Don’t make excuses

Do not become an expert in making excuses, it devalues and reduces your worth, and it’s a public demonstration of your inability. It is easy to make excuses because people do not like to take responsibility for their words and action, people always prefer the easy way out of everything. It’s a pity a lot of people are where they are today because they always make excuses for their failure; they always try to make themselves happy by justifying their present circumstances.

It baffles me when I hear people say things like; “If not for the family I come from I would have been this or that” “If not that I’m a Nigerian, I would not be denied the visa” “If not for the economic situation, my business would be better than this” “If not that I lost my father or mother at a tender age, my life would have been better today” “If not that I married the wrong husband or wife, I would have been happier” “If not that I dropped out of school, I would have had a better job” “If not for the economic recession, I wouldn’t have lost my job”. Drop all the “If not” in your life, stop playing the self pity game, all those excuses will only keep you behind in life. If you want the world to take you serious, you must drop the excuse habit.

This is a challenge to developing countries; we are not behind among community of nations because we are still developing but because we refuse to take responsibility for who we are. Corruption has been identified as one of the major reasons for underdevelopment in most developing countries , yet people still pride themselves in corrupt practices and the few that try to expose and tackle the problem are been hunted by the bad heads. Africa is said to be ravaged with malaria, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and other related diseases, yet people will still not maintain clean environment and hygienic practices to prevent breeding of mosquitoes that causes malaria and the spread and transmission of HIV/AIDS can be prevented, yet Africans will do nothing except for foreign aid and support. Polio is another problem that has affected many children in Africa, yet we hear of parents who refuse to take polio vaccines for their children because of religious and cultural beliefs. Africa is known for political instability, yet our political leaders and elder state men have travelled the world over, seen what is obtainable in other nations of the world but lack the will to replicate it in their country. I understand that in Africa, we have our peculiar challenges, but we must rise up to the occasion to develop our nation and make her the envy of the world.

Africa, I challenge you today, to be responsible, refuse to be relegated to the background, you have what it takes to lead the community of nations, you can be the center of attraction of the world and lend to nations. We must cultivate the right attitude and stop making excuses for our many problems, which I prefer to see them as challenges that we can over come. We must begin to find lasting solutions and begin to invest in project that will out-live us and serve generations ahead of us. As a matter of urgency, our children need to leave the street and back to the classroom, we must discourage child labour and every parent need to take responsibility and fend for their wards. Education must be adequately funded, free and compulsory primary education must be adopted across board. Agriculture must be given the required attention and investment. Entrepreneurship must be encouraged and supported, harness our natural resources and improve our health care system. Our leaders must be challenged to leave their foot-print in the sand of time, they must be concerned about what the future generation will remember them for, and invest in the future of the country. Our leaders must be concerned about mentorship and role model, let the youth have people to look up to, so as not to be miss-guided. We must refuse violence at all cost and encourage peaceful co-existence; we must not take to criminality as an excuse for unemployment and take responsibility for who we are.

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Dare to be different!

The choices you make in life, determines your level of success and it makes a whole lot of difference. I tell people, that no one has any reason to remain in the same position, if you do, it’s your choice; deliberately or other wise.

No one will compel you to be a success; you must take your stand and refuse to move with the crowd. The fact that everyone is into a particular business does not mean you must start one and because every one is doing certain things in a particular manner, does not make it the best way possible. Dare to be different in everything you are involved with, make a clear cut decision for greatness and prepare for it. “What you don’t expect, you don’t attract” so you must expect greatness and consciously plan to attain success at every level you find yourself.

Consciously engage yourself in productive thinking, think expansion in your business, promotion at work, success in your academics and profit in all labour. Ask yourself certain questions that will help you realize your position then project for the future from where you are.

Ask; what will I add to this business? How will I expand it? What do I need to improve on? What are you doing right, so you can put more effort in that direction and what are you doing wrong, so you can learn from your mistakes and possibly find alternative ways of doing it better? Don’t always look for the easy way out, but the best way through, refuse to be limited by the options available, learn to think out of the box and be discipline in your approach to issues. Make up your mind to be different, learn new techniques and style of doing what you do, be the best at what you do and accept nothing less than the best. Become a noticeable force and set a standard for others to follow.

