On The Path Of Winners BY BAYO OGUNUMUPE

On The Path Of Winners

BY BAYO OGUNUMUPE

Unlock Your Prosperity With Faithfulness

THIS column is about wealth creation and how millionaires made it. But have you heard about the ‘’wealth of experience’’ of people? Indeed, experience is wealth. No matter the nature of your experience in life, you cannot buy it with money. Your experience of today, is your tomorrow’s wisdom. And the Bible says wisdom is greater than power. Because our leaders lack experience which translate to wisdom, we are wallowing in poverty despite Nigeria’s oil wealth.

  Knowledge creates wealth. Have you noticed that millionaires trade their skills, knowledge and wisdom for money? The skills, knowledge and experience you have are latent wealth. Your wealth is tied to your wealth of experience. Which is why we should examine the causes of poverty. The first cause of poverty is ignorance. ‘’My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge and because they have rejected knowledge, I also will reject them from being my representatives. Because they have not applied my laws and have forgotten my principles, I will also forget their children,’’ so sayeth the Bible.

  Do you know that knowledge is power! But just as knowledge is power, ignorance is deadly. Ignorance has been the root of poverty in many lives all over the world. Like Moses was ignorant of the power of his rod, the widow, the abundance in her pot of oil and Adam and his divine connection, so has a man’s ignorance being the root of his poverty. For example, a man travelling out of his country to seek the Golden Fleece: he sold all he had to buy the ticket for the trip. However, he locked himself in his cabin with two bottles of water and a packet of biscuits for the journey. After a few weeks, there was a knock on his door inviting him for the final arrival banquet. He was too weak to open the door. By the time the door was forced open, he was dying-due to hunger and dehydration. When asked why he never showed up to eat during the journey, he answered that it was because he had no money to pay for the food. The shocked captain revealed that the ticket he bought entitled him to three free meals daily – throughout the journey, you can see all he had lost through ignorance.

  When many don’t know what they can do, they remain poor. There are many poverty promoting mindsets, habits, attitudes and lifestyles. Two, laziness is a cause of poverty. King Solomon of ancient Israel was the richest and wisest man who ever lived. He was richest because wisdom leads to riches. In the Bible books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, Solomon revealed how laziness is a major cause of poverty. Lazy people are full of excuses. The characteristics of lazy people that make them poor include but are not limited to the following:

  Lazy people always blame others for their state of poverty. They have a victim or entitlement mentality. Lazy people are prone to stealing, cut corners and are often truant in their responsibilities. They steal from people through corrupt enrichment. Lazy people are always greedy, coveteous and with  delusions of grandeur. They are always idle, they love sleeping and watch too much television. Lazy people waste time on unprofitable things. They are always stingy because they want to keep all they have to themselves alone.

  Being too lazy to act promptly, lazy people always procrastinate, they are also prone to drug and alcohol addiction. They are often party freaks and sex freaks because they don’t have high self esteem, they don’t value time and themselves. Listen to words from King Solomon the wise: ‘’He who has a slack hand becomes poor. But the hand of the diligent makes rich,’’ Pro 10:4. The hand of the diligent will rule, but the lazy man will be put to forced labour – Pro 12:24. Laziness casts one into a deep sleep and an idle person will suffer hunger – Pro 19:15. Do not love sleep, lest you come to poverty. Open your eyes, and you will be satisfied with bread, Pro 20:13. Laziness makes your life end up in decay.

  Our final cause of poverty or failure is unfaithfulness. In my life’s experience, I have met with unfaithfulness everywhere. ‘’The integrity of the upright will guide them, but the perversity of the unfaithful will destroy them,’’ Pro 11:3. Unfaithfulness leads to destruction. The unfaithful lusts for other people’s belongings. Unfaithful people are wicked, they can do anything to get their way. Faithful people are very dependable and reliable. Unfaithfulness forced me out of teaching. I met it within both students and teachers. Students abhor study and knowledge but crave good grades and first class. They can bribe or maim you to get their way. In journalism, you cannot for long forgo a good copy.

  Unfaithfulness isn’t the way to become rich. If you are unfaithful in little, you will be unfaithful in much; which is why Jehovah makes sure you don’t handle much. We are forced to live among unfaithful people such that corruption has deadened our conscience. Our champion for this week is Janet Louise Yellen, the American economist and newly appointed chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States. Previously she was President and Chief Executive of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, California; Chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers under President Bill Clinton. Also she was professor Emerita at the University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. On January 6, 2014, the United States Senate confirmed President Barrack Obama’s nomination of Yellen to be chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. She was sworn in February 2014 as the first woman to hold the position.

  Yellen was born in August 1946 to a Jewish family in New York; the daughter of Anna Blumenthal and Julius Yellen, a physician. She graduated first class in economics from Brown University in 1967. She received her doctorate in economics from Yale University in 1971 for a thesis titled: Employment, output and capital accumulation in an open economy: a disequilibrium approach. She was supervised by James Tobin and Joseph Stiglitz – both Nobel laureates in economics. See, good teachers rear great students.

  Yellen is married to George Akerlof another Nobel prize winning economist. Her son Robert Akerlof teaches Economics at the University of Warwick, United Kingdom. Yellen was an assistant professor at Harvard between 1971 and 1976, and an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank between 1977 and 1978. President Obama had appointed her as vice chair of the Federal Reserve Bank since 2010. Yellen thus simultaneously began a 14 year term as a member of the Board of the Federal Reserve that will expire on January 31, 2024. That is how a serious people run their government.