MAKE THAT MOVE.

I’ve been doing some reading lately on the history of Nigeria. The history of the kingdoms, the empires, the amalgamation the colonial era, pre independence agitation and campaign, post-independence developments, the civil war, the coups, the democratic eras; 1st,2 and 3rd republic and its simply mind blowing the sheer number of players involved in the politics and management of Nigeria in the last sixty years. And you know what was more intriguing?  A very high number of them are dead and gone today.

They were born, just like you and I, they studied hard, worked hard, rose to prominence, did the best they could, and they ended up been cut off in their prime or eventually died of old age. They entered and exited.

But think with me this morning, all their activities, agitations, sacrifices and desperation has not actually ruled out or totally annulled inefficiencies, crisis, corruption, backwardness, greed, underdevelopment, division, nepotism, poverty and lack in Nigeria. In fact, many older people refer to past era as the good old days. They believe things were much better and the society saner.

Look around the world and consider the history of many nations. Consider their history and you’ll see how many people sacrificed everything including their very own lives for a better nation and today, it seems their sacrifices and efforts have all being in vain.

Ladies and gentlemen, that is the reality of life and the world we live in. People come and people go, generations come and generations go but nations and institutions will definitely remain. Now every good deed by a preceding generation can be undone by a successor generation and every bad deed by a predecessor generation can be undone by a successor generation.  Hence the more the world appears to change, the more it really remains the same especially in matters of values, policies, interaction, relationships and social order.

The poor we’ll always have in the land. Deprivation, oppression, injustice, corruption, abuse, intimidation and wickedness has nothing to do with era or seasons but with people. There will always be good people and bad people in this world at every point in time, past, present and future. The people, not the era determines the experience of a nation.

My dear friend, hear this breaking news, you cannot fix the world, you cannot fix nations you can’t even fix people; you don’t have the power. You can only influence things in your time and season for good or for bad and when your time is over, it is permanently over, you will only be remembered for what you did or did not do either good or bad.

This being the reality, I think your approach to how you live your life should become smarter. You should be more passionately concerned about changing yourself to influence your generation than changing other people or the world. What only matters when you’re gone is how you as an individual influenced things in your time and season. And it takes you, becoming a person of influence through personal growth and transformation, to make a significant impact in your generation.

Truth is, yes we all live in this world today but 99% of us will no longer be here in 100 years from today. We shall all be gone; leaving Nigeria in the hands of a generation that are not yet born. In that new generation, they will also have their good, their bad and their ugly people and sides, you my friend will lack the power to do anything about Nigeria then, your season is permanently over. Sir Ahmadu Bello, Awolowo and Nnamdi Azikwe can’t do nothing about today’s Nigeria. Their time is over!

My counsel this morning hence, is to be realistic about the truth that you are not going to be here forever. There are many of us today with 2019 elections on our minds and we may not even be around to witness it. I don’t mean to scare you, it’s just a matter of fact.

Hence it is not smart to build your life and dreams and hope on when someone will fix Nigeria before you start doing anything meaningful. Listen, this is your life! Your life is not domicile in the future, in fact it is not in next year, your life is already running now, your time is running, your race is on, times, conditions, situations being favorable or not does not matter, your life is on! you can’t pause it, you can’t rewind it, you can’t replay it, it is running already and everyday gone by is gone forever, never to be recovered.

Dear friend, stop planning your life on hope of a better situation, condition or time, it may never come. Do what you must do today. Every day as you sleep and wake up, you’re loosing advantages and opportunities you do not take.

Every day you do nothing, you’re losing the advantage of time, energy, age, power, growth, impact, knowledge and early start.

Imagine you started a business at 25, when you turn 65 you’d have grown it for forty years, imagine starting the same business at 55, at 65 it will just be 10 years old.

Stop waiting for everything to be perfect and all things aligning in your favour before you do something, perfect situation is an illusion, it will never happen. Success is achieved when you intelligently do what you need to do no matter the condition or situation.