I once visited an internet café in Ghana sometime in 2008 “Busy Internet” and I was impressed by their approach to service delivery. Up until when I visited the café, I had never seen any Internet café of that magnitude. They have over a hundred computer system with state of the art facilities that makes browsing experience comfortable without interference by anyone. They also offer data hosting and broadband services with a conference hall and some executive browsing rooms. Come to think of it, there are several other internet café in Ghana but “Busy Internet Café” tends to stand out, as a matter of fact, it serves as a tourist attraction. It’s more than a café, it’s a solution provider and that is the reason it has become a center of attraction that everyone wants to visit and have a browsing experience of their life. Particularly, with the advent of 3G modems offered by the mobile telecommunication operators that afford people the opportunity to access the internet from the comfort of their homes or offices “Busy Internet Café” still thrive in their business because it stood up to be different and refuse to move with the crowd. In the same business environment where some internet café are finding it difficult to break even and some already out of business as a result of stringent competition in the telecommunication sector, “Busy Internet” as a service and solution provider is still in business and going strong.

This is a call to you, no matter what you are involved in, dare to be different. Rather than seek to make money, improve on values that is what brings the money. People do not pay for what they buy but the value and satisfaction they derive from such product. If you run a saloon, be the best, if you are a cobbler, be the best, before long, you will become a manufacturer and if yours is service delivery or academics, set a standard of excellence.

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Join me in March on: Don't Make Excuses

Join me in March on: Dare to be different!

Responsibility to your society

Societies are bounded by established standards and laws that guide members of the society on how to live and function right.  Your refusal to live within the ambit of the law and set standards is what makes you irresponsible. You may find yourself in a society that has lost its values, full of corruption, lacks regard for human dignity, moral and ethics; it’s your responsibility to make a difference, live a life worthy of emulation and be the positive influence your society needs. Do not look onto others for the change you can create, be the agent of change your society needs.

The willingness to accept the standard established by the society and make effort to live by those standards is your responsibility and if you fail to meet the set standard, do not look around for factors outside yourself to blame. It takes humility and courage to take ownership of your mistakes and make adjustment when and where necessary but you become irresponsible when you blame family, society, economy… for your failure in life. It’s unfortunate how people waste precious years procrastinating and believing there will be more time tomorrow than there is today, don’t be deceived, the future is not a distant event, it comes to you everyday. Today is the perfect time to take responsibility for your thought, choices, actions and who you are.

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Responsibility to your family

The family is a small institution of the society, it constitute of parent and children with definite roles and responsibility. Responsibilities increases towards the extended members of the family and family bond is built as the members grow and the relationship developed become more complex.

The parent as the head of the family must specifically identify their responsibility and patiently help their children do same as they grow. The parent must take leadership role and carefully help to steer the wheel of the family to a life of permanent success. Beyond paying the bills, there are very important responsibilities that parent must assume in order to position their family on the right track and build a solid family institution that will survive generation after them.

As parents, one big responsibility we have is to become role models to our children; we must live up to expectation. Your children should look up to you and be able to emulate your character and personality. You must discipline yourself to keep up your personality and be the perfect example for your children both in morals and attitude. You owe it to your children to teach them to have respect for themselves and others, to believe in themselves and appreciate who they are, you must teach them to have integrity, boldness and be self motivated. Help them plan their lives as early as you can, don’t be that parent chasing everything else around with little or no time for the family, you must learn to build family bond and inspire love in your family. Don’t become so busy with work and business with no time to establish the rudiment of family institution, don’t watch your children develop hatred for one another, don’t be the type of parent that look up to your children for sustenance, be the one that lay up inheritance for your children and their generation, set them on the right footing and watch them grow to maturity.

