Experience Matters: Finding the Right Motivation

When it comes to achieving success in your career or field, it is wise to seek guidance from those who have walked the same path as you. Motivational workers, who have real-world experience in your field, are the best sources of motivation and advice. Those people can provide insights from their own personal experiences, the challenges they faced, and the opportunities they took advantage of in order to make their way to the top of their field.

In addition to helping you understand the intricacies of your industry, motivational workers can provide you with practical advice relevant to your unique circumstances, so that you can better understand how the industry works. It is their passion to provide valuable insights into how to overcome the challenges you are facing. They understand the challenges you face in such depth.

On the other hand, motivational speakers who do not have direct experience in your field may not be the best source of motivation or advice for you. If you listen to such speakers, you may be confused, or even worse, you may receive misinformation that can hinder your success. If you listen to them, you could end up getting confused, or even worse, you might end up receiving misinformation that can be detrimental to your career.

For example, a motivational speaker who has never worked in the medical field may not completely understand the challenges and opportunities a medical professional faces. There is the possibility that they will offer advice that is not practical or harms those working in medicine. As the famous American actor Matthew McConaughey once wrote: “The best advice comes from people who don't give advice.”

Furthermore, motivational speakers sometimes exaggerate their achievements or downplay the effort required to succeed. This can create unrealistic expectations that may lead to disappointment or even failure. In contrast, motivational workers provide real-world examples of success, demonstrating that success requires hard work, dedication, and commitment.

In conclusion, seeking guidance from motivational workers who have real-world experience in your field is essential to achieving success. They provide practical advice that is relevant to your unique situation, and their insights can help you overcome the challenges that you are facing. So, choose wisely and seek guidance from those who have walked the same path as you.

How to Be an Entrepreneur: A Quick Guide

An entrepreneur is a person who starts and runs a business venture, taking on financial and personal risks to succeed. Being an entrepreneur has many benefits, such as turning your passion into a business like Steve Jobs, creating wealth like Elon Musk, becoming your own boss like Richard Branson, making a difference in the world like Bill Gates, or achieving personal growth like the founder of FUBU.

The following are simple of practical steps you can take if you decide to become an entrepreneur and live your dream.

1.     Identify a business opportunity or a need in the market: Look for a gap in the market or a problem that needs solving. An example of this could be a new product or service or a better way to do something. For instance, you may notice that customers are looking for a specific type of product that doesn't exist yet and you could create it to meet that need.

2.     Develop a business plan: Outline your business idea, goals, target market, competition, marketing strategies, financial projections, and any other important information. For instance, a business plan should include a detailed description of the services to be offered, the target market, a detailed budget, and a timeline of when key milestones should be achieved.

3.     Conduct market research: Learn about your target market, competitors, and industry trends so you can determine your business idea's feasibility and opportunities. For example, research the prices of similar products or services, customer needs and preferences, and the latest industry trends so you can develop a competitive advantage.

4.     Get funding: Determine how much money you need to start your business and explore funding options, like loans, grants, and investors. Once you know the amount of funds needed to launch your business, you can begin to develop a plan to acquire them. For instance, if you need to raise money from investors, you may need to develop a business plan and present it to potential investors.

5.     Register your business: To create a successful business, you need to establish a legal structure and register your company with the appropriate government agency. This will depend on where you are located and what type of business you intend to create. By registering your business, you can ensure you have the proper legal protection and establish a sound foundation for future success.

6.     Develop a brand and marketing strategy: Establish your brand identity and develop a marketing strategy for promoting your products. Having a clear idea of the target audience and a detailed plan for how you will reach them is essential for success. It is also important to create a website and establish a presence on social media, as this will help to increase visibility and build relationships with potential customers.

7.     Launch your business: Start operating your business, continuously monitor your progress and make adjustments as needed. As you keep operating your business, tracking your progress, and making necessary adjustments, and you will be able to launch your business successfully.

8.    Learn and adapt: To succeed as an entrepreneur, you have to be constantly learning and adapting to changes in the market, your industry, and your business environment. Find ways to improve your business operations by getting feedback from customers, employees, and other stakeholders. For instance, you could create a survey to ask your customers what they would like to see improved in your products or services and use the feedback to create a plan for implementing changes.

To sum it up, to become a successful entrepreneur, you must have a clear plan for acquiring the necessary funding, registering your business, developing a brand and marketing strategy, and launching and operating your business. Additionally, you should seek feedback from customers, employees, and other stakeholders to continuously improve your operations.

3 Easy Ways to Quickly Identify Your 2023 Goals

Do you often find it difficult to identify what goals to set for yourself at the beginning of the year? Do you often feel there are so many things you want but don't know which among them to set as goals?  Does this sound like you? If yes, continue to read this article, and your confusion will be all gone by the time you finished reading, and you will be able to easily identify and set your year goals.

Here's the easy trick. Yes, you have many things you can achieve in the year. But each of them belongs to a different category of needs or wants. The trick is that you should first identify the category each item belongs. Then you will be able to identify whether the item is a real goal or not. 

