Choice: Catalyst for Change

Choice: Catalyst for Change 
What distinguishes us from animals is free will. We have the power of choice. And choice is just that, POWER. It is a catalyst for change. It can elevate us to heroic heights or hurl us to desperate levels of despair. A glimpse at the life of William Jefferson Clinton, President of the United States, reveals the potent power of choice. When still a teenager, he met John F. Kennedy, a meeting that moved him deeply. As a result, he decided one day he, too, would become president of the most powerful country on earth. That choice the decision to become a politician instead of a jazz musician brought him much honor and glory. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the choice he made to engage in sexual activity in The White House with Monica Lewinsky. That regretful decision led to shame and disgrace.

Such is the power of choice. It can bring us closer to or further from our dreams. A good part of our waking day is spent in making choices. It begins as soon as the alarm goes off. Do we get out of bed immediately or push the snooze button? Do we prepare for work or call in sick? At the job, do we work hard or goof off? All during the day we continue making choices as we decide what to do next. Do I tackle the most important task or make a personal telephone call? Do I answer my business messages or chat with coworkers over coffee? Each decision I make points me to the road of success or the path of mediocrity. 

Many of us act as if were in rudderless boats drifting in the sea of life. Our destination? Who knows? We arrive wherever the currents and tides take us. But it doesnt have to be that way. You see, the boat were in has a rudder! It can steer us to the shore of success. That rudder is CHOICE. If we use it, we can become the captain of our destiny.

We didnt decide to be born. And after entering the world, no one handed us a book of instructions on how to succeed in life. So, its not surprising that many make mistakes. Some of the instructions we didnt receive are the following five steps. Following them can help us to maximize the potential positive power of CHOICE.

1. Be aware of your choices. This is not as easy as you think. Why? Because most of the time our boat (mind) is on autopilot. Instead of deciding whether to rise at the sound of the alarm or hit the snooze button, for example, we act automatically. We act by force of habit. If its a good habit, thats great, as there is one less decision to make. But if it is a bad habit, our boat will move away from the shore of success and head for the rocks. Imagine not being aware of that! To avoid such danger, force yourself to become aware of your choices.

2. Analyze your choices. Once you become aware of making a decision, ask yourself, Will this choice help me to succeed or hold me back?

3. Make your choice. After realizing whether the choice is helpful or harmful, make a decision for the best.

4. Act on your choice. Decisions without action are worthless, for they are mere pipe dreams, not plans. As Arnold H. Glasow wrote, Ideas not coupled with action never become bigger than the brain cells they occupied.

5. Multiply your choices. One choice is no choice and two choices may pose a dilemma. However, three or more alternatives offer flexibility and provide you with the option of making the best possible choice.

The next time you plan on making New Year resolutions (choices), here are some you may want to consider:

From this day forward, I choose to focus on the positive rather than the negative.

To those who share their fears, I choose to share my courage.

I choose to stop robbing my future by being irresponsible.

I will never be ashamed to admit that I was wrong. For to do so means that I am wiser today than I was yesterday.

I will always remember that the true measure of individuals is the height of their ideals, the breadth of their compassion, the depth of their convictions, and the length of their patience.‎

Ladi Delano, CEO, Bakrie Delano Africa, a young millionaire at age 22.

On our #getinspre series we bring you the success stories of young africans who made it to the top quite early in life.

Here is an Exclusive Interview With Ladi Delano, CEO, Bakrie Delano Africa

BY DINFIN MULUPI ‎

‎BRIEF BACKGROUND

Ladi Delano, Founder & CEO, Bakrie Delano Africa (BDA) is a‎ serial entrepreneur who made his first millions selling drink while living in China. In 2004, at age 22, he founded Solidarnosc Asia, a Chinese alcoholic beverage company that made Solid XS, a premium brand of Vodka. The company later expanded with the launching of a dining and entertainment venue, The Collection. Solid XS went on to achieve about 70 percent market share in China and was distributed across over 33 cities in China, with revenue of over $22 million annually. After some time, with the global economic downturn, Solid XS was sold to a rival liquor company for about $20 million.

However before selling Solid XS, Delano had set up a real estate investment company focused on mainland China - called Delano Reid Group. The company went on to raise over $80 million for real estate investments in mainland China profiting from China's real estate economic boom. Apart from the real estate company, Delano is also a founding partner in DRG CIN Energy and Global DRG Capital, providers of global energy solutions.

