Things You Must Stop Doing

By Bayo Ogunmupe

Things You Must Stop Doing

WHEN you stop chasing the wrong things, you give the right things access to catch you. Nothing could be closer to the truth. Before you can transform yourself, you have to stop doing things that have been holding you back.
  One, stop spending time with wrong people. Never flung yourself on someone who overlooks your worth. Your true friends are those standing by you when you are at your worst. Do not run from your problems. Face problems head on; learn, adapt and solve your problems. Problems mold you into the person you become. Beware of lying to yourself. Lives improve only when you take action in spite of all terror. Always be honest with yourself.
    Two, stop putting your needs as most important. Help others but help yourself too. Always follow your passion. Do not try to be someone you are not. Don"t change so people will like you. Seek not to convince others of your worth; your friends trust you already while your adversaries will never trust you. Moreover, stop holding onto the past. You cannot open the next chapter of your life if you keep reading your last one.
    Three, never be afraid of making mistakes. Every success has a trail of mistakes behind it. Every failure points towards success. You always regret things you did not do  far more than the things you did. Absolve yourself of self recrimination  for mistakes help you find the right path in life. Anything that has ever happened to you is preparing you for a moment that is yet to come. Never try to buy happiness, it cannot be done. The components of happiness are free: love, laughter and the enjoyment of your passions.
    Four, happiness isn't outside of yourself; being happy with who you are is part of being happy. Stop being idle. You cannot change the situation you refuse to confront. Making progress means taking risks. Never prevaricate nobody ever feels perfectly ready when opportunity beckons. Great opportunities force us to grow beyond our comfort zone.
    Five, you cannot start a new beginning but you can start from today to make a new ending. It is better to be alone than to be in bad company. Fall in love when you are ready, not when you are lonely. Do not reject new friends because old relations didn't work There is purpose for everyone you meet. Some will test or use you, while others will teach you lessons. Most importantly, some will bring out the best in you. To thy own self be true. Never compete with anyone. Concentrate on beating your own records. Success is a battle for self mastery.
    Six, eschew jealousy, it is the art of counting another person's blessings instead of your own. Stop complaining; stop holding grudges, forgiveness alone can give you peace and liberty. As you forgive others, forgive yourself too. Seven, do not allow others to bring you down. Refuse to lower your standards to accommodate those who refuse to raise theirs. Do not waste time explaining yourself to others, your friends don't need it; your enemies won’t believe you. Stop doing the same thing over and over, without a break; often you need to distance yourself to see things in new perspectives.
    Eight, never overlook the beauty in small moments. The best of lives are the small, nameless moments you spend smiling with loved ones. Stop being a perfectionist; the world does not reward perfectionists, the world rewards only those who get things done. And never take the path of least 
resistance. Nine, aim at doing something extraordinary. Never act as if everything is fine. It is okay for things to fall apart once in a while. It is healthy to shed tears. The sooner you do, the sooner you will be able to smile again. Besides, abhor scapegoatism, you cannot blame others for your errors.
    Always take responsibility for every action you take. Achieving your dreams depends on the extent to which you can take responsibility for your actions. Cease being everything to everyone. Making one person smile can change their world. Narrow your focus.
    Finally, stop worrying about the future. Worry will not strip tomorrow of its burdens. It will only strip today of its joy. Nothing is worth worrying about, particularly things you cannot change. Never focus on things you don't want. Always focus on what you want to happen. Positive thinking is the hallmark of 
every great success. And indeed, stop being ungrateful. No matter how bad things are , wake up each day thankful for your life. Someone somewhere is fighting for his dear life. So be grateful for having yours.

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Invoke Divine Blessing Upon Your Life

On The Path Of Winners

By Bayo Ogunmupe

Invoke Divine Blessing Upon Your Life

‘‘WHERE there is no vision, the people perish,” Proverbs 29:18. What do you plan to do with your life? What you set your heart to will determine how you spend your time and energy. Indeed, it takes as much effort to live an unfulfilled life as a richly rewarding one. Scientists have recently estimated that the human brain has between 10 and 100 terabytes of capacity; which means we all have lots of room for growth.

  One of the most rewarding things you can do is work to develop your mind. Where there is no vision – sense of direction – the people perish. Dissatisfaction does not arise from the absence of things, but the absence of direction. Too many of us merely exist because we have settled for less than God intended. The quality of your life will be determined by your vision and the effort you are willing to put into fulfilling it.

