Monday, December 18, 2017

17 Things I Learnt in 2017


1. To Lead Is To Serve: Forget the shenanigans we call leadership in this turf. To lead is to really serve and in this you will learn humility, patience, tenacity and care. This year, I had the opportunity of assuming leadership in the Toastmasters club, a senior position to lead a young professionals network, and leadership role in two other networks and it has been a great learning experience in service.

2. Your Health is Priority: This was a profound lesson I learnt from one of my supervisors at work this year. The reality is that you need to be healthy to have dreams, to help others and to be good in your job. Your health should be a priority and it should never be at the mercy of anything. Look after yourself; that is the first law of wealth.

3. Stretch Your Capacity: There is much more we can all do but we will never know if we don’t try. They say you begin to grow at the end of your comfort zone, and nothing can be truer. In life, in business and at work, don’t be shy to take on new challenges. It helps your capacity in the long run.

4. Follow God’s Guidance Quickly: In the things of God it will be futility to try and fully comprehend it with the human senses. First you must hone your spiritual senses to recognize the voice of the Holy Spirit and when he gives you an instruction, don’t over process it, just do it. This year, I gave God when I didn’t plan to and he led me to makes decisions I didn’t anticipate. It will all make sense at the end.

5. Genuinely Care: As I grew in leadership this year I understood that people do not care how much you know if they can’t see that you care. People will give you their best when they see that you genuinely care beyond lip service, and this was one of my salient lessons this year.

6. The Power Of Journaling: Write your thoughts, your memory is unreliable. It is amazing how writing my goals across some broad headings at the beginning of the year helped me towards their attainment during the year. Always carry a note pad, and cultivate the art of journaling. It makes you far more effective and will come in handy in the future.

7. Listen More: A study say that 80% of us listen with the intent to respond or find holes in what is being said. This year, I learnt the art of just listening with the purpose of understanding and appreciating what is being said. I have always maintained that one doesn’t always have to hold an opinion on everything. At times, it’s just fine to listen to others.

8. It Is What It Is: They say if you live very long enough in life you will know that moving on, is the greatest gift. I moved on quickly this year from many things (good and not so good). My friend will say you either win or you learn. If you failed an exam, move on. If you lost a loved one, move on. If you won the most prestigious award in life, move on. Don’t fight what is gone and don’t lament over what you cannot change. At times, just realize that it is what it is and cue the next step.

9. The Concept of Sparring Partner: It was TD Jakes who once preached a sermon titled ‘Sparring Partner’ and I learnt a lot from it. In life, there are battles God leave you to wrestle with. This sparring partner is not there to defeat you, but it’s there to keep you humble, to help you depend on him always and stop you from being carried away.

10. You Will Make Bad Decisions: There is no two ways about it. You will make mistakes and bad choices in the course of life. The wisdom is to make ‘more’ better decisions than you will make the bad ones. It is on this fine line that success and failure is determined.

11. A Strong Support System: We all need shoulders to lean on. This year more than ever before I learnt of the importance of having a strong support system. This could be family, friends that stick more than family, mentors, pastors etc. Identify who yours are and feed that relationship for when you will require it (for you sure will at some point).

12. Seek Better Ways: This year, I once read somewhere that continuous improvement is an unending search to find better ways. And this can be in the little things. In your everyday life, seek better ways and always strive to add additional value to anything you are involved in. This is what it means to be different.

13. Don’t Take Anything To Heart: You will only hurt yourself and stay depressed if you take things to heart. This year, I learnt to simply give people the benefit of the doubt and move on. There are many things I have simply learnt to laugh off. Forgive people where you can and move away from un-necessary drama as much as you can.

14. Social Media Is A Stress Relaxant: Boy oh boy! This year, I discovered social media in a whole new light. After a long day’s work, I simply get home, do what needs to be done and spend some time on social media (Instagram and Facebook especially). There are so many hilarious skits and funny handles to crack you up. I can’t even begin to name them. Trust me, it is a bloody stress relaxant.

15. Pursue Excellence: It was Martin Luther King Jnr who said that ‘If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well’. Nothing further to add here.

16. People Are Watching: You by the way you are living your life are impacting the people around you. Be measured, be contrite, be open to new ideas and don’t be ashamed to be vulnerable. You never know who you are helping to go through life just by the way you are living your life.

17. Don’t Waste Time; Be Deliberate: Those close to me must have heard me lament about the paucity of time. The damn thing is just in short supply each day *smiles*. It is for this reason that we must be deliberate about where and what we spend our time on. This year I learnt that this is the big difference between successful and average people.

Those are my life lessons from 2017. Will like to hear your thoughts too. Kindly drop a comment below.

Sunday, December 10, 2017

Imo State and the Shenanigans of Leadership!


