Let habit catapult you to power

By Bayo Ogunmupe

A few years ago shortly after Mohammed Buhari acceded to power, Nigeria replaced India as the poverty capital of the world. There are many reasons for it. Nigeria’s poverty is due among others to ignorance, false religion and laziness. For instance, Nigeria has the world’s largest breweries, but few libraries. Nigerians don’t read. Our fastest growing industry is procreation leading to a growing but impoverished population, where malnutrition is rampart. Our laissez faire habit makes us the highest buyer of motor cycles and tricycles after their producer, India. But our ignorance precludes us from mandating India to produce these cycles in Nigeria; requests which they will gracefully accede to. We glamorized poverty into an ideology, ignorantly putting the blame on God. Poverty as an ideology is driven by certain habits. Nigerians procreate even when they are unemployed and without any skills. We attend churches and mosques even without love of God. Kidnapping, factories producing babies for sale and banditry are crimes committed by people who don’t believe in God in spite of our love of religion. We pray for money thereby mistaking laziness for faith in God. One reason Nigerians are poor is because they are looking for money. But you are not likely find money you didn’t lose. Instead of looking for money you should look for wisdom, acquire a skill with which you earn a living. Which is why the fastest way to conquer poverty is to teach people how to become prosperous. To conquer poverty you need a mentor. From the scriptures we learned that no one became great without having a mentor. Having a mentor shortens your journey to prosperity. Jesus the Christ taught Peter how to fish by telling him which side of boat to fish in. Peter thereafter caught surplus fish. Which is why life without a mentor can be harrowing. Therefore, to become successful, study your mentor. Know the difference between needs and wants. You should know your strengths and weaknesses. That way you won’t allow your enemies to feed your weaknesses in order to ruin you. Have control over your thoughts. Decide what you want from life. Then create plans and goals with dates in order to achieve your goals. The habit of planning ahead of action is very crucial. It is an essential winning strategy for 40 percent of our daily activities are driven by habit. We’re what we repeatedly do. Form good habits and they will create the basis for your prosperity. Back on mentoring: when you have a mentor you literally inherit your mentor’s knowledge and experience. That will quicken your ascent to power. Your personal reading, experience and inspiration will enrich your wisdom and direct you in good decision making. Mentors guide to success. Paul mentored Timothy. Moses mentored Joshua. Nelson Mandela mentored Thabo Mbeki. Obafemi Awolowo mentored Adekunle Ajasin, Lateef Jakande, Bola Ige and Olabisi Onabanjo. In journalism, Babatunde Jose mentored Prince Tony Momoh and Chief Segun Osoba. From the foregoing you can see that the mentee succeeded through the wisdom he gained from his mentor. A pitfall on your road to success is the entitlement mentality. Please get rid of it. Entitlement mentality is a false belief. God never put another person to work for you as your slave. Other than your father and mother, Jehovah did not create persons to live up to your expectations. Neither did He put you on Earth for you to live up to the expectation of anyone. Only your parents owe you education and skill training to enable you make a living in life. So, if you curse and pray for the downfall of those who failed to help you; it is you who is evil and causing bad karma to rebound on you as retributive justice. And who knows, perhaps your poverty is as a result of your evil prayers bouncing back on you. In working with Dr Garba Hamza of Hamza Airways fame I learned that you cannot make people by throwing money at people. Give N10 million to a person who isn’t financially literate today; he will revert to poverty in five years. You simply need to learn the skills and habits of the rich in order to become rich. Which is why how to become rich is not taught in school.