For those who have been complaining abou

For those who have been complaining about the Nigerian Economy, this is a good summary of the economy for you. bit.ly/21mwIIS

Our Biggest Obstacle

Once upon a time in a faraway land, there lived a wise man and his disciple. One day in their travels, they saw a hut in the distance. As they approached they realized that it was occupied in spite of its extremely poor appearance. In that desolate place where there were no crops and no trees, a man lived with his wife, three young children and a thin, tired cow. Since they were hungry and thirsty

2015 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 240 times in 2015. If it were a cable car, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

10 Reasons Why You Don’t Need To Give Up

In life sometimes we all feel like giving up but we simply can’t, here are ten reasons why:

REASON 1: You have already started. There is no need in stopping half way. I am sure stopping half way would not bring back all the time you have invested in ensuring that you achieve this project/plan.

REASON 2: You are almost there. Most times, problems don’t come until you are almost there. Remember, one painful thing about life is not achieving something you knew you could achieve, something that was almost within your reach.

Avoid Limited Knowledge

A farmer, on the verge of death, called his two sons to him:

“My good and grateful sons, I’m not long for this world. Everything that I leave to you can be found in our vineyard.”

Should Anyone Be Jobless?

Vanessa Evans reached her mid-thirties, bored with her job as a paralegal. She had been promised more responsibilities, but more young, fresh-from-law-school attorneys were added to the staff. Finally realizing that her job was a dead end, she began taking stock of what she wanted to do with the rest of her life.

Somehow, she knew that becoming an attorney with the prospects of handling divorce suits and debating property line disputes was not for her. Vanessa was told by a job counselor that she was “getting to the age where she would be hard to place” and that she had just about reached her potential income level in the job where she was. The counselor urged Vanessa, at age 33, to be happy and stay put.

I wonder how many of us that has received this kind of advice in the past, when your parents, teachers, mentors and other experts told you the things you can do and the things you cannot do. Who is better placed to tell you what is possible and what is not? Who knows the power and beauty of your dreams more than you? How did Vanessa react to the advice of the job counselor? Let’s find out.

Angrily, Vanessa left the office, refusing to be limited by the tunnel vision of a job counselor. So what did she want to do with the rest of her life? She had many capabilities, but Vanessa couldn’t decide what she did well enough to make a career out of it. Finally calming down, the determined woman decided to start from square one. What had been her best subject in school? The answer was English. She began evaluating the career choices.

Teaching held no appeal, nor did advertising. It came down to two choices: Vanessa could either read other peoples’ work, or write her own. When she made the conscious commitment that she should be a participant in life, rather than an observer, Vanessa went back to night school and polished her writing skills. Before long, she was happily earning her living as an author.

If you take inventory of your talents, the skills you possess or the skill you can acquire, it will amaze you what will be the outcome.

I still don’t believe anyone should be jobless. There are things to do. Convert that hobby of yours and you could be on your way to building an empire.

All you need is the courage to start small and the discipline to stay focused until you achieve greatness.

It is in you!

My New Year – The New me

I and My Lovely Wife

Hello! Happy New Year 2015.

Last year was really great for me with loads of activities. To you my dear readers, please take this as an apology for not filling you in on with the happenings in my 2014 which ended with my marriage to my beautiful and lovely wife.

As I start the new year, here are my key goals:

1. To become a better me: Although this sounds cliche, I have never really taken the time to give this more meaning until recently when I started living with my wife. She has made me resolve to always be better. I want to be a better man, a better husband (even if I have just being one for 3 weeks), the best father (when the kids come) and to be on top of my league at work.

2. To reach my financial target: Shortly after my marriage, I and my wife sat down to plan for this year. We set a target for ourselves and we hope to achieve them. From daily to weekly to monthly expenses, we crossed all the t’s and dotted the i’s.

3. To be Thankful: Gratitude has always being something I do but not with intent. So this year, I would be grateful with intent. To begin this, I would start by thanking GOD for the gift of life. Also I want to thank YOU. Yes ‘YOU!’, for being there to read my posts.

4. To meet more people: I am introvert. This is not something to shy about. I wish to meet more people and do more for people because I learnt from my preparations for my wedding that it is in meeting and helping people that helps you get more from life.

Now the year has started, and so much has started with it. I pray for peace in my country especially in this election year when violence peaks that GOD will help us elect a better leader.

Do have a splendid year and please feel free to share with me how you plan to spend the year on all areas of life.

Act Now

Although I cannot verify the author of the story below, it surely passes the message of why we must act on our goals early enough in life.

“I got a masters in mathematics from Columbia, and for twelve years I worked as an investor. I made good money the whole time.

On some days I’d lose, but on most days I’d win, and every year I made good money. But then I got greedy.

