Data Loading...
How to Create a job Flipbook PDF
How to Create a job
105 Views
31 Downloads
FLIP PDF 1.02MB
The Creative Leaders Institute ™ is a registered trademark. Copyright©2014 Creative Leaders Network (Pty) Ltd and Pastor Keem All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval systems now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, blog or broadcast.
The Creative Leaders Institute Tel: +27-78-4109514 P.O box 291721, Melville, Johannesburg 2109. www.creativeleaders.co.za
1
CONTENTS: Endorsements Foreword Preface Author’s introduction
Chapter 1- Fools rush in where Fools have been Chapter 2- The graduates Dilemma, What went wrong? Chapter 3- The new world order Chapter 4- Heading for a personal revolution Chapter 5- Look for customers not Jobs Chapter 6- Designing your path to success Chapter 7- Locating your mission and setting goals Chapter 8- Fertilisers of creativity Chapter 9- How to create a job Chapter 10- Self management tips in the job creation process Chapter 11- The Energy within
2
Chapter 1: FOOLS RUSH IN WHERE FOOLS HAVE BEEN (The mousetrap) “A wise man learns by mistakes of others, a fool by his own” (Latin proverb) The only reason why mousetraps keep in use is because mice refuse to learn from the demise of those that are trapped before them. The challenge here is when in vain you wait to see the return of those who went before you, you develop the temptation to think that there is so much to grab out there or else why would they take that long to return? So you dive in without further questioning. In actual fact however, most of them will have been trapped, desperately trying to figure out by trial and error how to escape the horror. Why then do we continue to have this obscene rate of graduate unemployment and underemployment in this country, while on the other hand there are lots of undone jobs? There are too many things out there waiting for someone with ideas, creativity and committed mind to fix them! Why do such big armies of school graduates have to storm city streets waving their certificates in dire frustration to already over-staffed work places? The story of an Eagle who thought it was a chicken Anthony de Mello’s fable of the Eagle who thought he was a chicken, the story goes thus; A man found an eagle‟s egg and put it in a nest of a barnyard hen. The eaglet hatched with the brood of chicks and grew up with them. All her life the eagle did what the barnyard chicks did, thinking she was a barnyard chicken. She scratched the earth for worms and insects, she clucked and cackled. And she would thrash her wings and fly a few feet into the air. Years passed and the eagle grew very old. One day she saw a magnificent bird above her in the cloudless sky, it glided in graceful majesty among the powerful wind currents, with scarcely a beat of its strong golden wings. The old eagle looked in awe. “Who is that?” she asked. “That‟s the eagle, the king of the birds”, said her neighbour, she belongs to the sky. We belong to the earth- we are chickens”. So this eagle lived and died a chicken, for that‟s what she thought and was taught that she was. I have witnessed a sizeable number of the “would be” great lawyers working as accountants, models working as secretaries, artists becoming doctors, engineers driving taxis etc. I am not saying those occupations are bad, but my dear friend, if God made you to be an eagle;
What business are you doing with the chickens? How can one avoid rushing in where fools have already been? How can you know whether you were born to soar like an eagle? How can you distinguish yourself from the chickens? Will you let the chickens around you determine what you can and cannot do with your life? How can you learn to identify the systematic barriers to living your life fully? How can you contribute to eliminating those barriers in society? Where is the starting point?
3
My pain To my understanding, poverty of a nation or an individual is not a natural condition; it is created by people‟s mindsets and actions. Therefore, the people of this country have no excuse for being poor. In fact if you come to think about it enough, we should not be talking about job or wealth creation. The wealth is already here, we should be talking about “wealth actualisation”. God already created the wealth, all we need is to appreciate and convert it in its natural form to whatever we need for a prosperous society. A country that is abundantly endowed with resources which are largely untapped, ironically waiting for someone from somewhere to come and exploit! Convert this country‟s abundant resources into personal and social prosperity. This is the simple thing most have failed to do, but to the very few including foreigners have mastered it, may be because of their exposure. That‟s why we shall remain their slaves until we change our mindset. We have a serious problem; and that is the problem i want to address in this part of the book. It is a problem that makes us live half-lives as though we were supposed to be chickens. The kind of education you receive, most times determines your mind-set and ultimately our condition of life. Although the home still plays a big role in the education process, in our modern times the school is a major agent for mental conditioning. It is the dormant shaper of your thinking. The mindset you acquire in school rules your world, and here is the bad news; in this country people go to the right schools and study the right things but they are taught in the wrong way. Most likely, you too have gone through this experience. This is the experience that reduces most of us, from the would-be flying eagles the Almighty God created us to be, to becoming self-styled chickens. I have gone through the same humiliating experience too, but thank the Almighty God who gave me the courage to say No and became a calculative rebel. I decided to move outside the box! This affords me the dual benefit of being able to look in several dimensions both inside and outside the box. I am not a prisoner of that box anymore. I also feel happy that I have met a number of successful people seated on the same fence. So am not alone here, I am inviting you to join this company as well! Having spent an average of fifteen years in school studying something, the most certain request a university graduate will make to you is, please „Help me look for a job”. Meaning the whole schooling experience is not really about creative knowledge, it is simply a conformist adherence to what the school has instilled. That is why those who have served fewer years on the school benches and we obscenely refer to as school drop-outs; are the ones who create the jobs that the graduates are desperately looking for. There must be a big problem in this country with this equation. It is not balancing at all. Unfortunately, these jobs too are no longer abundant as they used to be in the 70s, so someone not lucky enough has to wait for years to get one. But is this waiting necessary or it is an unnecessary product of a dysfunctional system? Escape this trap before it‟s too late my dear friend. I would find it shameful to find a lion competing with goats. So I challenge and charge you, if you were born to be a flying eagle, what business do you have scratching soils with chickens? I don‟t mean to be rude; it is not a crime to be chicken; but let eagles be eagles and chickens be chickens! Of course you can‟t put in what God left out, but you do evil if you kill what God put in. These are the critical questions that almost never arise during the school process; hence, answers to them are rare to find in our midst. Especially among the schooled;
Can you create your job while still in school or as soon as you leave school? How do people who created the jobs you are looking for start in the first place? 4
What kind of mindset do you need to be like them? Can you be one of them?
My responsibility I am greatly encouraged by the many people who contact me to share with me the fact that their thinking and life in general was transformed by reading this book. I never set out to be a writer, but i will keep doing it if it is playing a role of provoking people out there to put on lenses that can enable them to see themselves in totally different and better ways. If through writing I am acting as a ladder by which you can climb to the fence of extraordinary mentality so you can” think outside the box”, then so be it. I profoundly recall the most puzzling question that our teacher put to us: “Is man born or made?” It took some of us a whole term to understand that the answer is „both‟. Man as a member of the society, is not merely born, he is also made. It is society that makes us who we are. Hence, society must carry the blame for the social illnesses that infest it. As the saying goes, whenever you point an accusing finger, the other three fingers are pointing at you. Likewise, while our society tends to judge and point the accusing finger at our young generation, the other three fingers are witnesses of the defendant. These three fingers reflect responsibility back to society, respectively. Each of these three fingers challenges the society to ask itself:
What is it that we should not have done but we did? What is it that we should have done but we did not do? What is it that we can do to change things?
These three questions are positive; they give me energy to keep me thinking and taking action. They prompt me to wake up and write. They give me the words to speak and the desire to reach out to more people with this message. I perceive that I have a part to play as a member of the very society that is swamped by the ills I am criticising. I take it as my personal responsibility and duty as a member of society. My ultimate mission is to take you the reader through a life changing experience. The insights shared are focused on enabling you to develop a richer world view that you see possibilities and opportunities you may not have imagined before. I want to enrich your ability to look at life and your profession from a point of view that gives meaning and direction to a futuristic perspective of life. I intend to inspire you into leading a life style that every day addresses the question: How can I contribute to improving my personal life and humanity? A life style that makes life worth living! It is my humble hope that this book and my teachings will contribute to the creation of future leaders, new self-made billionaires, a new generation of critical committed thinking youth and disciplined young people who can champion innovative ideas that will actualise wealth for them, this country and the world at large. Hopefully, this is an idea forceful enough to change human behaviour because I believe it is compelling enough to unite all people above their racial, social class, political, educational, sexual or religious differences. It is about “Getting the best out of each person”, based on the understanding that we are better together. It is premised on the view that individuals can only achieve authentic success through the support of other people. My optimistic view of life is that we can learn to seek in others
5
what builds us. It is based on the understanding that personal advancement is naturally pegged on how much we have to give to society. We prosper in direct proportion to what we give. Why focus on the youth I argue like Giroux and Giroux (2004) that “Any discourse about the future has to begin with the issue of youth because more than any other group youth embody the dreams, desires, and commitments of any society‟s obligations to the future….and offers a measure of its progress”. In the past, society traditionally left formation of character to the homes, the schools and religions. But these institutions are fast running inadequate in this function as time itself. Too few homes have any idea how to give education for life, let alone have time for it. Schools have as well abdicated to merely technical and academic training. Yet millions of youth never go near a place of worship, and those who do, still complain of the inadequacies of the religious leaders in handling practical issues. So the need has now degenerated into a delicate challenge. We must reach out to young people so they develop the stature of empowerment required to survive and thrive in this increasingly complex society. „Youth‟ is the greatest time of greatest possibilities in one‟s life time. It‟s indeed the crossroads where the verdict of the future‟s fate passed. Even if all has gone well in earlier development stages, as a youth you face a promised land that is also a strange land. This book is intended to help young people minimise the array of regrets in their adult life. No matter how much your elders try to give you, you yourself must find a pathway and build a settlement of your own. That is why as a youth you must discover who you really are, your reaches and limits, your identity, and of course your projected role in the adult world. By now you must be able to visualise yourself already in the future. We call this planning. Planning simply means „Organising the future‟. Remember the Old proverb “He who fails to plan, plans to fail”. On a macro outlook, the quality of ideas that dominate the minds of the youth, determine both the present and future trends of development in any society. If the youth lack vision and proper sense of direction, the entire society will most likely take that course. If fraud and moral decay are the major contending forces, then society cannot save itself from the perpetuity of hyper-corruption. If the youth‟s ideas, creativity, potential and love for work is not developed, then this country cannot exist in a mode of interdependence; instead we will continue to be dependants, a sub-human condition that reduces us to second class citizens of the globe, perpetual recipients of aid, surviving on hand outs like destitutes. If the virtues of patience, persistence, politeness, self- reliance, spirit of humanity and patriotism are not inculcated among the youth. This country will continue to witness a population suffocated by apathy. Ultimately, therefore, this book manifests my personal ambition to expose the youth and enable society to create a new generation with a clear vision and required mindset to reach the vision. We need a generation of creative and disciplined young people who can champion innovative ideas that will actualise wealth for this country; a country that is so endowed with resources that are largely untapped. Like a fisherman faithfully casting his net into the deep, I have cast my net. This is my humble part in the struggle for „Social reform’. I do not propose a revolution because we do not need one. I trust that this advice can contribute to a reform that will mitigate the adverse effects of the paper- chase education system, which as a result tends to suffocate the most important dimensions of human beings. 6
No doubt the house is on fire and there is a humble but vital role that I can play. Symbolically speaking, with this book I am pouring out a bucket of sand. Hopefully it will extinguish a significant part of the fire in this burning house. The subject of this entire book is about the crisis of individual character-a personality question. We should bear in mind that the weapons in the struggle for character reform cannot be guns, striking, bullets, teargas or strict laws. These can forcefully change and condition peoples actions but not their character, which emanates from inner convictions. Hopefully these insights from this user guide will enable you to become the captain of your life‟s ship to the best destiny. I cannot define what „Best‟ destiny is for you. Only you can do that.
7
Chapter 2: THE GRADUATES DILEMMA; WHAT WENT WRONG? “Not everything that can be counted counts; and not everything that counts can be counted”. -Albert Einstein “The essence of knowledge is to apply it; not having it to confess your ignorance”. (Confucius) In martial arts, there is a saying that goes; “A cup that is full, is useless. Only when the cup is empty it is useful. Just because academic grades can be counted does not mean that they matter most. And because they are no mechanism to measure and count what people have learnt outside the formal curriculum does not mean that it does not count. In fact, it counts most in real life. The challenge is, are we going to spend most of our lives in school where we are only judged by what can be „counted‟ or shall we spend it in the real world where the „uncountable‟ counts more than the countable? “The more studied you get, the more foolish you become”, Mao Tse-tung warned. The nasty conclusion that Mao Tse-tung arrived at was a reflection of what he observed about most people who had received a great amount of schooling. Their capacity to think creatively and apply their God given gifts would have been replaced by high capacity to think critically in a linear manner. It would have been replaced by the fear to take meaningful risks in life. Question; why must those who have stayed longest in school always wait to be given jobs by those who were too disadvantaged to stay long enough in school? So, what‟s the relationship between going through the ranks of the school and ones capacity to create or perform? Unemployment of the educated is hitting real hard. Many have given up lining the streets of cities and towns; now they have resigned to locations and villages. Not that they are looking forward to transforming them, but the villages have become more accommodative hiding places. Stress and frustration are vividly manifested in the rocking rate of heavy drinking, substance abuse, unwanted pregnancies and crime-related activities among the youth, and the obscene levels of graduate unemployment and underemployment. A whole generation that is lost in the jungle are living testimony to the fact that we are in a serious need of a “Revolution of values”. Education was once assumed to be the only ticket to personal and social advancement. Instead, it seems to have become one of the key factors of personal and social tragedy. What I mean by this is that scarce family and national resources are sacrificed to provide for education for our young people, but what we get mostly are disoriented, dysfunctional graduates, who are of little use to themselves, their families and society; especially when compared to their potentials, what is spent on them, and the enormous possibilities that remain untapped. Economists agree with me that it‟s the people of the country, and not its finances or its material resources that ultimately determine the character and pace of its social and economic development. But because largely the education offered in most third world countries, especially Africa, does not endow its young people with skills, knowledge, attitudes and the creativity needed to translate a nation‟s intellectual capital and abundant natural resources into wealth. The climax of this crisis is manifested in millions of youth; a whole generation lost in the jungle. Highly schooled yet not educated, well-read but not learned, ambitious yet without any empowering 8
vision and sense of mission, pretend to be different yet behave like beasts, meant to be domestic but find more comfort on streets. Yet in all this, none can dare raise an accusing finger at them. How could they be otherwise if their natural talents have been suffocated by inappropriate education and lack of proper mentoring and guidance? Their self-esteem too is constrained by lack of inspiration. How can educationists connive with parents to use intimidation in the name of „discipline‟ then we hope to get products that believe in themselves and are creative enough? Their hopes are shattered by lack of positive character formation. This hammers the last nail into the coffin of their pride in being Africans. They prefer being self-willed slaves in foreign lands than being called „educated refugees‟ in their own motherland. Why should we blame them when their discipline has been malnourished by inadequate ethical formation? And if their patriotism has been castrated by absence of interest for the common good among their leaders, do we expect them to acquire it by magic? Conventional school organisation seems designed to produce superficially competent people who, underneath are evasive, self-interested, ruthless, frustrated, cautious, obedient, timid conformists; They will be complacent about approved achievements and easily humiliated by public failure; They will have spent so much time at school struggling to acquire knowledge that does interest them and skills that are irrelevant to them that they will probably have lost all their confidence in the value of their true interest and talents; They will be people who don‟t care much about others, because most people have never seemed to care much about them. Whereas; the ideal school leaver would be literate and numerate of course, but they would also be happy, considerate, honest, enthusiastic, tolerant, self-confident, well-informed, articulate, practical, co-operative, flexible and creative individuals, Determined people who knew what their talents and interests were, had enjoyed developing them, and intended to make good use of them. They would be people who care for others because they had been cared for themselves. The challenge you have is to be honest to yourself, do a critical stocktaking and finally ask yourself; where do I lie? Having studied whatever i did, I am I all I ought to be? Am I adequately prepared to meet the challenges of the world outside school, college or university? If not, why not? Therefore, what next? I believed that the reason why education is “missing the mark” has to do much with the approach than the content. The school certificate is seen as the one-way ticket out of poverty and the „curse‟ of manual labour. By this standard, Paul Harrison put it; “Investment in education is likened to buying an expensive lotto ticket, where predictable chances are more inclined to the losing side than on the winning end”. Students are encouraged to learn things by rote and are discouraged from asking the critical questions that would instead lead to their creativity. Most teachers perceive themselves as „experts‟ hired to fill empty containers like pump attendants. Whereas they are supposed to be like „midwives‟; people experienced at inspiring and facilitating learners to manifest their own potentials so as to develop them. In short, we have an education system that emphasises how many „papers‟ one accumulates than how one can develop and skilfully put to use his or her natural inherent potential to put bread on a table. As young people, we all have sparkling dreams about the future we would like to live; Sooner than later, these dreams begin to vanish fast one by one not because they are inherently impossible, but because of the conditions created around us by the social systems.