To the youth and young adult, be responsible; be involved in the family institution and its development. If your parent fail to help you discover your personality at a tender age, its time to wake up, re-discover yourself, don’t be the one that’s 30 years old and still occupying space in your parents domain, if you are, be involved with the family maintenance and expenses. Don’t be big for nothing, but in responsibility, you have come of age, you can make decisions that will positively impact your life. Be a contributor, not a collector, it’s your responsibility to sustain the great virtues that your parent have instituted in the family, improve on it and help to keep your family on that level of permanent success. Don’t blame your present circumstance on your family, if you are not satisfied with your condition, it’s your responsibility to make a change and be the change you want to see in others.

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Responsibility to yourself

This is the first thing you must do in your quest for the life of success; you must be responsible for who you are and where you are. Your present circumstance or position in life is a function of the cumulative decisions you have made in your life, deliberately or otherwise. You are who or where you are today because of the good or bad decisions you have made in the past and your choices are like building blocks that help to shape your destiny. Do not get used to blaming everyone around you for whom or where you are in life. So where ever you find yourself today, you must take responsibility.

To be responsible to yourself, means that, you must be a man or woman of integrity, people should be able to take you for your words and actions, you should be able to make accurate decisions at the right time and at the right place, you should be engaged in something meaningful, don’t stay idle at every point in your life and you must not shy away from the result or outcome of your decisions or actions. Do not be ashamed of who you are or where you are from, be responsible, and be proud of your person and what you do.

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3 levels of responsibility

Responsibility means accountability, taking ownership of your actions and inactions. You did not grow up for nothing; you grew up to take up responsibility. It’s a deliberate decision you must make, if you want to become a success in life. Be responsible for your word and actions as you journey through life, it earns you trust and if you can be trusted, people will not be careful dealing with you.

Join me in the month of February 2016 as I admonish you on the subject matter, it's going to be instructive and inspiring and I'm sure you don't want to miss it.  

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Don’t assume you know, be trained

Get every training and exposure you need to be effective at whatever you do, don’t just assume you know, seek more knowledge. Training is discipline, it’s not always comfortable but profitable, consider the little child in the nursery, who goes to school to recite same poem every day, it’s not as though it’s easy but it’s required for that child’s success in life as long as academic performance is concerned. It doesn't have to be enjoyable, but you must be trained.

If you refuse basic training in life, you will always pay for it, some times the hard way. If you will not learn to do your laundry, you will have to pay to get it done, same thing applies to every thing you do in life, so avoid cutting corners, always do things the way it is required of you and make effort to do more if you can.

Some time ago, I heard a story on the National Television Authority (NTA) in Nigeria, about one of the prominent athletes in Africa from Kenya who holds world record in long distance race, on how he started in life. He said as a young lad in the village, he runs several kilometers from farm house to school and vice versa every other day, he never knew he was training himself for success in life. He had to endure the days of small beginning when no one thought he existed but today, he is happy for it, his now a world icon. It does not matter who knows you or fail to recognize your effort, either on your job or business, just be your best at all time, the world will read of you soon and you will be celebrated in places you least expected because your fame will spread abroad.

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Training! Necessary prerequisite for successful living

In life, training is one of the necessary prerequisite for successful living, training comes in different forms but basically, you can be trained by someone or self and both can also go together. Whatever it is that you do, ensure you get the required and adequate training in order to be well grounded and not be easily tossed around. Know your onions and be a professional at what you do.

Let me call your attention to this truth; by simple training, you can become and achieve anything in life. Training requires a lot of discipline and stringent commitment to your course. The training you received is what produces result for you, no matter how strenuous things become in the scheme of things, the training you have received will keep you standing. For example, a soldier is trained to endure hardness and function in all possible condition they may find themselves and this is evident in the discharge of their duty. 

Your ability to do what is expected of you irrespective of the prevailing circumstances is what makes you a success, you must not be too comfortable with managing life or merely surviving, No! You should be in control, be in charge and refuse to let life challenges toss you around like you are a novice. Do not be ignorant of the negative programmed system of this world, where every thing seems to be failing and falling apart. Consider businesses around you, most of them started strong and after some few years, they lost their drive and motivation. Have you ever wonder why most businesses around fails to survive up to five years of growing operations? The few that do are merely surviving but indebted and not making profit. Businesses are folding up, economic down turn, job loss, failure in government and governance… This is what we see all around us and in order not to be caught in the web; you must be trained and live by principles that will guide you on your path to success.

