How to Get what you want

On the Path of Winners

By Bayo Ogunmupe

How to get what you want

POWER is a loaded word. It makes people uncomfortable. But yet everyone wants power to be able to get what he wants and make others do what he wants, which is what all that power really is. This piece is for those whose goal in life is power. Women are actually more power hungry than men. Studies indicate that while they are in high school and university, they pursue power goals for more than male students. It is impossible to draw valid conclusions from findings, however, until follow-up studies are done to see if the power drive is maintained over time.

  Power has only recently become a possibility for women. But Dr. Okonjo Iweala did not lose to Yong Kim on the platter of gender. Kim is just too pre-eminent as a thinker and development catalyst to lose. When enough women achieve power, it is possible that they may change the world. Perhaps then, they may adopt male power patterns. One thing we do know however, is that the man or woman driven by the need for power does not need any test to find out what he wants other than power. He or she knows he wants power.

  Damola did not have to seek power. She inherited it. Her father died when she was 30, and left her the sole owner of a vast business empire. No one expected her to be more than a figurehead. Perhaps not even that because she had all her life been devoted to pleasure and excitement. She flew her own jet, was constantly on the gossip columns, her name always linked with rich and famous men. Her father doted on her, amused by her escapades. But he died and the scramble for power and control of his business began.

  As first born, Damola was the nominal head of the empire, but the power was in the hands of the director of operations, one who was hungry for power and money, and sure to get it. Damola had shown no interest in her inheritance. She was grief-stricken, gone into seclusion. She emerged to make occasional headlines when she attended royal weddings and involved in automobile crash, forcing her into another temporary seclusion. The business however, went on, suffering from infighting owing to lack of a leader. Then rumours of a takeover rent the air.

  Then Damola grasped the power she had inherited. The takeover maneuvers have shaken her from slumbers. She was used to being the heiress, the beauty, the daredevil playgirl. Suddenly, she realised she had enjoyed vicarious power only. The new reality had set the tone of her life. Now, her life was endangered by power hungry employees.

  It took less than a year to turn her empire around. She cleared the deadwoods, fired those executives who opposed her – men she had formerly deferred to, now surrounded herself with vigorous executives who were ready to break with the old ways of doing things. Thus at 35, Damola is in complete control of her empire. Now her name is in  the financial pages of the tabloids, not in the gossip columns. And she is referred to as a shrewd gambler and brilliant operator, no longer as playgirl and spoiled heiress. Thus Damola discovered power is the ultimate excitement. When one intrepid reporter asked if she planned to get married, Damola answered bluntly, “I could not respect a husband who was not my equal. And there are very few men today who are. Who else has as much power and as much money?”

  People who possess power bestowing resources are often unaware of their power, until like Damola, they are in danger of losing it and shocked to realise how much they have been taking for granted. The ability to manipulate effectively is the key to power. Bertrand Russell, the philosopher and winner of the 1950 Nobel Prize for literature defined power as, “the production of intended effects,” which means, “getting what you want.” Howe do you produce those effects? It is by manipulating people and circumstances. Manipulation is the tool of witches. Subtly, cleverly, they push you to corners, misadvise you to get their way. That’s how it works. With varying degrees of skill, the secretary who insists the executive calling her boss must come onto the line before she puts her boss on the phone, the mother who tells her two year-old that it is time for ice cream and juice instead of saying, “come home now it is getting cold outside” are manipulating. And there are many ways to manipulate. Physical persuasion is one. If you threaten a person with violence, harm, he might do whatever it is you want, although he won’t like it.

  Physical persuasion is a clumsily primitive method of manipulation. The power person achieves and increases his power by getting people to do what he wants them to by making them want to do it. The most effective tools to accomplish manipulation are flattery, rewards, guilt and fear in that order. For instance, my wife had flattered me over weeks after  I had refused to replace a rug soaked by windstorm and our wardrobe mirror she negligently broke. Eventually I was cajoled into paying to replace those items after an initial refusal. It was months later I realized I had succumbed to manipulation.

  So when you tell someone she is marvelous, talented, beautiful and brilliant, that person is going to lap it so much that she will be delighted to do anything to please you. Moreover, second hand flattery is also very effective. Things like, “Chike told me that everybody at your office was excited about your new campaign jingle. You must be very inventive. Congratulations.” This bolsters the ego, lets him know you think he is a great artist. If you want to influence someone, listen to what he says. Don’t be alert to the flaws of his arguments. Listen. When he finishes, ask questions, then tell him what you want and point out the areas where you are in agreement. He will be flattered that you have listened intently, that you take him seriously and that you respect him.