9
Our society (you, me and the government) is now faced with a challenge of continuously asking ourselves how we can prevent more of this from going on. Quite simply, how can we keep the eagerness and sparkle in the eyes of those young people who yearn to become successful human beings with a purpose? How do we prevent their enthusiasm from degenerating? We need to find ways to address this serious problem by making the social experience worthwhile. It is a sad reality that only 5% of the students achieve their childhood ambitions. Does it have to be this way anyway? We need to ask ourselves how it is possible that such beautiful brilliant, energetic, able bodied young men and ladies allow with ease the waves of circumstances to blow them in any direction of its choice?. Why is there such a disheartening ending to so many ambitions and even lives in this land of plenty where even the humble back-grounded person like the Zahara‟s Loliwe fame simply learnt the missing link through plucking a wooden guitar and vocal code flexing, and they sit with the VIPs! Yet the answer to the above questions is not hard to find. It is simply because the social systems and institutions are wrong and that people just conform to circumstances. They have not been taught the art and science of defining their mission (to know what their life is all about) and to set the intermediary goals that will enable them live to the mission. They have not learnt to develop the discipline that would make them strong enough to safeguard their ambition. It is because many people feel and think they are powerless to do anything effective with their lives. Yes education is good, but not always. As the saying goes; “Ninety-nine per cent (99%) of rat poison is clear wheat, it‟s only the one per cent (1%) that kills; likewise, all the benefits of education notwithstanding, in its form as we know it today, there lies a poisonous „one per cent‟ that kills slowly but surely. Education system discourages personal creativity and initiative, and makes people get lost in the crowd. It creates a problem of having people wanting to live what the masses live. It strives to make everybody identical like beans in the pot. The failure of young people to find their own beat and march to it is the major reason of the crisis. There is a tendency to believe that whatever people in significant numbers are doing must be the correct or otherwise, so many people wouldn‟t be doing it if it wasn‟t the best. That leads the majority of the youth to follow the corpse into the grave, like the proverbial fly. That belief that is whatever is popular is superior. Education has brought people to lose their individuality and uniqueness, the real seedbed of creativity and invention. Everyone wants to go by the standards and the sign of „Generation X‟, no matter what it costs or benefits, just as long as it fits into the popular way. It is a suicidal tendency for our actions to be guided by what our eyes and ears reveal rather than what the silent, invisible inner power of reason holds. At this very moment take a chance to ponder: Have you ever bothered to think that you may be following others who are in turn following you? If this is true, then nobody has a sense of direction. We are simply playing a game of chance. That is why the majority of us are simply leading a life composed of mere accidents and not planned sequences. The tragedy of our generation is a crisis of people living without a sense of purpose, mission, and goals. If you went around asking both young people and adults what it is they are living their lives for, what‟s their vision for life is? You will discover, unfortunately, that possibly, over 90% are living simply because they were born. They go to school not for any purpose but because every other child around goes to school. Therefore they look for a job simply because all people look for jobs after studies. If they can, they buy a car, get a loan house, and have fun at month end when the pay cheque arrives, simply because it‟s the fashion of the day. Dancing to the beat of a different drummer rather 10
than your own, that has killed any hope for a creative generation in all third world developing countries to translate our plentiful land into prosperity. Social reform begins with personal reform, no system or programme, however good it may be, will ever bring peace, freedom and prosperity to society if it fails to find a way of creating a new person, and especially a new type of youth. The reason is obvious, the future and continuity of society depends on how the youth are formed in the present, for upon their shoulders is the pro-creation and socialisation of tomorrow‟s generation. The efforts to shape peoples character is the paramount equation that yields positive social reform. It is in the chambers of the hearts and minds of the people that battles are won and lost. Ours ought to be a war against wrong mindset and character, not a battle against the wrong ways people do things. It is the mind-set that influences the will power. For we make our habits, then our habits make us. The question to ask ourselves is; what aspects of the system breed and nurtures the behaviour that we want to change? This is to acknowledge that it is the system that influences people‟s behaviour, sometimes even against their will. So how can we align social systems? In this case the educational system, so as to change people‟s behaviour: From job seeking mentality to a job creating tradition. It is my deep conviction that in the heart of this darkness we can still find an answer, or at least, we can make a way if we don‟t find one within our present circumstances. Even when caught up in the tunnel of darkness, we always have a choice- to curse the darkness or to light a candle. But all begins with readiness to change the way we see things. It calls for a paradigm shift. I think the answer lies in redefining and redirecting the education system and programming and de-programming ourselves in our mindset. Our education system Back to the history of education, it was during the industrial age, that the demand for employees grew. In response, most governments took over the task of mass education and adopted the Prussian system, upon which most African schools of today are modelled. When you research the philosophy behind the Prussian education, you will find that the stated purpose was to produce soldiers and employees….People that would follow orders, and do as they were told. This Prussian system of education is a great system for producing employees. It‟s a matter of training. Unfortunately, real life out of school has nothing to do with impressing anybody with academic marks! Yes, it used to count the most until the end of the 20th century, but in this 21st century the story is different. Real life out of school has to do with impressing society with what you can do and with what you know to make people‟s lives better. That is what society rewards you for. Not marks you get from exhibiting a high memory power. A society that does not enable its people to learn how to do this cannot develop in anything else. That is why unnecessary poverty, unemployment and under employment loom in this country. But it is also the very reason why it can be erased. We can change our thinking. Therefore, things can change. Certainly, I am not advocating for the “De-schooling of society”, I know that going to school is of such great value and indeed a human right. That why I pride myself in the education I received and I will forever be thankful for the formal school, handed me the most powerful tool of the 21 st century: knowing how to read, write and communicate. I have also encountered many mentors who have handed me the discipline of critical inquiry, without which I would possibly be barely half the person I am today. School is an essential part of us.
11
However I quickly caution that the school can also be a place where human beings are slowly and unknowingly reduced to a sub-human level. I have seen school disorient people into mere memory machines who are simply charged with remembering what the teacher said and reproduce that in exams, then get rewarded with marks and certificates. I have seen the school crashing people‟s selfesteem, being called losers because they failed a certain question and also making humans live in the shadows of other people. I have seen the school comfortably pass out graduates who don‟t have even the slightest clue about what their personal mission statement is, though they are expected to master by letter, the mission statement of the company they will work for. To my understanding, education was meant to enable its beneficiaries become aware of themselves and their surroundings, appreciate their circumstances, enable them to develop their skills and knowledge, influence their attitudes and promote those values that enable them to exploit their inner potential in whichever circumstances they may find themselves in. In short, education should be intended for self-enrichment and the prosperity of the wider society. Everyone who goes to school eagerly works towards graduating, at least at some point to join the world of work, hoping that they will find something worthwhile to do. Likewise, it is a dream of every parent to see their children through school and usher them into the world of work, whereas at a certain point in the history of this country graduating from college meant with an automatic access to a wellpaying job and a good livelihood. But as the saying in the Sun light bar soap advert, „the times have changed and so have the things‟. Paul Harrison rightly observed that, “Those who stagger through the thick and thin of the education process, and actually reach the oasis, but find no space for them, are the ones who degenerate into a frustrated lot who will settle for anything in the name of survival”. Some have degenerated into fluent English speaking prostitutes, conmen, drug dealers, drug addicts and generally idle and disorderly lot, who have swollen the numbers of the educated unemployed. Our real tragedy is this: we seem to be looking for sophisticated solutions to a very basic question, for which a very basic solution already exists! It is a common characteristic of highly schooled people; we make the problem worse by first of all, missing the obvious, and then by guessing. Forgetting Leonardo Da Vinci‟s wisdom, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”. We must see beyond our already internalised stereotypes of what education should be. We must open our minds to the glaring reality written on the walls everywhere we go. We must admit that people are getting the wrong education. We must admit we have been victims of that same miss-education but the power is within our hands to change things. The solution If Africa and other third world countries are to triumph over the consolidating web of unemployment, underemployment, as well as apathy and poverty that comes with it, the current education process ought to be replaced with a more holistic one that is cantered on developing individual creativity, talents characterised by among others, productive skills that trigger prospects for job creation as opposed to job seeking, An education that makes individuals confident about their full status as true and human beings, as indeed they were meant to be. Broadly speaking, this can be realised through employing an approach based on helping each individual to identify their talents and using the education process to refine those talents with entrepreneurial, social and productive skills, relevant to ones circumstances. Paul Campbell pointed out, “Just as a nation which has the greatest knowledge, skills and resources for splitting the atom will be the first in the race for military power”. To me that means, “The people
12
who possess the secret and skills of changing human nature will be first in the race for ideological force adequate to remake the world”. One of the reasons that make countries such as America, Japan, China and Israel the type of nations they are, are the values they develop among their generations: “Greatness”. It is a high sense of confidence and patriotism that is cultivated in every child that determines the strategic status of those countries in global politics. We must start with reconstructing people‟s mindset to restore Confidence, Originality, Creativity and Hope. That is indeed the root of the answer, which will yield the fruits of economic change and social stability.
13
Chapter 3: THE NEW WORLD ORDER “New rules with old game, or new game with old rules” “The worst thing you can try to do is to cling to something that is gone or to recreate it” - Johnette Napolitano It was life during the Stone Age, and so it still is during the so-called knowledge age. Life remains the same but the rules by which it is played keep changing in correspondence with the changing dynamics. Some wish to play it with such rules and style as if nothing ever changed. To them the importance of moment and space is not an issue. They end up paying a high price for that suicidal pretence. Things cannot continue to be the same all the time even if you so wish. The new world order calls for new rules, although the game remains the same: Life. Those who master the rules of playing the game of life at any particular moment emerge as the victorious ones. They have learnt the dire necessity of changing according to the demands of the time in which they find themselves. The reward of those who defy the new rules is failure and mediocrity. We play the same game, but not with the same rules all the time, as far as time oscillate along its curve, it stirs everything and leaves them turned and mixed. Yesterday‟s composition and order of things is thus different from that of today‟s order. And so tomorrow‟s order of things will be different from the way things are today. Change is so much a fact about life that there is nothing much we can do about it. Change is the only constant in life. All things do change but change itself is a given. Unfortunately, society through its long established institutions and their systems has programmed us to think, believe and behave as though the “Past = the present and future”, or that we can do things the way we have always done and expect to keep getting the same results or even better ones. This is how most of us are suffocated under the illusion of university education and professional training as a “Preparation” for the real world. It is like grooming a mango seedling under the artificial conditions of the laboratory and then expect it to perform in the same way when transplanted to the natural, and all together very different environment of the „real garden‟. Now the economy is stirred up, its composition and order have changed; the job market is different from that of the 1960‟s, certain jobs have become obsolete. I guess the days are numbered for a teacher who has been groomed by the 20th century to use chalk and blackboards, the crystal plasmas, projectors and Skype classrooms are fast taking over dominion. Students are no longer using libraries to read, tablets, internet for research, Amazon kindle eBooks and social networking have taken over. To job seekers, the increased multi-tasking employment, what about the increased job outsourcing for the more experienced, Robots, technology and cheaper man labour from outside countries? The environment has changed and nature is behaving differently, a lot of non-renewable resources are nearing extinction while others are completely depleted. At the same time research is unveiling great possibilities that the past never dreamed of. Universities and college leavers are no longer assured of jobs on graduation as things used to be in the past. Unfortunately the mode of teaching and learning in our education institutions has changed little to take care of these new dictates. Most people first hear of „job creation‟ from the politicians speeches in campaigns and at graduation ceremonies. Only to reach the field and they realise that this un-tackled subject ought to have been at the core of everything they were taught. Not even as a 14
separate examination paper. I know that this was not necessary when the frameworks of the educational institutions were being formulated. But that was then, when there were more clerical jobs to do than they were people to occupy them. Every year, we witness thousands of school leavers, filling the streets of cities and towns, desperately marauding for any slight chance of employment, like starving vultures scanning the winds to detect the easiest prey. In this virgin economy, there are too many things yet to be done by somebody, too many wrong things to be put right, too many missing links, yet no one is there to do it. A young generation lost in a job hunt spree, creative people lost in other peoples companies and organisations, funny enough; still they are not happy working there. Although the subjects of the game remains pretty the same: To be the best one can be; the state of affairs certainly calls for a shift in the way we play the game, including the rules, styles and techniques. This game of life is about making ends meet, pursuing a fulfilling career, achieving personal mission and purpose. That is what gives meaning to one‟s life so that at the end of it all one can confidently say: “It was a life worth living” “I made a difference” “Indeed I was born into this world for a noble purpose” “At least I have won a victory for humanity” “Look, what a successful person I am.” We all wish we could say these things at a certain point in the course of our lives. But we need a preparation and a special orientation in order to reach this point; unfortunately, we hardly get it in the educational process that we go through. As a result, with a popular mode of thinking and doing things you cannot arrive at the moment of saying these words to yourself and the world around you. You have to change your thoughts and actions radically. I am not telling you the impossible because I have done it myself, and as I have already said, I have also encountered many other people who have done so. They moved out of the „box‟ in which society‟s thinking usually cages us and they are enjoying the benefits of operating from the “fence of the box”. I have trained professionals in workshops and I have witnessed humbling admissions of “I wish I heard this 30 years ago‟‟. Don‟t forget, we are first of all human beings before we are teachers, professors, doctors, pastors, accountants and engineers et cetera. Our basic and universal human quest is to find meaning in our lives (Purpose). Anything that robs that away from us, however flashy it may be, cannot satisfy our very nature. Right now, you reasonably have no idea what is it you are going to do with yourself when that day comes for you to exit the gates of the ivory tower (school, college, university). This is the nature of the mysterious world the education system has artificially created around you and me over time. It is the world in which you do not think you have much influence over your destiny because you can hardly claim your power to influence over what happens to you. Yet the energy is there idle inside you but the processes have not really taught you how to convert that latent energy into power to influence the course of your life.
15
Real life ought to be a game of give and take, unfortunately, with orientation you are more inclined to be on the receiving edge and barely on the giving end. Real life is about interdependence. But you cannot inter-depend if you have nothing to give. The simple mathematics of life is such that you cannot give what you don‟t have. If what you have is not adding much value to others, then you might as well fail to find a matching exchange. Yet, that is what the system makes of us: dependants on other people‟s knowledge and creations. We become objects at a lower concentration side of an osmosis process where the current must only flow into our direction and we end up not having the power to choose what to take or leave. Whenever school leavers are looking for jobs and you ask them, “what can you do?” you know the chorus to expect: “anything”. Of course it is not true that they are capable of doing anything, but what they are saying is that they are at your mercy. They know that their interdependence scale is so low and they have been prepared to be on the dependent end of the market. When we are in such a situation, everything flows our way indiscriminately, and all we can do is to respond to the dictates of others, healthy or unhealthy, constructive or destructive. It is a world by which your life is dominated by the forces outside of you. You only look for jobs which others have created, even when intrinsically you have the potential of creating a thousand other such jobs. Now, let‟s end the lamentations here. We have laboured so hard and long enough to try and understand the nature and root of the problem. In the remaining part of the book, we will deal with solutions. We will go back and begin with what was skipped- the known and drive towards discovering the territory of the unknown. When you learn to apply new rules, techniques and styles in order to unveil the unknown, you will now be in possession of the master key that opens every door of opportunity befitting the person of your stature. By the end of this book, your concerns will have shifted from the usual trivial worries about looking at jobs and job security to more ultimate concerns like how to become your own boss, personal freedom, innovation and access to world markets. But also answering questions like; Who am I? What is my life purpose? What is my giftedness and what can I do with it? What am I capable of becoming and how can I actualise it? What career will best help me to realise my personal mission? How best can I prepare myself for that career? What value do I want to add to humanity? What will I be remembered for? What path can I take now?
16
Chapter 4: HEADING FOR A PERSONAL REVOLUTION “Revolutions do not start in bomb factories; they start in ink pots” Francis Hackett This dictum by Francis Hackett underscores a major conviction I harbour. Ideas can change the world. Written and acted upon ideas have had such a great influence over generations and across boundaries. And so I hope that through this book I can make a contribution to the grooming of a new generation of empowered youth. But the story begins with you who are lucky to read these lines right now. Sometimes in our life the paths to the future turn out to be immensely obscured, and while we stand at the centre of cross roads, the universe appears more complex than we ever saw it. At this point we begin to realise that there are more rivers to cross than we had ever imagined and that the bed of sparkling roses we have fantasised about all along is nothing but in fact a deceptive illusion. It is crucial that we come to appreciate that the future is not going to simply be an extension of the past, but rather a whole new experience filled with daunting uncertainties. This assurance of constant change is the real reason for hope in a better future. Things can get better or worse; but they can‟t be the same forever. As a fresh school leaver, you soon learn about the huge difference between real life in the real world and the artificial life you lived at the ivory tower. Whereas the skills you need to thrive while at school is basically memory and the ability to reproduce what your academic masters expected of you, here in the real world the skill you need most is Creativity. And that is the scarcest resource, so scarce that most people never even search for it in the first place! In this real world, loaded with uncertainties, there are no ready-made answers and nobody can claim to know all or to be in possession of “A marking scheme”. You invent answers to specific situations at specific moments of which each is largely unique. The answers you came with while exiting ivory tower (school, college, university) become fast obsolete. To fit in the real world, you have to de-programme and re-programme yourself. That‟s the way things work out here, my dear friend! Realising this, is the beginning of personal revolution. Thus the journey will require you to do four things;
To master yourself The master the environment around you To boost your willingness to keep learning Focusing to your life‟s dreams.
It is a law of nature that you may not achieve everything you have dreamed, but you will never achieve anything without having dreamed of it. Though to some people, the power of their excuses is more powerful than their dreams. Throughout your coming years, you will most likely move in the direction of your dominant dream. To have no dreams worth your own life is to have no ambitions to live for. All the people you will meet who have achieved something great are characterised by one thing: the eagerness to learn more and experience more. And I know the day I stop being curious, is the day my soul, my creative power, my dream has died. Keep your curiosity on high and walk through this journey with me.
17
Writing this book came as my critical inquiry into the question of success and failure. It started with a quest to understand my own self as the basis for exploring the path to my future. This quest in turn sparked off a chain of questions. These questions I should say make up the aggregate formula of my present character. Central to this chain is the question “why do some few people lead a happy and successful life while the majority seem doomed to failure? Why would one person have a lot of money which would have been for the whole village? I am sure even you have had such questions at least once in your life time.” In the process, I have developed the conviction that anyone, whom God has given the gift of life and normal mind, has the raw material for peace, happiness and success within them. The height of success and happiness each one of us will ascend to is determined by the extent to which a person comprehensively discovers their inner self and learn to use the same to create the desired circumstances. This is the free God- given gift that makes circumstances creatures of humans rather than humans being creatures of circumstances. I do agree with S.B Fuller when he remarks that, “Poverty is the disease of the mind”. But i also hasten to add that other people‟s minds can as well have an impact on our lives to create either misery or otherwise. So don‟t miss understand me, I refer to „mind‟ in a broad comprehensive sense. It is for the very reason that this book is particularly based towards constructing a mindset that is favourable. The mind is our playing field in this journey through the world of ideas. We can‟t pursue a personal revolution without zeroing in on the mindset. Some people have called it reconstruction of the mental superstructure. As you will note, this book is saturated with a philosophy of the “abundance mentality”, which acknowledges the fact that “the Almighty God” has prepared destiny that is full of infinite riches for each one of us. This wealth is in the form of talents or potentials and the abundance that our environment has to offer. Once actualised, these become both the means and reason for a successful and happy life. Anyone who has a mind (and heart) is capable of becoming great in something, if he sets out to discover his or her inner potential and develop the same. For that is what underpins God‟s unique purpose for each one of us. If that person is facilitated to work smart and hard enough, with passion, focused on what they are gifted to do best, he or she will achieve excellence and success in one way or another of the many fields of human endeavour. I think that the source crisis in our time is society‟s failure to shape personal character in such a way that cultivates the discipline of self-mastery, self-respect, creativity and personal responsibility. I present fundamental answers by guiding you through confronting ultimate questions that majority exist and die without thinking about. It‟s indeed an inner voyage that gives you the opportunity to explore such questions as:
Who am I? Where am I coming from? What am I here for? Where am I going? How will I get there? What does it take? Where do I start? Whom do I need to journey with?
18
I have no doubt that by the time you read the last sentence of this book; you will have discovered that to master the laws that govern humans and things is to find the principles of authentic success. You will only be left to wonder why the path is that simple yet too few ever go for it. I wrote this book for you to demystify the obvious in life.