  So stop; make a written list of the areas where you would like to grow this year; then tackle the four most important ones. Do not be discouraged, if the one you are working on doesn’t want to cooperate, nothing great is ever created suddenly. Apostle Paul said of his Christian faith: ‘‘I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of Jehovah in Christ Jesus, Philippians 3:14. It is a process; you have to keep plugging away. Sometimes, it will be like two steps forward and three steps backwards. But never give up. It is better to die for something than to live for nothing. And unless you try something beyond what you have already mastered, you won’t grow. So, what are you waiting for? Life is waiting for you – get going.

  ‘‘He who invokes a blessing on himself, shall do so by saying; May God of truth and fidelity bless me,” Isaiah 65:16. The word ‘invoke’ implies two things, one: to make an earnest request for or to solicit. Two, to put into effect or operation or to implement.

  With that in mind, it shall be that he who invokes a blessing on himself in the land shall do so by saying the God of truth and fidelity bless me. And he who takes an oath shall swear by the God of truth and faithfulness to Jehovah’s promises because the former troubles are forgotten. Divine promise is a powerful promise. Even as Jehovah spoke the world into existence, we too can use the scriptures to frame the world we will live in.

  When you speak the blessing of Allah over your life, you make an earnest request and solicit it. You also put it into effect by implementing it. This is why God told Moses to bless the Israelites with these words: ‘‘The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord made His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you; Jehovah lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace,” Numbers 6: 24 to 26.

  Then Jehovah added, ‘And I will bless them.’ Now, you can understand why speaking God’s word over your life can change things for the better and why the Torah says ‘‘Death and life are in the power of the tongue. So, my exhortation is: invoke Jehovah’s blessing upon your life. God will not forget your work and the love you have shown. Satan will try to convince you that you don’t count for much in Jehovah’s kingdom. Nothing could be further from the truth. God will not forget your work and the love you have shown as you helped His people. God sees you working behind the scenes day and night, caring for ageing loved ones, raising children, encouraging others and contributing where ever you can.

  However, we cannot all be heroes. Someone has to sit on the Kerb and clap as they go by. So never think you are too small to do big things. You never know what you can do until you try. Glamour isn’t greatness; applause isn’t fame and prominence isn’t eminence. The man of the hour isn’t apt to be the man of the age. A stone may sparkle but that does not make it a diamond. People may have money, that doesn’t make them champions. It is the unimportant people who determine the course of history. The great forces of the universe are never spectacular. Conventional rains do more good than hurricanes but they don’t get much publicity. The world would have ended but for the fidelity, loyalty, creativity and commitment of the unhonored and unsung. God values what you do, so don’t be discouraged and give up, for you will reap a harvest of blessing at the appropriate time, Gallatians 6:9.

Fear Mediocrity For It Kills

On The Path Of Winners

BY BAYO OGUNMUPE

DEAR reader, this is the knowledge I wish to share with you. I am an advocate of being exceptional in anything you do. I have been privileged to take this topic many times over the past year. Meanwhile, I want to say: The very things that make you feel afraid are the very doorways into your leadership best.

  As you read through, I want you to clear your mind and let the message sink into you and help you become cautious of the most dangerous killer of careers, dreams and success. The enemy of good is great. Greatness detests good, because the comfort of being good is what makes some of us not exceed our boundaries and get to the state of being exceptional.

  Which takes us back to what mediocrity means. Mediocrity is averageness: a quality that is adequate or acceptable but not very good, not exceptional. A mediocre person is someone who lacks any special skill or flair. In these definitions, you can clearly see that there is a thin line between average and failure, people who always settle for less. People who enjoy swimming in the pool of mediocrity usually do not get to become very successful.

    They are those who work four hours a day and tell themselves they have done their best; whilst watching a colleague in the same office doing eight hours on average everyday. To become successful and attain mastery in your occupation you have to consciously practise for a total of 10,000 hours.

  Talent is not enough to take us to Treasure Island. For example, look at Christiano Ronaldo, Messi. Why don’t we hear some players whenever they are calling Messi and Ronaldo? Remember, some of them came to limelight about the same time during their under 21 competition. Most of us thought Mikel will rival Messi for a long time. Well, talent was what brought them to limelight, gave their face to the world but only deliberate practice and effort in becoming the best and not staying in the state of mediocrity makes the like of Ronaldo exceptional.