There are three categories of goals we can have: 

1. Things that you need.
2. Things that you deserve
3. Things that you desire or want. 

I have further explained each category below: 

1. Things that you need. Your needs are things that you really need to have this year. They are things that you need to function well, stay alive, maintain your position, or keep you moving forward. These are the things that should be your most important goals this new year. 

For example, your needs may be to get a job, get to work early, be more productive at work, be more kind or friendly to people, get married, visit a family member, visit the gym, have a mentor, write an exam, write a book, read a book, or it may be any other thing that you need to do to stay alive, function well, or maintain your progress this year. 

If you fail to achieve these needs it may cost you your life, health, relationship, and jobs, or affect your progress in an area of your life. So, you need to identify these needs and set them as your primary goals for the new year. 

2. Things that you deserve.  These are things you need to have or accomplish by the reason of your age, efforts, or level of education. For example, at a certain age, you deserve to get married, have your own family, or own a house. Also, if you have a certain level of education or training, you may deserve to have some type of job position, promotion, a raise at work, or a certain amount of income. 

You may or may not have the capacity to achieve or have what you deserve, but you still need to include them in your year goals. You need to write them down and think of how you can accomplish them. 

It is important to note that what you need and what you deserve are closely related, but what you need is more important.  

3. Things that you desire or want. These are things you like to have or do. But not having them will not affect your life. You may feel bad for not having your desires or wants, but it would not cost you your life, functionality, or progress if you do not achieve them. Examples of desires may be buying a new car, buying a big house, using a smartphone, or visiting a friend. 

These are the things you need to set as your second group of goals. Should include them in your goals for the year and plan for two to achieve them. 

Conclusion. If you can identify what you need, what you deserve, and what you want, those are the lists of goals you can set for yourself this year. Get your writing materials and write down those things. Organize them according to their importance. Think about what you can do to achieve them and also write down your ideas. Put those ideas into action and you will see yourself achieving those things one by one during the year. It is important to note that you don't have to set your goals to the level of your capability, you should set your goals and then increase your capability to the level of your goals. Then you will be able to achieve great goals. 

Afraid of getting married? Avoid 10 Costly Mistakes That Cause Headaches in Most Marriages

            Imagine yourself experiencing the kind of marriage where you are appreciated, treated with respect and love, and where you are understood and prioritized. Close your eyes and see yourself getting excited to lie side by side with your partner in your master bedroom gisting about your day. You can experience these marriage realities if you can avoid some mistakes most people do while going into marriage. These common mistakes are described below: 

1. Don't rush to marry. If you rush into a marriage, be ready for the surprise of your life. When you rush into marrying someone, you will not be able to properly know the character or behaviors of the person you are marrying. You may be surprised to find out that your partner is a liar, drunker, smoker, partygoer, or lazy person after marriage. Save yourself from this trouble by taking your time to understand your potential wife or husband-to-be before you get married.

2. People don't change in marriage. Please don't marry someone you don't like his or her character. Never marry someone thinking that he or she will change after marriage. The truth is that people often don't change their character after marriage. This means that an angry person, a liar, a smoker, a lazy, a drunker, or a disorganized person before marriage often maintains their character after marriage. If you dislike or are always annoyed by the behaviors of your partner-to-be, it is better you don't marry the person to save yourself from an unending annoyance in marriage. 

3. Don't marry an unfriendly person. Don't marry an unfriendly person. If you always beg for the friendship or attention of the person you want to marry, you would ultimately beg for the friendship of the person after marriage if you happen to marry the person. To save yourself from this trouble, please marry someone that is naturally friendly, gives attention, or is attracted to you. 

4. Don't marry someone who doesn't freely speak to you. Don't marry someone if you have to pressurize him or her before speaking or dialoguing with you, or someone who gets angry every time you ask questions about his or her actions or whereabouts. This is a sign that the person may be keeping secrets from you, he or she is not really interested in you but in what you have, and he or she would keep things from you after you married. You might end up looking for someone else to talk with after you get married to such a person.

5. Don't marry a person with a superior or inferior lifestyle to yours. Don't marry someone with primitive ways, different social lifestyles, or mindsets to yours. If you love someone but the person's ways of thinking or doing things are better or inferior to yours, except you are willing to adapt to that way of thinking or lifestyle don't marry the person. The person may never change his or her ways of life or thinking after marriage, and you may end up hating yourself, feeling superior or inferior, or getting angry at your partner's behaviors every time. 

6. Don't marry a rich person if you are poor or a poor person if you are rich. Don't marry a poor person if you're rich. Don't marry a rich person if you are poor. Most times it is people's habits or their ways of life that make them poor or rich. If you are a rich person and you end up marrying a poor person, that may mean you have married someone with a poor way of life. Since people hardly change in marriage, this may make you continue to be irritated or always feel angry at the person you marry. The same goes for a poor person that married a rich person. The poor person will never understand why the rich partner does many things that he or she does. And the poor partner may feel abandoned or criticized by the rich partner.  

