Movement is the thrust of progress. Purposeful action is the bedrock of all achievement. Until you engage gear, you cannot tell in which direction your car will head. Until you commit to action, you never discover possibilities. To desire success is to embrace responsibility and work. CANAAN is spelt W.O.R.K! To drink its milk, be ready to raise cows and to lick its honey, be ready to raise bees! The man who stands by the bank of a river pontificating on its dimensions and depth is not the one to consult on devising a strategy for crossing to the other side. Nobody has ever succeeded in climbing the ladder of success with hands akimbo or in the pocket. Whatever you are unwilling to pursue, you do not deserve.
Action produces experience. Experience, properly appropriated with lessons learnt, produces authenticity. In the aftermath of any war, only two types of people bear scars on their bodies. These are either the ones that were fighters in the war or those who are simply victims of the war and who barely escaped with the skin of their teeth!
Achievers are never afraid of failure. To the complacent, failure breeds regrets. To the achiever however, it is a school that teaches valuable lessons. Failure is simply an event that is an alert system that opens your eyes to the reality of the limitations of your current strategy. Show me a man who never made any mistakes and I will show you a man who never made anything! What of rejection? I don’t know of anyone who succeeded without it!
We need vision to serve as compass. But beyond that, the vision requires legs. Any vision that you cannot run with is no better than a mirage. Action will unveil answers to knotty questions in a way that mere contemplations will not. Meaningful, focused action decodes and unlocks resources.
Problems are solved when they are confronted with action-driven solutions. Even if success was a walk in the park, you will still have to leave your house to take the walk! Thinking about a problem has never solved it. Neither has talking about it. Visit an average beer parlour or bar where people ‘hang out’ in the evenings to relax around a few drinks. You will be regaled with seminal and highly cerebral analysis and postulations about society’s problems along with tailor-made “solutions”. The discourse would go on ad infinitum oiled by plates of pepper-soup and several bottles of drinks depending on the state of the buyers’ purse until the economic reality of that night or the closing time of the ‘joint’ puts a halt to it. The routine is the same day in, day out. The only problem is that none of those theories or postulations ever come to realization because none of those propounding them is willing to take responsibility for solving the problems identified. Such responsibility is conveniently posted into a pigeon-hole called “leadership”.
I have no doubt that the Nigerian segment of social media must be the most amusing to the rest of the world. While most societies in the Western world use social media to advance worthy causes and highlight achievements and breakthrough ideas coming out of their space, the Nigerian social media space is largely devoted to gossip, fake news, rantings against and about leadership, interspersed with diatribes against those who do not share similar positions with us.
In summary, it is usually about what we expect other people or establishments to DO for us rather than what we intend to do or are DOING to be the difference that we seek. This is what breeds the entitlement mentality resulting in the mindset that makes it practically impossible for us to have a positive disposition to the challenges that constantly throw up opportunities around us. We complained about our public transportation system and how unreliable, cumbersome and expensive it is. Uber saw the opportunity, came into the picture and is making a fortune. We ranted about prices of hotels especially in the metropolis and how we could not get good bargains. A Polish guy saw that and started Jovago. He has done very well for himself and is now one of the loudest voices for direct foreign investment in Nigeria.
If prayers alone could make one significantly successful or wealthy, Nigerians should rank among the wealthiest and most successful people in the world! Prayers are good and to be encouraged. When we pray, we engage the hands of the divine for inspiration, encouragement and strength. But we still need to work. Prayers alone never produced accomplishments. Prayer prepares and empowers us for purposeful, focused engagement but is never a substitute for it. We still have to roll up our sleeves and work. Lengthy fasts and periods of isolation on mountain-tops in prayer should produce a blueprint for implementation in the valley of daily grind. Spirituality and slothfulness are not synonymous. God gave us a brain so that we can give Him a break. Your land may be the most fertile piece of real estate but it remains a jungle unless the discipline of deliberate cultivation is applied to it.
Too many destinies are buried in the cemetery of good intentions. Unfortunately, the world never rewards you with success on the basis of what you intend to do or what you said you will do. The reward is based on what you actually DO. One quality action is better than ten million intentions. Intentions may generate ideas, but only decisions, backed with concrete action, generate events. Go-getters are so called because they first go before getting. Without action, the loftiest of goals are only as good as the paper on which they are written. Nobody builds a reputation on what he is yet to do. History documents actions, not wishes.
Several people ask me how they can become good writers or public speakers. Many avow that they have the gift and the desire but lack the knowhow. My pet answer to all of them is that you become a good writer or speaker by first becoming a writer or speaker. And to become either, you must quit ‘la-la land’ and actually make your pen kiss paper or start using your mouth to good effect. Many are petrified by the fear of not getting it right when the real concern should be getting it going!
The Chinese were right when they said in one of their proverbs, “Talk does not cook rice”. I concur!
Remember, the sky is not your limit, God is!
and then