In December 2011, Delano shifted focus from the Asia economic boom to establish his latest venture, Bakrie Delano Africa (BDA), in Africa. This time, he partnered with Indonesia conglomerate, the Bakrie Group under a joint venture partnership. His company partnership with Bakrie Group was created to facilitate the expansion of the South East Asia's conglomerate, in Africa. Through the joint venture, the Bakrie Group would invest about $1 billion over five years in Bakrie Delano Africa (BDA) in areas as diverse as mining, oil & gas and agriculture.

An entrepreneur true to his origin, Ladi believes Nigeria is attractive to the Bakrie Group as an investment destination for several reasons. 

Firstly, it is experiencing excellent rates of economic growth, approximately 8% per year, which is forecast by a wide cross-section of respected economic commentators to continue over the medium to long term. Indeed, Nigeria is widely predicted to overtake South Africa as the African continent’s largest economy within three to four years. Within the context of this strong overall economic growth, there are individual sub-sectors where rates of growth exceed 8%.

These individual sub-sectors are also areas where the Bakrie Group in Indonesia has a lot of operational experience. This experience is not only in the sectors per se, but also at a similar stage in the respective sectors’ growth curves.

Finally, as an indigenous company, Bakrie Delano has deep rooted relationships in Nigeria too, which is a very important point. Business relationships on the ground are vital when operating in any market, especially emerging markets.

The combination of these three factors: rapid economic growth, an operational track record in particular sectors and local knowledge makes Nigeria very attractive.

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Q?: I am sure our readers are wondering: who is Ladi Delano?

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I have been an entrepreneur in emerging markets, generally south-east Asia and China. During this time, I have been involved in a variety of sectors and also natural resources M&A and structured finance.

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Q?: One of your goals is to encourage the wider Nigerian diaspora to repatriate skills and capital for the benefit of the country and its economy. Explain how you hope to achieve this?

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Bakrie Delano Africa is seeking to not only derive an attractive return on its investments, but also to create jobs, permanently, in Nigeria. Nigeria requires foreign direct investment to grow, but this is less attractive if companies investing there do this via a foreign workforce. We want to invest in Nigeria to generate a meaningful profit, but we also want to put something back into the country enabling the workforce to develop its own skills. In turn, this will make Nigeria even more efficient benefiting workers and investors alike.

The more Bakrie Delano Africa can be seen as succeeding in this respect, the more other companies (including members of the Nigerian diaspora) will feel comfortable, and be attracted to, making similar investments to ours.

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Q?: What criteria will you use when choosing projects to invest in?

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Our investment appraisal process initially reduced the shortlist of sectors to invest in from fifteen to three, so we are already very focused on sectors we believe are attractive. From then on, our criteria will include three considerations:

Will we generate a decent return on investment and cash flow as quickly as possible?

Does the Bakrie Group have relevant expertise and experience it can leverage?

Will our investment also create jobs and have a positive impact on Nigeria’s economy and its workforce?

If the answer to these three questions is yes, then individual projects start becoming very interesting to us.‎

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Q?: What was your first job?

‎My first job was as a suit salesman. It was commission-based and I loved the competition!

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Q?: Who has had the biggest impact on your career and why?

‎It is difficult to identify one particular person; instead I’ve been influenced by a variety of different experiences, some positive, some negative. The combination of these experiences has shaped who I am career-wise today.

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Q?: What parts of your job keep you awake at night?

‎Any entrepreneur will probably tell you that all parts of the job keeps you awake, and I am no different. Bakrie Delano Africa is in a really key stage of its development currently so I’d be worried if I was sleeping too soundly!

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Q?: What are the top reasons why you have been successful in business?

‎Hard work and learning from my mistakes. Despite what some people say, you never get anywhere without hard work and whilst we all make mistakes, the even bigger error is not learning from them.

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Q?: What are the best things about Nigeria?

‎I am very proud of my country’s diversity, its potential and its energy. We are a hard working population and the economic growth Nigeria is experiencing currently is tangible when you visit the country. Not only am I very excited about the growth we’ve achieved to date, but also where we’ll be in 10 to 20 years’ time.

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Q?: And the worst?

‎My worst feeling will be in the future, if we fail to fulfil our country’s potential. That would be the most disappointing thing of all. However, I am confident that this will not be the case.

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Q?: Your future career plans?

‎At the moment, I am 100% focused on Bakrie Delano Africa, the sectors we are focused on (mining, oil & gas and agriculture) and finding investments which will not only generate an excellent return on investment but also create jobs for Nigerians.