7. Don't marry an educated person if you don't want to be educated. Don't marry an educated person if you're not willing and ready to learn from your partner, or enroll in school to upgrade your education. The level of education of people often affects the ways they see and interpret things around them. When an educated person married a lowly educated or uneducated person, both partners may see things differently and argue a lot except they are willing to compromise their stands. 

8. Don't marry a city or village (country) person if you are not ready to adapt to the person's lifestyle. It is difficult for someone who has lived in the city or village all or most of their life to adapt or change their lifestyles or behaviors from a village lifestyle to that of a city lifestyle or vice versa. When such people (with opposites lifestyles) married each other, they may continue to strive against each other's lifestyles when they started living together under the same roof. 

9. Don't marry a hygienic person if you have a low standard for being clean. Cleanliness is a very sensitive topic for some people in certain professions like medical doctors, microbiologists, environmentalists, or health practitioners who understand how many unseen microorganisms or pollutants that accumulate in a dirty place can cause diseases and make people sick. If a person who doesn't fancy hygiene marries a clean person, except the person is ready to adapt, it may result in unnecessary headaches after marriage. 

10. Don't marry a disorganized person if you are organized. Falling in love is easy, but staying in love may be very difficult, especially when you are organized but you married a disorganized person without good character. Some people don't care about how things lie down everywhere in their house, whereas for an organized person, it is very important that things are sorted out and tidied up in their places. When a disorganized person that is not willing to adapt or change their ways married an organized individual, the organized person may become wearied from having to always return things to their original places after the disorganized partner had disorganized things. The disorganized partner might become feel critical following recurrent corrections or criticisms from the organized partner. 

Conclusion. There is no perfect marriage. A perfect marriage consists of two imperfect persons (a man and a woman) who have agreed to marry each other and live together for life with love, care, and respect. However, extreme differences between a man and woman that are not critically addressed before marriage are what result in issues that ultimately dissolve many marriages today. By critically considering the insights shared in this article, young persons aspiring to marry can avoid or reduce the possibilities of such marriage-dissolving issues to enjoy their desired marriage. 

The Secrets: A Book Recommendation

I recommend this book: The Secrets To Scoring High Marks in UTME, to current and recently graduated secondary school students that are planning to write JAMB/UTME to gain admission into universities in Nigeria. 

The book is authored by Tosin Gbodope, one of my mentees that is very well-qualified to write this kind of instructional book on UTME.  

Tosin has a Bachelor's Degree in Education (Biology) from the prestigious Obafemi Awolowo University, and currently studying Medicine and Surgery at Niger Delta University, Wilberforce Island, Bayelsa State in Nigeria. 

When Tosin was in secondary school, He was selected among the Senior Prefects of his secondary school, being one of the best students in his set, and he was the overall best student while he was in primary school. 

Tosin has written UTME five times and scored about 250 each time. This book is a product of his experiences: what he has learned, and a summary of the strategies he used to accomplish success in UTME. 

Tosin believes he's offering readers "incredible secrets that genius used in blasting UTME",  and the book will make readers operate at a higher level if they applied the content to prepare for the UTME exam.

I encourage every parent, uncle, aunt, brother, and sister to purchase this ebook for their young folks that wish to score high in the almighty UTME to secure admission into the desired university in Nigeria. The book will teach them step-by-step how to prepare well for the exam and succeed. 

Click the link HERE to purchase and download the ebook for just $1.31 per copy.

Happy 36th Birthday To Me

I'm 36 this year. If you know my story, you would know why I come to grow some grey hairs at 36.

Even still, I must thank God. Despite the rough ride life took me through from childhood, God enabled me to attain the highest formal education possible by 36 and allows me to live my dream life.

Who could have imagined that a child who lost both parents as early as 3yrs old can still become a doctor - Ph.D. holder at 36?

Again I thank God who gave me the mindset and grace to pursue greatness despite the life hurdles. I also thank my siblings who never abandoned me when there was nobody to help and when I was too young to make the right decisions for myself.  I thank family and friends, mentors, and cheerleaders who supported me as I journeyed to stardom.

I must also thank my beloved wife for her belief and supports for me. The last six years have been very demanding on me, but with her support and prayers, I didn't feel the heat. I scaled through the journey with a lot of smiles on my face.

The Bible says "no man can receive anything on earth unless it's given from above". 

People, it's God all the way. If you feel discouraged anytime, you can reach out to me. I will tell you the secrets to my staying shoulder-up and smiling. The secret is God. The Bible says,

"seek first the kingdom of God and its righteousness and every other thing shall be added unto you".

Never give up. Focus on your dream and wait on God for help. You will live your dream.

Happy Birthday to Dr. Rufus J. Akinrinlola.