  My piece on creativity created a furor on the lackluster achievements of my country men in the areas of creativity, discovery, courage and leadership. Femi Ogunsanwo a Daily Times co-worker friend and author corrected me, proving that Columbia University is the leading school among Nobel Prize laureates with Barack Obama as its 96^th laureate. It was closely followed by the University of Cambridge, UK, with 88 laureates. Dr. Aderogba  Otunla of Bingham University, Lafia, Nasarawa State then unearthed Prof. John Dabiri of Graduate Aeronautical Laboratories in the California Institute of Technology, USA as an inventor and distinguished academic. What we know of him is that he is Yoruba, which means he is either a Nigerian or a Beninois from Benin Republic, West Africa. In 2010, he won the Mac Arthur Fellowship.

  Dabiri graduated from Princeton University in Aeronautic Engineering with first class. He went to Caltech as a National Defence Science and Engineering Graduate Fellow. Then he earned a master’s in Aeronautics followed by a PhD in Bioengineering in 2005. He joined the Caltech faculty in 2005. Popular science magazine named him one of its “Brilliant 10” scientists for 2008. His expertise is in mechanics and dynamics of biological propulsion, fluid dynamic energy conversion. His patented inventions includes: self contained underwater velocimetry apparatus. Two, a two-dimensional army of turbines, three, propeller based pulsed jet propulsion system and four, passive mechanism for pulsatile jet propulsion. All patents registered in the United States.

Your Power Drive To Riches

Your power drive to riches

THE individual routes to wealth are myriad, yet it is startling in their similarity. And so are the men and women who are driven to amass riches. They are all sorts, thin and fat, short and tall, white and black, yellow and red. But they could have been stamped out by the same cookie cutter.

  Indeed, a high percentage of self-made multi-millionaires come from a background of poverty. There is nothing so surprising about rags-to-riches pattern. A psychologist would be surprised only if the pattern did not exist. Just as sex is an over-powering drive, so is the drive to accumulate money can be overwhelmingly powerful for someone who grew up poor. Which is why money looks bigger than life to poor people.

  In one study in which people were asked to estimate the size of a dollar bill, the poorest group consistently saw it as larger than life size, while middle and high income participants came very close to estimating the actual size. Education is not an important factor in amassing wealth. Often, it is the man who has gone no further than the second year of high school who makes the fortune. “I was too dump to know that what I was doing was impossible,” said one man who had built an immense fortune. These men are audacious. They take gambles that others would not touch and work like galley slaves to make such gambles pay off. An economics journalist who has observed the rich for decades says: “None of the self-made millionaires I’ve ever met seemed to be stupid or just lucky.”

  They are smart, shrewd; they spot trends, foresee needs; they are geniuses at making money out of other people’s ideas. This is the secret of making money, capitalizing on the creativity of others and turning it into practical money-making ideas.

  The passion for financial success replaces all other needs they may have, thus their desire for success transcends all other desires. “Winning is a question of desire,” says the founder of a motel chain who grew up poor and dropped out of school at 14. “You have got to be hungry for wealth to succeed,” he says. The mediocre is the guy who works only eight hours a day, who doesn’t take any risks, who doesn’t take risks. He is the guy who will trade everything he’s got for a little bit of security. Wealth seekers aren’t after “a bit of security,” they are after a whole lot of money. And the process of accumulating it is everything to them. No matter how much money such winners have made, they never have enough. They always feel deprived.

  But not all the men who have made riches their goal in life – and have accumulated vast wealth, are quite this frugal. But inside them, there is still that poor little boy who promised himself that one day he was going to be richer than Midas. Rich beyond belief. Psychological portraits of men who seek wealth reveal a sense of isolation, of loneliness of the hungry-for-love child within. Does this mean that wealth seekers should make an effort to change their goal? To work for fame, success in business or politics? Absolutely not. These would be artificial goals. That would not be anything near their goals. They want money and the making of money is an utterly absorbing pursuit. It gives the wealth seekers more satisfaction, more pleasure than anything else. And it is what they should do.

  Andrew Carnegie, the 19^th century steel tycoon, used to tell young men who sought his advice, “put all your eggs in one basket, then watch that basket, that’s the way to make money.”  In our age of rapid change, committing all one’s eggs to one basket is likely the road o bankruptcy. Accumulating wealth is a far more complicated feat than it was three generations ago. But it can be done. It has been done. As the title of this piece hints, there is just one road to riches. Although it may seem that the roads to wealth are myriad, the fact is that they are too similar to be more than one.