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Q?: How do you relax?

There isn’t much time to relax at the moment, but when I do get the chance I like to cook and I like to run. The latter compensates for the former!

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Q?: What is your message to Africa’s young aspiring business people and entrepreneurs?

‎I’ve already spoken about the need for hard work, but I’d just add to that … keep going, keep believing and never give up. It’s an old saying but the phrase “Show me a man who has never failed and I’ll show you a man who has never succeeded” really resonates with me. All entrepreneurs suffer periodic ups and downs and running a successful, profitable business isn’t easy. If it was, everybody would be doing it. But this is Africa’s time and the demand levels within our own continent’s domestic economy needs satisfying. This is a huge opportunity for entrepreneurial, hard working individuals.

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Q?: How can Africa realise its full potential?

‎On an emotional level, Africa needs to maximize its self-confidence and believe in itself, and I see that happening every day. On an economic and political level, we need to create the economic conditions in which entrepreneurs can thrive.

This means a stable macro-economic environment, business-friendly policies and economic incentives. It also means the encouraging and responsible use of foreign direct investment (FDI), which is key. Nigeria’s establishment last year of a new Trade & Investment Ministry to manage FDI is strong evidence of this. 

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Practical Ways of Overcoming Shyness

Practical Ways of Overcoming Shyness ‎
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If you are the shy type, then you will not need to be told how adversely it can affect your enjoyment of life. Your social life suffers, you may have difficulty progressing in your career if it requires a lot of personal interaction to succeed, and you may dread meeting people so much that you avoid situations where you may have to do so.
If overcoming shyness is important to you, then you have already made a good start in gradually taking steps to becoming and feeling less shy. Translate that importance into a decision to overcome your shyness, then you are really on your way.
Much of the process to overcome shyness is replacing negative thoughts about yourself with positive thoughts. In theory and practice, that is quite simple, but simple is not necessarily easy, especially if your shyness is extreme. Professional counseling or guidance may well enable you to better structure your program of overcoming shyness. Your counselor, though, is likely to give you self help exercises, so self help is very much a part of relieving shyness problems.
Increasing Positive Thoughts About Yourself to Help You Overcome Shyness

The more positively you think about yourself, the more confident you will become, increasing your chances of carrying that increased confidence into situations where you might previously have felt shy. It is therefore a good idea to regard positive thinking as a useful tool in your overcoming shyness arsenal.
What are the positive things that you can be thinking about yourself? As every individual is different, this will vary from person to person. However, it is worth bearing in mind that, generally, shy people have some characteristics that may actually give them an advantage in life as compared to an extrovert. Your positive thinking program can begin with those positive characteristics:

1. While a quiet person need not necessarily be shy, a shy person is normally quiet. Being quiet does have some advantages that can help you to be a success; and being a success does help to increase your all round confidence, which may help you to overcome shyness in the long run.
Quiet people tend to observe, learn, and process information about their surroundings and the people around them better than an extrovert, locked in their egocentric world, would. This means that the quiet person may be better equipped to succeed in some activities and careers. It is worth considering your own life and ambitions, and find those areas where you can use this characteristic to your advantage. Think about those advantages regularly, at least daily if possible.

2. An extrovert may be uneasy and uncomfortable with a shy person, as they cannot really relate to somebody who is at the opposite pole to them. A shy and quiet person, though, may have the potential to better understand all types of characters. This increased awareness of other people, when coupled with an increased confidence, can become a powerful asset both socially and career wise. Most people appreciate somebody who is understanding, and this is a positive strength you can build on over time.

3. Recent research has suggested that shy people may be extra sensitive to a variety of external stimuli, not just the situations they fear, such as social gatherings with many new faces present.
One possibility arising from this research is that shy people may be more sensitive to reward situations. This may give a shy person an increased likelihood of success in a situation where they perceive some sort of reward at the end of it, or even close at hand.
While this research is fresh and with much to follow up, the notion that you, as a shy person, may have another characteristic you can turn to positive effect, is something you can consider as part of your positive thinking program.‎

Taking Control of Change - Career, Lifestyle, Life

Taking Control of Change - Career, Lifestyle, Life

The subject of "change" is one that people react to in many ways. It is a word that can instill both fear and delight, but often when someone gets absorbed in thoughts on change it is tending towards fear. The "fear of the unknown" is something both natural and inevitable; it can come in many forms. However, to be a success in your personal life, and enjoy it to the full, understanding the need for change, and how to cope with it positively, are very important.