Waiting for a perfect time will waste your time, waste your life, your energy, opportunities and power to influence the world. And guess what? a perfect time today does not guarantee a perfect perpetual life of business, career or even dreams. There will still be up and down seasons even after you’re lucky to have started at a so called perfect time, so what’s the fuss? Come on friend, get real. You only have this one life, wake up and smell the coffee, you’re aging every day, you’re even older now than you were when you woke up this morning.

Whatever you need to do, you want to do, or meant to do, do it now! There is no promise or guarantee of tomorrow to any living soul.

Don’t allow fear, discouragement, convenience, visionless cohorts deprive you of a great and significant life.

When you were conceived in your mother’s womb you were on your marks, after nine months, you got set, immediately you were born, your race begun.

My dear friend, your race is on, the stop watch aren’t stopping; it’s counting and will keep counting. Weather you’re running, stopping, going backwards, chilling, lamenting, complaining or waiting. it does not matter, the stop watch over your life is not waiting, not stopping and not faulty.  When your duration is over, your race is done.

Dear friend, choose to start and keep running today, be determined to breast that tape of good success. It may be raining, sunny, stormy, dark or gloomy, you better don’t stop running.

Give your life a chance to matter. Give your dreams a chance to live, give your potentials the opportunity for manifestation, let all your gifts and talents be a blessing to the world in your time. Stop holding other people, other institutions and life responsible for your race. It is your race; your race!

I believe at times it’s wise to review one’s life and obtain wisdom. If you started your dream business at age 25 for example, how big would it have become today? That perfect time you’ve been waiting for, for 15 to 20 years has it materialized yet, will it ever materialize? If you choose to activate and start work on your dreams today wouldn’t you naturally have the advantage of time and energy?

Dear friend, that your comfort zone is a dangerous trap, be wise about how you see it. Learn from all those who used to be in that zone many years before you, where are they today? Dear friend, don’t wait for a perfect time, there is no such thing. Activate your dreams and true life today, you’re running out on time, do something about yourself now, instead of spending time and energy judging, criticizing, condemning, embarrassing and holding others responsible for your inertia, attachment to comfort, lack of will and courage, do something about yourself now. Activate your real life today.

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DO THE PROFITABLE

One of the most powerful laws in life is the law of sowing and reaping. Sowing and reaping is the key to productivity, increase and continuity.

For anything to remain alive, relevant and progressive, the law of sowing and reaping must be applied.

Every single plant continues to exist on the account of planting its seed in the right environment and soil and after a while, Mother Nature will see to its growth, development and the ability to yield fruits and seeds after its own kind as well. The seed from this new plant is subsequently plant as well in the right environment and soil, hence it will after a while grow, bear fruits and produce seeds after its kind.

The law of sowing and reaping is the key to multiplication. It’s a powerful, universal and basic law.

Mankind for many years now have also realized this law of sowing and reaping does not only apply in physical reproduction but also in behavioral concepts. The law of karma is simply about sowing and reaping. It means whatever you do, there are repercussions. It’s also expressed in the law of cause and effect, and the law of action and reaction. It means everything we do is a seed with the potential for growth and reward either positive or negative.

Having this in mind and being conscious of the efficacy of this law, it simply means your success, prosperity, increase and wealth creation has its powers in the law of sowing and reaping. The law makes clear that whatsoever a man sows, same shall he reap. Two words are powerful here, first is WHATSOEVER, the second is SAME!

Paying attention to the word WHATSOEVER makes very clear the fact that there is no restriction or limitation to what has the power or potential to grow. Anything and everything can grow. Everything you sow will return to you, everything you do will return to you, either good, bad or ugly. WHATSOEVER is WHATSOEVER! This powerful realization could simply be a pointer to the fact that perhaps most of our problems and difficulties in life today, are not incidences or coincidences but repercussions, consequences and harvest of everything in every way! It throws light on the fact that as humans, we consequently experience anything we do or release into a very fertile world either good or bad.