19
Chapter 5: LOOK FOR CUSTOMERS, NOT JOBS These are the words the celebrated management and leadership guru and author Charles Handy told his children upon their graduation. He explains in his book the Hungry Spirit that, “Only if you can make or do something that other people will pay you money for are you ultimately employable”. I call this the law of attraction. You attract opportunities in direct proportion to the degree to which you can offer what enriches other people‟s lives. If you don‟t have anything like that, then brace yourself for the job hunt race for the rest of your life. You chase one, get it, it slips away, you chase another.., and life goes on like that! What will people desperately pay you for? How are you going to make many people work hard to put money into your bank account? What talents, skills or competences t does the world need from you? Do you have any? Well if you do, this is the book specially written for you because you are a special person, and if you don‟t, maybe you need this special book more than anyone else. I have observed a special place for people who have learnt how to learn and to creatively apply what they know to solve people‟s problems or create new possibilities that make the human experience more fulfilling. It is a matter of short moments from now when the course you studied in school won‟t really be an issue, but what you know and how you can use it to add value to other people‟s lives. That is the main reason why we continue to see a rising number of “self-educated/ self-made/ selfpaid” people climbing to the top of the world. In many instances leaving behind those who are still buried in the paradigm of relying on what their school certificate‟s say they know. Brian Tracy once lamented, “Formal education will earn you a living, but self-education, will earn you a fortune”. The choice is in your hands. The world is in dire need of people who can make good things happen. Anyone who has mastered the discipline of doing just that will be among those who occupy a special place in the 21 st century global society and it does not matter where you come from. The password is learning something deep and broad enough that sharpens your skills and talents to provide a valuable service to humanity. Proverbs 18:16 “A gift opens the way for the giver and ushers him into the presence of the great”. I witnessed that when Caster Semenya (a Limpopo rural girl, distance runner and world champion) won South Africa a gold medal. It is not true to say that people do not care about your fate. They do. But I think the old adage holds the clue, “People do not care how much you know until they know how much you care”. Yet you and I know that it is common sense that people can only know that you care when you do something to their benefit. It‟s only an enriching action that can endear you to people. This book will open your eyes to the fact that the knowledge you have acquired in school is not necessarily irrelevant as some people argue. The only problem here is that your teachers did not do the most important part they were supposed to do. And it is also not their fault because when they went to school no one did it for them. So they are victims of the same system as you are. They were not taught how to make real life sense out of what they were taught. They were only taught how to pass exams well and how to make you pass them as well. In this book we will walk through a journey where you will learn how to derive the real life relevance of everything you studied. In school you acquired knowledge; this book teaches you how to develop knowledge. You studied subjects; this book will enable you to learn how to attach real life practical meaning to what you studied. Before you complete this manual guide, you will long have discovered your own key to worthwhile living. A living that will astonish you with career possibilities and 20
opportunities you could have never imagined, Possibilities that of course the school could not have enabled you to discover. You already know more than enough to build an overwhelmingly successful career. The only thing you need to do now is to learn how that knowledge can be translated into care; for that is what people will reward you for. The world does not need very many people to revolutionize human life, look at how humans like Bill gates of Microsoft, Steve jobs of Apple, Mark Zuckerberg and colleagues of Facebook and so on have changed the human experience. I myself in this book could also change your world, you could also be the person the world has been waiting for to create something, change the way we do certain things or organise society in such a way that reduces human misery. As you are reading this book, there are a couple of apparent repetitions. I have done this deliberately for purposes of emphasising certain issues which I think need to be hammered until they sound increasingly in the readers mind. After all it is the main job of all couches; to remind you what you already know. I have found this style to be effective, given the impact this book has already had on many people from all walks of life including myself. Thrivers and survivors “Some men go through a forest and see no firewood” English proverb A double faced basic principle governs the career lives of people living and working in the 21 st century. In this 21st century those who are narrow-skilled and off side minded may survive; but it‟s only those who are multi-skilled and right minded that will thrive. The bottom line here is the difference between surviving and thriving. The good thing about this century is that a person who knows how to read and write, to live on either side is largely a matter of personal choices than a product of external circumstances. I strongly do believe that you choose to be a survivor or thriver. Knowledge has taken over as the greatest factor of production. Those who will care to learn how to do a diversity of things based on deep and broad knowledge are the ones to take up key positions among the ranks of thrivers. The game is open to all; any one whose mind is open enough to the discipline of learning continuously is tipped to join these ranks. You do not have to have inherited land or other property from your parents; you do not have to have a lot of capital in your bank account before you can start to make things happen; and you do not have to be physically energetic for you to be a mover of things. To thrive means to live in secure abundance and happiness. It also means having so many alternatives at your disposal that you are not in any way living in constant fear of what tomorrow may bring. Thrivers tend to have a mind that is readily open to any learning opportunities that will make them so flexible and adaptable. They are helping to shape a new understanding of a truly educated person. They are people who have learnt so many useful things than their academic papers can explain and are now presiding over the dawn of a new era that questions the wisdom of using school certificates as the main parameter to qualify people for jobs. Their business is to showcase „what they can do‟ rather than waiting for society stereo types to tell them what they „should do‟ by simply basing on what their school papers say about them. To be a survivor on the other hand, means to live on the margin with the attendant risk of not even having the slightest insurance of the eventualities of tomorrow. My prophecy: In this 21st century we will witness a sizeable number of survivors among the highly schooled lot. They will hold a couple of degree certificates, but ironically remain severely miss-educated and uneducated. As Thrivers will 21
focus their attention on the security of personal capabilities and freedom, this growing mass of survivors will be most concerned with job security not knowing that the more security you seek, the less freedom you get. And we can‟t blame them, because that is what they were miss-educated to value. This amazing century, capabilities and competencies will take over as the main sources of personal security. Not contracts, not appointment letters or academic qualifications. The „job security‟ mentality is a liability for both the organisation and individual. My plea to anyone is to inform those administering in the public sector to wake up to this demanding reality. Actually the thrivers are not interested in job security anymore! Desperation with job security is a subconscious admission that you are not good enough to be critically needed. It is another way of saying that the employer is doing you a favour to employ you, so you must get to corner them to commit themselves to employing you for as long as you can possibly bargain for.
22
Chapter 6: DESIGNING YOUR PATH TO SUCCESS „To be what we are and to become what we are capable of becoming is the only reason for life” -Robert Louis Stevenson I am particularly moved when Sr. Jim Hayhurst, insists that success is personal, it‟s individual, and it should not be a society evaluation. If you try to live by others rules, you will never be satisfied or feel successful, because there will always be someone more beautiful, more talented, someone stronger or more successful than you”. This I captured in his book “The right mountain”. From my personal experiences and observations success is rather a by-product than a goal; it‟s a process rather than an end. Just like life itself is. You don‟t necessarily pursue it as a tangible result but it happens to you as a by- product of pursuing certain other things related to your purpose and mission in life. Life is so fair that it presents to all of us the possibility to become successful, no matter the condition, background or status. Whether that possibility becomes a reality in your life or not is a result of two important forces in your life, Opportunity+ Preparedness = Success. If other factors are constant, these two are the ultimate variables whose interplay determines the level of success you score in any of your endeavours. Opportunity One thing for sure, there are always constant opportunities in every circumstance in life. Deep down the remotest village, as much as they are high in urban level. In-between these extremes every activity has opportunities surrounding it, but only those who are prepared to recognise and seize it will benefit from it. Since opportunity is constant (for sure it is always there), preparedness is the only variable that makes a difference. The level to which you are prepared to seize an opportunity automatically determines the level of success you attain in life. Opportunity has another interesting mathematical aspect. Seizing the opportunity actually creates more opportunities, it has a multiplier effect. That is how the spectrum of opportunities broadens. It is a simple reason why only those who take action are the ones who actually become successful in life. The rule here is you cannot become successful by simply dreaming and fantasizing good ideas without putting any of them into action. Remember, great people are not simply equal to the great things they do, but also become great through making small opportunities great. Preparedness Preparedness here means the capacity and readiness to take action. It is your preparedness that gives meaning to the opportunities along the passage of your life. Whenever an opportunity knocks on the door of your life and finds you not prepared for it, it passes by, knocking on the doors of other people till it meets the person prepared for it. When he or she grabs it, it stays and mixes with preparedness and the result will be directly proportional to the magnitude of their preparedness. The more you are well positioned to take up an opportunity the more effective you will be at getting your desired results. As long as those results are a service or bridge to a missing link in society, in which form, that beget the side effect we call success. 23
Preparedness includes such dimensions as your level of Awareness (exposure), your mindset, the choices you make, your skills, competences and experience and more importantly taking action. I have used the concept of LIFE MANAGEMENT PYRAMID (LMP) below to illustrate why and how in the lives of successful people, awareness is the very foundation of life and indeed the ultimate basis for making worthwhile choices. The LMP also helps us to understand why choices made without the relevant awareness will most certainly produce such undesirable and unintended results as joblessness or underemployment, even after graduating; under productivity of the economic policies and programmes; malfunctioning of the educational systems etc. At a personal level, choices made in the absence of the required awareness can cause low job satisfaction and career stagnation, low personal effectiveness, low or lack of creativity, lack of selfcontrol and proper relational skills. The Life Management Pyramid (LMP) Outcome of all Results and life conditions
Action s Skills Choices Mind-set Awareness Self and environment
This scenario illustrates how the level of awareness, our mindset shapes the choices (plans) we make, and therefore determines the results we get out of our endeavours. Of course, if this principle applies to organisations, it will even more powerfully apply to your personal life. Your ignorance about reality cannot save you from getting the wrong results out of your endeavours, no matter how hard working you may be. Success in not simply working hard; it is about working smart. It doesn‟t matter how much the effort you are putting in; it is the results that matter, and the results are shaped by the foundation- level of awareness. This is the basis on which we craft our choices in life. That is how some philosophers have defined knowledge as “expanding the boundaries of your ignorance”. Each time your level of awareness grows, the circle of what you know expands to accommodate the new awareness. And this awareness in turn shapes the way you interpret your life and things around you. Let us explore these five LMP dimensions; 1. AWARENESS (Exposure) The more aware you are, the better placed you will be to make informed choices in life. When you are broadly exposed your interpretation of things and events around you is likely to be richer. You don‟t easily run short of options. Exposure is a very important determinant of your minds ability to generate creative ideas. That‟s why you see most business innovations in this country are initiatives of people who have travelled wide or done a lot of research. 24
When you feature for an interview with a person who knows a lot of stuff about different things, don‟t you think he or she is more prepared to attract that job than you are? Can you become successful in your endeavours if you know so little about so little? That is the thin line that separates the mediocre from the high achievers. Only on the basis of self-awareness and “other” awareness can you make sound, rational, logical and empowering choices. Say if you don‟t know how to spend, how can you make a realistic budget? If you don‟t know how much you are endowed with, and how much of the external environment there‟s for you to exploit, how can you make effective plans for your own development? Even Jesus, the miracle worker asked the boy to count the fish and loaves of bread he had at hand. Most likely, he wanted to determine how big the miracle he had to perform. If the miracle worker seeks awareness first before making a decision or choice, then what about a feeble and vulnerable mortal like me and you? Awareness comes after resource mapping experience, the quest to know more, the more you know about yourself, the more you appreciate your inner resourcefulness. And therefore, when you are making a choice about your life that awareness will definitely influence that choice. Likewise, your awareness about the things happening around you as well as your physical environment will shape your plans. This is because in the process of your continuous quest to broaden your awareness about other things outside of you, you will have done an environment scan. It is this scanning of the environment that brings to your knowledge important things that you need to know in order to make choices. It is in recognition of the importance of awareness in the decision making process that entrepreneurs will first conduct an industrial analysis, market research or feasibility study before deciding to venture into a new product. If the choices of powerful companies have to be based on the level of self and other awareness, imagine how much more you and I need it? Self and environment awareness The aspect of “self” awareness concerns how much you know about yourself. It is directed to the question who am I? On the other hand the aspect of “environment” awareness addresses the question: what is around me? Your magnitude of awareness at these two levels is the ultimate determinant of your choices. Self-awareness refers to the level of your knowledge about different dimensions about yourself. These include for example, how much aware are you about your mindset in terms of life philosophies, beliefs, attitudes, values, aspirations, biases and prejudices. It also refers to how much you know about your giftedness (talents), your interests, core values, your tendencies, strengths and weaknesses, your life experiences, abilities in terms of skills and competences. It seeks to identify the totality of your entire personality and what makes a unique individual, distinct from anybody else. It is pity that socialisation systems we are brought up under do not focus on helping each one of us to discover these critical aspects of our lives. As a result we make very important decisions about our lives without the required level of self-awareness and in the end we are most likely to get the opposite or less than what we wanted to get. You can hardly optimise your potential because you do not have even the slightest clue about it in the first place!
25
Self-discovery is the key The discovery of oneself is more important than the discovery of the world” (Charles Handy) Discovering one‟s self is the key to the main gate that leads to your inner resourcefulness. It is also the preface to success, fulfilment and happiness that lasts. We human beings are so funny when it comes to the way we deal with our own. We seem to value other things more than we value the human species itself. We tend to pay more attention and respect to those other things that are apart from humans. As a result, we end up knowing so much about those things and too little about us. If you want to get what I mean, just ask a teenager about his family background compared to what he or she knows about certain international superstar. Its pity that most people live and die without ever having understood who they really are. In the divine principle of creation, God endowed each person with a “Gold deposit” of sorts within. This treasure within may feature as very small attributes, but within their smallness are vested seeds of gigantic trees that have potential to make a vast forest. That is why great people are not only equal to the great things they do, but also very importantly; they also make small things great. How do they do it? By discovering their “Gold mine”, the inner power, freely God given and allocate it to the most appropriate place and role. What is heartening is that every one of us has this inner power. The disheartening fact though is that, unfortunately, too few of us ever get the awakening to take the trouble to discover it and utilise it. We praise superstars when we have what they have got inside us lying untapped. It disheartens more to ponder the fact that we die with those unutilised resources and they get buried with the corpse. What a waste! What an abuse of the divine work of Almighty God. The philosopher Seneca was right when he said that; “The tragedy of a person‟s life is not death; it is what dies inside of you while you live.” We all have to die, that is no cause for mischief, and is not an issue we can waste our time and energy debating. But what we do with ourselves as we live is a crucial issue worth strong concerns. As a youth you ought to be concerned with discovering your actual self as the basis for projecting yourself into the future. As you make transition into young adulthood, it is important to anticipate what lies ahead of you – to develop an insight of what is yet to be. This entails making a series of commitments (choices), which however cannot be prudently made without prior knowledge of who you are and what you value most. Such commitments (choices) may include the following:
Career commitments It actually implies your career plan, that which you want to spend your life for, keeping in mind that a career is an embodiment of one‟s way of life. Social commitments This entails deciding on the social networks that you want to belong to and therefore the kind of people you want to associate with and how you want to relate with other people. It is important to know many people and to make sure that many people know you. Hence, they will know you by who you are and what you do. Sexual commitments All young people in transition to adulthood are faced with this important decision to make. That is, making a sexual commitment as to whether to marry or remain single. What kind of spouse to spend your life with, whether to cherish monogamy, polygamy etc., while understanding that each of these options have implications and consequences. Ideological commitments 26
Most people understand ideology as one‟s way of looking at society. It means the way of looking at things that tend to be seen as “the only way” by the proponents and the beholder(s). Activists in different fields (e.g. human rights, gender issues, cultural issues, education, environment etc.) are committed to those things because of their ideological convictions. Do you know what‟s yours by now? Better know it by now because that is what determines the kind of political, economic or social ideology you will pursue in life. Still, if you are to use these as a checklist for making your decisions, then you will have to go through the inner search process that enables you to find out the right mix between your personal identity, your background, experiences and encounters, your knowledge, exposure and aspirations. Basing on the fact that, if you don‟t know what is it that you want to see, then you will see anything. It will always have a vacuum of emptiness because whatever you achieve will not be addressing the inner questions that define who you are. No one ever attains true happiness until they discover his or her convictions and follow them. A guide to self-discovery In order to appreciate both your actual self and ideal self, you need to go through an inner search process; we call it self-discovery. Through this process you will discover how gifted you are. By the same process you will also learn your personal limitations. The best way known to me, by which you come to discover who you are is by examining the following aspects about yourself. The benefit you derive from this exercise is that it helps you to set commitments that are realistically achievable and consistent with your aggregate personality. It saves you from building castles in the air and to simply stop at the level of fantasising. Now, examine the following dimensions of yourself as a guide to selfdiscovery.
Your Mindset and Emotional Inclination.
The great writer, John Powell wrote; if I am everything as a person, it is what I think, judge, feel, value, honour, esteem, love, hate, fear, desire, hope for, believe in and committed to. Indeed the major forces in a person‟s life rotate around three things: your values, beliefs and aspirations. As an exercise to help you discover your status as far as these dimensions are concerned, get a note book and a pen. On top of a blank page write “My values” then in a vertical manner, begin to list those things that matter most in your life, the things that you consider to be of paramount importance in your life. Try to list them in a declining order of importance. For example, some of the things I personally value most in my life include peace of mind, serenity and prayer, independence of thought, human dignity, talent, innovation, creativity, development, continuous learning etc. I am very aware of these values in my life and they influence almost whatever I do and how I do it. You also try to look in the inside of you and identify those things that come first in your own life. When you have finished the list of values, open another blank page and do the same for beliefs and aspirations. Beliefs normally arise from exposure. They have to do much with what we know. Now turn to yourself, open your inner doors and look yourself inside again to make a list of your beliefs: When you are done with the list of beliefs, embark on your list of aspirations. Aspirations are those things that you look forward to achieving or to accomplish in your life. When you are through, go back to each of these three dimensions: values, beliefs and aspirations, and each of these items listed under that dimension ask yourself “why”- why do I value this? Why do I 27
believe in this? Why do I aspire towards this? Then again ask yourself. “Is it the best I can pursue to become the best I can be? This quest will help you find out more about yourself than perhaps you had never thought about before. It will reveal to you the voids in your life, which you need to fill, the possibilities that you may have to explore and the basis of some of your weaknesses and even becoming aware of your actions. Ultimately, these three dimensions are symbolically connected with what you love, hate, fear, hope for, and what you are committed to. So even for the five aspects mentioned above, try to draw lists as you did with the first three dimensions. If you take yourself through a routine process of examining yourself against these dimensions, you will at a certain time be in a position to appreciate your mindset and emotions. This is the first step towards self-mastery, which in turn enables you to get from your mind and emotions the results you want, at your own will. It is the first step towards being in position to programme and de-programme your mind. In addition, and very importantly, when you become aware of your knowledge, your experiences, your biases, your skills and your aspirations. Then you can make a guided decision on what to spend your life for (career) and what contribution you want to make to humanity.
Your Physical dimension
This entails becoming conscious of the physical built-up of your body and the implications it has for your choices. By being conscious of your physical dimensions you will understand how suitable or unsuitable you are for different activities, styles and situations. For example, it is not a common thing for short people like me to excel in basketball. Heights also, are perhaps God designed for different fields of excellence. Awareness of your physical dimension will enable you to identify what kind of improvements you need to make in regard to particular interests. For example some people like models, boxers, body guards, martial artists go for diet, gyms, body building exercises because they realise that their physic falls short of what their dream careers demand. I have also seen people who exercise regularly to cut their weight for the good of their relationships or in preparation for beauty pageants. The point we are making here is that in order to think about undertaking some improvements on your physical dimension or to exploit it for your advancement, you of course have to first be aware of it. The process of self-discovery gives you an opportunity to continuously observe your body, know it, understand it, accept it, and take the necessary action when applicable. Some people actually capitalise on certain aspects of their physical characteristics to make it part of their commercial business. I myself take the advantage of being short and small sized, which makes me look younger than i am, as strength that allows me easily identify with the young people. I fit well with them, they take me as one of them, and sometimes I use their slang and their fashion designs, and so I am able to effectively reach them. They find inspiration from me because they relate with me. I am like them.