  It was said that Ronaldo trains three extra hours after his team mates are done for the day. Where do you think those extra hours go to? They actually show in his performance on the field of play. Now you know why you don’t hear from some musicians, while 2-Face Idibia lasted the test of time. Indeed, these mediocrity states lie in everyone’s life but if you do not consciously look into yourself, the truth about your performance, most importantly know when you have started becoming a mediocre person, you will never know how much damage you have done to yourself in the past.

   There are four major symptoms of mediocrity. They are: lack of vision, compromise, indecision and always holding on to the past. Because you are comfortable with where you are now and not seeking to be exceptional, you will lack vision. The mediocre person easily compromises in his daily activities. You are to deliver 50 items a day; you delivered 30 and feel you have done well because you have exceeded average. Trust me, you are a mediocre person.

    Mediocrity ensnared you because you do not actually stretch your boundaries daily and you hardly work to test other hypotheses of your career and work. Imagine Solomon who consciously works eight hours daily and Judas who works four hours a day, at the end of one year, Solomon would have worked for 2,920 hours while Judas has 1,460. This means Solomon must have stretched his mental, physical and experimental powers 1,460 hours more than Judas.

   In the early days of their partnership, this might not be really measurable. But this will become more pronounced after a year. Then Solomon becomes more exceptional, he takes on more responsibilities; he even works longer and delivers more than Judas, hence his promotion. Judas would never realise the tides favouring Solomon was coming from those extra hours of work that Solomon has put into his career.

  What happens to Judas after a while? He becomes disillusioned, obsolete, irrelevant, lacking skill, innovation, creativity, lazy, unproductive and unhappy. However, some mediocre persons work hard, they just don’t exceed their boundaries. They get tired and assume that is the best they can do. They abhor risks, they rather do the same thing over and over again. They are always afraid of change and are never willing to welcome it even when it becomes inevitable.

  But there are three things you must do to avoid mediocrity. One, avoid procrastination. Begin whatever you want to do immediately. Whatsoever thou resolveth to do, do it immediately, reserve not to the evening what the morning can accomplish. There are no more than 24 hours in a day. Stamp your feet to face the challenges of the day. Two, the very things that make you feel afraid are the very doorways into your leadership best.

  Things you have never done before that looks like opportunity will always scare you. Taking calculated risks is the best decision you can ever make to become an exceptional person. Not doing anything out of the fear of the unknown is the true behaviour of the mediocre person. Always take chances. This is what great and successful leaders do. It is fine to be content but never be satisfied. Thus, you must improve yourself daily, relentlessly and passionately. When you do this, you become exceptional.

  Being exceptional requires that you never set limitations on yourself. Cut out all low impact work. Obsessively focus on high-impact work. Use every minute of your life doing only those things that will get you nearer where you want to go. Do fewer but better things. Keep moving forward. Keep making the smartest choices and actions. Be persistent and patient, when taking action. Stay away from mediocre persons, they will infect you with mediocrity. Cut them off totally for they will eat into your time and undermine your productivity. Finally, remember that all good is hard. All evil is easy. Cheating is easy, stay away from easy things; they are the road to mediocrity.