The second powerful word is the word SAME. SAME is SAME. Looking at the law of sowing and reaping from the physical perspective, you naturally expect harvest on the exact kind of seeds you sow, not a different type. This is scary in that it could imply anything you’re doing today especially the bad, wicked and evil ones are waiting for you in your future! Perhaps if you really check your past, a year ago, ten years ago, 20 years ago, you did something to someone or you caused someone to experience that, which has now returned to you and you’re currently experiencing. If not you, perhaps your parents or grandparents did it. Please be aware, DNA is recognized by Mother Nature, hence if the sowing and reaping season, growth and maturity period for anything done by your parents or grandparents is much longer than their lifespan, Mother Nature will return it to you as their offspring – as a carrier of their DNA through DNA recognition. This is because the dead can’t reap. This I believe should naturally put an end to the question of God why me?

A little over a year ago, when these powerful words, whatsoever and same jumped at me when I was studying, I then realized all I had or was experiencing in my life were consequences and returns on the kind of seed I was mostly sowing.

I then began to think back and realized with excitement that it was the truth!

Perhaps there are some of you out there questioning right now, the efficacy of this law in your lives. You’re perhaps wondering why you’ve sown so much in cash and material things, kindness and good gestures yet have little or nothing to show.

If you want this law to work for you, there are three key factors you need to consider. These are common sense factors many have ignored. I call them common sense factors because it applies to the obvious law of sowing natural grains or seeds too. They are as follows:

1. Sow what you want to reap. Many of us don’t really think about this. It is what you sow, that you will reap, not what you expect. If you want clothes, sow clothes, if you want food, sow food, if you want good health, sow medication. If you want knowledge, teach others, pay school fees, buy books, sponsor students; donate to schools, earning centers and award scholarships. If you want something, don’t just sow cash, Money is not a seed, money is a spirit; the spirit of money powers the law of sowing, reaping and increase.  If you sow cash, you can’t reap cash, money itself lacks the capacity for growth; it only fuels growth. Fertilizers don’t grow, they fuel growth. It is actually what you put the cash into that will return to you. Let me make this clear, if you want to reap tomatoes, you don’t sow just fertilizer, you purchase tomato seeds with cash and sow tomato seeds, or you invest that money in existing tomato farm business to harvest tomato. Sow what you want to reap or sow into what you want to reap.
2. Your seed quality – The quality of your seed is simply about its source. If the money used to purchase what you want to sow is stolen or diverted for example, you will ultimately harvest the problem that money was meant to solve in the first place. Bad seeds yield bad harvest. If you steal, embezzle or divert money meant to purchase drugs for people in the hospital for example, no matter where you sow it into, even if it is a religious project, your ultimate harvest will be sickness and disease. The power of SAME is in the seed not in the soil.

3. Now let’s talk about Your soil

The soil you sow a seed into is very important. A good seed will never grow in a bad soil. A fertile soil is necessary for good growth and bountiful harvest. I’ve heard many people say stuff like I’m not bothered about what they use the money for, God sees my heart that I’ve given, how foolish. How can a farmer or sower not care about the soil, how can a good sower not mind if the seeds fall by the way side, on the rock, amongst thorns or on good ground? Many remain pathetically broke today wasting their good seeds in bad soils. The best soil ever, recognized by humanity and divinity with the capacity to yield in hundreds of fold, is in the lives of orphans, widows, the poor, the hungry, the sick, the displaced, the homeless and less privileged. That’s why billionaires all over the world donate to charity, they understand and respect the law! It makes them wealthier!

Let me shock you with this secret, to become a multi-millionaire or even a billionaire in this life, you don’t work for it, you can’t even work hard enough for it, you don’t have the required energy and time to achieve this feat, to become one, you sow for it.

Ladies and gentlemen, every activity we carryout daily is a form of seed we’re sowing in one way or another and we shall consequently reap everything in one way or another. Dear friend, Sow wisely.

