Each job is like a signature

Hello my viewers for sometime, I have not being able to share my thoughts on issues and things happening around me. I guess its because I’ve gotten too busy that I’ve forgotten the reason why I write. I know someone out there is learning one thing or two from my blog so just to get you inspired like I am, I share what I’ve read that could move you to be all you can be. Today, I share from the fountain of my mentor’s wisdom. Its the middle of the year and I do hope you enjoy every bit of it and feel free to leave a comment and tell me what you think.
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The story was told in Reader’s Digest published in 1995 about a young man named Greg. As a twelve-year-old he took summer jobs in his father’s small brick-cleaning business. His father made sure that he instilled the attitude of high standard into him. This he did by leading with examples.

At seventeen, Greg married his childhood friend who was only fifteen then. His marriage to Verlyn necessitated his moving out of his parents’ home into a housing project known for drug trafficking and gang violence where most people got killed or went to jail.

Everybody expected the marriage to break up soon being the fact that both Greg and Verlyn were teenagers. But the love and belief they had for each other kept them going and they worked hard to succeed.

Greg worked in a food packaging company as a bagger from where he was promoted to the position of a stock clerk. He took his job very serious and was very efficient which resulted in his being promoted to the position of a stock manager. He later joined a new company. His new company sent him to manage one of their unprofitable stores. The unprofitable store was the very one where he started as a bagger sixteen years earlier.

After 12 months, Greg and his wife decide to buy the store. Within a short while he turned the fortune of the store around and began to invest in other stores. Within ten years they owned eight stores with a total revenue of $52 million a year. Greg didn’t forget his father’s advice – each job is like a signature.

Sometime ago my car broke down in an environment where I did not know anybody except my host. To get the car fixed, he insisted on a particular mechanic and nothing could make him change his mind. I later saw the reason for his insistence. The mechanic signs his signature on every car he touches. I nearly convinced him to come open a shop in Lagos.

Most of us think of benefits first before embarking on any job. Attention should be focused on doing a good job first. The most important thing is to make a good name in whatever you are doing, so that when anybody wants services in that area, your name readily comes to mind.

Beloved, your name is only as good as the quality of work you do, so aim to be the very best in whatever you do.

Culled from Uju Onyechere’s post on MODELS & MENTORS INT’L group on facebook

Iron Persistence

The little country schoolhouse was heated by an old – fashioned, potbellied coal stove. A little boy had the job of coming to school early each day to start the fire and warn the room before his teacher and his classmates arrived.

One morning they arrived to find the schoolhouse engulfed in flames. They dragged the unconscious little boy out of the flaming building more dead than alive. He had major burns over the lower half of his body and was taken to the nearby county hospital.

From his bed the dreadfully burned, semi conscious little boy faintly heard the doctor talking to his mother. The doctor told his mother that her son would surely die – which was for the best, really – for the terrible fire had devastated the lower half of his body.

But the brave boy didn’t want to die. He made up his mind that he would survive. Somehow, to the amazement of the physician, he did survive. When the mortal danger was past, he again heard the doctor and his mother speaking quietly. The mother was told that since the fire had destroyed so much flesh in the lower part of his body, it would almost be better if he had died, since he was doomed to be a life time cripple with no use at all of his lower limbs.

Once more the brave boy made up his mind. He would not be a cripple. He would walk. But unfortunately from the waist down, he had no motor ability. His thin legs just dangled there, all but lifeless.

Ultimately he was released from the hospital. Every day his mother would massage his little legs, but there was no feeling, no control, nothing. Yet his determination that he would walk was as strong as ever.

When he wasn’t in bed, he was confined to a wheelchair. One sunny day his mother wheeled him out into the yard to get some fresh air. This day, instead of sitting there, he threw himself from the chair. He pulled himself across the grass, dragging his legs behind him.

He worked his way to the white picket fence bordering their lot. With great effort, he raised himself up on the fence. Then, stake-by-stake, he began dragging himself along the fence, resolved that he would walk. He started to do this every day until he wore a smooth path all around the yard beside the fence. There was nothing he wanted more than to develop life in those legs.

Ultimately through his daily massages, his iron persistence and his resolute determination, he did develop the ability to stand up, then to walk by himself – and then – to run.

He began to walk to school, then to run to school, to run for the sheer joy of running. Later in college he made the track team.

Still later in Madison Square Garden this young man who was not expected to survive, who would surely never walk, who could never hope to run – this determined young man, Dr. Glenn Cunningham, ran the world’s fastest mile!

However bad the situation may be currently, there is room to start all over again. For no reason should you think of giving up. NEVER!

The Sixth Sense

Intellectual education influences the head and values-based education influences the heart. In-fact, education that does not train the heart can be dangerous.

If we want to build character in our office, homes and society, we must achieve a minimum level of moral ethical literacy. Education that builds fundamental traits of character—such as honesty, compassion, courage, persistence and responsibility—is absolutely essential.

We don’t need more academic education; we need more values education. I would stress that a person who is morally educated will be a lot better equipped to move up in life or succeed than a morally bankrupt person with excellent academic qualifications. Character building, teaching of values and ethics come in the formative years because a child is not born with this knowledge.

A study attributed to Harvard University found that when a person gets a job, 85% of the time it is because of their attitude, and only 15% of the time because of how smart they are and how many facts and figures they know. Surprisingly, almost 100% of education budget go to teach facts and figures which account for only 15% of success at work!

We are born with five senses – touch, taste, sight, smell, and hearing. But successful people have a sixth sense – commonsense. Common sense is gained in spite of, not necessarily as a result of, education.

How come one person moves forward with one success after another, and yet some are still getting ready? How come one man goes through life crossing one hurdle after another, accomplishing his goals while another struggles and gets nowhere? If the answer to these two questions can become part of the curriculum, it could revolutionize the educational system.

Most people don’t make any attempt to learn new things because they assumed that getting university certificate means being experts in what they do. According to Charles Handy “Those who are always learning are those who can ride the waves of change and who see a changing world as full of opportunities, not damages.

They are the one most likely to be survivors in a time of discontinuity. They are also the enthusiasts and the architects of new ways and forms and ideas. If you want to change, try learning one might say, or more precisely, if you want to be in control of your change, take learning more seriously.”

The highly successful you see in the society still learn, that’s why they are successful. Ayo Arowolo once said, “Most informed millionaires treat learning as a life long venture. They seek knowledge no matter how expensive.”

Are you willing to invest in yourself by learning a new thing today? Remember each one of us is directly or indirectly responsible to what happens in our life.

Culled from Uju Onyechere’s post on Models & Mentors Int’l group on facebook