Your intellectual inclination
It involves also finding out whether you have or have not a good ability to learn reason, analyse, remember and make substantial discoveries. Exploring your own intellectual status puts you in a situation where you can determine the things you are capable of and those that will pose much hardship on you. We have inclinations to differing intelligences. It is vital to understand where your
28
intelligence has the best potential. That is how you begin to specialise in certain things and leave out the others to other people. Discovering your intellectual capacity is also vital in establishing the career, ideological and social commitments that are best suited for you. Many people who discover their weaknesses in certain dimensions of intelligence will normally rightly resort to finding and exploiting alternative endowments. One‟s intelligence may not be particularly inclined to sciences let‟s say, while on the other hand be a spark in other dimensions like geography, sports, drama, music etc. To excel in these too, requires high intellectual capacity in that particular capacity. At the same time, some people are specially gifted that their intellectual abilities might encompass quite a variety of fields. So we need to find out where we lie so as to avoid underutilising ourselves or misallocating our energies. The same awareness is very essential for you to asses and recognizes your performance in school as well as your attitude to school. Most times due to a lack of self-knowledge, coupled with poor guidance or lack of it, a score of people go in for courses that make their school life too hard to bear. They end up performing quite poorly, and there‟s enough evidence in psychological research to show that this is a major cause of frustration, inferiority complex, pessimism and negative attitude. Where people opt for school programmes that align with their intelligences, there are more chances of scoring high. Example my parents wanted me to be a doctor, but I chose simpler subjects and I ended up on government sponsorship of which if I had taken the directive, chances of failing were high. To me it‟s a key motivational factor and a source of fulfilment as well as a springboard for bigger achievements. It follows the incremental principle of success. Higher level success builds on lower level success. If you want to impress and therefore set unnecessary failure as a precedent by going in for things in which your intelligence are not at good levels, perhaps you are about to pile failures, as a self-fulfilling prophesy. I call this unnecessary failure because I agree with Seneca when he contends: “A man who suffers before it is necessary, suffers more than necessary”. If you suffer failure not because you lack what was required but because you misallocated your intelligence, then that failure was “unnecessary” in the first place. Therefore most of the subsequent failures you will face are unnecessary.
Your Special talents
This too, like intelligence is linked to natural endowments, it refers to natural inborn, ability, potential in say music, arts, sports, writing or any other aspect that can be tapped to contribute to the enhancement of life. We shall dedicate more time to this topic in the later chapter. But at this point we want to observe that the majority of people live and die without tapping their talents to the maximum, simply because they never bothered to know them, or society does not help them to tap those talents due to society‟s ignorance, if I may say. However, identifying those talents should be the first step in the whole process of talent development. Talent makes up the Gold deposits that we referred to earlier on, and I am convinced that divine providence have given some to each one of us. You just have to ask yourself which is (are) mine? The answer to that question is the first step to proper choices that result into success and true happiness.
Your Social attitude and relationships
This is the ability to get along with others. Some people are “better” off “talking” with machines than dealing with people because of their inclination. Endeavour to examine your skills of relating with 29
people and your attitude towards them. Are you the kind of person who looks forward to meeting people because you enjoy it, you know how to relate with them, you get desired results out of it, or you do it because you have to? You will also be conscious about the things to avoid and the things to specialise in. Some are better off as accountants, who mainly deal with figures, while others are best suited for marketing or human resource management because of their persuasive language, listening skills, negotiation skills and the ability to give people what they want without losing. Apart from this awareness as a basis for making career choices, it also helps you to establish your learning needs. People skills can be improved through training, reading, mentoring and counselling. I personally know friends who have gone for some of the above remedies in order to enhance their performance in social aspects. Personally I have also improved my listening skills a great deal as a result of deliberate focus on my weakness. The first step is to identify you.
Your Health status
You need to be aware of the status of your health. If you have any special health defects or needs, you ought to be aware of this. In addition, your health status affects decisions about the kind of things you can get involved in and the activities you shouldn‟t. Failure to acknowledge this can cause harm to ourselves and the people around us. If we can go for things we are not suited for, we can only end up as unhappy losers.
Your character traits and temperamental qualities
Your character is defined by certain traits or ways of behaviour (constant responses to similar situations). Some people will respond to confrontations with firing back while others will respond to the same with calmness. This underpins one‟s character and the associated temperamental qualities. Some people are quite easy going, some with a sense of humour, some with hot or short temper. When you examine yourself it enables you to find who exactly you are. From this then you are able to establish the weaknesses and strengths in your character. Sometimes you will want to use knowledge of your weaknesses to find the right persons to team up with. This is the very rationale of teams; in a team a weak individual becomes strong in that particular aspect. They bridge in on your weaknesses and you bridge in on their weaknesses. Alternatively, you may want to use this self-knowledge to determine which programmes to embark on so as to learn better way of dealing with your weaknesses. This may involve training, say in how you manage your anger. It is also important to know which aspects of your character are assets so that you can tap them profitably. A person with patience, tolerance and very flexible emotional shock absorbers is in a better position to deal with people of divergent views. Such a person is likely to work well as a negotiator, power broker, peace builder and counsellor. But the starting point is to know who you are.
Your financial situation
This implies plotting a financial situation curve from the recent past through the present and projecting it into the predictable future. Why is your financial situation an important aspect of selfknowledge? The reason is simple; almost everything these days has financial implications. Hence your financial situation determines a lot of what happens to you in your life. It shapes your ambitions, your strategies and influences the timing of every ambition. Lack of appreciation of one‟s financial
30
status may translate into unworkable personal development plans. Once the plans are not practical, the results will be failure, frustration, apathy and low self-esteem (self-doubt). The rationale of examining the above aspects of your life is to provide you with a profound ground for setting realistic and attainable commitments. When selecting the said commitments you are faced with a continual task of: a. Defining and refining Your mission and purpose: What is it that I am here to be and give? What is it that am here to spend my life for? How I am I going to spend my life? b. Defining goals What specific landmarks or things must i achieve in order to fulfil my mission? c. Determining the means of attaining those goals What kind of activities I am to get involved in as a means to my goals? It reminds me of Eddy Murphy in the movie “Coming to America”. He figured it out that the only way he could get to this girl Lisa, that he desperately liked, was to become a cleaner in her father‟s store. Although he was a prince and had money at his disposal, he knew that money and status could not get him to access the woman he wanted. Remember his famous heart penetrating words to Lisa? “When you think of garbage, think of Akim”. Sometimes we have to do what we don‟t like in order to get what we want. You need to continuously work out the things you need to do as a means of getting to your goals. d. Evaluating the effectiveness: Don‟t forget that hardly two people might have the same circumstances. Avoid the temptation of taking things for granted that things will work out the same way for you, as they worked out for your best friend, brother or sister. Weigh the alternatives and ensure that the means you are choosing to use are the best ones suited for your personal situation. e. Changing or reviewing the means when circumstances require so. It implies learning to adjust your approaches with the changing situation, without necessarily loosing focus on your goals, because of the hyper changes in the society, personal circumstances also tend to be unstable. This suggests that you have to be on alert to detect the changing trends and how they affect your strategies, and then review them accordingly. The other reason for continuous review is that we make choices based on our current level of awareness and exposure. The moment you get exposed to what you did not know before, there is usually the need to factor in your new level of awareness. The newly acquired insights are likely to change the way you perceive things, enabling you to see some more opportunities you could not have recognised before. Therefore, your strategies have to reflect this new exposure. Benefits of self-awareness Self-discovery leads to understanding one‟s self as a foundation on which the pillars of selfdevelopment are built. To understand yourself is the most important step towards conquering your world and thus a prerequisite to success in any of your endeavours. Self-awareness particularly makes you more mindful of:
Your unique background and circumstances. Opportunities and risks around you. Your weaknesses and strengths.
31
Once your mind is clear about all these aspects, you are in a better position to design a specific and realistic ideal-self. You see, you can‟t afford to build castles in the air by indulging in baseless wishful thinking. The kind of life you aspire for (ideal self or personal ambition) should be the one that you can really achieve. Yet at the same time, self-awareness enables you to avoid being contaminated by the mediocrity of people around you who think that what they cannot achieve, you cannot achieve (the chickens). If you know who you are, you will discover that you have the capacity to go beyond what other people around you can imagine. You know exactly what deposits lie inside you, which they are un-aware of any way! This self-awareness will help you go the extra mile so you become the best you can be. With selfawareness, you are in a better position to answer the three-fold million dollar question of: (a) What am I going to spend my life for? (career) (b) How am I going to spend my life? (ideology) (c) Whom I am I going to spend my life with? (social) Talent In general terms, we shall refer to a talent as that in-born potential to perform certain activities geared towards satisfying a given area of human endeavour. For example, it could be potential to be an engineer, musician, poet etc. But these are only potentials waiting to be developed and converted into tangible forms or capacity to perform. It‟s only an energy that exists in latent form which must be acted upon in order to produce power. Whether these potentials (latent energy) bear fruit or not, depends on whether they have been identified and given specific attention to develop through practical and relevant knowledge and skills development. If this is not provided, then those potentials almost remain as good as useless. If they are not identified and developed they only remain inside you as an idle energy. Some of these endowments are many and conspicuous that they keep erupting to the surface whenever given any slight opportunity. This can for example, be seen at home or at school. You will easily see their potential overflow, even at any small opportunity. But in practice, not all talents get these opportunities to come to the surface openly. And those that do are most times killed or immensely suffocated because most people, including parents and teachers cannot discern them and some simply don‟t take them seriously. A few will recognise those talents but are not willing to give them a chance. Talent discovery process In the following part, I will take you through a step-by-step process of how you can identify many of your potentials. In a much focused mood, Please follow each step as described. First, put yourself in an environment where you are very relaxed, free and focused, What matters is a hushed place where you can submerge yourself into you to make you able to remember a lot about your history and eager to learn more about yourself. Second, try to look back into your life right from childhood as far as back as you can remember and see what has been happening. Some people will best do this while closing their eyes, yet with others it is easily activated when they keep looking around or starring steadily at an object. Do whatever activates your memory most.
32
Third, try making a list of achievements you remember having scored through all your life since childhood. These could, for example, be: Being the best in a certain subject at school, being one of the best singers at a certain concert, writing a good article, cooking the best food at home, making a good art piece, winning any post and so on. It can be anything that you have achieved whether at home, at school, in your peer group or anywhere. Fourthly, develop two lists of the long list made in the third step above, i.e. draw two lines and categorise those achievements into what you may call minor achievements and major achievements. Once finished categorising, check the two columns and make sure that you have placed each where you really meant to put it, and you have strong reasons to place it there. You will be amazed at the high possibility that each of the items on the two lists of the achievements represents a potential (talent) within you, though in varying degrees. You now have the task to go ahead with the process to enable you identify those areas in which you have greater potential than others to enable you to plan ahead. The demands of a new modern world have shifted from requiring people who have specialised in one particular thing. The move now is towards employing people who are capable of multi-tasking. This means among other things, the marketable employee of the current times of a person is to be multiskilled. Automatically this calls for developing yourself in those different areas where you have the greatest opportunity to excel and to compete favourably. You may have many talents but you should develop a preference list. However, you might also have the capacity to be a jack of a number of trades and master of them all. This is where your talents will come in very handy. Fifth, for each of the items on the achievements list, try to answer the following questions listed below. They will help you to understand the circumstances under which you are likely to repeat the same achievement, develop it to greater magnitude, and make it more predictable result of your deliberate actions rather than an accident. Doing this will also help you to provide the necessary factors that facilitate growth of your potential into predictable activities with predictable outcomes. Hence, enabling you to live a more planned life as opposed to life composed of mere accidents. Unfortunately the majority lead lives composed of accidents. Many people also “succeed” by accident. But such accidents, because they are mere accidents, can be positive or negative. If one is vulnerable to positive accidents one is equally vulnerable to negative ones as well. So, because their life is driven by accidents, most people do not have the power to mitigate disastrous accidents, which more often than not doom many to failure. The questions to ask yourself are as follows:1. What kind of behavioural pattern did I exhibit that led me to achieving this? It could have been greater attention in class, doing all homework promptly, practicing music and watching drama on TV or in theatre, reading novels and newspapers, being inquisitive about the things that happen around me etc. 2. Under what circumstances did all these take place? For example, was there a lot of pressure from the teachers, parents and friends? Was it competition, excitement, or was it peace of mind which provided me with enough opportunities to win? 3. What level of knowledge (exposure) did I have about the item in which I achieved and how did I get the knowledge? Who helped me to achieve that? 4. How many times has the achievements recurred in my life? Feel free to expand the list of such questions.
33
On answering the above questions and a lot more, you will get a clue about unveiling your talents and how you can activate those talents by providing the required conditions. In most cases if you deliberately repeat the same behavioural pattern, provide similar circumstances or conditions, seek similar knowledge (exposure) and the assistance of such people as those that helped you to achieve, you will realise that your talent can indeed produce similar results. That shows that people will come to say that you have a talent in some area because now they can see its products progressively being manifested. If you come to think about it, we identify people who have a talent only to the extent they manifest it. However, it may also be possible that you may have a bigger talent which has never got an occasion to be exposed, and therefore does not appear anywhere on your list of achievements. In this matter you should try out as many things as possible whenever you get the chance. Exposure is particularly a major avenue for talent discovery and development. I have witnessed on idols and other TV talent shows where adults who have lived the biggest part of their lives without knowing that they had a talent in something until such a time when they were accidentally exposed to stimulating situation that helped to make them realise their talents. My dear friend, you don‟t have to wait for this to happen to you by chance because most times it won‟t show up. It‟s your duty to explore as many things as you can, and now is the time, tomorrow is only best for consolidating what you have already discovered, begin your journey today. As a youth, you must be keen on such things as travelling, interacting with people, reading, watching constructive movies and documentaries, social gatherings and participating in a variety of activities since they might awaken a dormant talent, which might turn out to be a major capital for your future. You should not let any occasion or happening escape your critical inquiry. You must always squeeze out of it any point of relevance to your life. The fact is that all events in life have a lesson to offer and many times they carry great clues to great ideas. However while you endeavour to discover your talents and develop them into possible careers, you should likewise strive to discover your weaknesses too so you can work out how to minimise them or convert them into positive energy. Just like anyone has inborn talents, we all have weaknesses. If not worked upon, these weaknesses can indeed become roadblocks in the path of your goals. Using the same procedures as identified in talent identification, you can identify your weaknesses, the circumstances in which they come to surface, the conditions that fertilise them and the persons who catalyse these conditions. By trying to limit these conditions and people, you minimise the opportunity for those weaknesses to grow. And just like talent, when denied the chance for proper nurturing, weaknesses also can eventually die. 2. MINDSET “It is the mind that makes good or ill, that makes wretch or happy, rich or poor” Anthony Robins. Your mindset embodies how you think, how you feel and how you choose. They are forces found in the realm of your mind, your condition of life explains your actions, your actions explain your choices, your choices explain your values, your values explain your feelings and your feelings in turn explain your thoughts. Without the appropriate mindset opportunities just pass by most times without recognising them. Now let us examine the four unseen forces that make up your mindset: perception, beliefs, aspirations and values.
34
a. Perception A person‟s mind once struck by a new idea, can never regain its original dimension. Denis Kimbro Knowledge has been described by some scholars as, expanding the boundaries of one‟s ignorance”. Each time you are exposed to something you did not know before, the small circle enclosing the things you know enlarges because the content of your knowledge has increased. Therefore, the boundaries marking your ignorance expand to accommodate new knowledge. In turn this exposure changes your world view. For it‟s what you know that shapes your interpretation of reality around you. That is why two people living in the same environment with different kinds of exposure will interpret their circumstances differently; they will act differently and will get different results. Hence, their conditions of life will be different, though they are subject to same environment. Whether we are innocent or not, does not take away the fact that our actions will produce the logical results. Much of the exposure we get in school and society is actually destructive, it inhibits personal growth and makes you perceive that all that matters is studying hard; getting a good degree and everything else will sort itself out. The school system has up to this point made you believe that passing exams is the proof of your ability to succeed in life and to make a significant contribution. Here in real life this is a deadening perception or wrong interpretation of reality. At the point when you are coming out of school it is important for you to cross-examine the validity and applicability of your perceptions. How true is the knowledge that informs your interpretation of reality? My definition of an educated person is the only person who has learned to learn and change. The broader range of knowledge, the broader your interpretation of things. It enables you to see the obvious, which others think it is mysterious. I call it looking at ordinary things in extra ordinary ways. That‟s how your mind makes a difference. Because of your wide range of exposure, the people you have met, whatever you have been taught, the books you have read and the whole array of insights collected along the way, you most likely stand a greater advantage than your counterpart who stayed in the village and didn‟t get this exposure as you did. This in itself is a big resource that you can lean on to identify possibilities and opportunities and seize them. There are always opportunities for better possibilities but if your narrow perception blocks you from seeing them and responding to them, they will seem not to exist. b. Beliefs “Your attitude determines your altitude” John C. Maxwell “If you believe you can‟t, then you won‟t” Pastor Keem Beliefs are convictions we develop about people, things and issues around us. These convictions then become the foundation or point of reference for our judgement. As such therefore, the beliefs we have about something whether right or wrong, form into the attitudes. And in as far as aspirations are the determinants of what we do with our lives in every moment; beliefs and attitudes determine our condition of life. Beliefs are normally determined by what you know, in turn your beliefs will influence your values, and then your values will determine your actions. At one time you may have believed that the only
35
way to get rich in life is to get a high sounding white collar job until you encountered a graduate lawyer, for example who is reaping a fortune in his set-up business. The point I am labouring to illustrate is that your beliefs are shaped by the level of your exposure; what you know at a given moment. As your exposure changes due to new encounters, your interpretation of things changes. With new encounters something which did not have a meaning to you instantly begins to make a lot of sense. For some one aspiring to become a high achiever, you have to expose yourself to new empowering knowledge that broadens your exposure, thereby broadening and sharpening your belief system. From my continuous search for the meaning of being human, I have developed the belief that most of the limitations of our performance as human beings, emanate from failure to appreciate our in-born potential and utilise it to the optimum. But your failure to discover your own potential does not necessarily mean that you don‟t have it. Perhaps it is simply because you are not exposed to the knowhow of discovering that which is already there inside you. Empowering beliefs should be based on proper interpretation of reality. This implies proper understanding of that reality contextually. In your own context as an individual, it means that you need to know how much potential you have and how much opportunity there is around you. What kind of resources are there for you to use in the environment? This also includes the resourcefulness of people around you. You just need to explore the different possibilities emanating from the identified potentiality. To talk about lack of jobs without knowing how much endowed you are and the possibilities your environment has to offer, is to base your belief on false perceptions. What are your personal beliefs about graduate employment in this country? What are your beliefs about a person who has gone to college or university like you? To what extent do these beliefs reflect the right interpretation of reality? Are you someone who will see too many things to do as you leave school or you are someone who will be visiting native doctors in search for luck? The saying goes, „‟as you believe it, you unfold it! See it right, you unfold it right. See it wrong, you unfold it wrong”. It‟s what you believe, as the saying goes; we believe what we want to believe. c. Aspirations/ visions Aspirations are those things that you look forward to achieving or to accomplish in your life. They embody a sense of purpose. What you think your life is all about, what you see yourself becoming and what you want to spend your life for? They represent a mental construction of ideas of what the future can be and ought to be (vision). In life you cannot climb higher than the height of your thoughts, yes you can be lifted to a place higher than your own aspirations. And when the force that lifted you to that height is withdrawn you fall back to the level of your vision. Sustainable human development is not about lifting people to artificial heights. It‟s about people lifting themselves upon their own visions. If you want their height to rise, you teach them how to make a hook and how to fish instead of giving them fish. This is exactly what I am doing in this book creating a ladder and positioning it for you to the right building. However they may need a push along the way, but you can‟t push people to climb a ladder unless they are willing. Right now look at your aspirations or vision. Are you well aware of them? Are they powerful, realistic aspirations? On what basis are they constructed? Do these aspirations reflect thorough knowledge of 36
yourself and do they reflect the highest peak you can reach in given circumstances and in the predictable future? Hope is basically about expecting a better tomorrow and the commitment to work towards it. But empowering hope ought to be based on realistic and achievable grounds. Not on sheer excitement. Now think about what things you can create, using the knowledge you have accumulated over the years. Stretch your vision; aspire to do the things that are above the average expectations of professionals in this country. This book is all about showing you, and if possible proving to you that it is possible because even the word impossible itself says “Im” possible. d. Values Values are about those things that you really cherish, things that matter most in your life, those that take first priority in each decision you make. They influence each and every action you take out of free will and by default. Your personal values are reflected in those things that are the focal point of your energies. Values vary from individuals to communities and nations. Some societies like the Japanese, treasure innovation, continuous improvement and excellence as a basis for sustained competitiveness. In many African cultures, female virginity, initiations are valued so much that it influences a lot of practices. When you understand what you value most as an individual, then you have a clue as to what your tendencies are (what you spend your time, money, energy for) why you tend to do X and not Z. and actually do whatever you do (practices). To change your tendencies (behaviours) and your practices you need to change your value systems. But some of the values we hold limit us from achieving a lot. At the same time they are certain important values that we ought to have but which we do not have in practice. Those that limit us we need to discard, while those we lack but are necessary, we should adopt. Hierarchy of values -By Dr. John Demartini This is a multi-step process in which you keep refining your answers until your hierarchy of values finally emerges with crystal clarity.