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Obama begins lucrative turn as Wall Street speaker

Barack Obama has begun cashing in on his time in the White House with paid Wall Street speeches less than a year after leaving office, a practice which drew stinging rebukes for Hillary Clinton during last year’s presidential campaign.

The former US president will appear Monday before a who’s who of the US healthcare industry at a conference to be held next week by the New York trading firm Cantor Fitzgerald, according to two sources with knowledge of the matter.

He will deliver remarks before answering questions from the audience, they said on condition of anonymity. Obama will discuss his signature 2010 health care reform legislation, known as Obamacare, which Republican lawmakers are still working to dismantle after several failed attempts.

According to a person briefed on Obama’s planned appearance, he will be paid about $400,000.

In August, Obama addressed a New York gathering held by the Chicago private banking and wealth management firm Northern Trust.

Panelists at that event, according to the firm’s website, included billionaire former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, chief Microsoft cybersecurity advisor Jonathan Trull and IBM general manager for “blockchain” technology Marie Wieck.

True to his values
Obama received $400,000 for his Northern Trust appearance, according to Bloomberg News, which also reported Monday that the former president had made a similar appearance this month at the private equity behemoth Carlyle Group.

Carlye Group and Northern Trust both declined to comment when contacted by AFP. A spokeswoman for Cantor Fitzgerald confirmed that Obama would attend next week’s event but offered no additional details.

The speeches are the first Obama has given to Wall Street since leaving the Oval Office on January 20. Since May, Obama has made paid appearances in Italy, Germany, Scotland, Canada, Indonesia and South Korea.

He is also due to make an appearance later this month in Toronto and to appear at a New York synagogue in January.

“Since leaving office, President Obama has spent his time doing public and private events, both paid and unpaid, that are true to his values and his record,” Kevin Lewis, an Obama spokesman, told AFP.

“Consistent with that, his paid speeches in part have allowed president Obama to contribute $2 million to Chicago programs offering job training and employment opportunities to low-income youth.”

The appearances nevertheless risk drawing the same criticism that bedevilled Clinton during last year’s White House campaign, exposing Obama to barbs from the left of the Democratic Party, which currently has no clear standard bearer.

Clinton has since written she now regrets delivering paid remarks to the investment bank Goldman Sachs and others because it created the impression that she was in their pockets.

Since her defeat, Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who are fiercely critical of the financial industry, have taken on more prominent roles in the party.

Hardly the first
“Given that (Obama) is probably not going to run for office again, being paid to give speeches by Wall Street firms will not compromise any policy decisions now or in the future,” said Randy Albelda, an economist at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

“Still, these type of appearances (and being paid well for them) may tarnish his reputation among a liberal base and bolster the perception that Democrats are the party of the elite.”

Wall Street has viewed Obama with some caution. As president, he denounced the financial industry’s “reckless practices” while pushing for stricter government oversight.

Still, the Obama administration failed to prosecute a single senior Wall Street banker after the 2008 financial crisis and did not dismantle any of the banks deemed “too big to fail.”

Obama is also hardly the first former leader to work the paid speech circuit. Former British premier Tony Blair and former US president Bill Clinton have done so famously.

And in 2013, former French president Nicolas Sarkozy appeared at the annual SkyBridge Alternatives (SALT) conference in Las Vegas, an event spearheaded by President Donald Trump’s one-time communications director Anthony Scaramucci.

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HOW YOU CAN ADVANTISE YOUR BUSINESS THROUGH OTHER MEDIUM

One of my usual practice is to carry out my roadwork every morning as the day breaks. I get into my exercise outfit and sneakers and I hit the road for my exercise.

A few months ago as I ran along,  I began to encounter a woman perhaps in her mid-fifties,  standing by her parked van and offering handbill invitation of her church program to passersby. She performed this duty very passionately and in order not to miss anyone, she’d hastily move from one passerby to another, even those of us running, and she’d mutter a very passionate “God bless you as you attend”.

For about a week I’ll collect the handbill and just keep running but one day I stopped. When I stopped she looked at me intently and smiled and wanted to start sharing details of their church but I cut her short and asked her firmly what she does for a living.