  The fortunes of self made millionaires come from diverse sources – oil, real estate, inventions and shrewd investments: one thousand and one combinations of these and other sources – but the ways wealth seekers seize upon these sources and turn them to solid cash are practically identical.

  Here are five guidelines; because your attitude and the way you channel your inner drives are far more important than your need for money. These guidelines are basic, for you can use them for any plan with which to make money.

  One, make money your mistress. Don’t waste time and energy on sex. You will discover making money is more orgasmic than sex.

  Two, find a need and fill it. Wealth seekers who spotted such trends foresaw such needs like Henry Ford filled the need for cheap cars, then, Germany’s Volkswagen Beetle.

  Three: Beware of crowd psychology, it is disastrous. Do not follow crowds. Four: Be the boss. The man who makes the fortune is the employer, not the employee. Unless you stole riches from your employer, you can never be a millionaire as an employee. Finally, develop your manipulating skills. To retain wealth to any length of time you have to be persuading others to obey your orders. Wealth seekers are adept at manipulating others intuitively.

  Our champion this week is Jim Yong Kim, the new World Bank President who resumes at the bank in July. Born in South Korea in 1959, Jim Yong Kim is a Korean-American physician, the 17^th president (Vice Chancellor) of Dartmouth University. The academic was formerly of Harvard Medical School, a co-founder of Partners In Health, recently appointed World Bank president.

  Young Kim received his B.A. first class from Brown University in 1982, MD from Harvard Medical School in 1991 and a PhD. in Anthropology from Harvard in 1993. His Partners In Health (PIH) organization began radical community focused healthcare programmes in Haiti, achieving remarkable success treating diseases at low cost. Kim was instrumental in designing treatment protocols and cutting deals for cheaper, more effective drugs.

  The PIH model was expanded in Peru in 1994. By 1998, extremely successful results curing all ailments prompted the World Health Organization to embrace the model and support the adoption of community based care to impoverished communities around the world. Kim’s work with PIH to treat tuberculosis was the first large scale attempt to treat the disease in poor countries. Kim was appointed adviser to the director-general of WHO in 2003 – as a result of the successes of the treatment model he invented. In March 2004, he was appointed director of WHO HIV/AIDS department. As of 2012, his programme has treated more than seven million Africans.

  Between 1993 and 2009, Kim had served as lecturer at Harvard Medical School. He eventually became professor of medicine, social medicine and human rights. In March 2009, Kim was named Vice Chancellor of Dartmouth University, the position he has held till today. In January 2010, Kim helped partner Dartmouth students and faculty with PIH to respond to the earthquake in Haiti. The response success was staggering. In April 2010 Kim launched the National College Health Improvement Project (NCHIP) which convenes health institutions to address student health issues. Also in May 2010 he helped secure an anonymous grant of $35 million to establish a centre for Health Care Delivery Science. It was Kim’s ability to add value to any organization where he works that enabled him to win the presidency of the World Bank. He is the first Asian, first physician to lead World Bank since 1944.

On The Path Of Winners BY BAYO OGUNMUPE How To Acquire Success Skills

On The Path Of Winners

BY BAYO OGUNMUPE

How To Acquire Success Skills

PEOPLE who succeed in life have the single-minded devotion to their goal that is best described as total commitment. Some people refer to these over-achievers as workaholics. But like alcoholics that implies illness, and if you are doing what you want to do more than anything else in the world, why punishing yourself by cutting down on things that make you happy?

  In 1914, Sir Ernest Shackleton attempted the first crossing of the continent of Antarctica by land. But his ship, Endurance was crushed by ice. Ernest Shackleton and his 27 member crew were stranded 1,200 miles from civilization, drifting on ice with just three rickety lifeboats. Eventually, they reached an island and waited while Shackleton and a few hands took a lifeboat 800 miles over rough seas to a whaling station. Shakleton returned with a rescue ship and everyone survived the 18 month ordeal. How did he keep everybody’s hope alive? It is optimism. Shackleton was an incurable optimist. He described optimism as moral courage, believing his crew would survive, he spread his optimism around him. Second, he kept everyone involved by seeking their opinions, urging them to pray as a group and making them feel they are part of the solution.

  Thirdly, he used humour to neutralize fear and enable his crew to overcome their obstacles. Shackleton was a prime example of how one person can keep hope alive.

  Moreover, Shackleton knew “the right environment for answered prayer as one that is free from anger or disputing,” 1 Timony 2:8. God blesses where there is unity. That is why satan keeps husbands and wives at odds with each other. That way we won’t pray together, much less expect our prayers to get God excited. Peter said “If you don't treat your wife as you should, your prayers will not get ready answers,” Peter 3:7. When a couple’s prayers are hindered, the devil has the key to the house and he can come and go at will.