How do you fill your personal space? Whatever you see around you is a very strong clue as to what you value most. How do you spend your time? How you spend your time tells you what matters to you most. How do you spend your energy? Things that are low among your values drain you; things that are high among your values energize you. How do you spend your money? You always find money for the things that are valuable to you, but you never want to part with your money with the things that are not important to you. So your choices about spending money tell you a great deal about what you value most. Where do you have the most order and organization? We tend to bring order and organization to things that are important to us and to allow chaos and disorder with things that are low on our values. Where are you most reliable, disciplined and focused? 37
You never have to be reminded from the outside to do the things that you value most, you are inspired from within to do those things… and so you do them. Look at the activities, relationships, and goals which you are disciplined, reliable and focused. What’s your dominant thought? I am not talking about negative self-thought, fantasies, “should‟s” or “ought to‟s”. Am talking about your most common thoughts about how you want your life- thoughts that you show slow or steady evidence of actually bringing to fruition. What do you visualize and realize? Need to visualize for your future life What’s your internal dialogue? What‟d you keep talking to yourself about the most. Think of your preoccupation with what you desire most- intentions that actually seem to be coming true. What do you talk about in social settings? Whether your baseline personally is extrovert or introvert, you‟ve probably noticed that there are topics that immediately bring you to life and start talking… and others that turn you into an introvert who has nothing to say or who wants to change the subject. What inspires you? What inspires you now? What has inspired you in the past? What is common to the people who inspire you? What are the most consistent long-term goals you set? What are the goals that you have focused on that you are bringing into reality? What dreams and thoughts have been dominating your mind? What do you love to read and lean most? What are the common topics you love learning or reading about most? Topics you can be focused on and love learning about without distraction.
However, we now know that values are linked to aspirations, aspirations in turn linked to beliefs, beliefs linked to perceptions which finally depend on your exposure. The starting point for turning your whole life around is to change what you know by enriching your level of exposure. To learn as much as you can from everything you possibly can in the direction of your purpose in life. TUNING YOUR MINDSET TO THE RIGHT LEVEL OF PREPAREDNESS First mindset You prosper by adding to other people’s prosperity The common characteristic with all prosperous and great people (not just the rich, not all rich people are great people and not all great people are rich people, certainly mother Theresa of Calcutta was not rich but she was great) is that they have acquired their status through the cooperation of thousands of other people. As it was in the life of Nelson Mandela‟s life, which was characterised by humility and crowned with popularity, a person becomes great exactly to the degree in which he works for the welfare of other people. This is the conviction and indeed the life style that has kept Ghandi‟s name in the books of not only India‟s history, but also of world history. The way we relate with other people determines our success or failure in whichever endeavour, be it academic pursuit, trade, service industry, business or leadership. Hence, the vital thing in life is to learn, through self-discipline and initiative, how to get along happily with other human beings. The most important thing that counts in the game of life is the ability to get the required support and cooperation of others in order to live a fulfilling and successful life. 38
This is the same old trick which revolutionaries apply. Unbelievably, this is a formula with such blind obedience that it works for everyone who uses it, whether for good or bad intentions. Even dictators have mastered it, applied it and it has worked for them. It works for everybody who respects it. That‟s the epitome of true power, being able to influence people through your deeds. Lasting greatness in a free society is not derived from strength of tyranny. Today a person who gives products and services, who dedicates his whole being to others and executes the will of the people in a way that most meets their needs, emerges the true gift of greatness and the reward of true power. Each one of us is here for a purpose, to give something and the more you give the more you get back. It is like writing and receiving letters, say for example, the more you invite the more replies you are likely to get. The major interest people have in you is what you can do for them to make their life better. In other words, what is in you for them? That will be the determinant of your level of success. If you lack that, you will be as good as nothing. For my friends still at school, here is a big one: knowledge shared is knowledge multiplied. After all you lose nothing when you pass together with your colleagues. If you pass and go to university or from university to the world of work without your friends, it only limits your opportunities associated with having old time friends at university and later in adult life. We do not necessarily help because we expect to be rewarded, but experience with this principle has shown that the rewards come around anyway and somehow, someday. The secret of success also lies in building up as many other people as you can. I know of no great dividends you can receive than from helping others to grow, even if they grow past you. What will give you a greater sense of fulfilment than when you look above you, only to see the great many people you have helped to climb up? But to come to this level, you ought to appreciate the fact that you yourself can only climb to the level of your potential. But out there are people with greater potential than you do have. So your refusal to help them will not increase your potential by an inch. You only achieve the best that you can be. Likewise pulling others down cannot raise you up in real terms. It does so only in relative terms. It is thus prudent that you help others become the best they can be as you strive to become the best you can be. Second mindset You don’t drown by falling in water, you drown by staying there. What this principle is all about is the lesson that happy and successful people have learned. Success is indeed an experience, as we know too well and, experience is not what happens to you, it‟s what you do with what happens to you. Likewise, your circumstances do not make you; they just define the calibre of a person you are. God has endowed each one of us with the energy to shape our own circumstances through tapping our inner giftedness and harnessing our social and physical environment. Hence, your success and happiness will be determined by how much you put that latent energy (inner energy) into action to generate your personal power to respond creatively and favourably to any circumstances, so as to create the results you truly want. Whether one is born poor or not, that is a matter of historical fact, which you cannot alter even an inch! No human being has the power to change past events. No matter what course you have done at
39
college or university, you have no excuse whatsoever. What matters is how you are going to respond to the circumstances in which you will find yourself. If you choose to lament about what went wrong, you may as well spend the rest of your life doing just that. But remember that there are thousands out there who have gone through a worse history but they have chosen to move on. Patricia Flipp once cautioned “When you focus on what might have been it gets in the way of what can be”. The ability to comprehend and adopt this kind of mindset is what draws the living line between the people who are born poor and die stinking rich, those born poor and die poor, and those born rich and die poor. It distinguishes between those who find themselves in misery and choose to stay in it, from those who acknowledge their misery and decide to work their way out of it. No matter what your background, your best opportunity always lies in you: it is the most potent force hidden in your decisions and responses to circumstances. You can decide to betray the past and rescue your future. George Horrace Loriner once advised “You‟ve got to get up every morning with determination if you are going to go to bed with satisfaction”. These days it is common to hear people complain that they do not have access to wealth because they do not belong to certain circles, religious or political inclinations. While it may be true that some circles are more privileged than others, it does not justify any kind of apathy. For it is also true that there are many who have defied these limitations by tapping their power of choice through generating workable alternatives. Those that fail to generate such alternatives will remain jailed by their own apathy and psychological constipation. They fail to understand that to over amplify the impossible is to sterilise what is possible. I know that out there are men and women, boys and girls, who have beaten all boundaries that might have sought to block their way to achieving what they want. I have heard about them, I have seen them, i have talked to them, I have dined with them, I have worked with them, and I know they exist. And anyone can choose to be one of them. I know that some are more gifted or advantaged than others by virtue of our connections and history. By this fact we cannot be the same. But what is unacceptable to me is one to sit there and complain about the certain government‟s failure to deliver. It is actions that change situations, not lamentations. The point I am putting across is that the strength that thrusts people into success is developed through the habit of depending on themselves through tapping their inner energies and by the determination to find and develop their resources within themselves in the existing circumstances. They don‟t simply stand aside and start wishing that things were different. You create luck by responding creatively to your circumstances. God‟s providence is so good that all circumstances bear great opportunities. It is always our failure to discover and utilise these opportunities that dooms multitudes to the shameful hand of failure. John Wooden reminds us that when written in Chinese, the word crisis is composed of two characters- one character represents danger and the other represents opportunity. This simply means that even when confronted with a problem, the Chinese will focus on looking at the opportunity within that problem. Examples are, Funeral services, mechanics et cetera, for turning peoples problems, make business and make money out of those situations. A friend of mine once shared a joke; she wondered how funeral parlours and breakdown guys ask God for customers?
40
Many people spend a life time playing it safe, dodging trouble, risks and challenges, little realising that if they had deliberately braved some of the bumps along the way, they may have solved many troubles for themselves and countless others. Achievers must be risk takers, as it were; the greatest risk is the risk not to take calculated risks. No circumstances are too dark for the person who possess light in his heart; and has learned that the real magic lies in a proper response to the prevailing circumstances. Always focus on the flesh of the doughnut rather than concentrating on the hole in a doughnut. No circumstance is absolutely barren for a positive and creative mind. Even a dead clock counts the right time twice a day. Think about it! You may also think that graduating from university in such hard times of job scarcity is a curse; but before you are carried away in that pessimism. Stop and think, identify the opportunity this presents to you, of course if you can‟t see it does not mean there is none. Many others who are in more disadvantaged circumstances than you will identify the opportunities and seize them and you can only have yourself to blame. Dorothy Height once said “Greatness is not measured by what a man or woman has accomplished, but by the opposition she or he has overcome to reach the goal”. And as the saying goes, at the counter of success there are no bargains, the price must be paid in full and in advance. Sometimes it even means foregoing cherished luxuries and pleasures and spending long hours perfecting what you want to achieve. Success belongs to those who are prepared to burn the mid night oil. It also entails swallowing your pride and selfishness to be able and ready to consult others, even those you think are “lowly”. It also means sharing the information, knowledge and resources that you have so that you may cultivate a fertile ground for winning their support and concern for your success in return. This principle applies to all aspects of life and all people. Third mindset You act according to what you think, and you think according to what you know. I am one of the people who went to see “A monkey Boy” and what I saw has remained on my mind. It reveals that the fact that man lives what he thinks and what he sees. There is not any other thing that influences our thoughts and character more than what we hear and what we see. As a baby this baby was abandoned in the forest during the civil bush war. But he was purportedly brought up by monkeys; he ended up eating what monkeys ate and talking their language. When he was retrieved from the bush, he evidently didn‟t want to live like human beings. He would not eat cooked food, would not talk human language, was fond of jumping around and neither did he want to put on clothes. In many aspects, the human mind is like a computer disk, whatever information is saved on its hard disk, is stored. But it does not stop at that. This information also influences the trend and the content of the computers output in terms of programmes, packages and files, just as a computer cannot process information while its enabling software is not installed on it. So the human mind cannot process any thoughts that have not been stimulated. It follows the simple rule of “garbage in, garbage out”.
41
Based on the principle that, man acts on the basis of what he thinks, it is imperative that all who seeks to be happy and become successful must crave for information that builds their ambition. Anybody can direct and influence their circumstances if they have the required information and capacity to convert that information into knowledge. For that matter therefore, all the people are intrinsically masters of their destiny as surely as they have the power to control their thoughts. As it were, The Almighty God has already fixed the all-ultra-modern hardware, which is your brain, the physiological organ. All you have to do is programme and de-programme your mind at your own will. As long as you install the „right software‟ you will be able to program your mind as you wish. Your mindset is the software and the information you feed into your mind is the programmed data. The process by which we programme our minds is what I like to refer to as social programming. Whereas you don‟t have much control of your brain- the biological organ, you have control over your mind. This is what we are going to explore in the following part. How social programming does takes place? In modern society, education both formal and informal is vital source information, which can lead to personal development if used appropriately. It is a facilitating factor for getting you prepared to seize opportunities. It can help you generate powerful ideas using the information acquired. It is responsible for building talents, insights, attitudes, exposure and relationships. It determines the level of your competitiveness in the various sectors of social and economic life. Imagination and creative thinking are backed up by education. In whatever you do you need a certain level of literacy. What the school does if you go to a proper one, is to enhance your capacity to actualise your imagination. It also exposes you to opportunities that lead to success which you would not otherwise have known. In my view, the people who achieve big things without having been schooled are meant to score much more than what they have scored if only they were schooled the right way. But the good news living in this 21st century is that if you think you have not gotten an appropriate education, you still have a chance to give yourself a proper one. That‟s what I have personally tried to do with my own life. The real purpose of education is to create knowledge, develop skills and shape our attitudes. Ignorance begets fear, knowledge begets confidence. That is why one must at all cost use their youthful stage to gather as much knowledge as possible. One important way to achieve this is to apply and utilise it in the constructive things that you have learned in school. Paul Harrison a specialist in development studies has written, “Education is the central mechanism by which entire villages and urban communities learn to develop themselves, their productive potential and their resources.” Therefore, the mind being the control tower of your learning, you must guard it jealously. It‟s the one that gives momentum to your entire life. You must protect it against (viruses) all negative thoughts. It is in the mind-fields where the real battles of human beings are won and lost. Through associating with the wrong company, we unknowingly create our misfortune because of the negative thought patterns we are likely to pick up in the process. Though these negative thought patterns are stored subconsciously, they are always translated into their physical equivalent in form of bad habits which cultivates a fertile ground for failure. Peer group pressure, which is founded in their youthful stages, is the historical single most reason behind the failure of many young hopefuls. A score of people regret their youthful deed but cannot turn back the years.
42
Imagination and the power of the mind. The reason as to why very many people get frustrated in life is not because they have hit the highest rock over which they cannot jump. It is simply because they remain blind to the opportunities just in front of them, only awaiting a creative scratch. One thing i have learnt through the years that there are no disinteresting things; there are only disinterested people which is the result of what they value and what they don‟t. If one is really interested in something, one will always find a creative way of utilising the opportunities that any given situation offers. Just look around you and observe the things around you. If you develop interest in those things you will come to a point when you find them actually interesting. The more you intensify interest in them the more you begin seeing the value in them, which other people cannot see. Take what life offers you right now with a quiet and thankful mind, you will realise that in your small corner there are many treasures. Very few people have learned to use their imagination to their fullest potential. Yet the fact remains that you will hardly attain happiness without engaging your mind in something creative, which makes you feel as an achiever. It is the dull routine that makes life difficult and uninteresting. Psychologists say, it‟s only through creative thoughts that you energise hidden talents, which very often lie dormant within you. Successful people have learned to listen to the ideas that generate from their subconscious. Ideas are the most important things on earth and Earl Nightingale reminds us that, “Each one of us has his or her own idea factory.” Each one has a direct access to the mind, which is the source of ideas. All material things ever accumulated by human beings on earth are products of the mind- the breeding ground of all ideas. I was one time struck by a sudden thought when walking through Sun City, marvelling at how beautiful it was. All of a sudden it occurred to me that after all, this was simply a physical manifestation of someone‟s ideas. Yes, all the sparkling beauty I was looking at was an artistic impression first conceived in the minds of people that designed it! It is amazing to see that all these things were at first ideas, carried in the minds of people. Yes! I mean the mind; which everyone possesses anyway! The most valuable part of you, moreover a free gift from your creator. But if we all possess it, what makes others creators while majority remain mere spectators. Do you still want to be among the spectators after getting exposed to all these thoughts? For me these kinds of thoughts sparked off a strong conviction that anybody is capable of bringing to material something that is useful, if only one utilises the creativity of his or her mind. It is for this very reason that no one has justification, whatsoever, to blame anybody else for his poverty, misery and failure in life. The problem that makes you a failure always lies within you, not with the world. If you dream creatively, you will realise that all circumstances bear grand opportunities. Just give it a critical thought! How many ideas would you be able to develop if you devoted a few minutes each day just to think how to solve people‟s problems around you? Do you think your life would be the same if you had been doing this for the past five years? It is through the power of creative thinking that many prominent men and women have unlocked themselves from the bondage of poverty and scarcity inherited from their family background. Your ability to bring to action what you think creatively will determine your sense of fulfilment in life.
43
3. CHOICES Life offers us with a wide range of options to choose from. Some options are loaded with great wealth of brilliant possibilities while others carry a high promise of doom. Choice is the instrument we use to exercise our will power. It‟s the only venture we cannot abstain from, we must always choose. It‟s the choice we make that shapes the quality of our lives. Even if some other persons have already made decisions that affect us negatively, still we have a choice to make ones that can in one way or another make a difference. Ideally, you are supposed to make choices on the basis of your awareness about yourself and your environment, which of course, includes the people around you. On the basis of your awareness, you choose the best option that will generate the most desirable results. Hence, what choice does it take to enable you arrive at the option that utilises the best of your inner resourcefulness in combination with the best you can tap from your external environment at a given moment within given circumstances? 4. SKILLS, COMPETENCE AND EXPERIENCE The economy of 21st century came with its own new demands and exciting possibilities, now professionals who are narrow-skilled may survive but it‟s only the appropriately multi-skilled that will thrive. So organisations have responded effectively; increasingly, they want people who are strategically multi-skilled. The more skilled you are the greater your chances for employment and opportunities. As we progress deeper into the 21st century, delivery is becoming more and more important than academic papers, because this new economy is more concerned with results than how many exams one has endured. Remember markets pay for results; they don‟t pay for efforts, certificates or other qualifications. How big is the arsenal of strategic skills did I leave school with? This question will increasingly become a major point of personal reflection for people working in the 21st century. If you want to be a marketer, no company will want to hire a driver for you, you are better off knowing how to drive. No one is going to hire a copy secretary for you. In addition to your qualifications, are you conversant with data analysis or spread sheet? How many workshops outside your course have you attended while still in school/ university? Did you do any voluntary work with any organisation or project to acquire some experience? What initiatives have you undertaken on your own? If you don‟t have answers to those questions, how do you want the employer to know you are a mover of things when you have nothing to show except words of promissory statements and that fancy CV which they typed for you? Don‟t think the law has changed, although many theorists want to pretend otherwise, the law still holds; “Survival for the fittest”. As long as you still have the leverage and freedom to be fit, choose to become the fittest you can be. When the employer puts that degree or certificate aside as though it does not exist, and asks you, what can you do for us?” Are you going to give that silly answer I have always heard during interviews; “I can do anything”. Those with a bigger stock of skills, competences and experience will emerge winners as you stare in disbelief and apathy, it‟s about preparedness. How prepared are you with your skills, competences and experience?