Are You a Common Christian ? (4 Minutes Read)

Don't be a COMMON CHRISTIAN. A COMMON CHRISTIAN is a Christian who, like Demas, gives no priority to the words and things of the Lord, therefore forsaken the Lord (2Tim 4:10).  A COMMON CHRISTIAN is like Judas, who will trade eternal treasures for temporal pleasures like thirty pieces of silver (Luke 22:4).  A COMMON CHRISTIAN is also like that third man in the parable of five talents, who does not know the value of the talent given to him by his master and so buries it (Matt 25:14-30).

We are not called to be a COMMON CHRISTIAN, because in the end there will be no room for the COMMON CHRISTIAN when the Lord returns. A COMMON CHRISTIAN is like a wasted vessel.

The Lord says, "He that will come after me must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me." (Luke 9:23). We are supposed to deny ourselves - appetites, reluctances, and carnalities - and follow the Lord whenever he calls us because nothing can compare in value to obeying the Lord. When it comes to denying oneself to obey the Lord, a COMMON CHRISTIAN will not do that.

The Lord says, "if you love me keep my commandments." (John 14:15). Our obedience to the Lord's commandments, especially those that are related to helping others, is a prove of our faith, love, and thanks to the Lord. It is proof that we are not a COMMON CHRISTIAN who will obey the Lord only when it is easy to do so or for immediate personal gain.

The Word of God also says "Whosoever will be a friend of the world is an enemy of God." (James 4:4). A true friend will never leave or deny his friend. Only COMMON CHRISTIAN claims to be a friend of the Lord and still be ashamed of standing for the Lord in the public. The Lord said, "whosoever shall be ashamed of Me and My words, of him, shall the Son of Man be ashamed when He shall come in His glory and in His Father’s and of the holy angels." (Luke 9:26).

We are not called to be a COMMON CHRISTIAN who will only speak for or follow the Lord only when it is acceptable or easy to do so. Rather, we are called to be true disciples, UNCOMMON CHRISTIANS, who obey the Lord at all times.

"Then said Jesus to those Jews who believed in Him, “If ye continue in My Word, then are ye My disciples indeed." John 8: 31

 

Five Most Desired Soft Skills by Employers

Soft skills are the skills that make you fit into a workplace. With these skills, you will fit in and succeed at your job place. But without the skills, you may have to move from one workplace to another, trying to fit in. Five of these skills are explained in this short article. 

1. Sociability
This is your ability to understand and relate with people. It also connotes your ability to be friendly, adapt, and share the feelings of others.

2. Self-management. 

This is your being able to understand and take control of yourself. It involves self-discovery and mastery. It also includes setting and working on your goals. It includes your ability to monitor your (work or life) progress and takes appropriate actions where needed.

3. Team membership 

This your ability to actively, cooperatively, and progressively participate as a member of a team. It means you will always contribute to your group effort. You see your group's success or failure is your own success or failure. You are not just working to succeed alone, you are working to ensure that your group members all succeed as well. You are always ready to support a group member when needed.

4. Leadership

This is your ability to see things differently and responsibly communicate what you see for others to understand. It involves being able to justify your points, persuade, and convince others to see your points. It also means you are able to devise a new way, which may be different from what others are accustomed to. It means you are able to stand alone for the course you believe.

5. Inclusive and diversity 

This means you are good at getting along with everyone - all types of people and characters. It means you work well with men and women of diverse backgrounds. You treat everybody without prejudice.

These attributes, combined with your technical skills, could set you apart and make you successful if you portray them in your workplace and life. 

3 Proven Steps to Manage your Money and Quickly Build Wealth

Poverty is the problem, but wealth is the solution. There is plenty of poverty in our world today because most people don’t know how to create wealth. This article is written for you if you are looking for ways to create genuine wealth and build a great future for yourself. 

There are three basic but proven steps to creating wealth. These include (1) Get a source of income, (2) Save part of your income (3) Invest a part of your saved income. These steps can make you rich as further explained below.

 

1. Get a source of income.

To create wealth, first, you need to have money, and to have the money you need to provide a service or sell something. This means you need a source of regular income. Once you get a regular inflow of money, then you can proceed to the next step. You can get a regular income via any of the followings;

• Get a job: Job is the work that someone does to earn an income. Depending on your education, qualifications, talents, or energy, there are different types of jobs you can get. You can work as a cleaner, salesperson, teacher, etc. 

• Involve in trading: Trading is buying and selling. To get income by trading, you can buy useful items at cheap prices and sell them at fairly high prices to make some profits. 

• Provide a service: Service is something that the society needs such as transports, fashion, teaching, etc. You can learn of any service you like, get a license for it, and get a place to provide the service for money. 

Once you have found a legal way to make money, either through a job, trading or by providing service, the next step is to gather your wealth. 

 

2. Regularly save a part of your income

The second step in wealth creation is to gather the capital you need to create wealth. This involves a very simple but difficult habit of saving a part of your income. To do this, you will save at least 10% of every income you get every time you get it. This savings is a must and is not for you to spend or use for anything. But it is for you to keep. It is the money you KEEP TO CREATE YOUR WEALTH. It is your financial asset. Your goal is not to spend it to increase it. 