Your Pathway to Prosperity

On the Path of Winners

    By Bayo Ogunmupe

This column introduces from this week a new series on how to attract,create, manage and share wealth. The Oxford English Dictionary defines wealth as an instance of prosperity. Whereas, wealth is simply the possession of money or assets, prosperity is the flourishing, thriving or succeeding in life. Wealth is about money but prosperity is about life; good fortune, abundance and wellbeing.
     The great theologian of the Methodist movement, John Wesley told his followers: Make all you can; save all you can and give all you can. History's most famous philanthropist, Andrew Carnegie noted: No man becomes rich unless he enriches others. Even more recently,the author of The One Minute  Millionaire, provided a similar creed for the enlightened business mogul: make millions, save millions, invest millions and give millions away.
     We celebrate the act of wealth creation, but we also recognise the joy of giving. Prosperity is best appreciated as a circle in which money is first attracted and created; then managed well and shared to good effect. People say money cannot buy happiness, we agree with them; since our findings confirm their  experience. Indeed, it is also true that the abilities to attract, create, manage and share wealth are important to living a contented life. Since many of us seek to be better off financially not to amass money for its own sake, but to be in control of our time and spend it in meaningful ways.
     Thus, the idea of prosperity suggests that we are stewards of wealth who create it from existing resources and eventually give it back in some form. But many argue that the phenomenal growth of wealth in the 20th century has caused our environmental degradation; but it is also true that without continued prosperity we will lack resources to research and invest in new energy sources or repair what has been damaged.
    However, if you understand wealth creation as part of the larger concept of prosperity, nothing should hold you back from your pursuit  of abundance. You have a duty to yourself and humanity to maximize resources, use your imagination and work hard to bring new valuable products into being. In making this, you may find that it is possible both to be well off financially and to live with a good conscience.
    Wealth creation does not happen in a vacuum. Thus, an aspirant must arm himself with thought provoking reads in economics, psychology and political economy. There is a natural divide between prosperity consciousness or the psychological aspects of creating wealth and the nuts and bolts of personal finance and economics.You must be well read on entrepreneurship, investing and more practical areas which will open your eyes and hearts to the metaphysical classics of abundance. Your ultimate aim should be to integrate both, so that you become a master of the inner and outer game of
wealth.
    We think of wealth as involving the ability to shape the world around us to profitable ends. Yet wealth 
really begins in the mind: with your ideas, vision, beliefs and character. You attract or repel wealth 
according to what you think and believe about yourself. Therefore it is never a waste of time to work on
your own self development.The Greek philosopher, Aristotle said: The hardest victory is the victory over self. But this is a victory that enables you to win in all other aspects of life.
    In his book: The Path of Prosperity, James Allen underscores this concept of an appropriate 
mindset, noting that a disciplined mind and a focus on serving others are basic to the achievement of
any prosperity.Napoleon Hill said in his Master Key to Riches, that definiteness of purpose and the 
desire to go the extra mile are essential to creating value or wealth. Max Weber's famous essay: The
Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, argues that the early Protestant merchants were able to
attract fortunes as a result of their intense preoccupation with the personal virtues of honesty and frugality.
    But there is a metaphysical basis for prosperity. Thus, there is need to achieve prosperity

consciousness, the lack of which simply indicates a separation from God or the universe; a lack that can be remedied through prayer, affirmation or visualization. This consciousness affirms that our 
emotional state of being can act as a magnet that attracts wealth.
    In Secrets of The Millionaire Mind,Harv Eker demonstrates the importance of the inner game by showing how each of us has a mental financial blueprint that either allows money to flow to us or stop.
You can change the blueprint, but the first step is to become a person open to opportunities rather than focused on complaints. In her bestseller of the 1980s,Do What You Love, the Money Will Follow, Marsha Sinetar asserts that the key to an abundant life is simply doing work you love. Not only that this leads to excellence in what you produce, which attracts greater rewards, but aligns your life with your deepest values and talents, creating for you a well of sustainable happiness. All of these have a common thread: Prosperity begins with prosperous thoughts, which in turn set up an emotional state
that can only attract good into your life.

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Bailing Nigeria Out Of Recession

BY BAYO OGUNMUPE

AT the moment, the rate of inflation in Nigeria stands at 16 per cent. However, the floating of the naira is a bold move to unshackle the Nigerian economy and position it on the path of recovery from recession. Also, floating the naira has caused the stock market to rebound. This will lead to the influx of foreign investment. The Nigerian economy is as indefinable as Nigerians. Which is why Nigerians remain upbeat and optimistic in the face of grievous hardship.

  Indeed, Nigeria has been in recession for more than a year. The 2014 revaluation of our economy as the largest in Africa was a farce. Truly, poverty reeks all over the land as the human development index for 2014 stood at 0.51 too low for oil rich Nigeria. This economic crunch stems from low productivity in industry and agriculture. Consequently, under-employment; mass unemployment and runaway inflation dominated the economy. Another symptom of recession was low purchasing power among the people. This is why Nigeria has not experienced real growth for many years.

  Nigeria, as a classic model of a mismanaged economy is studied in universities in Europe and North America. What we call recession today is the climax of a progressive economic downturn that was never addressed. The bugaboo about fuel subsidy removal is mere blackmail. The only solution to fuel scarcity is for Nigeria to build refineries. Germany, Kenya and Japan do not produce oil. But they all have refineries. Japan has 29 refineries. If we have refineries, we would not waste foreign exchange to import petrol.