  James also has an angle on the foolishness of fighting and praying. He says we should have prayed for our need instead of fighting about it. He writes: “What is causing the quarrels among you? Don't they come from the evil desires at war within you? You want what you don't have so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don't have what you want because you don't ask God for it. And when you ask, you don't get it because your motives are all wrong,” James 4: 1-3.

  However, patience is what God gives you when bad things remain unchanged. It is His sedative for the troubled heart. It is the healing balm He rubs into your aching muscles when you are stretched to breaking point. These are the times when the pain lasts so long that only God can release the patience required – the sheer grace to get you through.

  Indeed, there are great benefits to waiting. For example if you learn to wait and observe you will make better choices. The thing you think you can’t live without today, you may be glad to be rid of it tomorrow. “No good thing will withholding from those who walk uprightly,” Psalm 84:11.

  So when God says “Wait” trust Him. Either it is not what you need at this time or Jehovah has something better in mind for you. You say, “But what am I to do now? “Wait on the Lord, be of good courage and He shall strengthen your heart,” Psalm 27:14 is God’s admonition for that. Stop fussing, stop pushing, allow God to work and you will come out stronger and with a better deal.

  Solomon writes: “Riches do not endure, a crown is not secure for all generations,” Proverbs 27:24. When we impress people we think are important, we are trophy collecting. A trophy is anything you get others to look at that will make them say “Wow!” Every vocation has its own trophies. Some pastors have trophy churches, trophies to their ability to win souls and become millionaires. Such trophies are troughs with which to feed the ego. But the problem with feeding at a trough is that all you ever get is slop.

  In her book, Glittering Images, Susan Howatch tells about a clergyman who devoted his life to always appearing godly, wise, loving and charismatic. Meanwhile his soul starves because no one knows him. They never meet the man he kept hidden. They only meet the man on display. “I call him the glittering image because he looks so good in the mirror. But beyond him lies the angry stranger who appears in the mirror whenever the glittering image goes absent without leave.” His ministry was his trophy and also his prison. But there is the right kind of trophy. And you don't have to outdo anyone to get it. Paul wrote to the church at Philippi that his old crowns he now considered dung. He was collecting a new kind of crown, one in which we will glory in God’s presence, 1 Thessalonians 2:19. For Paul the ultimate trophy was not his personal achievements as a church builder. It was the joy of winning and investing in the lives of others. What about you?

  Here are a few action steps to deepen your success skills, one, don't tell your problems to people who cannot help you. And stop making excuses. Successful people seek to mentor those who look and sound like success. Always talk affirmatively on your progress and ambitions.

  Two: Find winners as role models that you can imitate and pattern yourself after. When you meet a mastermind, become a master mime and learn all you can about his success methods. When you find an area you fear, get someone who conquered what you fear and get educated.

  Our champion for today is Sir Walter Nash, the New Zealand statesman who was premier (1957-60) and who as deputy prime minister and finance minister in World War II guided New Zealand to economic progress and prosperity.

  Sir Walter was born in Worcestershire, England in February 1882. While into self education, Nash worked as a costing clerk in Birmingham, becoming a wholesale confectionery merchant by 1907. He emigrated to New Zealand in 1909. Then he joined the Labour Party and from 1919 to 1960 he was a member of the party’s executive. He entered Parliament in 1929, becoming the first Labour finance Minister in 1935.

  In 1938, he was named head of the newly formed social security programme which provided free medical care and improved pensions. Nash was deputy prime minister from 1940 to 1949. During the war he introduced family welfare benefits – a programme under which New Zealand experienced a smaller decline in the standard of living than did the peoples of other nations of the world. From 1942 to 1944 Nash also served as minister to the United States, serving as member of the Pacific War Council. He was a delegate to the United Nations financial conference at Bretton Woods, United States.

  After leading the Labour Party opposition in Parliament during 1950-57, Nash served as prime minister and Minister of External Affairs (1957-60). He led the party in opposition again from 1960 to 1963. In foreign affairs, he opposed the United States incursions into Indo-China (Vietnam war) favouring the seating of the Peoples Republic of China in the United Nations. Nevertheless, he supported New Zealand’s treaties with the United States. Knighted in 1965, Sir Walter died in Auckland in June 1968.