Many people are in poverty not because they don't have a regular income but because they don't save part of their income for wealth creation. 

Imagine, let's say you save $200 every month, that would be $2,400 (12X$200) in 12 months, $4,800 in 24 months.......$12,000 in 60 months etc. 

And you can always increase your monthly savings depending on your monthly income. The joy is that the more you save, the better you will feel, and the more sense of peace and happiness you will enjoy. This is because you will see your financial strength increasing each month. This is not yet your wealth, but it puts you in a position to build your wealth. Now you can go ahead to build your wealth.

 

3. Invest a part of your saved income

To build your wealth you need money, but not the money that you need for your daily life. You can only build wealth using the money you have kept for the purpose of wealth building.

So how do you build wealth? 

At times many people think they can build wealth just by working for money, whereas in fact, people can only build wealth by making money to work for them. 

 So to build your wealth, you will make part of your saved income to work for you to bring more money for you. This can be done by investing a part of your saved income in one or more of the following ways after adequate research and understanding of the potential risks and profits that may be involved.

• Lend a business owner: You can lend your money to a successful business owner and get a certain commission with your money (i.e. 10% or as determined) at the end of an agreed time. In this way, instead of leaving your money in a bank account without any interest, your money can be generating additional income for you without you doing anything. 

• Buy a share in the stock market: You can also put part of your savings to buy shares from the stock market from a successful company or funds you believe in. Usually, on a long-term basis, a share value can increase by 100 to 500%, especially if the company or fund is a successful one. 

For example, if you bought a share for $1000, and the share increased by 500% in two years.  Your money would have increased to $6000 within the two years. Meanwhile, that would not have happened if you had left your money in a bank or if you had no money to invest. In the stock market, you can buy and sell as many shares as you want at any time. 

• Buy and sell land: You can also use part of your savings to buy land near cities and sell the land in the near future when the price would have increased. The more land you buy the higher the profit you will make, and the wealthier you will become. 

• Invest in business opportunity: You can invest in a business opportunity such as agriculture production, farm produce sales, or buying and selling of any profitable commodities, which would not require too much of your personal time. You can also hire a personal assistant or manager to manage the business for you with proper record keeping and accountability. 

 

Wealth creation is possible for you. All you need to do to create wealth is to do what other people have done to create their wealth. These are the things described in this article. Although these are the basics, you can begin your journey of wealth creation from here and learn your way up from other sources. 

There are many books, websites, YouTube videos, or podcasts that are based on money management and wealth creation. You should also use them as other sources to learn more about wealth creation.

I believe you will achieve your goal of wealth creation and build a great life for yourself if you persist.

Rufus J. Akinrinlola, MSc. 

 

A question for readers:

What other way do you think or know that people can create wealth? Comment your answer below to benefit others.

#2 Success Tip: Resist Failure

Success and greatness are achievable for everyone, but failure is one thing that keeps people from succeeding and makes them ordinary in life. But when you learn to properly resist failure, you will succeed and enjoy greatness. This article is written to teach you how to resist failure to achieve success and greatness.

Understand failure

Now you need to understand what failure is and what it is not, for you to properly resist it. There are two categories to failure. First, to simply put it; failure is failing to reach your goal. But not reaching your goal itself is not a failure if you do not give up on the goal. This means it does not means you have failed if you have not reached your goal yet, you have only failed when you accept failure. It means you have failed if you have stopped doing what can make you reach your goal.

 

The second category of failure includes anything that can prevent you from reaching your goal. Mostly these are wrong habits that may include laziness, indecision, procrastination, time wastage, wrong associations, running from books, wasteful spending, ignorance, wrong role model, lack of focus, lack of passion or ambition, etc. All of these failure habits are what can prevent people from reaching their goals. They are the real failure you must avoid.

 

Hate failure

To succeed in life and enjoy greatness, you must hate failure. Hatred is powerful, it is as strong as love, and this is the reason you must confront failure with hatred. When you hate a thing, you will avoid the thing by all means. When you hate failure you will use every means to prevent it from taking over you. You will only succeed in life when you don’t allow failure to overwhelm you.

 

Avoid failure

Another way to resist failure and enjoy success is by avoiding failure from robbing you of your success and greatness. To avoid failure, you must decide that nothing will hinder you from achieving success. First, this means you will never give up if you have not yet reached your goal. Second, it also means you will eliminate or avoid every negative or failure habit from your life. You must avoid failure by all means to succeed and enjoy greatness.

 

Learn from failure

Another way to resist failure is to learn from it. Failure can be a blessing when you learn from it. Failure is a signal that something is wrong. When you fail to reach a goal or get an expected result after making an effort, it is a signal that something in your effort was not done right. If you can locate that wrong thing and correct it, you would not fail again, and you will have expected results. Everybody fails, but only people who learn from failure can overcome their failure. To overcome failure, to succeed and be great in life, you must learn from your failure and the failures of other people.