Change is natural because it will always happen; from the moment you are born, changes take place within you and around you, constantly. Nature is all about change, about life cycles which naturally occur throughout the world.

For people who embrace change, or even willingly seek it with eyes open, the world does not seem a threatening place. Change is a part of a natural life that such people cope with competently, and even enjoy it. Other people may be happy as they are and never face an unwanted change in their lives, so fear of change is not something that crosses their path.

For millions of people, though, a time will come in their lives when a change happens they do not want to happen. A motorway may be planned through where their lifelong home stands; the firm they have worked for 40 years goes bust and they are out of a job; someone who has done their job in the same way for 10 years, may be frightful of planned changes by management that will affect the way they have to work.

Career and Job Changes

When it comes to change, fear and anxiety being associated, it is often caused by impending, or even desired, changes to do with career and employment. The most anxious reaction to change can be strongly linked to changes in work practices, or even the threat of redundancy; sometimes both.

For a few years, I was once involved in project management on projects that substantially changed the way people had to work. Usually, staff were aware that some jobs could be lost, but mostly it was sheer fear of change, any change, that brought out the worst reactions from some people. You could tell from talking to them that they were petrified about changing the way they had to work, even if they did not lose their jobs.

Because of the nature of my work, I had to ensure that such people were counseled and encouraged to get involved in the process of change, but sometimes there was resistance. Of course, there are occasions when workers adamantly refuse to accept change, as was often the case in the UK in the 1970's. It still happens today, but change is normally better managed these days.

As someone who has always welcomed change, I would say there are several things you can do to help yourself:

1. Look upon change as an opportunity....it is. Even changes that may initially seem like a threat can be turned to your benefit, if you approach them positively.

2. If changes are expected in your working environment, get involved at the earliest opportunity. Sometimes the project team implementing those changes will need your knowledge, or even assistance. For example, for a new computer system I once installed, I sought volunteers to help input data into the new system. The more positive clerical staff jumped at the chance, and over a few months got to know the knew system quite well. Once they were pleased with what they saw, the word soon spread that the change was not such a bad thing.

3. Try to keep up to date with developments that may affect your work place, such as the industry your employers are part of, new technology and so on. Arm yourself with knowledge that will not only prepare you for change, but see it coming before those around you, and ensure you are at the top of the list of those who positively react to change and can help lead the way.

4. Looking back on my earlier years, I was wondering why it was that I have always adapted well to change and wanted to be at the leading edge. I came to the conclusion that being an independent traveler in my teens and early twenties was one of the main reasons. So, whatever your age, try traveling somewhere totally different one day; alone if possible, and not a tourist area. A different country, a different culture, will open your mind. By doing something so different, you are changing yourself, and you are in control. Once you realize you have control, then change acceptance becomes so much easier.

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Budget it

Your basic guide to budgeting
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Your first step towards achieving your financial goals is to set a plan. Planning in financial terms is expressed through a budget - this is a detailed plan of your income and all your expenses. It is an important tool that will show you, your spending habits and let you know your financial status.

There are some key steps to consider when drawing up your budget:

Step 1: Prioritise:
When drawing up your budget, make sure your top priorities are listed first which should include food and shelter, water, electricity and transport as well as savings.

Step 2: Plan for emergencies:
It’s hard to plan for all emergencies so it’s important to have a savings fund that can cover any unexpected situations.

Step 3: Budget for the things you love to do
Budget for the things you love to do. You work hard for your money, so you deserve to spend it on the things you love, just remember not to spend money you do not have.

Step 4: Set Financial Goals
Whether you want to save money for your child's education, a new appliance, or your retirement, set realistic goals and stick to them.

Step 5: Controlling your spending
Here are some handy tips to keeping you on track with your budget:

• Use any extra money to pay off and settle your debt faster
• Distinguish between wants and needs
• Scale down if your expenses exceed your income every month,
• Update your budget regularly with changes to interest, annual increase in your salary or unforeseen circumstances
• Stick to it

Drawing up your budget can be scary because it is a reality check but if you are ready to face your reality and make a commitment, you are well on your way to achieving financial success.‎

Communication Skills - A Vehicle On The Road to Success

Communication Skills - A Vehicle On The Road to Success

From the moment of birth, babies are learning how to communicate, building on their innate ability to communicate to their mother through crying. Thereafter, throughout life, a person's development and progress relies on communication of one form or another, either communicating to or receiving communication from others. Communication skills are a very important asset to help any person on the road to success.