On The Path Of Winners, BY BAYO OGUNMUPE Having What It Takes To Win

On The Path Of Winners

BY BAYO OGUNMUPE

Having What It Takes To Win

BEFORE delving into what compromise is, let us be clear what isn’t compromise. Indeed, compromise isn’t giving up your beliefs or who you are or accepting second best because you are impatient or afraid of criticism.

  Compromise is about negotiating a win – win situation for both sides. It is tempting to dismiss somebody as being wrong, which is when you should relinquish your pride and try to become the other person. Because David heeded Abigail’s plea for mercy, he avoided falling into the trap of his own anger and killing Abigail’s husband who had treated him badly.

  However, Paul has what it takes to win by not compromising on the truth. But he changed his mind about John Mark, giving him a second chance at the ministry. A scripture verse enjoining us to eschew hard headedness is, “Be at peace among yourselves, comfort the faint hearted, uphold the weak, be patient with all, always pursue what is good both for yourselves and for all,” Thessalonians 5: 13-15.

  But why don’t we see more of God’s promises fulfilled in our lives? This is because we overlook the process. It is in the process of reaching the promise that we become discouraged and quit. Success in any venture lies in hanging on, even when others let go. Indeed, there is a process we must go through in life regardless of our faith. There are no shortcuts to greatness. We have got to pay full price. Persistence is the price of achievement,” in due season we shall reap if you do not faint,” Galatians 6:9.

  For years, William Wilberforce pushed Parliament to abolish the slave trade. Discouraged, he was about giving up when his ailing friend John Wesley heard of his campaign. And from his deathbed Wesley called for pen and paper. With trembling hands, Wesley wrote: “Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and of devils. But if God be for you, who can be against you? O be not weary in well-doing! Go on, in the name of God and in His mighty power, till even slavery in America shall vanish away before it.” Wesley died six days later. Wilberforce fought for 42 more years. Three days before his death, slavery was abolished in Britain. Eventually, it was abolished in the United states too. Hang on, what God has in store for you is worth any price you have to pay. Persistence is what it takes to win.

  When Tolstoy was a boy, he started the Polar Bear Club. To become a member, you had to stand for 30 minutes and not think of a white polar bear. Have you ever intentionally tried not to think about something? That is almost impossible. But withholding from thinking enriches our flashes of intuition. It increases our psychic perceptions. However, we often handle temptation without thinking. We think we can handle it at any time. But the problem is, the more we neglect it, the more it becomes the centre of our focus. The Bible says: “Submit yourselves to Jehovah. Resist the devil and he will flee from you,” James 4:7. But you cannot banish satan by your own strength! When you keep your eyes on Jehovah God, the devil will flee because you are resisting him by embracing God. Be humble enough to embrace and seek help from God. A sure sign you are on the path of failure is when you think, “I can handle this on my own.” See this as an alarm blow urging you to submit to Yahweh and say,  “Lord, I need your strength and wisdom. Lead me not into temptation.” Then walk away from the temptation. And if you need to, call a friend for prayer and thanksgiving.

  Our champion for today is James Dewey Watson, the U.S. geneticist and discoverer of the molecular structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), the substance that is the basis of heredity. For his discovery of DNA, he was awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize for medicine with Francis Crick and Maurice Walkins. Watson enrolled at the University of Chicago when only 15 and graduated in 1947. From his research at Indiana University (PhD 1950) and from the experiments of Oswald Avery, which proved that DNA affects hereditary traits, Watson believed the gene could be understood only after something was known about nucleic acid.

  After working at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge University, UK (1951-53) he determined the structure of the DNA in 1952. In 1953, Watson suddenly discovered the DNA must be linked in definite pairs. That discovery was the key factor that enabled Watson and Crick to formulate a molecular model for DNA. The model also showed how the DNA molecule could duplicate itself. Thus, it became known how genes and chromosomes duplicate themselves. Watson and Crick published their epochal discovery in the British journal, Nature in1 953.

  Subsequently, Watson taught at Harvard University (1955-56) where he served as professor of biology (1961-76). In 1965, he published The Molecular Biology of the Gene, the most extensively used modern biology texts. He wrote Double Helix in 1968, an informal account of the DNA discovery and the roles people played in it. Thereafter, Watson assumed the leadership of the Laboratory of Biology at Long Island, USA, and made it an international centre for biology research. He concentrated on cancer research, publishing in 1981, his The DNA Story written with John Tooze. Watson now an investor in biotechnology and parapsychology, was 84 on Good Friday this year.

