward one direction. The dive of the Falcon is enabled by the way its feathers align themselves, thereby reducing its surface area, and giving it that glide effect. Multi-directional goals are to a person what ruffled feathers are to a Falcon – they create friction and reduce your speed.

Excellence

If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause and say, "Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well." - Martin Luther King (jnr)

 How much boast can you make about your works? Can you boldly speak about the works of your hands and demand they speak for themselves? Can you append your name on your work if you knew it would be placed side-by-side with the best in your field?

If you would be tremendously successful you must have a spirit of excellence. This spirit will give you the boast for your work anywhere in the world because it dots the “i’s” and crosses the “t’s”. Noah had this spirit and so we read of him that, “Noah did everything exactly as God commanded him.” To develop the spirit of excellence, consider the following:

Make every work a masterpiece. It is important you take every work you do as an extension of your life. People considering your works are not merely meeting a piece of work but are meeting you; what first impressions are you leaving?  If you have this in mind you will handle each task as a masterpiece work of art set with intent for the audience.

Develop skill. It is also important you develop skill in every detail of your works. The archaic definition of the word skill means to “make a difference”. In view of this, decide to make a difference in every area of your works. There is always something else you can do to improve your work. You do not need to do it the same way you have done it before neither do you have to do it the way others do it.

Learn from others. It is important to keep an ever- learning attitude in all you do. Don’t get to the point that you feel you know it all. If your heart is open there is always something you can learn from just about everyone.

Innovate. Innovation is the icing on creativity. It means to effect a change. Do not strive endlessly trying to do something nobody has done before. Simply change what has been, making it better.

Excellence is reserved for a select few – follow this and you will be one of them. 

Creativity NOW!

           Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions. - Albert Einstein 

 Generate curiosity: the first thing needed is curiosity. Curiosity stems from creativity. Curiosity and creativity are linked by a two-way arrow. The process for developing either can go in both directions. You can use your curiosity, which is actually easier to form, to develop creativity. This can most easily be done by asking probing questions. If used appropriately Questions open up things that ordinarily will remain closed. Some questioning tips are:

Tip no. 1: Ask yourself about changes. E.g. What would taste better if it were less sweet? How can I make it sweeter? Tip no. 2: Ask yourself questions with lots of answers. E.g. What are some of the uses of air?

             Think deep: Creativity never occurs in the shallow regions of the mind but rather in its deep recesses. Treasure is never found floating on the surface of ocean waters but rather deep down at the bottom of it where only the resilient get to.

              Form a picture of what you want: You must see it in your mind’s eye. Anything can be seen in the mind. Very few people know that. You see, you have two pairs of eyes. The first is the outward eye, which is visible to everyone. Your outward eye sees only the things that are in the physical environment. The inner pair sees beyond. It sees what cannot be seen from the physical environment. Both pairs work together in feeding your mind with information. The outer eyes feed your mind with information that has defined boundaries. However, this is not so with the inner pair. The inner pair feeds your mind with boundless information. With your inner eyes, sight has no boundaries unless the ones you map out for it. You can create the picture of anything you desire to see or have physically.

               Do not let your environment restrict you: have a mindset that what you see is never what you get. Anything can become anything. A boulder can be a statue, a black stone can be coal, a tree can be paper, that problem you are looking at can be a business. Do not despise all seemingly worthless things. They are the parents of all worthwhile things.

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. 

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.

IGNORANCE - The Success Killer!

     If you think education is expensive, try ignorance. - Derek Bok (Former President of Harvard University)