Being able to communicate is essential to all creatures in nature, and the human species is no different in that respect. Of course, we regard human communication as far more complex and sophisticated than that of other species. There are many avenues and means of communication that we, as a species, use. However, for the purpose of this article we will focus on interpersonal communication skills, as it is those skills that may be critical to success in many fields of endeavour.

It is no coincidence that most large companies and organisations will include communication skills in their training programme for their staff's career development. For most businesses and non-profit organisations, their long term success and efficiency will receive a valuable contribution from employees with good communication skills. For those who need specific types of communication skills, such as public speaking, special training courses may be arranged internally, contracted out, or the employee sent on an outside course.

Few in business would argue that the better your communication skills, the more success you are likely to experience, and the more your career is likely to flourish in the future. There are, of course, more factors in achieving success than communication skills, but their potential contribution is undoubted.

The Benefits of Good Communication Skills

The potential benefits of good communication skills are too many and various to go into here; they could even save your life at some point in the future, win the heart of your dream partner, or save your marriage.

In business, though, some of the main benefits of developing your communication skills are:

Managing Your Staff

Staff management involves constant and effective, two way, communication. If you are not capable of communicating with those under your control, then your management ability will be constrained, and may even be damaging to staff morale. Being able to communicate effectively will come into play when delegating to, encouraging, understanding, and training staff, amongst other things.

Good communications with your staff can help you with their motivation, whether directly or through encouraging their self motivation, or both. In short, being able to communicate effectively will make you a better manager.

Dealing With People Outside of the Organisation

Whether you work for a business, or a government or other type of organisation, you may be in a job that requires meeting people from outside of the organisation or talking to them over the telephone. Good communication skills take on a dual role in those cases, as you represent the organisation as well as yourself, so your effectiveness is doubly important. Firstly to the image of the company or organisation, and secondly to your career success.
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Building Self Confidence

As your communication skills improve, you will find your self confidence increase also, so improving your communication skills can be an important part of your long term success strategy.

There are numerous other benefits to improving your skills in communicating with other, in many aspects of your life.
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Ways to Improve Communication Skills

Training courses on 
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communication skills are commonplace, and with any luck your own employer, if you are not self employed, will have a course or series of courses they can arrange for you. The type of course you should do depends on the reason for needing the course; a course on public speaking would be different to one on communicating with your staff, or employees. You can also find courses on verbal communication skills, telephone skills, written communication skills. It is really a matter of deciding, in conjunction with your boss, if you have one, which is the priority course for you.

Practice is also essential, so speaking to staff or to groups of people at every opportunity can be important. there are also three other points to bear in mind:
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1. Communication is two way. It is not just a question of you talking to your staff. You need to encourage them to communicate openly with you too. In some cases, that may not be easy, so interpersonal skills really come to the fore here. Being a good listener is a critical skill; in fact, I consider being a good listener is a very powerful personal asset to have.
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2. Whoever it is you are speaking to is an individual; a group is made up of individuals, and it is always important to remember that. In my time I have managed over 100 staff in various places, including in my own business. Each of those people was entirely individual, so getting to know and understand them was always important.
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3. Improving your memory can be especially important if you have a lot of staff or employees under you, as you need to understand each as individuals to be an excellent manager. Remembering them as an individual whenever you need to talk to them can be reassuring to them, and beneficial to both of you.

Memory can play a big part in other forms of communication. Public speaking is an example, as speaking to a group of people from memory is a great boost to your confidence and effectiveness. If a public speaker has to refer to notes non stop, it greatly reduces the effect of their talk.

Memory can also be an important asset when presenting ideas, work and proposals to your seniors. If you have a grasp of all the appropriate information, it can not only improve your case, but also create an excellent impression, making you look sharp and on top of your job.
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Communication is a vast subject, but your communication skills are worth developing, and you have to start somewhere. Maybe the best place to start is with your weaknesses, and that is something it would be helpful to talk to your boss about. If you have no boss, then personal friends whose opinion ‎you trust and respect may be an alternative source of opinion.