  However, Sir Francis Harry Crick is a British biophysicist. He with Watson and Wilkins received the 1962 Nobel Prize for medicine together. Crick helped determine the chemical (DNA) substance responsible for hereditary control of life functions. This discovery was widely regarded as the most important scientific achievement of the 20^th century. After using X-ray studies by Wilkins to unravel the mysteries of DNA, Crick  moved from Cambridge to the Salk Institute in California, USA as professor of biophysics. He has written many books discussing the implications of the revolution in molecular biology.

  For Maurice Wilkins, he is the New Zealand born British biophysicist whose X-ray diffraction studies of DNA proved crucial to the determination of DNA’s molecular structure by Watson and Sir Harry Crick. For the DNA discovery, the three scientists were jointly awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize for medicine.

  Wilkins, the son of a physician was born in 1916, educated in Birmingham, England and St. Johns College, Cambridge. His doctoral thesis, completed in Birmingham University in 1940 contained his original formulation of his electron-trap theory. During World War II, he participated in the Manhattan Project at the University of California, Berkeley, working on mass spectrograph separation of uranium isotopes for use in the atomic bomb.

  Upon his return to Britain, Wilkins first lectured at the University of St. Andrews, then joined the University of London where he became director of Biophysics Unit and developed his DNA research. At Kings College London proper, he was professor of biology (1963-1970), of biophysics (1970-81) and emeritus professor thereafter.

HOW TO THINK CREATIVELY

On The Path Of Winners

By Bayo Ogunmupe

How To Think Creatively

I AM constrained to write about creativity because of the pervasive lack of creativity exhibited by my countrymen in every sphere of life in this twenty first century.

  As I have often told my interlocutors, my standards of excellence are the Nobel prizes followed by the King Faisal International prizes. In Nigeria, we have one Nobel prizewinner of 167 million people. In Germany with 82 million people, they have had more than 100 Nobel laureates since the prizes began in 1901. That makes for about one Nobel prize for one million people. For schools, the London School of Economics has the highest number of winners per school. LSE has 16 winners as at the last count in October 2011.

  In Africa, South Africa has beaten us with four winners, three of which are for Peace. Like Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and Egypt have one each. Africans have got the two cheapest prizes-literature and peace. We have not gotten in other four categories for lack of creativity. Nigerian academics were so steeped in ignorance and corruption that a professor of economics was assuring the late President Umar Yar’Adua that the meltdown ravaging Europe and North America in 2008 would not reach Nigeria.

  This is why we need to embrace thinking creativily. Have you ever read of the enthusiastic people of America who repeatedly unearth concepts, the ipad, the Internet and the computer seemingly effortlessly, without being bothered by frustration? These creative folks probably learned at an early age to be afraid to fail or to experiment. But they overcame this outdated fear. They developed ways to let their minds incubate the issues while they outwardly took care of demanding businesses.

  Creativity enhancement yields practical breakthroughs. Miracles happen, not in opposition to nature but in conflict with our assumptions about it. That is why I urge you to open your mind to the infinite possibilities. My doctor told me there are many types of sickness but only one kind of good health. The same is true of creativity. It is an acquired skill, learned by trial and error, often oblivious of the process and the gradual enlightenment that accompanies it. However, the mystics warn of the significance of believing in our innate creativeness. Skepticism puts out the fire of creativity. So loosen up. Your intuition will tell your brain where to look next if you just let it work with confidence. Believe you can become more creative and you will. Knowing where you are going helps you get there. Present mindedness and its resulting creativeness appear when mind chatter dampens, when you escape guilt of the past and the anxiety for the future.

  Here are nine steps to creativity. One, accept the existence of the unconscious that incubates all of your previous experience, rearranging facts for creative benefit. Two, with the goal of having fun, create a life plan to enrich your subconscious. Trust answers to come through your intuition. Trigger the unconscious by visualizing the desired outcome. Three, create a sage or guardian angel and surrender your mind to it. Ask to be led to the correct experiences so as to achieve your life’s purpose. For my guardian angel, I chose Winston Spencer Churchill. Believing life is eternal, I know Churchill is still alive as an angel in heaven, and as a journalist, historian and statesman, he would understand my literary mind and help to nourish it.

  Four: Write a life’s purpose for yourself and prioritise around what is important. Five, make a game of saving time. Your most valuable resource, your creative process deserves constant attention. Six, become a fanatic about presentmindedness, always attending to the work at hand. Put appointments on your calendar such that you only think of distractions later. Seven, leave no stress unattended. Eliminate the situation with humour. Eight, to advance your interests in life, stay ordinary, don’t hanker after the worldliness of the mundane. Nine: Stamp out all judgemental behaviour and thoughts. They are a hinderance to the creative process. A lower mind cannot comprehend higher truths. You achieve creative excellence by writing your own epitaph – what you want on your tombstone. Write what you like folks to say about you at your funeral. Then strive to fulfil that goal. We mistakenly think we must be popular, rich, important and wise. The mystics say we need only strive to be decent and either loving fame or riches will follow.