44
5. TAKE ACTION NOW “You do not start because you are great; you become great because you started” The epitome of life is: if you try out nothing, you fish nothing. But the hopes will not always bring the fish. Sometimes you catch, sometimes you don‟t. Never the less, it‟s a persistent fishermen who will catch the fish and prosper. They do not see the fish, but it suffices. They know and believe that the fish is there under the empty appearance of the waters. We are often tempted to excuse our failure to accomplish the things we are really capable of, if only we tried. The fact is that it‟s neither too early nor too late in life to begin a task and see it through to completion. That is what I learnt from S. Procter‟s chronology, “Some achieve at twenty, others at ninety and others at five. There‟s no time as good as the present to begin doing something. You are never too young, never too old. Past is history, today is a gift that at is why it‟s called present, and tomorrow is a mystery”, the message behind this remark is stop procrastinating and ACT now, start now where you are with what small you have, that‟s what Jesus taught in the parable of talents in book of Mathew 25:14. In the face of the stern today, the past and future are nothing, your history and destiny can only find meaning in your present, what you do with it every single minute, hour, day is the ultimate determination of your success. And you at your current age what will history record about you suppose you were to die today? And remember each person has a part to play, you have yours too. If you don‟t do it, nobody will do it for you and don‟t blame nobody for your failure if you don‟t try, the worst there can ever be only setbacks and experiences pregnant with essential life lessons. Only one option gives you failure, when you try out nothing. I have heard quite a number of young people make a life blunder of assuming that they will start when “I grow up”. They think of that day which to some never appears, they think that today they don‟t have what it takes to face the challenges of their goals or aspirations. They think that grand achievements are a preserve of the adult life. I prove them totally wrong by giving them a million examples of endless list of successful men and women who started pursuing their dreams at a tender age. The likes of Golfer tiger woods who started at four years, singer Usher, Justin Bieber, Lil Wayne et-cetera, these are a real challenge to all young people out there to reach deep inside themselves to dig out their best and show it to the world. That‟s the way to own a place in the ranks of high achievers. I am so fascinated by Dr. Anna Mokgokong, Shoprite‟s first female director since the company was founded in 1979. A medical doctor by profession, it was while studying towards her degree in medicine that she discovered her passion for business. She sold hand bags for extra income as a student and in no time managed to grow the business into a store called Anna Belle in Pretoria, which she sold when she graduated. In 1995, she co-founded community Investment Holdings (CIH) an investment company which she is the executive chair. Today, the firm owns interest across the technology, telecoms, logistics, Mining, energy, health care and pharmaceutical sectors. It employs 40.000 people directly and indirectly (City press 19th Aug. 2012). Some people call these achievers lucky chaps, but for me it‟s a different mind concept, the lessons I have heard from them are very clear, one doesn‟t have to wait to graduate in order to be good at what he was meant to be. You must start on it now in your prevailing circumstance. The possibilities may 45
be narrow but they are there and it‟s up to you to multiply and magnify them. If you can‟t multiply two by two by now, how will you multiply two million by two million? Big achievements begin with humble steps. That‟s why the tallest building here in our city had its starting point in the foundation trench, and many others have done it, at least one at a time. Resolve now and start your destiny now. Even if all of your past has been wrinkled by the whirlwind of confusion and disappointments, say your father abandoned you, your mother died like mine; friends and relatives have let you down. I have some good news for you; this is your moment now, the power is in you to turn future events into your favour. This is an unquestionable assurance for as long as God has granted you a healthy life. Make sure that each day you live is totally free from old memories of grief, bitterness, hate, jealousy and apathy. Have each day as fresh and clean as empty piece of paper ready to write something as it comes from the store house of nature with its abundant opportunities. Remember, God‟s will always lie on your side as long as you trust him for big things. Seize each opportunity as it comes and you will live a life of amazement not only to other people but also even to yourself.
46
Chapter 7: LOCATING YOUR PERSONAL MISSION AND SETTING YOUR GOALS Each one of us has a mission to fulfil; however, most people go through life without being awakened to this fact. So they never get a chance to deliberately locate that mission and deliberately march to it. That is the first major step towards discontentment with a mediocre life. One‟s mission is determined by two critical factors; the first one is your personal endowment, your God given inner potentials. This is what underpins what it is you are here to offer to humanity. That‟s all you can offer anyway, since you cannot give what you don‟t have. If you are clear about what you are here to give then know what to do with your life (career). Talent discovery and self-auditing is the way to defining this. The second factor that determines your mission is the external forces surrounding you. If you scan and analyse the environment well you will be able to understand what is possible and what is impossible in the given circumstances. That would then lead you into identifying the opportunities that await you to bridge the missing links in society. You are only rewarded for bridging missing links. Your personal mission, therefore, is a combination of what it is you are here to give and the opportunities that the environment (society) has in store for you to give that offering. This is what you are here for; that‟s your mission. That is why mission statements of persons or organisations can change. Periodically, serious organisations review their mission statements to ensure that they are still relevant to the changes in the environment and to changes in the personal factors like skills, experience, exposure, attitudes, values and aspirations. Most times when you get a lot more exposed, your insights broaden, the scope of opportunities expands, and the more opportunities you are able to identify. All these may affect how you define your mission from time to time. This does not mean inconsistence; it simply means that you have room to keep enriching and sharpening your mission statement all the time. It helps you to get ever more focused. We said success is determined by how you respond to circumstances; and not by circumstances themselves. In this sense, circumstances are a given. Two people can get caught up in the same circumstances and will get different results if they respond differently to those circumstances. Normally imagination is the power that helps us to respond to circumstances: but the power of imagination best works with clear and specific goals. The clearer and more specific your goals are, the more rapidly the infinite intelligence of the mind will develop the ideas you require. The clearer you are about what you want to achieve, the more you are able to focus on it. It is for this reason that many people who start with humble, but well thought ideas can arrive at positions of prominence and influence in their sectors. An ideal goal setting therefore entails:
The ability to centre ones thought on a given theme. Formulation of an intention or object Being able to anticipate what the outcome of your goal will be Being able to plan and deal with concepts of cause, effect, time, quantity and impact. Being able to view things through feelings and relationships, not only from your point of view but from the view of others too. This helps you to anticipate how others are likely to react to your initiatives. 47
Being able to examine your thoughts and attitudes. To scrutinise them rather than taking them for granted. It calls for thorough self-assessment and to be aware of how your thoughts and attitudes influence your goals and strategies.
The process of setting goals is very similar to that of talent discovery, which we have gone through. With a pen and a notebook, settle into a place where you feel more comfortable. Plan to spend some substantial quality time projecting you into the future. Now, with the assistance of your findings from the talent discovery exercise, try to understand what you think your mission in life is. Remember, these may change with time as dimensions of your thoughts change. But all the same, at the moment you must live your life as it is, within the given circumstances. As an example, let me share with you the way I view my purpose and mission as of now. My purpose is to become the best I can be through actualising my God-given potentials and putting them to the service of human kind. My mission is to help human beings to become the best they can be in accordance with their inner potentials at all levels (as individual, groups, institutions, associations). This is the mission that drives my life. It is based on my current understanding of the talents I am endowed with; my passion, values, interests, aspirations, experiences and competences in dealing with people, facilitating them to discover and utilise their worth. However, the talent discovery process must be to define your personal mission statement. Whereas, my mission has not changed over the years, my goals keep changing, especially in the view of the fact that some of them once I achieve them, they cease to be a driving force. So I set new goals to enable me reach greater heights in the pursuit of my mission. I keep changing the levels of operation in a progressive manner. That is the nature of living this human life of ours, the quest goes on till we die. Hence, goal setting is not a once-for-all affair; it is an on-going business. As you score one goal, another, possibly a higher one comes into focus. Be ready for this. Now begin the goalsetting process. First: - Write down a clear conscious statement of what you think is your purpose and mission in life. Second: - Outline in order of sequence, the different goals/ landmarks you deem necessary for the fulfilment of your mission. This kind of scheme should reflect roughly the results you expect to get from each of your goals and how such results contribute to your overall mission. In your mind the plan of how to achieve each goal must be clear, the shorter your plan the more likely it is to focus on major issues. You should focus at one at a time. Just as the ship can only reach only one port at a time, you can only achieve one goal at a time. Most of the confusion and indecision found among the majority of people can be traced in one or two obvious causes: either they haven‟t decided on a specific goal or they have dispersed their efforts over too many ventures, as a result they accomplish very little or nothing at all. Chasing too many goals at a time may finally leave you without any score at all. Third: - Although in real life things may not necessarily work out in the time planned, it is important that you set or definite timetable for achieving your goals. Remember that major goals are seldom reached in giant steps. Your plan should include all interim steps necessary to reach the top. Forth: - Make your purpose, mission and goals part of your thought formula. Listen to yourself reflecting on these convictions and plans, think about them daily, repeat them silently several times a day almost like a prayer ending with an expression of gratitude for having received such thoughts. By doing so, you will be influencing your sub conscious mind to record your purpose, mission and goals. 48
Remember that it is your mind that generates the ideas and all the steps you need, as you need them to accomplish your goals. So the more familiar this same mind is with your intentions, the more creative it will be in this regard. This whole process of goal setting requires reflection. You must thus set aside a moment every day to reflect in silence and alone, on the goals and plan you have laid. It also means constant selfassessment to enable you to make corrections where you fail and apply new ideas and techniques acquired in the course of interacting with other people. That is why we said earlier that goal setting is a continuous process. Having set your goals, you should keep guard to protect them. You must protect your decisions since they are the most rational choices you judge to be the best suited to your talents and general endowments as well as your circumstances. You should not sacrifice your goals at the altar of conformity. The reason why most people fail most of the time is because of the tendency to conform to popular pessimism and consciousness. The theologian Luigi Guisan calls it “The common mentality”. Nothing derails us and kills our dreams like the common mentality. Many people often make a mistake of believing that the majority is always right. In reality the best is not always the most popular. Many peers are likely to discourage you from doing what is actually best for you, in favour of what they think is best for you, the same way I have been criticised by my friends while embarking on many projects. You also ought to keep guard against this popular ignorance lest you may be following others who are in turn following you. You must establish your own beat as derived from your unique situation and walk to it loyally every day. You should control your deepest perception of yourself so that you may not be overrun by the forces of negativism and defeat in those around you. GOALS AND THE THREE RULES OF RESULTS Personal development experts, Larry Wilson and Hersch Wilson coined the three rules of results in their book “Play to Win”. Understanding the rules governing the results we get out of our efforts is very important. It insulates us against absolutist expectations and the frustration that may arise out of it. The understanding also protects us against living a life that is less than what you really deserve due to pessimism, lack of confidence and absence of proper planning. Understanding these rules below reinforces your focus and faith in your goals. The first rule You do not control the results you are getting This simply means that the best you can do is to plan and take action on your plans, expecting to get certain anticipated results. But as long as there are external factors impacting on your activities and as long as you do not have 100% control over those external factors, then you can‟t be in control of the results you will get. There is always a certain percentage you leave for external factors. Meaning that the results you get from your plan (goals) may not come out actually as anticipated. And that is normal in life; you can only influence the results you get out of life by doing the best you can to make sure that your plans have taken into consideration to those external unpredictable factors. You always have to have in mind the “What if” scenario. You will not achieve anything if you do not plan for it in the first place. But you may not get everything as you planned for it. This is the moral of the first rule.
49
The second rule What you sow is what you reap Although the first rule recognises that they are external factors shaping the results you get from your efforts, the second rule emphasises the fact that no matter the quality and magnitude of results you get, it is directly proportional to the nature of plans you make. The greater the quality of your plans the more likely you are to get closer to the results you anticipate. In the game of life, the output is determined by the input. Say if you plant onions, you harvest onions, not tomatoes. Maybe some onions may come out rotten, but they will be onions. And even the quality and quantity you harvest per unit area is directly proportional to the method of farming you employed. The more you know about the production of onions and apply that knowledge, the more likely for you to harvest big. The results you are getting are the results you should be getting. What is the basis and nature of your goals? If you want to understand why you get the kind of results you get, this is the question to crosscheck with. Third rule To change the results you are getting, you must do something differently. You cannot get different results using the same ways. You have to change some of the factors in order to change what you get out of your efforts. If in your past things have not worked out well for you, then you need to change the way you do things. If a lot of graduates you know have turned to be frustrated people, then don‟t simply hope that things will be different for you even though you do not try to do things differently yourself. That is why this book is trying to help you look at another way of looking at yourself, your life, your career, your future and your possibilities. If the education you have got does not help you fully find your mission and march to it, then you need another additional exposure to help you discover and develop what you have missed. You will not achieve better results by operating along the same mindset; you need a paradigm shift that will enable you to look at more empowering ways of living. You need to change something in order to change the quality of your life. Whenever you are not satisfied with the results you are getting, maybe for example in your relationship or even say work place, always ask yourself: What must I change? Bearing in mind that life does not get better by chance, life gets better by change and it takes place inside of you. Applying creative thinking to your goals In this 21st century, those who do not want to use their mind to think about copying or creating something new, will have to be eternal slaves of other people‟s creations. Where as in today‟s society, there is a place for every person who can render a useful product or service. Like we earlier invoked Fullers words that, “The one with a creative vision will recognise these facts and profit by them. Those without a creative vision will overlook them and complain of lack of opportunity”. It is not true that few people are born creative and others not, although it remains a fact that some people are born more creative than others, we all have the potential for creativity, which needs to be developed through the routine of being keen, inquisitive, exposed and concerned of the needs of people around you. Through this routine, the one with a creative mind will identify missing links in society and design solutions to fix them. The more complex the society becomes, the more services, innovations and inventions are needed, and therefore the more need to reclaim resources from crude 50
existence in order to satisfy human needs. Because of this inexhaustible need, anyone who comes up with a new idea and actually implements it to make life better and easier for others, automatically books a place among the successful people. Perhaps the reason why America, Japan, China and Asia are richer countries than Africa is not because they are more endowed with natural resources. Africa‟s poverty crisis largely lies in its failure to stimulate its people into creative thinkers who can manufacture or produce something. The wealth difference lies in different stretches in imagination, vision and creativity. In most third world countries, especially in Africa, there is lack of the drive to go an extra mile in thinking about how to convert resources from their natural state into goods and services that satisfies „Mans‟ needs. Creativity is the biggest asset that is responsible for making Hollywood stars billionaires, without it the whole entertainment industry will crumble away. Creativity combines two major variables: one‟s potential and one‟s environment. When you are able to mix these two, you will have a guide on how to identify a missing link and fix it through providing what society needs, which your potential enables you to provide. The idea so conceived as a bridge of the missing link should be developed, produced and nurtured to make an outward manifestation through action. By outward manifestation, I want to emphasize the fact that creativity and imagination alone without action is nothing. Successful implementation of one good idea is worth much more than a thousand good ideas not acted upon. That is why it‟s essential to put into action the ideas that we dream of. If you do not act on them they get stunted. But if you implement and grow them they get refined with time. An example is, if the computer genius had waited to start with windows eight, up to now we wouldn‟t be having computers. Today, before you go to bed ask yourself these questions: now that I know my potential and what society needs but have not been provided yet, can I create something new and useful in society? If so, what can I create? Or, is there anything that I can creatively improve on? If so, how can I do it? If you ask yourself these questions every day, you will never live a mediocre life like the masses. The reason is simple, at all levels, in all places there are missing links and there‟s always something that you can provide if you put your mind to the task of identifying what the gap is and producing what is needed to bridge that gap.