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Don’t be a copy, be original

Competition is part of the success journey, it could be healthy or unhealthy but you must not allow competition to distract you from your goals and purpose in life. Either on your job, business or academics, competition is good but you must be careful enough to observe that everyone in the world has his or her own destiny and we are all on different road to success. It will be unwise to use someone else’s yard stick to measure your success because each and everyone in this world probably knows where they are coming from and heading to as regards successful living.

Why do people compare themselves with others? Why do people want to be someone else, other than who they truly are? Sometimes, there are people who wish they were born into one wealthy family or the other. The truth is this, as long as you wish to be someone else, you can only be a copy not an original and this reduces and devalues your personality. It is unfortunate; we have several people stuck in this situation all their life. I challenge you to be the original that God has made you, refuse to be a copy of anyone, improve on yourself and be the best of you. You are not in competition with anyone, so stop comparing yourself to people, it brings a lot of unnecessary pressure on you and this affects your focus in life.

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Compete with yourself

As much as competition is part of life’s success journey, I encourage you to make it personal; you will need to learn how to compete with yourself, by this I mean competing with your past, present and future. Past successes and failures can become distraction or motivation to your present plan for the future, always look forward to out-do your past and have plans in place for the future because your dream for the future can serve as motivating factor to your success today.

Two things we look at here; you can be motivated by the success and failure in your past and you can also be motivated by your dream for the future. This is what I mean by competing with yourself, it helps to measure your level of success as you progress in life and it reduces a lot of pressure on you because you do not need to compare yourself to anyone else. Personally, this is one principle I live by and it has always worked for me, I usually have long and short term plans, my long term plan is usually five years while my short term is yearly and I try as much as possible to measure my short term plan monthly. This keeps me on track and guides me, if for any reason you derail from your plans, this will help serve as check and balance so you can get back on track as you work towards achieving your goals and plans. I encourage you to adopt this today, get a note pad; a good one you can treasure for keeps and write down your plans. You do not need to have all that is required to start planning; that’s the reason it is called planning. So write down your plan for the next five years; you’re here today, where do you want to be in five years? List the things you want to achieve within the period of time, when you are done, flip a new page and try to break down your plans into yearly. For example, if you want to achieve something in five years, how much of this can you achieve in one year? And further break-down your plan on monthly input in order to achieve your overall objective.

As a student in the university, in the year 2007, I’d a long term plan to be married by 2012, as at then, I never knew how it’s going to happen but I wrote it down and it happened according to plan. Whatever it is you want to achieve, write it down, you do not have to know how it’s going to happen, trust God and motivate yourself as I earlier admonish.

As a student in the university preparing for graduation, I wrote certain things down in my planning book; such as, “If after I graduate from the university and still depend on my parent for financial income, then am not wise”. Each time I flip through my book and see these write ups, it encourages me to do more, work hard and today I'm grateful. I've learnt to take care of me, my family and a lot of others around me. So the best way to compete is with your past, present and future. This helps you to remain focused and the issue of jealousy will not come to play, forget about the next person to you, who seems to have all that you so desire in your life, that’s his time, your time will come and it’s closer than you think. So keep doing the right thing, it’s only a matter of time, you will be there and remember your success is possible.

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Welcome to 2016… Time to succeed

I welcome you to the year 2016. It’s time to succeed, your success in this year is inevitable and there are no forces or demon hatched from hell that is strong enough to stop you. Your success story has been written, its time for you to assume your position and begin to celebrate your victories every month as the year roll out. I'm your partner in progress; I will be right here to support and motivate you to succeed against all odds with inspiring articles.

The world today is faced with numerous challenges across all sectors and it appear as though there is no hope but I have good news for you; I can see light at the end of the tunnel and your success is possible at whatever you do. No matter how dark it appears, it can only enhance the brightness of your light but you are going to get ready to do things differently in order to get better result.

I look forward to a beautiful year; together we can make our world a better place by helping one another to succeed. Look out for a human need and do something about it because in helping others, you will be helped.

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