  Both wealth and fame cannot occupy your Karma simultaneously. You can only gain one. You are more likely to achieve your Karma when you unpretentiously seek a higher level of creativity. Most importantly, to be creatively transformed, your subconscious must know your life’s purpose, so you can be led into the correct experience, so you can ask and receive your heart’s desires. When you grasp the magic, beware for in the Nigerian republic of mediocrity genius is stifled.

  Our champion for today is John Nash, the American mathematician who won the 1994 Nobel Prize for Economics for his landmark work, first begun in the 1950s on the games theory. He shared the Nobel prize with Hungarian American economist John Harsanyi and the German mathematician Reinhard Selten. Born in West Virginia, USA in 1928, Nash received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Mellon University. Two years later at age 22 he obtained his doctorate from Princeton, publishing his influential thesis: Non-cooperative Games. Appointed professor of mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1951 but he later resigned after bouts of mental illness. He later returned to Princeton. Nash established the principles of game theory which examines the rivalries among competitors. Known as the Nash solution, his theory explained the dynamics of threat and action among competitors. The Nash solution is still widely applied by business strategists today.

  For John Harsanyi, the economist who shared the 1994 Nobel prize with Nash, he died in 2000 at the age of 80.

  Harsanyi helped Nash develop the games theory. He formulated the appropriate choices and behaviour for the competitors involved. After receiving his doctorate from Budapest in 1947, he went on to gain his MA from the Australian National University in 1953 and then immigrated to the United States where he attended Stanford University (PhD 1959(. From 1964 to 1990 he was professor of economics at the School of Business of the University of California, Berkeley. Harsanyi was an ethics scholar who investigated appropriate behaviour and correct social choices among games competitors. In the case of Reinhard Selten, the German co-recipient of the 1994 Nobel prize for economics, he was born in 1930 in Poland, studied mathematics at the University of Frankfurt graduating in 1957. The son of a bookseller, Selten got interested in the games theory in the 1960s and in 1965 proposed theories that distinguished reasonable decisions in games competition. He later taught at the Free University of Berlin and at the University of Bonn.

LESSONS IN FORGIVENESS

On The Pathg Of Winners

BY BAYO OGUNMUPE

Lessons In Family Forgiveness

THE woman was dead gorgeous. The man was as handsome as a stallion. The kids were as cute as buttons. Their home was as comfortable as Aso Villa. Now move ahead fifteen years.

  The woman’s looks are now clouded with grey shadows of stress and strain. The man looks more weary like an old mule than a stallion. The children have turned into hermits, talking little to mummy and daddy.

  Welcome to the world of the typical family. Life begins smooth and exciting. There is freshness in the marriage and joy between family members. But time passes and they experience distress. Fights break out, arguments occur, rebellion ravages the family. Concerned parents lay down a little too much law, unresolved disputes linger in every corner.

  However, the second law of thermal dynamics often applies to the family: all things are in decline. Indeed, this tends  to be the case in many families. And as families age and mature, fortunes often decline. Layers of hurt and pain, bitterness and resentment build up. These problems are the cause of on-going skirmishes for many families, they are the cause of ongoing silence for others.

  I am sure you have experienced the pressures of family life. Fortunately, God has a remedy for troubling families because to God the family is very important. With God no family is beyond redemption. You must believe that God can use the most negative of circumstances to strengthen and rejuvenate your family. God can reverse the second law of thermodynamics in your family through forgiveness. Let us find out how by examining how Joseph handled family strife in ancient Israel.

  There once was a man named Joseph. He was eleventh of the twelve sons and a favourite of his father Jacob the younger son of Isaac. Jacob was also known as Israel. Joseph received all the extras in life. He enjoyed his father’s praise, special clothing and a comfortable life around the house. Lucky guy, unlucky brothers. When his older brothers were out herding sheep, he was at home trying on new coats. When his brothers were out bailing hay, he was lying on greens dreaming greatness. Talk about the perfect recipe for family conflict, somebody was sure to get cooked over Joseph! Although not the best example of wisdom, Joseph was not to blame. Jacob his father was the true culprit. Jacob his father grew up in a family where his father, Isaac had favoured his older brother Isau. Jacob new the pain that caused but he turned round to do the same to Joseph and his other sons. After some time the brothers had had enough of the favouritism and one day while in the fields, they planned secretly to sell their brother, Joseph wounded up in Egypt as a slave. His father thought he was dead.