He was once touted to be the torchbearer of the Igbo nation, the liberator of a people on the fringes and the finest of his kind out of the Ndigbo breed. But, as they say, if you want to test a man’s character, give him power. The Imo State governor, Rochas Okorocha has been in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. One could spare him if his action was a one-off and could be excused as a gaffe made by a man of excesses. Yet, his case is one of pattern. He continues to relish in the ridiculous and has never failed to sink into new depths of scorn.

First, he began a crusade of erecting statues of African leaders (Jacob Zuma and Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of South Africa and Liberia respectively). When quizzed on this, the governor reply was ‘I erect statue to immortalise people so that children yet unborn can know about them. History is dying in Africa, we must keep it alive. In the next 100 years, most of us would not be alive but this will stand for children to see. If leaders are not immortalised, there will be no history for children.’ While this sounds like a plausible rationale on the surface, you only need to scratch the surface to flaw his argument. First off, the jury is still out to see whether the statues will even survive for 10 years, talk more of a century. However, the chief criticism of this gesture has been the choices of those to immortalize. Charity bloody begins at home. There is a litany of Nigerian men and women (dead and alive) who have been stalwarts of our history. If at all tax payers money should be used in erecting statues, it shouldn’t be that of a Jacob Zuma who has been bedeviled with incessant corruption cases. It is true that there is a dearth of historical knowledge among today’s youth but there is a better way to correct the malady. Start by reviving the study of history in Imo state, and make the subject compulsory for all at various levels. In addition, he should be the trailblazer in allocating more to historical research and equipping public libraries in his state (that is assuming there is any). History should be primarily be immortalized in our minds and not in things.

Okorocha’s madness did not stop here. Only recently, he appointed his biological sister as “Commissioner for Happiness and Couples’ Fulfillment”. This was in addition to 28 new commissioners and 27 Transition Committee Chairmen for the 27 local government councils in the state. The Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Sam Onwuemeodo, said the typographic error led to the naming of the Ministry as the Ministry of Happiness and Couples Fulfilment. It is now called Ministry of Happiness and Purpose Fulfilment. The statement went on to justify the essence of the new ministry and its purpose in the state. “The real essence of life is to be happy and to fulfil one’s purpose in life; Government officials are elected to address this.” It is a shame I share the same first name with this Press Secretary. The joke is squarely on him in his failed attempt to turn logic on its head. Yes, even the Good Book acknowledges that the people rejoice when the righteous are in power, but it is not by playing with our minds with the creation of such useless office. The people will be happy if the government of the day does its job. This is a state where pensioners are continually being owed, civil servants salaries are never prompt, the state university is in shatters, youth unemployment is as bad as it gets and many of the state roads are death traps. Yet, the governor believe happiness will come from a magic wand his sister will wield.

Beyond the loud soundbites that the governor’s actions have received on social media, it aches the heart how this man leads a state. Okorocha is a sad reminder of why we have so many failed states in Nigeria. No doubt, the Buhari government will continue to get a lot of sticks for not doing enough, but large stones should also be hurled at many governors. A glance at the Oil rich South-South and South-East states tells the whole story. We have leaders in these states who should have no business leading a street, talk more of a state. Rochas Okorocha is the only governor from the South East in the ruling APC government. He is supposed to be the voice of Ndigbo when matters that affects her are being discussed in quarters other PDP governors will not be privy to. Your guess is as good as mine on how this representation has been going. Our leaders should have moments of introspection and we the people must make our pressure on leaders count beyond the rhetorics of internet memes and hashtags.

Sunday, December 3, 2017

10 Things to Remember When the Going Gets Tough


When the going gets tough—when we’re feeling utterly down and discouraged—we need to remember…

1. To trust the journey, even when we do not understand it.

2. To accept what is, let go of what was, and have faith in the road ahead.

3. To start exactly where we are, use what we have, and do what we can, one step at a time.

4. To look for the blessings hidden in every struggle we face, and be willing to open our hearts and minds to them.

5. To recognize our backpack of support—our external sources of hope and motivation—before a random guru (or someone with far more crooked intentions) has to steal it from us so that we can finally see what we have always taken for granted.

6. To be present and tap into our own hearts and minds—our internal sources of hope and motivation—which have the power to push us back up on our feet and guide us down the road to our backpack of support, even when it appears to be lost forever.

7. To laugh at the confusion, live consciously in the moment, and appreciate the lessons found at each twist and turn.

8. To not compare our progress with that of others, and accept that we all need our own time to travel our own distance.

9. To see how many of the things we never wanted or expected, ultimately turn out to be what we need.

10. To be OK with not ending up exactly where we intended to go, while opening ourselves up to the possibility of eventually arriving precisely in the right place at the right time.

(MARCANDANGEL).

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