 

Don’t repeat failure

To succeed and become great in life you must not repeat failures. You must discover the reasons why you and people fail and avoid the reasons in your life. You must ask yourself “why did that happen?” whenever you fail, and you must learn from the story of people who have failed or succeed in life and avoid the mistakes.

 

Success and greatness are achievable for you when you learn to resist failure; understand it, hate it, avoid it, learn from it, and never repeat it.

 

Rufus J. Akinrinlola, MSc.

 

Question for Readers: what other ways can you resist failure?

#1 Success Tip: Think Greatness

Greatness starts from within

Everything starts from the mind: be it success or failure. It is the thoughts in your mind now that will determine what you will do next and how you will do it. And definitely, it is what you do and how you do it that will determine whether you will succeed in life.

You must first think greatness to experience it

You must first think of greatness in your mind before you can experience greatness in your life. As an example to understand this, if you look up, your face will face up, and when you face down, your face will face down. So if you want your face to stay up you must look up, and if you want your face to face down, you will look down. It's impossible to look down and expect your face to face up. In this same way, you must first think of greatness in your mind before you can experience it in your life. Your current status does not count; what counts is the direction in which you set your mind.

You can have all you need if you think so

You may be financially poor now, but you can have all the money you need later if you decide it in your mind. Even though you may be jobless at the moment, your story can change if you can begin to think about how to get a job. Every great person you see today did not start great. Most great people you see today start their greatness from zero-level before they got to where they are today. It's okay to be at a zero level. What is not okay is to think you are okay with that level.  

The secret to greatness is thinking greatness

This is the secret of greatness; thinking greatness. Once you start to think about becoming great, your mind will begin to give you various suggestions about how to become great. It will give you many ideas that you can work upon. It can show you some specific steps you should take or not take, or reveal to you the “Dos and Don’ts” you need to bring success and greatness into your life. For example, your mind can suggest to you the person you need to talk to or stopped talking with. It can suggest to you to change your location, get a new job, learn a new trade, engage in a new business, read a certain book, develop a certain habit, etc. Once you have these thoughts of greatness, all you need to do to experience greatness is to start working on each idea until you realize them one by one.

 

This is how you can become great and how you will remain great in life. Don't think small, but think greatness; think success and prosperity and you will experience it.

Rufus J. Akinrinlola, MSc

Three great reasons you should start using your gift

Do you know why the sun shines? Do you know why the stars bright, and why the eagle flies? There is only one answer to these questions is, and that is "they all use their gifts."

Your gift is your talent or special skill - it is a special ability that you have, which you find easy to use. You may be gifted in writing, teaching, speaking, singing, sport, etc., when you identify your gift,  do not abandon it, instead, nurture and use it every time. Three reasons why you must not jeopardize your gifts are explained below:

1. Success is sure. When you continue to use your gift, it will bring success into your life. This is because your gift will make you become unique in life. It will also make you become what God has created you to be, and it is only your gift that can make you occupy your unique space in life. No one can take your place when you know how to use your gift very well.

2. Easier life. Life will be much easier when you use your gift. But life can be very hard for you if you abandon your gift. This is because instead of doing what you can do naturally, you will be struggling to do what is naturally difficult for you to do. It is like when you are trying to do another man's work - which you are not trained to do -, that would be more difficult to do compared to when you do your own work that you naturally have the talent to do.

3. Inner joy and happiness. Using your gift can give you inner joy and external happiness. You will always find joy any time you use your gift. This is because the impression or push to use your gift is an internal force and any time you yield to that internal force you will get joy. The more you use the inner push to achieve success, the more joy and happiness you will get. This is the same for all talented people. They get joy from what they do because they do what they like. The more they do it, the happier they become.

Once you can identify your gift, don't jeopardize it. If your gift is doing music,  please go and start music anyhow.  If you are a sports person, go and join a sports team. If your gift is in academics, please pursue further education learning, and if you are good at teaching, start a training or learning center and use that gift to impact others. Whatever you think is your gift, go and start using it for something good now. Do not abandon your gift! Use it and you would see yourself enjoying success, an easier life, and continuous happiness. 

Three characters of a fake leader

Fake leaders are bad leaders. Actually, they are not leaders, they are killers, and following them may ruin a whole life. In this article, I will expound on three attributes of fake leaders. 

1. Self-serving

Fake leaders are out to serve themselves, not to serve others. They may show or claim they want to serve people, but it's a lie. They are out to gather people to serve themselves. They will gather as many people as possible to achieve their own personal selfish goals, even to the detriment of the people that follow them. 

It's not difficult to identify a fake leader of this kind, just by looking at their followers you will recognize them. Usually, a person that follows a self-service-fake leader usually remains a follower forever. This is because the fake leader will not allow them to grow up to become like them or achieve their own personal goals. He will continue to make them look inferior to himself, and if they try to stop following him, he would get mad at them. He's an exploiter!