  Through diverse circumstances, Joseph became the most powerful man after the Pharaoh, emperor of the Egyptian Empire. His accession to power wasn’t easy. He had been sold into slavery, mistreated, falsely accused of rape, forgotten in prison. Joseph’s natural desire would have been to revenge. He had been forgotten and taken for dead, for 22 years.

  But in time as Prime Minister in Egypt, who should show up but Joseph’s ten oldest brothers? His youngest brother, Benjamin had not come at first because his father had selected him as his new favourite son. Interestingly his brothers did not recognize him at all. But Joseph knew each of them. What a perfect chance to get at them should Joseph wish to revenge. But no after a series of conversations with them, Joseph cried so loudly that the Egyptians heard him and they told the king. Joseph gave his brothers unconditional forgiveness. As hard as it seems, you should do the same no matter how you have been hurt. That was what Jesus did for us after all!

  In World War II, a group of Scottish prisoners of war were forced by their captors to work on a jungle railroad. On an occasion a shovel went missing. The officer in charge became enraged, He demanded that the missing shovel be replaced or else they will all be killed. When nobody in the squadron budged, the officer got his gun, threatened to kill everyone on the spot. Being obvious this officer meant what he said, one man stepped forward. The officer picked another shovel and beat the man to death with it. That over, the survivors picked the corpse of their colleague and carried it to the second tool count. This time it was discovered that the original shovel wasn’t missing. There had been a miscount. Then word spread like wildlife in the camp that an innocent man had been willing to die to save the group. Later, nothing was the same again in the squadron. Love had effected change. Indeed, love is still a powerful tool to shovel away family resentment no matter how deep.

  Furthermore, when Joseph was alone with his brothers, in another step toward forgiveness, he told them, “I am Joseph, yes I am your brother Joseph the one you sold into Egypt.” However, for family forgiveness to occur, openness and honesty about the problem is absolutely necessary. Though his brothers were shocked, they did not say sorry. But Joseph opened up nonetheless. Being honest about a family problem isn’t dependent on other person’s contrition. The willingness to deal with the issues is the point here.

  Another key principle we learn from  Joseph is to avoid accusations. Joseph merely comforted them saying don’t worry or blame yourselves. That demonstrates that Joe is a man of high caliber. That is a sign of true forgiveness, since true forgiveness is unconditional. You can be forgiven and still be guilty.  “God is the one who sent me ahead of you to save lives,” he states in verses 5 of Genesis 45. He further comments in Genesis 45:9” ‘God has made me ruler of Egypt.” Joseph believed Jehovah knew best. You too should believe God knows best. God often allows us to suffer knowing that good will result. Thus, God uses negative circumstances to teach us and mature us. It is for this reason hope can be found during struggle. When we believe God knows what is best for us, we can better exercise forgiveness.

  From Joseph we learn the nature of family forgiveness, its meaning and benefits. Forgiveness allows us to rebuild tarnished relationship by restoring our ability to serve one another. “I will take care of you during the next five years of famine,” Genesis 45”11, Joseph says. That is what families are supposed to do. Families are designed for mutual assistance towards one another, to serve one another and help one another in life. Resentfulness hinders service, forgiveness restores it.

  Secondly, forgiveness restores honesty. Though it does not say forgiveness depends on the others admitting they were wrong. But it means forgiveness creates the environment for people to admit their error. Thirdly, forgiveness restores our ability to love one another. Finally, forgiveness restores communication. For Joseph, forgiveness became the seedbed for the growth of communion with his brethren. Forgiveness allows you to build a great family team that will take the family name to great heights.

  Our champion for today is Joseph Rotblat, the Polish born British physicist who became a leading critic of nuclear weaponry. He was a founding member (1957), secretary general (1957-73) and president from  (1988) of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, a London based worldwide organization of scholars seeking solutions to problems of development and security. In 1955, Rotblat and his organization were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their longtime promotion of nuclear disarmament, notably by sponsoring discussions between scientists from the USA and the Soviet Union. Born in Warsaw in November 1908, Rotblat was educated at the Free University of Poland (MA 1932) and at the University of Warsaw (PhD 1938). In 1939 he won a fellowship to the University of Liverpool, England, with which he was associated till 1949. After the war, he focused on medical research, becoming professor of medical physics at the University of London. Thereafter, he joined Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russel to found Pugwash Conferences named for the village in Nova Scotia, Canada of Cyrus Eaton, an industrialist where nuclear disarmament started in 1957.