She said she was a caterer and she’d been a caterer for about 15 years. I looked at her and her tattered van and I said to her, “if you want me to keep receiving these handbills of your church from you, and you want me to eventually attend any of your church programs, the next time I run by, I want to see you hand me also, a handbill about your catering business.

She looked at me a bit surprised, then she smiled and thanked me and I went my way.

Two days afterwards as I ran past her and her old, tattered van, she rushed towards me and hastily handed me the handbill of her church program and that of her catering business – beaming with a twinkle of excitement in her eyes. I collected the handbills and signaled her a thumbs up and kept running along.

About a week after that encounter, I noticed she’d disappeared from that location and wondered what happened to her. About six weeks afterwards, as I drove into the estate via the main gate, I noticed a woman blaring her horn and flashing her headlights trying to get my attention. She appeared excited and I was wondering who she was. I slowed down and she caught up with me and pleaded I parked.

As I did, she also came off the main road and parked about a meter ahead  of me. As she alighted from her new van, I immediately recognized her as the women who used to hand me her church handbill regularly. She looked quite better and happier.                                                                                                                             

She rushed towards me and couldn’t wait to tell her story. About a week after I asked that she shared the handbill of her catering business alongside the church program handbill, one of the people she encountered was the owner of a very big private school within the estate, who subsequently engaged her to become a supplier of cooked meals for her pupils and students at lunch hour. This school owner introduced her to two other schools within the estate and with these businesses, things turned around big time for this woman.

Apart from that she’s been offered so many jobs to carter at different events and parties within and outside the estate as a result of sharing her handbills every morning, she’s had to turn some down as she eventually lacked the capacity and manpower to cope with all the jobs. She’s had to recruit about 15 new people, bought more cooking utensils, leased two new vans and she has become very busy making good money.

She’s no longer on the road giving out her church program’s handbills in the morning, she’s now giving out the church handbills at schools and various events she’s been engaged to carter.

Her story changed and her prosperity showed up simply because she added common sense to her religious routines.

Ladies and gentlemen, it amazes me how I’ll encourage many job seekers to take on sales for a start and begin to supply basic needed items on behalf of producers or sellers to potential buyers within an estate or location and they’ll tell me they can’t sell, they don’t want to sell, selling is stressful,  yet these same people, in the sun or rain, morning, noon or night wouldn’t mind walking miles to go give out handbills and sell religious programs and events on behalf of their religious centers for free.

Some would stand in street corners or even board buses passionately selling the message of their religion, they at times win converts and afterwards go home broke and hungry and start offering desperate prayers to God to bless them with a job.

Ladies and gentlemen, you need to also take responsibility for yourself and your life beyond religious routines. Make sure there is something in your hand, something you are doing that your God can bless. A blessing is simply expanding, growing, multiplying or increasing something that’s already existing. No matter how hard you increase nothing, it remains nothing.

It’s good to be religious, it’s good to spread the good news of your religion but its wisdom for your life to be attractive and compelling enough for me to easily want to accept your faith without you talking too much because your faith looks good on you.

For example, I believe your religion appears more attractive and compelling if you’re offering me handbills to attend you program standing next to your parked latest Mercedes Benz SUV or BMW X6 instead of a 25 year old, panel beaten, cracked windshield, worn tires, smoking space bus.

You can’t successfully play the victim with your maker, “suffering” for God will not bring automatic riches if you suspend your creativity, necessary skills, intelligence, knowledge, hard work, commitment, diligence and determination.

Lazy and laid back religious people are usually broke. And this unfortunately, puts a question mark on the love and generosity of their maker. Learn to provide something useful, relevant and valuable to your society. Offer your product, project your competencies and spread the good news of what you can do as well. Let the world see your skills, meet people’s needs and offer solutions in the market place.

Let the glory of your God be seen upon you clearly. Make your life attractive, make your gospel attractive and spread the good news of what you do too.

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