51
Chapter 8: THE FERTILISERS OF CREATIVITY “Every great artist was first an amateur” Napoleon Hill shared wisdom, that “Nothing in human means is impossible for the man or woman with a creative vision”. He or she is a forerunner of civilisation, the inspirer of individual achievement, the builder of empires. I have also noticed that every person who can render a useful service or product has a place in today‟s world. But those without a creative vision will overlook these facts and complain of lack of opportunity, while the few with creativity, recognise them and profit by them. If you crave for a life with a meaning, fulfilment and leadership in your field, you need to master the following fertilisers of creativity so that you can apply them to the garden of your mind as a matter of routine. You will be amazed at the kind of results you get out of yourself. 1. MEDITATION Just as a well-exercised body is powerful, so is a reflective mind. In order for the mind to conceive, process and develop bold creative ideas you must give it a conducive environment and time. It is therefore important to allocate some time every day to isolate yourself, create an opportunity for your mind to associate with the stillness of life, which is the fountain of great forces in the universe. It is in such an environment that great ideas are actually developed. Through such routine exercises you will receive the definitions of the paths to your ambitions. It is in moments of silence that you are able to listen to yourself. Most people never give themselves time to listen to themselves, which is why creativity has been left as a preserve of the few who bother to reflect. Wayne Dyer, in his book, “Real Magic” urges that we are not just human beings; he asserts that we are instead, “Spiritual beings with spiritual experiences”. The justification is simple; the most important dimension of our lives is not the physiological. It is thought, it is spiritual. What differentiates one person from another is not just the body difference. It‟s deeper than that. On the subject of meditation, he advises that you should regularly put yourself in touch with the non-physical universe because that is the true source of human power. This is what makes true prayer such a powerful force. Meditation puts you in a situation of dealing with the concept of nothingness because when you are in that silence you are not dealing with the things, noise or touchable materials. “Thoughts come out of the silent empty space of your mind”. Therefore it is from nothingness to thoughts. Then of course, we have already seen that material things are generated from thoughts. Once you experience this magic you will be amazed by what your mind can do for you. You will attach more value to meditation time because that is how to get the most out of your non-physical dimension. You will also learn that the greatest assets at your disposal are absolutely free gift from God: your mind, time, space and environment, the air we breathe and the people. In these is actually vested your power to shape your destiny, and to steal victory from the onslaught of failure, the more you learn how to use it, the more it works for you. 2. ALERTNESS Great ideas normally come suddenly in a flash, and most times never come back, not even to memory. Such thought are normally not part of your normal thought pattern. To songwriters, that is how hit 52
songs have been created. For people who are very creative, important ideas keep on flashing and flowing one after another, even during busy moments. Many people have remained submerged in misery simply because they have not been able to take advantage of such ideas. As of today be alert when ideas flash, take serious note of them. Those people you admire as being very creative have all learnt this discipline. They know that those flashing ideas possess the power to change things and to open up more possibilities. 3. IDEA ASSESSMENT When the mind generates ideas instantly, it does not consider the environment or the process through which the idea is to be implemented. Normally, because of the short run nature of idea generation process itself, the mind is only concerned with the beginning and the end. It does not pay much attention to the process. This means that not every idea you conceive will be practical. As an important step in the creative process, you should be able to assess your own ideas so as to isolate those that are really great and workable. The sorting process will help you come up with alternative ways through which you can implement your ideas. From these options you can then choose the most feasible one. Certain ideas may sound really nice and attractive but they may not be practical. That is why the word utopia exists; to define ideas that cannot work in real life. Be careful to isolate utopias through thorough assessment. 4. BE CRITICAL AND KEEN The needs of societies are never ending. There are always missing links. Great people have achieved and thrived on bridging those gaps. One capitalist once passed a joke that “Riches are accumulated through the weakness of other people‟s minds” but I also add that it takes a keen and critical mind to identify those weaknesses. Those who sleepwalk through life can never recognise them. To be creative is to see what others have not seen then you take initiative. Many times it will be obvious but never the less, the common eye will miss it. To develop a culture of keenness, you need to have an attitude that gets you interested in whatever is going on around you. To observe people and the things they do. To always ask questions, especially the “why” question. Such an inquisitive approach enables your mind to always think about something new that others will most likely never think about. It is amazing how you will never run short of ideas if you are critically keen on everything that happens before you. 5. VISUALISATION You cannot reach where your goals are without first having a mental picture of such destinies. Stephen Covey put it more emphatically in his book Seven Habits of Highly Effective people. He advises, “Begin with the end in mind”. In other words, have a mental picture of where you are going and what it feels like being there. The first step in achieving any purposeful goal is to create a picture of that which is desired. This picture is then put into a sub conscious mind and held there until it is translated into reality. The picture tends to take over your life as a magnetic force that pulls you towards it. If you crave for success you must focus on given goals and visualise or imagine yourself already in that position, it will thrust you there. What this visualisation does is to send the mind into a process of working out the means of getting there. In a way your mind will obey. Visions are quite persistent forces; they will not let the mind rest until it has worked out how to reach there, they boost your creative power. 53
6. AFFIRMATION There are so many distractive waves and paths along the way to your goals. These come in the form of discouragement from those who do not understand your ambition and the mediocre ones who think you are too crazy to pursue such an ambition. You must develop a strong and authoritative command over your will, lest you are likely to be distracted by people and circumstances around you. Such authoritative affirmations will help you build positive patterns of thought and confidence to stick to your goals. Yet in practicing self- affirmation, you must be careful not to irritate others by making yourself to be too rigid, arrogant and inconsiderate of other people‟s views. As a way of developing this skill, you may try to live by the following principles: Put people first: put the prime value on yourself and others. You are a human being whom God has endowed with a mind, which is the source of all things a human being can achieve. Through the goodwill of people around you there is no way you can ever be a failure. In a process of creating new things you certainly need other people at a certain point. You won‟t do it alone all the way. So you ought to learn how to value people, keeping in mind the first principle of success: “You cannot succeed without other peoples support”. Magnify your expectations: Develop a positive obsession to be a useful person in life, or at least in a certain field. As we have seen before, deep down inside of you are some deposits of energy. This latent energy features in form of talents, potentials, skills, experience, expertise, competences, exposure, attitudes, perspectives, interests and aspirations. You can tap these endowments to excel in something. Come on! Raise your ambitions; aspire to achieve something greater than where you are now. Make yourself useful to other people by using what you have to serve them. A genuine sense of usefulness will affirm you to stay on course of your life‟s purpose, however hard the journey may turn out to be. Do not pity yourself too much by expecting too little from yourself. Focus on the future: Take a long range focus on life and don‟t let past experiences haunt you. Today and tomorrow hold greater value than yesterday. Always have a sense of hope for a better tomorrow. Things can be better if you plan them to be so. You need to have a proactive outlook to life, to look forward to something better to do with your life, to know that life is a great deal and that you are here for a purpose and mission. Even when things do not seem to work out the way you had anticipated, you ought to know that there is a room and chance for improvement. As futurist Joe Baker affirms, “The past does not equal the future”. It does not mean that the failures or setbacks of the past will necessarily continue to happen into the future. This mindset will help you always seek to generate new ideas and better ways of doing things in your life. There is more space in the future than in your past; if you did not suffocate in the smaller room of the past, how can you suffocate in the larger room of the future! Set your own standards: Be someone you yourself can admire. It will help you at least partially understand people‟s opinions about you. Have certain standards that you expect yourself to maintain. If you can be your guide and watchdog, it will be easier for you to satisfy the integrity standards of society. Very importantly, this approach helps you to gain self-confidence which will in turn be reflected in the confidence with which you pursue your goals and how you deal with other people. The guiding principle here is to do everything in the light of obeying your clear conscience. Take personal responsibility for what you do: Most people would like to find someone to put the blame on if things do not work out. The former Zambian president, Kenneth Kaunda once joked,” When you go in search of honey you must expect to be stung by bees”. Once you have set out to 54
initiate something be ready to take responsibility for the results that come out of it. You are more likely to put your whole heart into the process and you are therefore more likely to take all the necessary precautions for success if you own it. It also means that you have to remain in complete control of yourself at all levels. Do not be manipulated by people or events: Operate on a personal timetable. Be advised by others but never let them decide for you. If things go wrong because you did not make enough personal commitment, it will set a bad precedence for you, making you sceptical and too fearful to try creating anything again. From that point on, you are likely to be a conformist than a creative person. Be appreciative and supportive: Because you achieve through other people, you need to show that you are grateful and to always avoid being critical of them. A gratitude attitude is vital to win peoples love. Love is so powerful a force which we all need in pursuance of our goals. Remember we succeed through other people‟s efforts and approval. Act now: Identify any habits to change in your life and effect those changes starting right now. Real power lies in taking action. So, when you have already made a decision on something, go out of your way to start implementing it. The power of action as a compliment of creativity lies in the fact that each time you act on an idea and you achieve the results it charges more of your energy to keep acting. Hence, achievements will keep on accumulating. And the more this positivity builds, the more your mind gets committed to the creative process. Action is the catalyst of creativity. The creation story in the bible reports that at the end of each day God looked and saw that what he had created was beautiful, so the following day he went ahead to create more. What makes you think action was important to keep God‟s creative morale high but not for you? I have no doubt that if made part of your daily routine; these guides can enhance a positive selfaffirmation that motivates you and those around you. To me they offer a handy compass to the terrain of successful living. They have worked for me and many others that I have had the privilege to share them with.
55
Chapter 9: HOW TO CREATE A JOB The most important developments in civilisation have come through the creative process but ironically, most people have not been taught how to create. When you read the holy Bible, you will see that the first thing God did was to Create. Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning, God Created .........”, and you should always remember, we are his sons and daughters, created in his image. Meaning The Almighty God expects you to act and behave like Him. So before you become a disappointment to your heavenly father, reach inside of you and create something. That is the first step and in this case, “job creation” is our main focus. Forget about anybody guaranteeing you a job. Keep your eyes focused on the opportunities. Remember, God gives every bird a worm but he doesn‟t throw it in the nest. If you want people to mind your business; you must mind your business first. Job creation is one of the high sounding catch words of our day in all speeches. Unfortunately though, much of the reference to it is just a lip service. I hear with ill-feeling, mostly politicians and educationists telling graduates and the youth to go out to be job creators”, without having taught them How to do it. It‟s like they expect them to be like miracle workers who make things happen without been taught how to make it happen. Our society has become impatiently concerned about humans who spend more or less than sixteen years studying something but they are unable to apply that kind of knowledge to create the desperately needed jobs and services for people who did not get that chance. I have hardly known secondary schools even universities in this country where creativity or job creation precisely, is practically taught as a subject. This makes job creation seem like an illusion to many young people leaving school. In reality however, there are people who have demystified it and I want to explore ways in which you too can join them. There are three critical levels of human development. There is a big risk and likelihood that most people go through the first two and stop at the second level. By implication, this omission gets many people into the danger of living a life that is sub-human, although not out of their choice. The three levels of human development:
Dependence
When you are conceived in your mother‟s womb, you are completely dependent on her, the breathing, the environment and the feeding. This is the stage of complete dependence that marks the first level of human development.
Independence
This is where as a child establishes your individuality, physiologically, socially and emotionally. You are known as you and you have certain unique characteristics that define you. But while you live in society, especially as an adult, it‟s not enough for you to have a personal identity or to be an independent human entity. That alone is inadequate in giving meaning to your life as a social animal you need to rise to the third level of human development which is interdependence. 56
Interdependence
Here in the adult world where we are expecting you soon, what fills in on your identity is your relationship with others. The way in which you relate with others is the major part of what defines you. This life here is a game of give and take. You give something in order to get something “Nothing for Mahala (free) as the saying goes”. You are known by what it is you are here to give. If you teach you are called a teacher, if you sing you are a singer, if you do Business you are a business man or woman. Therefore it means if you have nothing here to offer, your identity as an adult is not known…period! And this is so dangerous because you will hardly get anything for yourself since no one will come to get something from you. Here in the adult life it is important to be needed as one of the 48 laws of power. You have to develop to the level of inter-depending with others; they depend on you and in return you depend on them in one way or another. The tragedy of most African and the world‟s poor countries emanate from the fact that they have remained at the level of independence. They do not offer much to the rest of the world, so they don‟t have the power to dictate or influence global policy making them to suffer from other country‟s dictates. Example: a man or woman who supports the family-needs dictates rules in a house. When you simply remain at the level of independence you are so vulnerable to manipulation, you can only take in what others have to give. You are not necessarily needed though you may just be wanted that is what happening to most employees with no negotiating power, the only option you are left with is to dance to the employers beat. To be needed means that they cannot do without a conspicuous dent. When you are wanted, it means they can do without you without much pain or choose to fire and replace you. As you are about to leave school, is there anything special about you that you think the society desperately needs from you? Have you created that value around you which will enable you to interdepend out here in the real world? It‟s not too late: you can still create that value now, and that should be your target starting today. At the centre of job creation lays the concept of creativity. The ability to create is one of the gifts we have by birth right by the privilege of being human. It is our inexperience and ignorance that can make the creative process seems as if it‟s magical. The fact however, is creating is a skill that can be learned and developed. Like any skill, you learn by practice and hands on experience. You can learn to create by creating, Robert Fritz” emphasised. To Carl Rogers, a creative person is the one who possesses openness to experience, an internal locus of evaluation and an ability to toy with elements, and will, in a climate of psychological freedom, form a greater number of creative products. I have lived to see these facts manifest in some people‟s lives and I do concur with such observations. I also have no doubt that we have the capacity to learn how to tap into our creative ability using certain skills based on the principles that govern the human mind and its programmatic structures. This very set of knowledge is what one needs in order to become a job creator. Ways to create a job 1. The problem solving (reactive) approach. 2. The creation (proactive) approach. 57
The problem solving approach uses as its basis the question, how do I get this un-wanted situation to go away? This approach reacts to existing circumstances. It starts with identifying a problem then proceeds to design the means of eliminating that problem. The rationale here is to fix a “missing link” in order to improve on the quality of life of a defined people. It focuses on questions such as
What is the problem? What gaps does this problem create? How do I bridge these gaps or solve the problem?
The creation approach starts by asking one‟s self questions like;
What vision fascinates me? How do I create what I want to see?
The creation approach is an adventurous endeavour not necessarily generated by the circumstances in which you find yourself but by the fascination and desire to create something. This is more common with scientific discoveries, one‟s talents and artistic designs. In this approach you start at the end and then work backwards. On the other hand the problem solving approach begins with the specific problem then works forward. Using the creation approach, begin by visualising the final picture, which highlights that which you want to create. Then ask yourself how do I get there? Therefore the entire creative approach is committed towards the final vision. It opens new horizons for the human experience, to bring about something new that offers wider possibilities for the target population. In the South African context, statistics show that the unemployment rate was last reported at 24.9 per cent in the second quarter of 2012. There is still much room to create jobs through both approaches. Whichever approach you use, chances for creating jobs are still quite huge. In fact you don‟t have to wait until you have left school to start. Some people create their jobs while still at school. Whenever you utilise any chance to show that you can offer (your interdependence), employment opportunities will surely come looking for you. I have known some artists, fashion designers, and journalists who were traced from colleges and universities by firms because of their exhibited excellence. The most effective way of enticing employers is by showing the public what you can do. By now you should start exercising good salesmanship for your talents. Another way of creating a job for your self is through using that knowledge and skills you are acquiring to manipulate things and deal with people around you in order to produce for them marketable goods and services. In today‟s society anyone who has a useful service to render has enormous dividends waiting for them. If you want to become your own employer, the first principle is to become keen, inquisitive, curious, sensitive and concerned about the needs of the people around you. You must be well informed about the human and natural resources around you. The reason why I decided to write this book is because I have taken time to know that there are people like you out there who would really like to associate with such life changing ideas. I saw the problem of unemployment and the under employment rate among our dear friends. And it‟s both a government and its peoples greatest problem (need for solutions), so I responded with action. First, by writing this book, stating the cause, solutions and ideas. Secondly together with a team of people we started “The
58
creative leader‟s institute” a research and development organisation which is aimed at creating and developing the next generation of creative leaders and billionaires. By being keen on what you see around you and being aware of the resourcefulness of yourself and the environment around you, you will most likely develop a creative mind, which enables you to identify missing links in society. You will be able to design solutions to the society‟s missing links through the power of imagination by examining all sectors of society, and for each of them, asking yourself the following questions;
Do the services in this sector satisfy all people‟s needs? (environment scan) If not what is lacking? (problem/ gap identification) Which category of people is affected? (target population) What is needed to bridge this gap (vision and plan) Am I in a position to provide it alone? (self-assessment/ synergy plan) How will the whole thing work (mode of operation)
If everyday life is driven by these questions, you will realise that you have the capacity to create more jobs that you can actually handle. The challenge you will have created for yourself is to choose among the many possibilities. Through this approach, I have personally been able to think of several opportunities for job creation and I have had to omit some in favour of others basing on the above checklist. Everywhere I travel in this beautiful country, I see uncountable possibilities for job creation and opportunities. In fact many sectors are almost virgin, not yet exploited, waiting for you and me or someone else from somewhere. Identify the job creators around you, you will find that each do not only have one enterprise because they have discovered the secret “the long-over-due awakening”. Likewise, in most rural areas of this country, many services that are needed have not been extended. The problem is that many people think that markets are naturally existent in some places and not existent in others. Truth of the matter is, markets are created and can almost be created anywhere. The majority of us tend to be content when we get employed in companies; we completely switch off our taps of creativity, even when we would be the ones to come up with new ideas that would eventually provide employment to thousands of other people. Try to think hard on this issue, you will realise how obvious what I am talking about is. Today is your life‟s turning point; use your exposure to establish ways of exploiting the idle resources around you. You have read so much, you have heard so much, and you have seen so much, now it‟s the time to make a creative sense out of it all. Now I know you are busy asking me one question like other people do “Mara how do I get capital to start”. My answer, the word capital comes from a Latin word: “CAPUT” which means the head. I will emphasize that whenever you say you don‟t have capital you are actually saying that you do not have the…! I will remind again the logical flow of things: if by capital you mean money, and then recall that money comes from ideas and ideas comes from the mind. So do you have one? Even the fact of borrowing one hundred Rands begins with thinking about the idea of borrowing. Saving your meagre income begin with an idea to save. Foregoing certain things in favour of others begin with an idea, everything you do begins in the mind. Ideas come first then money, not the other way round. Do research and you will find that most of the job creators have come from humble backgrounds. At one point in their life they did not have the money, but they had the idea, that eventually generated the 59
money. You must get comfortable with the notion of allowing yourself to experience the, “something out of nothing phenomenon”. Doing what you can with what you have, where you are. When the idea of creating your job eats up your mind, you will begin looking at all things from this perspective. On TV programs, newspapers, magazines, what people say, you will interpret every kind of information in such a constructive way that you have never done before. You will stop sleepwalking through life. All events both bad and good will always have a meaning and a special message for you. With such information, you will be able to understand what people want, why they want it, when they want it, what quality and quantity they want it and what they are willing to pay for it. In order to know all of these, you should seek to understand people‟s behaviours in a given location, existing social classes, their backgrounds, beliefs, values, biases and their aspirations, thus the need for socialising with people in different ways as to keep your perceptions with people‟s mindset and desires. Finally, to be a job creator you must;
Be good at seizing and responding to opportunities when they strike and in most cases they come disguised in ordinary situations. So it will be up to you to convert them into extra ordinary occasions. Consolidate the contacts that you encounter in daily life, contacts with established people are very important. And once you get them make sure not to lose them. Always make yourself available whenever needed, try as much as you can never to give excuses. Always challenge with the question: What am I here to give to others? Then go out of your way and give it. That is your opportunity to live for your mission and purpose. It‟s through being helpful to other people that those around you will be attracted to like and support what you create.
Each of these job creators is known for something and can be categorized within certain sectors. They have grown to the level of interdependence because they have something to give in order to achieve. That is an inevitable law here in the adult world my dear friend. What does society know you for? What is it that underpins your point of interdependence? Just look at your talents and abilities, see what you can do with them to create a job. I am not saying it‟s going to materialise now, but it‟s very important that you start now. Even me writing this page, book; it started with the first sentence. So whether its Creative writing, leadership skills, research, counselling and advising others, reporting facts, learning and using many languages, art, modelling, performing, music, dejaying, fashion designing, preaching, aesthetics and beauty, name it, what you have to offer is the key to your self-created job. You will bear me witness once you appreciate and apply these facts, and trust me, if others have made it, then, why not you?