I thought I’d found a sure thing.

There was a pharmaceutical company coming out with a new drug, and I got a tip that it was going to be approved by the FDA. And the sources who were telling me this had always been right before.

So I bet everything. I thought: ‘I’m going to double my money really quick, and then I’m getting out. I’m going to use the money to start my own business.’ I even borrowed money to put into this stock. I was that sure. 99%.

And the next day I got a call from my broker: ‘I don’t know what’s happening,’ he said. ‘It’s dropping fast.’ And sure enough, later that day they announced that the FDA had rejected the drug. Suddenly I’d lost everything, and I didn’t even own my apartment anymore.

I couldn’t get out of bed for months. I stopped eating and dropped to 125 lbs. Then one day my girlfriend tells me, ‘If you don’t get out of bed, you’re going to die.’ So I got a job as a stock boy at a retail store.

Twenty years later, I’m managing ten of those stores. I wish that I’d just become a stock boy in the first place.”

The best time to have planted a tree is twenty years ago, the next best time is now. Action Changes Things (ACT now).

Yes you should do it NOW.

Playing Safe

The story is told of a farmer who was sitting on his front steps during a planting season. A stranger stopped at the farmer’s house to ask for a drink of water.

“How’s the wheat coming along?” asked the stranger.
“Didn’t plant none,” replied the farmer.
“Really?” said the stranger.
“I thought this was good wheat country.”
“I was afraid it wouldn’t rain,” said the farmer.
“Oh, well, how’s the corn crop?” asked the stranger.
“Ain’t got none,” said the farmer.
“You didn’t plant any corn either?” asked the puzzled stranger.
“Nope,” said the farmer.
“Afraid of corn blight.”
“For heaven’s sake,” shouted the stranger, “what did you plant?”
“Nothing!” said the farmer. I just played it safe.”
 
Henry Ford thought of the possibility of everyone having access to automobiles and The Wright Brothers thought about the flying object and they acted on it.

Most of the inventions we enjoy today wouldn’t have been possible if men didn’t act on their dreams.
 
According to Og Mandino “I will act now. I will act now. I will act now. Henceforth, I will repeat these words again and again, each hour, each day, every day, until the words become a habit as my breathing and the actions which follows become as instinctive as the blinking of my eyelids. With these words I can condition my mind to perform every act necessary for my success. With these words I can condition my mind to meet every challenge.”

It was Aristotle that said “Whatever we learn to do, we learn by actually doing it; men come to be builders, for instance, by building, and harp players by playing the harp. In the same way, by doing just acts we come to be just: By doing self-controlled acts, we come to be self-controlled; and by doing brave acts, we become brave.”

People will judge you by your actions, not by your intentions. You may have a heart of gold – but so does a hard–boiled egg.

Do that which you have been putting off.

What’s your Excuse?

She overcame a lot of obstacle in her career, and she never let failure get the better of her. Her fist career was in direct sales and she was quite successful.

But she also found that it was difficult for a woman to progress in the corporate world especially in the 1950s and 1960s – even after twenty–five years of success.

She says, “I had worked my way up to being a member of the board of the company only to find that, even though our sales force was made up entirely of women, governed by an all male board, my opinions were of no value. I constantly heard, ‘You are thinking like a woman again!’ I felt rejection in the worst form. So l decided to retire.”

Her retirement didn’t last long. By the time a month passed, the idleness became unbearable. She was ready to start her own business.

If she was going to encounter obstacles, they would be there only because that would give every woman who worked in it unlimited opportunities.

She purchased the formulas to the best beauty product she’d ever found, worked up a marketing plan, and prepared to set up a corporation.

It didn’t take long for her to hit her first obstacle. When she visited her attorney to make legal arrangements for the corporation, he insulted her and predicted her failure.

He told her, “If you are going to throw away your life savings, why don’t you just go directly to the trash can? It will be so much easier than what you are proposing.” Her accountant spoke to her in similar terms.

Despite their attempts to discourage her, she moved ahead. She sank her $5,000 life savings into her new business – every cent she had.

She put her husband in charge of the administrative side of things as she worked feverishly to prepare the products, design the packaging, write the training materials, and recruit consultants.

They were making wonderful prayers. But then a month before she was to open for business, her husband died of heart attack right at their kitchen table.

Most people would never have been able to go on after that. They would have accepted defeat and faded away. But not her. She kept going, and on September 13, 1963, she launched her business.

Today, the company has more than $1billion in annual sales, employ more than 3,500 people, and empowers 500,000 direct-sales consultants in 29 markets worldwide.

She received just about every award an entrepreneur could dream of. Despite all the rejections, Mary Kay Ash made it to the top before her death.

What’s your excuse?