2. Pride 

Fake leaders will want their followers to respect them but would not respect their followers. They see their followers as properties, dependants, or instruments they can use and dump once they achieved their goals. They will not see them as assets, partners, networks, colleagues, or team mates that are mutually beneficial to them, or trainees that can grow up to become great in life. At every opportunity, a fake leader will make his follower look inferior to himself, by always making them look small and irrelevant. They will never listen to their followers' plea, comments, or suggestions. They will always take all credit for the team's success and blame their followers when things get bad. 

3. Lack of care 

Fake leaders don't care. They don't care about their followers, about their life, future, potential, family, health, or financial issues. They only care about their own business, personal ambition, and properties. They can send a follower to do the most dangerous and unrealistic task. And if the follower fails to accomplish the task, the fake leader will get mad at him or her. The leader will not be understanding, and will not ask how he or she can be of help to the follower. When their follower has a problem, leaders will abandon the follower without trying to look for a way to support or figure out things for him or her. 

Fake leaders are bad leaders, they are not worth following. they don't have a vision or passion to help others. Their vision is to accumulate things and only build empires for themselves. They are prideful, and will not care for their followers. Following them may ruin your destiny. Stay away from them and look for a true (good) leader to follow. 

This Is Rufus

#This #is #Rufus

#If #Rufus #Can #do #it

This is Rufus. He became an orphan at age 3, as he grew up to find out about it that later.

Growing up, Rufus lived with an aunt, uncle, and two brothers, successively.

As a boy Rufus worked as a job man in brick layering, weed cutting, sand packing, brick loading, plank loading, firewood hauling, bamboo cutting, rock gathering and breaking, and bread hawking jobs, to make money.

Today, Rufus is a Ph.D. Student at the University of Tennessee. His determination to become somebody in life makes him believe his background should not be an excuse for failing to succeed in life. 

If Rufus can do it, anyone can do it.

I am Rufus, and I will be available for job positions by this time next year!

Three reasons why you need to start a relationship with God.

Spirituality

In my previous post, I identify spirituality or Godliness as one of the three pillars for building a well-balanced life. Here I want to explain what is spirituality and some three benefits of spirituality. I use the word spirituality in this article to mean Godliness. 

1. Spirituality means having a strong connection or relationship with God. This means getting in contact with the Almighty God and allowing His Spirit to gain access and control in your life. In life, you either on your own, in connection with God, or with Satan. 

2. Spirituality also means knowing and living according to God's commandments. In other words, a spiritual man is a man that knows God's words and does God's words. He does not walk by what everybody else thinks, says, or does. He only walks according to God's principles, not according to man's dictation, and God's principle is the only perfect principle for humans.

3. Spirituality also means believing and trusting in God for your life. This means depending on God for your protection, favor, and success. You do this by always praying to God to keep you safe from all evil, and you always depend on God for wisdom, strength, resources, and relationships that will bring prosperity.

Benefits

1. One benefit of spirituality is that it gives you peace and rest of mind. Since you have put all your worries and anxieties on God, you will have no worries and you will not be afraid. When others, who are not spiritual, are afraid of many uncertainties, you are not afraid because you know that God is watching over you to keep and prosper you. Also, because you walk by God's commandments, you are naturally kept from the consequences of breaking morals and established laws.

2. Another benefit of spirituality is that spirituality gives you happiness for many reasons. You will be happy and joyful for enjoying God's protection, wisdom, guidance, progressive life, good relationships, favor, and many other reasons. 

3. Spirituality gives you the ability to love and serve others. As a spiritual or Godly person, you will become a blessing to others, because the spirit of God in you will make you want to love and serve other people. You will want to share what you have with the needy in your neighborhood, and among friends and family. You will also want to share the goodness and love of God with everybody around you, making you a positive social influencer. 

Again, spirituality is a strong pillar in building a well-balanced life. In the midst of troubles, while others are shaking and falling, those who have a strong connection with God will be strong and will never fall because God will hold unto them. These people enjoy unspeakable peace of mind, joy and happiness, steady progress, and they are positive social influencers. 

I am able to tell you this because this is my personal experience. Even though my biological parents passed away when I was just 3 years old, among the major reasons why I have been able to come this far was that I started my relationship with God as a little boy when I was 11 years old, and this is what has been keeping me going stronger. 

So, start or recommit yourself to your spiritual journey today, by moving closer to God, learn about Him, and walk (trust) in Him. 

Why you need a mentor and how my story can benefit your career.

Mentorship is receiving timely guidance and counsel from an experienced person in an area of life or career. When the right mentorship is missing, people become a victim of negative societal or peer pressure. In other words, when people are not in the hands of deliberate mentors they will fall into the hands of wrong mentors who will indoctrinate them with wrong mindsets that could lead them in the wrong direction and destination.

I was thinking about this lately. I thought most of the troubles people battle with today would never be if people have good mentors to train them.

Growing up as a younger person I had the opportunity of being guided by many great people who mentored me. And except for their mentorships, I would have probably ended up in the wrong direction, being misguided by peer pressures and societal influences. 