     To know or not to know. It is amazing the number of ignorant people in our society. Large segment of the population do not know and funny do not know that they do not know. It almost seems like they feel ignorance is bliss and if that is the case they certainly are hanging on error. Have you heard it said that what you do not know cannot hurt you? Well there isn't a bigger lie than that! Indeed, what you do not know can kill you!
     My work colleague died some time back because she used medication that killed a baby in her. You see, she was pregnant but neither she nor her husband knew about it so she used strong malaria medication to counter to the morning sickness she felt. Ignorance is a killer, a certain killer.
     But for me I do not think ignorance is the biggest problem. The bigger problem is the lack of desire to learn. An ignorant man with the desire to learn is a patient with a properly diagnosed sickness. All he needs is right medication to be well. A majority of young folks have a lackadaisical attitude toward learning. Look around you and you will realize that it is certainly true.
     If you would succeed in life you must be able and willing to learn.
     Interestingly, it is easy to learn. Never in human history has information, which leads to knowledge, been more readily available than today. Researchers and authors willingly share loads of information on every area of development. Plunge into this sea of information and improve yourself. Read books. Take positive advantage of the internet. The information you receive will bring knowledge to you and the knowledge will transform you into another being.
     When you begin your learning journey you will realize that some of the things you thought you knew were an illusion and that you did not know as much as you thought you did. Hence, you will unlearn and begin to properly relearn. Martin Luther King (Jnr) once said, "Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." Decide today not to be sincerely ignorant nor conscientiously stupid.

How to Handle Temporary Set-Backs

Pain is Temporary, Quitting lasts forever. - Lance Armstrong

     So you have a vision, your eyes are set like an arrow shot in the direction of your goals, your big breakthrough seems to be coming your way and you are set, set to celebrate, set to shout for victory, set to breathe a sigh of relieve. 

     Then it happens. 
     That which you did not expect nor saw coming. A loved one dies. Your business is gutted with fire. Your daughter gets pregnant and runs out of home. 

     Your life has now officially crash landed, crumbling right in front of you. What do you do? Would you get distracted, submit to exhaustion, lose your willpower and cave in to pressure?

     In this piece, I will not proffer a solution for whatever you may be in - there isn't, in the first place, a "one tablet cures all" to such unforeseen happenings. Nonetheless I will highlight some important things that should help you go through it.

1. Develop an attitude of looking upwards. God is able to help you and is never far from you. Be strong enough to realize how weak and limited you are and cry out to him that can help you through every situation.

2. Open your heart out to people around. None of us is made to live in isolation from other people. No matter how much you love privacy and isolation you need people that will console and love you. Do not die alone!

3. Do not make a permanent decision for a temporary situation. Most set-backs are temporary occurrences. People make them permanent by the actions they take as a result. If you realize this you will ensure that every decision you need to make when a set-back comes will be carefully thought through. 

4. Generate a response plan. Generate a plan on how you will respond to what has just happened to you. As a rule, do not take the first reaction that naturally comes to you. Thoughtfully search deep within you for the appropriate response.

The Skillful Achiever

                                For many are called, but few are chosen. – Jesus

     Have you wondered what really separates people? Why is one person better than the other? Why does the least likely to succeed folk stand out of the crowd sometimes? Why are the few chosen while the others are not?

     It is second nature for folks to excuse themselves away from failure with reasons like, “I am not talented enough”. Sooner or later they learn that talent alone is incapable of taking them far in the first place. Some others fall on, “favour from God,” but unfortunately realize that though sufficient for them, they fail! There are yet some that believe in fate – whatever happens to me should happen – and live a life far below their potential.

     What really creates a perfect divide between folks in the same venture is more often than not their level of skill. One folk is skillful the other is not. It cuts across essentially every field. The skillful tailor will always produce better clothes than the merely talented one. The skillful writer will communicate his heart better than the unskilled one.

      Interestingly skill can be developed. It is not a gift. Nobody is born with skill in any field. You may be talented but not certainly not skillful. Whatever skill we possess we learned! You can learn any skill by following these simple steps.

      Step I: Open your heart. An open heart is one that says, “I do not know it all so I am willing to learn”. An open heart is one that is inclined to the new and not just the new but the different. There are seven billion people in our world and so expect billions of ways to do the thing you are involved in.

     Step II: Learn, unlearn, relearn. Not many folks know what to learn and how to learn it. Unfortunately for such, to become a skillful achiever you must be willing to learn, unlearn, and relearn. Advancements are made in every field every month. Are you at par with the progress made in your field or are you stuck with outdated information?

     Step III: Practice, practice, practice. The simplest, but ironically most important, advice you can give to anyone in a field is: “PRACTICE.” Never get tired of doing it one more time. Just the way you never noticed your physical growth whilst it occurred, you may not notice your progress while practicing but no single proper practice session leaves you the same way it met you.