  The solution to fuel scarcity is to ask companies to tender for the building of refineries. Nigeria then buys 30 per cent, allowing the core investors to own 60 per cent of each refinery; the remainder goes to the stock exchange. Similarly, the solution to the foreign exchange crisis is for the federal government to criminalize the sale of foreign money in Nigeria. It is only in Nigeria that people peddle dollars and euros on the streets. Money is changed only in the banks in Europe and North America. In fact, nowhere in the world except Nigeria that you find a second foreign exchange market. The foreign exchange black market should be outlawed. Money laundering and round-tripping are done through the black market. This is a case of government refusing to enforce the law, or their incapacity due to intellectual weakness or mediocrity.

  Also, the questions of total power failure and low productivity we are experiencing now should be addressed. What we need do to bring Nigeria out of recession is to restructure the country so that we can return to happiness. Turn the geo-political zones to states and the present states to local governments. That will liberate a lot of money wasted on the bloated civil services.

  If we fail to restructure, we shall not be able to pay all the workers as our foreign exchange earnings from oil continue to dwindle. Ekiti is the smallest state in the West. But its civil service is enough to run the entire southwest zone when they become one single state.

  Another way to tackle the recession is to embrace agricultural production of our food stables instead of importing them. Growing our small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is yet another area of escape. But the manner, the Bank of Industry is handling the issues leaves much to be desired. Naturally, the power and the numerical force of the Nigerian consumer to drive SME growth is enormous.

  The N10 billion youth Entrepreneurship Support Programme is notable but not co-ordinated. A report from The Economist Intelligence Unit suggests that stabilizing macro-economic policies; installing a more transparent tax and customs system as well as reducing import barriers; must be critically looked into to enhance productivity in our SMEs. The vigorous participation of Fidelity Bank in the growth of the Micro Small Medium Enterprises (MSME) is laudable as well. But ensuring the success of these efforts lie in making one organization to supervise the programmes.

  For such an organization we recommend the establishment of the National Full Employment Plan (NAFEP). Backed by an Act of National Assembly, NAFEP like the Marshall Plan of the USA, should make agriculture and SME as the lodester of its industrialization programme. Thriving on zero collateral and zero interest template, NAFEP should ensure the participation of every financial institution in the land so as to extend it nationwide. To frustrate the advent of the ghost worker syndrome. Introduce the Personnel Payroll and Information System (IPPIS). This was mooted by Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala in 2014. But our corruption prone mediocre leaders have not implemented it since then. Through IPPIS and restructuring as advised, the present cost of governance would be reduced by 60 per cent. Restructuring is crucial to peace and stability in Nigeria, for Johnson Aguiyi Ironsi’s unification decree has never been vacated by anyone since 1966.

  National security is another issue troubling the nation. Militancy from the Niger Delta Avengers, the Biafra agitators and the menace of herdsmen are issues thrown up by the sheer incompetence of our leaders.

  Certainly, herdsmen are traders, they are business owners abusing their privilege of being an ethnic group. Simple law enforcement would destroy the menace. For the militants restructuring and resource control will abate their destructive agitation. What we are certain about is that there can neither be peace nor prosperity in Nigeria without restructuring.

  For power, housing and industrialization, our leaders do not appear capable of tackling them. The minister of power should diversify his measures. He should consult with Germany and ask them to build fields of solar, wind, and other renewable energy sources for him. Without power, we cannot develop. Let government divide Nigeria into East, the West – meaning all land west of the Niger river. That is from Delta, through Oyo ending in Kogi. Then allocate French, German and Japanese companies to build those power stations in the North, East and West.

  For housing the government is quibbling. This is so because the way they are going, the rich will buy every house they build and put out for sale. What should be done is build house to applicants who need houses. Up till now Federal Government does not know that not every Nigerian can own land in Abuja. All government houses should be for lease. Government should not encourage the culture of owning houses, it should build house for lease or rent. Those who want to own houses should build them by themselves. The idea of house for all by the year 2020 is built on dishonesty. For building materials or not, we have to rely on import substitution industries to survive.

  Since the peace and tranquility of the nation are threatened by the militants and herdsmen, we need a new security outfit namely, Nigerian National Guard (NNG). This is necessary because Nigeria is underpoliced. With 170 million people, we need one million and seven hundred thousand policemen. Because of rampart corruption in the Nigeria Police Force, a new security outfit will be salutary. This will augment the failing powers of the police force. Moreover, NNG will not require foreign exchange to build. It will be another way to absorb the unemployed.

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