The first person that mentored me was my late Brother Wilson Olatunbosun Akinrinlola. You may have read in my previous articles that he was the person that taught me how to read and write. He was also the person that first told me what it means to be a Local Champion. Do you know what that means? A local champion is a person who is superior only in the midst of local unskilled people. Once he or she gets outside in the midst of skilled and excellent people he or she becomes inferior because he or she is only superior to illiterate and unskillful people in the local environment. 

Brother Wilson explained to me why I was feeling great about being the best student in my class in my local hometown grammar school. He thereafter transferred me to a better grammar school in my state capital city, where indeed I met a lot of students who were more excellent and superior to me. It was there that I was exposed to quality education and first learned about the possibility of going overseas for further education.

Another mentorship I received from Brother Wilson was after I completed secondary school. That time I thought that settling for a temporary job or getting recruited into the Navy will suffice for me, but Brother Wilson told me that pursuing higher education will be better than both options in the long run.

I was also privileged to be mentored by another person as an undergraduate student. That person was a professor, Dr. Tony, who has a great heart for his students. One day Dr. Tony told me, "Rufus, with your Second Class Upper degree, you can get anywhere and any height in the world that you wish to get". Before he said that, I was being discouraged, thinking that since I failed to graduate with a First Class degree it would be difficult for me to achieve my career goals. Later on, Dr. Tony, told me what I needed to do to apply for a scholarship to enter a graduate school in the United States. And here I am today,  8 years later, a Ph.D. student in a high-ranked university in the United States. 

Any time I think back on these things, it reechoes to me that every person needs a mentor. And this takes us back to the picture posted with this article. That was six years ago, as the president of my community development society group - PEER EDUCATOR TRAINERS - I was speaking to some teenagers in Ilorin, Kwara State Nigeria about the need and how to protect their future. I was telling them is better to avoid premarital sex so they could focus on building the future they desire for themselves. 

The truth about mentorship is this, everybody needs a mentor regardless of our age or achievement. There is always someone who can show us what we need or needn't do to avoid a regretful end but takes us to a rejoiceful destination.

Getting the right motivation

Any time it comes to getting the most informative and dependable motivation, go for a motivational worker, not a motivational speaker. Only listen to motivational speakers if they have experience working in the same field or area that you need motivation. Except you are ready to swallow more or lesser than you can chew, only listen to motivational workers that speak from their work experience, who personally understand the challenges and opportunities of the work, not professional motivational speakers that know the subjects through books. 

Thinking through this topic, I see that a large percentage of motivations that come from motivational speakers - especially individuals coming from different fields of career - can be misleading. This is mostly because most would either exaggerate or belittle the context of the situations being discussed.

Imagine a professional public speaker telling a bricklayer, carpenter, or a farmer that he shouldn't rest when he's tired, but rather he should rest only when's he has completed his job. If they listen to that kind of motivation, they might not live to come to work another day.

Similarly, there are some clergymen that will tell you that all you need to succeed in life is the word of God. Hmm, that may be true if your success is a kind of manner that will fall from heaven, or if you are also a clergyman. But to succeed in another profession in life, you need adequate training and knowledge of your work - not Bible knowledge. Now, I know there's a place for asking God for wisdom and divine knowledge about your chosen profession. But more importantly, I think you need training and mentorship by the people in your area of career focus. 

If you are in Business, you need to know how business works! If you are a scientist, you need to know what it takes to carry out groundbreaking research, and if you are a student, you need an adequate understanding of what is expected of you in school. Stop listening to people that will mislead you. Go to the right source for the training you need. Go to the people who have done or doing what you want to do.

If you want to be a writer, listen to, and learn from writers. If you want to succeed as a politician, go and join politics and study towards that line. To be a motivational speaker, listen to motivational speakers, and to be a pastor join a church leadership and get training that will turn you into a successful preacher.

It's nice to be a strong Bible student as a Christian, to enable you to understand the spiritual approach to life challenges,  but after that, except you are planning to be a gospel minister,  please spend more of your time on the career you have chosen in life - that's your own call in life. And if you think your call is to be a preacher or life coach, please spend more time with people in that line. Stop wasting your time, hanging around a building you will never enter. Focus on your own direction and move towards your own destination.

Let me say it again. When it comes to getting instructions and motivations regarding your profession, seek them from people who have walked or walking in the same pathway you are. Don't let the people who have never been in your shoe tell you how to wear it, except you are ready to play try and error with your life.

Here is the bottom line, the summary of my thoughts. Be selective and careful when it comes to listening to motivational speakers or even some so-called pastors. Only listen to people that speak from personal experiences that are related to your direction or potential direction. A wrong motivation can make you live lesser than your potential. It can also make you break your backbone. But right counsel will direct you in the pathway that will lead you to a destination that is best for you. 

I don't think you will get the best from a professional motivational speaker, a clergyman, or any individual teaching you what you need to do to succeed in a field they have never practiced or trained for. It would be like getting a random person to read a coaching material and coach a football team to succeed.