60
Chapter 10: SELF MANAGENT TIPS IN THE JOB CREATION PROCESS You are the prime mover of things in your life; you are the input and output of your own production process. Even God as the ultimate power; He leaves us with freedom to choose how we live our lives. By this token, responsibility comes back to us. This personal responsibility implies your personal effort to manage your own life. If your life is a business entity, you are the managing director of that enterprise. As such you must make sure that all functions of your business (planning, production and marketing) are well operative. One way to see yourself as a company on the winning side is by becoming more research full, skilful, better trained in those fields of your interests and specialisation. If you master so much outside you, but you fail to master yourself, then you will hardly have a significant impact in whatever else you do. However compelling your vision or inspiring your mission may be, they will only remain a remote fantasy if you lack the required levels of self-management to implement them. They cannot automatically materialise on their own without your energy acting on them. And yet we now know that for this energy to have a strong impact, it must be focused on. 1. Don’t be a bad workman who always puts the blame on his tools With revulsion, I have often heard some people say, they did a bad course. Some miss-informed parents, teachers and even lecturers even go as far as advising students against pursuing certain courses. Real life experience has taught me there‟s no such a thing as a bad course, just like there‟s no bad weather. It only turns out to be a bad weather if you are not prepared for it. We know the old adage of a bad workman always puts the blame on his tools. When you fail to arrive at the entrepreneurial interpretation of the course you pursued in school you will tend to conclude that it was a bad course. I have met people who have made a fortune out of their degrees which other people consider as bad choices. The important thing here is for you to find the relevance of your course in relation to society needs. Of course there is no longer any course that can stand alone in this modern information age of ours. In order to ascend to the competitive edge you must face the challenge of becoming multi-skilled. We live in an epoch where to excel in your career you have to integrate a diversity of knowledge and skills to enrich the competitive functionality of the course you studied. The problem is not the course, if you fail to make anything out of it the problem is with you. You must always adapt to change. Once you change yourself, things will change. 2. Compete against yourself Most people simply survive while too few thrive through life. The reason is not because too few are capable of thriving; it is because the majority operate their lives along limiting premises. There is a huge difference between those who lead their entire lives trying to run away from failure and those spending their life time aiming to achieve the best they can at any given moment. The question here is; are you playing not to lose or playing to win? I saw this in school where students read not to fail papers instead of reading to learn. The way to manage life is not avoiding failure, but proactively working towards successful living in whatever you set out to do. As the saying goes “the only way to get rid of a difficult task is to do it” 61
Because of the limiting premise that the majority build their lives on, there‟s a common mentality that begets an approach to life. Many people are convinced that the best way for one to climb up is by pulling others down, it is based on the mentality of competition constructed on the win/ lose platform. It assumes that if the other person wins then I lose. In reality pulling the other person down does not automatically pull you up. If you don‟t have what it takes for you to rise you will obviously stay down. Friend you are not here to compete against anybody, because you are not here to become like anybody. Your focus should instead be on climbing to your highest, spend your energy lighting your candles. Your highest could be less than what others have achieved, that is no problem. But it is also possible that your highest may be ten times higher than other people. So by competing against them you limit yourself because normally when you catch up with them or go slightly ahead of them you will tend to be contented with that. That is why I emphasize competing against yourself because it instils the discipline of getting the most out of your inner endowments, just keep asking yourself what is the best that I can do? 3. Optimise your personal effectiveness Personal effectiveness is the situation where you habitually achieve what you set out to do and you get the desired results. Knowing as human beings we do not have control over the results that we get from our plans and actions. There are always external factors beyond human power. What is surely within our means is to influence the results we get by taking absolute command over the factors within our control. Hence the best we can get is the optimum in the given circumstances. To be in position, to optimise personal effectiveness, you must first comprehend these two crucial forces that shape the nature and impact our actions. These forces are power and love. Power We tend to look at power as a negative thing because it is one force that has been abused a lot. Yet no one can do a thing without it being evolved. In fact power is the prime mover of things through it we execute plans. Power is really a neutral thing, what makes a difference is the purpose, motive and intention of your actions. It can be understood as energy in action. We must appreciate and acknowledge that we all have a potential power hence we don‟t possess power naturally, what we possess is some latent energy. This energy features in form of natural potentials or talents that each one of us is born with in addition to the knowledge, skill, experience and mindsets. When this latent energy is applied or utilised to its maximum, it generates power. Hence, power is the visible or felt product of energy in action. Each one of us has energy within. But the energy remains meaningless if not put into action; I challenge and charge you to put on your power switches so that you can lighten up yourself, the environment or the people around you. On the other hand the means to acquire real power is through doing something that manifests its self because you command control over what you are responsible for creating, then you are respected for it. We can therefore acquire power through putting our inner energy into action. That is why there are different kinds of power. Say, political power is acquired through excelling in certain aspects of political activities. I have seen musicians drawing thousands of fans to their shows simply because they have translated their latent energy, the music talent or potential into action. So they have the 62
power even to make people clap hands, dance or shout even though they paid their hard earned money to enter their shows. The respect that you earn from people as a result of doing something is the symbolic representation of the amount of power you have managed to accumulate around you. The way you optimise this power is by optimising your productivity and ensuring that your works have an impact on those around you. The more impact your actions have, the more power fields around you expand and intensify. Constantly ask yourself, which ones are my inner energies and how can I put them into action to boost my power fields? Love When power and love are combined you can achieve a lot of things that have a positive impact on other people. In turn and almost obviously, those people will want to identify with you. They will associate you with their well-being. You will have created a magnetic field of power around you that attracts people to you, you will be effective in your plans as the principle goes, you cannot succeed in life without enriching other people‟s lives, you prosper by adding to other people‟s prosperity. Hence in this sense love + power = personal effectiveness. 4. Master your emotions I define emotions as feelings that rotate around the four states of hate, love, fear and hope. Some people have summarized emotions as 3-ads: Glad, Sad and Mad. People act not on the basis of what they know, but on the basis of what they are feeling at any given moment. The 5 emotional abilities (a) Being self-aware: This refers to knowing your emotions, to recognise a feeling as it happens inside you so as to be in position to know how to deal with them in order to get the desired results. (b) Managing emotions: It involves handling and managing your feelings in the appropriate manner. You should continuously strive to develop the capacity to deal with emotions such as sadness, madness, gladness, anxiety, tension, fear, hate, love and hope. Any of these if not well managed, can limit your ambitions or hinder your goals. (c) Feeling empathy: You will be more effective in whatever you do if you take trouble to put yourself in position of other person. This is what Steven Covey means by saying to understand then to be understood. (d) Motivating yourself: This involves being in a position to encourage yourself to keep going, to develop enthusiasm and to be willing to pay the emotional price of pursuing your goals through. There are so many bumps, gullies, disappointments and dilemmas along the road to your goals. You need to have such an emotional stature that will enable you to sail through such hard times without losing your vision. You need courage, patience, persistence, consistence, commitment, compassion and passion. You also need the emotional stamina to delay immediate gratification for the course of higher, but future gains. Only those with the ability to morale boost themselves can behave as such. (e) Managing relationships: The above four abilities will help you build and handle beneficial relationships. Never allow yourself to be frustrated by others. You must understand why and what people want and try to give to them without being offended. Learn how to deal with conflicts since conflicts are a natural and human thing. Know when to hang-in there and when to let go. 63
5. March to your purpose In life you cannot achieve every goal you have set, but you cannot achieve any goal without having set it first. Unfortunately, many do not have a sense of purpose for which they are living their life for and they lack goals to help them live to the ideals of that purpose, which is why they are low achievers. You risk being a low achiever if you lack a sense of purpose to march to. The clearer your purpose is, the easier it is for you to make decisions at each moment of your life. It means you can easily identify those paths and activities that are inconstant with what it is that you are here for. Your sense of mission is equally clear and inspiring enough as well as the values that govern how you live your life. This is what governs your goals, the strategies you lay at each stage in pursuit of those goals, and the particular activities you undertake. We get lost in attractive by-paths which do not lead to where we want to go, simply because these things are not clear to us all the time. If you are in doubt about why you are here, what you want to spend life for, which landmarks you have to reach and what you are going to do with each new coming day, then you can hardly attain personal effectiveness. 6. Maintain good health Quite often we live a very unhealthy life simply because we nurture the wrong state of mind. This entails chronic attitudes of self-disapproval, self-disappointment and self-distrust. The feeling of emptiness and severe self-criticism, which results in looking at others as being against you, unfair to you, belittling you and disapproving you. People with such complex are usually swallowed up in bowing to the opinions and decisions of others. Good feelings about one‟s self and feelings of love can raise the level of immunoglobulin in the body system. Immunoglobulin is an anti-body active against viral infections; this is an extreme example to show how your state of mind matters to your health. A positive mental attitude enables you to live a healthy life. You ought to know how to maintain enthusiasm and to deal with depression and challenging situations. A negative mental attitude is counterproductive to your health. A healthy mind resides in a healthy body. So always try to maintain sound body health. Eat the right foods that won‟t damage your body, the cost of falling sick is so high. Physical exercises are so important because they help the mind to recreate and get sharper. Be careful not to contaminate your brains (your capital) with addictive drugs that distort mental stability. And always practice protected sex. HIV AIDS is at an alarming stage in this country; remember that only when you are healthy can you be effective in whatever you are doing. 7. Constantly expand your capacity You cannot achieve anything above your level of ability. The rapidly changing circumstances around us requires you to constantly enrich what you know, your skills, your practices and the techniques you apply in whatever you do. Similarly, nowadays we are talking of a multi skilled human resource. This poses a challenge for you to diversify your skills as much as you can. You should learn a culture of lifelong learning, which gives you the impetus to be eager to learn from whatever experiences you go through. The trends are dictating that if you trained in school as a business administrator, you are better off knowing something about social research, ICT, economic development, environmental issues, and so on. But you do not have to be going back to school to learn all these. You can attend seminars, do courses 64
online, and conduct your own research. In this era, society is more focused on results. It does not matter how many official papers you have as much as it matters how much you know and what you can actually deliver. It is imperative for organisations to learn new things continuously in order to be competitive, and then it‟s more imperative for you as an individual to keep expanding your capacity through continuous learning. Avoid dying before your real death; keep learning. Remember it‟s a global village; no more boarders and boundaries, the gates of nations have been opened to all, so the competition is global too. 8. Excel in personal marketing Brian Tracy once advised, “Resolve to be among the top 20% of sales persons, who make 80% of the sales”. Too many of us have immense talent, experience, expertise, skills, exposure and opportunities. I believe you are among them. But we incredibly lack the ability to market ourselves. For this reason we witness too many failures than necessary, not because they do not have anything to sell, but what they are selling is not visible enough to the public. It is one of my weak areas too, the main reason why it took you this long to know me. However, I am trying to work on myself and am already impressed with the progress though I still have a long way to go. Communication is at the core of this whole question. We communicate through listening in order to understand and sending information in order to be understood. What I am learning is that you should have a good communication strategy through which you will let the public know about your skills, expertise, talents, and so on. From my own experience, I know how humiliating it is to live in a paradox of having something excellent to sell, without having a critical mass of buyers who know about it. If they do not buy from you even if you are the best, it‟s not their fault. You are to blame for your poor personal marketing. This, therefore, takes us back to where we started. You ought to know what it is you are here to givethat which you can do for others to enrich their lives. That is your selling point. In other words, giving is the way you receive. The more you know what you are here to give, the more you give it and the more you receive. But then how will people demand for what you have to offer, if they are not aware of it, however good it may be? Ultimately, this is what we mean by the slogan, success is not about just working hard, it‟s also about working smart. A good personal marketing strategy can help you work smart. As a shrewd marketer, you must package and present your talents and services in the most attractive way possible, but by no means does this mean you should be deceptive. Remember to always make a lasting first impression on the people you meet. “You have only one chance to make the first impression”, so goes the marketer‟s slogan, always seek new ways of bettering your talents. We have already talked about volunteering as another way of penetrating the labour market. It is a personal marketing strategy which gives you the opportunity to display what you are capable of doing. Visibility is a very critical factor in marketing. To help you in thinking about your personal marketing strategy, here are some important hints for you to think about:
How many people know what you do and how good you are? Do people have/ get ego when buying your products or services? 65
Are you the first in the mind of your customers? Are you competing at the top or low end of the market? Are you giving your customers what your competitors can‟t give them? Do you have a continuity of customers who repeatedly buy from you? How many people who work hard to put money in your account every hour, day, and month end?
9. Persistence is the cement for worthy goals (Winners never quit and quitters never win) Ambition alone will never deliver the fruit called success if you are lacking persistence. For it matters not how bright a student may be or how clever the innovator is, if he has no persistence. Temporary setbacks are definitely part of the equation. There‟s no way you can distil them away or out of it. You just have to look them right in the face and keep saying, “No matter what”. Failure to do this is the very reason why many men and women who would have become brilliant engineers, doctors, teachers, lawyers, artists, musicians or well paid executives and so on, have unfortunately failed at it. They all have the talent but lack the power to persist, giving up at each bit of obstacle. A person is never quite near to success as when that which he calls failure has nearly over-taken him. For it is on occasions of this sort that he is forced to think. If he thinks accurately with persistence, he discovers that the so- called failure is usually nothing more than a signal to realm him with a new winning plan. Most real failures are due to limitations that people set up in their own minds. Normally if they had the courage to go one extra step further, they might as well have discovered the key to the door of their desires. More often than not, we lose victory to defeat simply because we do not persist hard enough. The habit of running away from unpleasant circumstances is what hinders many of us finishing that which we have started. Instead of mastering the circumstances, we simply conform and let our dreams perish. Zig Ziglar once said, “You will never succeed as a wandering generality, you must become a meaningful specific” Note here though that there‟s a stark difference between running away and tactical retreat. It‟s all about choosing the most optimal options. It‟s about the wisdom to know when to move on and when to stay. If you are someone who is easily hit by setbacks that you easily get stuck in the mud of those nasty experiences, just remember that there‟s no tree that the wind has never shaken! Yet, we do not see these trees giving up their vertical posture easily. The depth of its roots into the ground directly determines the level of a tree‟s capacity to persist. Likewise, what will keep your persistence levels high is how focused and well informed your goals and mission are. What makes you strong is the foundation of your awareness. It is awareness that enables you to have a solid mission and sense of purpose that gives a strong reason and courage to persist. The clearer and more compelling they are, the stronger the persistence. However, you cannot have a purposeful persistence if you do not know yourself. It all begins with self-discovery. At this point again ask yourself: Do I really know who I am? Where I am coming from? Where I want to go? Why I chose to go there?
66
10. You don’t achieve what you don’t desire The rule of desire holds that you can be, have, or do anything that you want only if it is realistic/ achievable, want it hard enough and are taking the necessary actions to achieve it. In other words success does not simply take wishing or mere wanting, a fierce and consuming hunger that knows no defeat. Just like a hungry lion, that is what thrusts you into exploring all the possible and acceptable means of getting to what you want. By “acceptable‟‟ here I mean that it must respect the values of human dignity. Success as a by-product of pursuing the purpose of your life has its embryo stage in this kind of desire. For the desire in turn, yields the motivating forces that stimulates men and women to embrace hopes, to initiate plans, develop courage and to orient their heads, hearts and hands to acting in the pursuit of their life‟s mission. Anyone who is capable of stimulating his or her mind to produce intensive desire is equally capable of achieving that desire, if he or she is serious, consistent, committed, and hungry for it and focused enough. Where there is an answer there is always a way. If there‟s no way, desire will always seek to create a way. It creates a situation of “no retreat, no surrender”. You must learn to convince your soul and gutfeeling to create a burning desire to succeed at all cost; this will always lead you to insist. I either win or failure loses”. And forget not the philosophers words of wisdom; “obstacles are those frightful things that you see when you take your eyes off your goals”. Stay focused on what you are here for rather than what seeks to divert you. Distractions will always be there and without a focused desire, you will definitely be swayed. Perhaps, the most tragic cause of failure among the youth of this generation is the desire to get something for nothing. A great multitude lives in the false hope that life will miraculously bring favourable fortunes “one day is one day”. Years pass-by as they await the fortunes, which unfortunately never materialise. Exercising the brain to generate constructive ideas is a rare enterprise in our generation. Where is the passion and desire? What do you believe in? This actually explains why genuine developments are not taking place in many African and other third world countries. Ideas are the substance with which society is made and develops. When there‟s deficiency in the creation of ideas, society will at best stay still, but normally it will retard. Otherwise, what other justified explanation do we have for this country‟s paradox of poverty amidst plenty? To those who have discovered their life‟s purpose and crafted worthwhile plans, one thing is certain; they do not know what awaits them along the way to their destination, but they know they will reach it if they keep doing certain things in a certain way each single day. Each day make sure that your actions and priorities are in line with your plans. Ensure that each step you take is towards your destiny and always take heed of Mahatma Gandhi‟s warning, “There will be many turnings along the way, it will be easy to get lost along attractive by-paths that lead to nowhere, resist deflection.” Believing in your purpose, mission and plans is very crucial for you to avoid deflections. What keeps a Muslim steadfast to the teachings of Allah is the continuous quest to strengthen his belief of the Holy Quran. So is the case with a Christian and the teachings of the Holy Bible. The more they believe, the more they stay on course. How much do you believe in your mission and plans?
67
Chapter 11: THE ENERGY WITHIN “We make our habits, and then our habits make us” Anthony Robbins This new course of the journey will require a lot from you and you may be wondering whether you can measure up to it! On the surface of things you cannot manage, it demands too much. But to the awakened person whom this book has made you, it only demands so much, not too much. This is what I too discovered when I embarked on this new course of the journey and I have never run out of what it takes. Yes sometimes it diminishes, but nature has a self-replenishing mechanism, it builds up again. I myself have dug deep holes, fell into them, and then had to dig my way out. That is how I keep rising and moving again after stumbling and falling. It‟s all here in me. Remembering that if we never risked falling, we would go through life crawling like caterpillars. No need to feel jealous about me; it‟s also there in you, perhaps greater than mine. You already possess what you need to excel on this journey; God gave you a full tank of fuel, though you may not have noticed it yet. Don‟t be surprised to see your self-becoming a “No matter what” person, for that is a major defining character of travellers on this journey. It is not my intention to bore you with truths and absolute answers to those daunting queries in your life, but I can‟t shy away from sharing with you the insights I have come to cherish in my own life. I believe that they work because I have witnessed their effect on great many people. I have developed into such a renewed person and I marvel at the mystery underlying the human experience and its ability to shape circumstances. It‟s this marvel that activates and renews my inner energies, even when I am caught up in the midst of its insurmountable odds. Why you are more than what you think Henry David Thoreau “Oh God, to reach to the point of death only to realise that you have never lived, only to find that you never scratched the surface of your potential”. Now, over time I have learnt that by living to a purpose, I am able to impact on the lives of very many others. Over the years I have come to appreciate that if life was a race, most people have the potential to run and keep running for whole of their lives without conceding to fatigue. But ironically, only a handful does actually run, and the majority? Well, some of them crawl in life, others just walk through life. There are those who attempt to run but when they stumble and fall, they fear to attempt again. The rest simply sit and watch others. Those that run and keep running for the rest of their lives have a common characteristic; they have learnt to tap the infinite energy that resides inside of them. This energy is real, it exists and they have absolute command over it. They keep achieving great things in their lives planting a milestone at each mileage they accomplish. It‟s this energy that enables them to climb to greater heights as though they were no hindrances. Those who never run? They look for energy in others. They believe it‟s outside them. They always believe they are victims and that someone from somewhere must come to rescue them. They are characterised by conformism, having excuses, ever complaining, self-pity and ever wishing. They follow the noise of the whistles all around them because they wait to see what others are doing so they can follow. And even when they follow, they never get the moment to ask themselves why they are following? 68
So what is the basis of my optimism? Reflection has awakened me to the truths that, no matter their past, human beings have an amazing capacity for change. They can develop the capacity to run throughout their lives, if only they learn how to discover their inner energy and apply it. Even when they stumble and fall they are capable of tapping that same inner energy to re-launch their spirits and run again. Be limitless Moreover, the realities of life in the 21st century in which you and I have the privilege to find ourselves, is pregnant with more opportunities than ever before. It is an era that presents life as a new exciting game. In this new game one cannot with impunity claim to be too old to be useful. In this new game, no one can claim to know it all. No one can claim to be limited by others without their own permission. I have seen the sun rise and set every day and it has never changed its pattern or course, same direction and same size. Hence I have met people but they are different; not any of the over six billion people living on earth is the same as the other. However, one aspect seems to underpin the basis of humans, and this is the common denominator; our amazing capacity for change. That is always the basis for human hope. When people change, things change. I share this hope too. I keep hoping that my everyday tomorrow can be better than today, as long as I do something about it. I know that the best way to change things is to change myself. That is the same message I have for you in this book. These powerful insights I am sharing with you will enable you to get out of life the results you truly deserve. To map out your dream career and achieve it, to trudge the entire journey of your life with utmost gratitude and satisfaction. Isn‟t this what we all crave for? Isn‟t it what we deserve anyway? Isn‟t it what your creator made you for? Then, except you, who has the power to take it away from you? So what’s next? Human tendency builds the weakness to un-knowingly lose the most valuable, although heavy baggage along the way. Finally what most of us carry home after this journey of life is the useless “Husks”. Many attractive by-paths interlock at the most decisive junctions in our life‟s journey. Each road you choose to take is marked with its own instructions but the difference between these instructions is so blurred that it‟s not easy to distinguish which way to go. Only those who have mastered their desired destiny and develop faith in it will be consistent enough to take the right paths always. You must keep watch to mark the signs of the road that lead to your destiny. Always go with the greatest assets, don’t waste your time and energy cleaning copper coins to look like gold ones. By now you must:
Know what you want Know Why you want it Want it so desperately Want it hard enough Be willing to pay the price in attaining it Be consistent in moving towards it. Act upon attaining it and see it through to completion!
69
My dear friend, don‟t wait for tomorrow, don‟t wait after graduating as most losers have done. It may be too late or perhaps, it might even never come. Do your best today, where you are with what you have and leave the unknown to God.
……The End……
70