Quick Tips to Successful Stress Reduction

Quick Tips to Successful Stress Reduction

Believe it or not stress can be addictive and it can be habitual. In one way, that means stress can be difficult to overcome. Here are 5 quickfire tips to help you reduce your own stress, and improve your life.
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1. Get Started on Your Anti Stress Campain Now

As with any bad habit, it is very easy to put off doing anything about it. Thus, most people never do anything about their bad habits other than give them a passing thought now and again. Treat your stress as a bad habit, but get stuck into beating it now. And I mean now! You can get started this second.
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2. Use Positive Thinking as a Stress Busting Support Aid

You have probably heard of positive thinking, you may even have done something about it at some time. But have you thought about it in the context of beating stress? Positive thinking can be a strong support aid for your anti-stress campaign. Once you realize stress can easily be beaten, and you determine to do so, your positive thoughts about being a success in reducing stress will ensure that you do so. So, you will overcome stress, won't you. (Notice, there is no "?")

As far as possible, only associate with positive people, read inspirational and positive books and magazines. Seek out those who seem relaxed, confidence and very successful, and learn how they do it. Keep away from negative moaners, they drag you down.
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3. Learn to Relax Properly to Beat Stress

Learning to relax at any time, and in any place, is a powerful add to overcoming any stress problem you may have. It will also help your health and prevent stress in the future.
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4. Giving Back and Helping Others Can reduce Your Own Stress

Many people find that helping others on a regular basis reduces their own stress. This is because their focus is changed outwards, and there is no time to look inward with any self pity, and aggravate that stress.
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5. Laughter Really is the Best Stress Buster

You have probably heard this a million times: laughter is the best medicine. It is also a marvellous way of reducing stress. How can you feel stressed when you are laughing your head off? The oxygen is pumping round your body, and there is not a stressful thought or feeling in your body.‎
LAUGHTER remains the best drug for stress management. 

Time Management Tips For A Successful Life

‎Time Management Tips For A Successful Life

The application of time management skills has tended, in the past, to be thought of as something that is for business life only. In reality, though, time management is something from which we can all benefit in our personal lives as well, and in the art of marrying our working lives with our home and social lives. Those benefits show in a number of ways, including health, well being and satisfaction with our lives overall. Manage your time well, and you can feel in control of your life, rather than letting events control you. There is no single "method" of time management, either in business or personal life. However, there are various time management tips and techniques, practices and theories, which it is worth knowing about.

Acquiring time management skills is something we can set about doing in a methodical way. Really, we all practice time management whether we know it or not. It is more a matter of whether we do it well or badly. The following tips are for improving time management skills, building on those that you will naturally have. Even primitive man used time management, it was just a lot simpler in those days. Time had to be allocated for hunting, and that time had to be used to the fullest effect possible to survive.

Here are just a few time management tips:

1. Before learning any techniques to help you manage your time, have a clear idea of what you are setting out to achieve. Give yourself the opportunity to get your life in some sort of order so that you can both enjoy it to the full and succeed to the full. If you just apply time management to areas of your life that do not really matter to you, then you will not be progressing at a personal level.

2. Get your priorities clear in your mind, so that they are a natural part of you. This will need to become a habit to be very effective, and you will need to apply prioritizing over a number of time spans. Your long term success will probably depend on your being able to prioritize what you need to do to achieve that success. However, to use your time well on a particular day, you need to start the day with a clear idea of your priorities. That also applies to the week, the month and the year. Your priorities for the shorter period must always feed positively into the priorities in the next longer period, and so on, so that each time period is mapped out with priorities that lead to your ultimate success.

3. When assessing priorities, be ruthless with parts of your life that are not contributing to your longer term goals. Removing the areas of your life where you are wasting time, will free up more time for you to apply to reaching your goals.

4. Always be sure to build your health and enjoyment into any plans. Time for relaxation and exercise are critical to your long term achievements; always make time for proper meals, and keep to a healthy but enjoyable diet. Time management is not an exercise in being macho with your business life; it is an opportunity to build a balanced life for yourself and your family.

5. Once you have set your priorities for any period, write them down and refer to them from time to time, updating them if necessary. Should you appear to be failing, examine why, and reset and reinforce your goals and priorities. It is too easy to slip back into bad habits that inhibit your progress.

6. Be sure to keep a diary and use it to plan out each day, week, month. There are all sorts of electronic gizmos, online planners, software etc to act as aids to your time management. Personally, I think a good old fashioned diary is just as good, if not better. About 18 months ago I reverted to using a traditional diary to plan my working time. That forces me to get away from the computer, even for a few minutes, and think what my priorities are and what I need to be reminded about.

If you can become better at time management, you will find your life more satisfying and less stressful, as well as being able to achieve greater things. For millions of people, life just sweeps them along in a torrent of activity, or inactivity, over which they have little or no control. That can be very stressful, unhealthy, inefficient, and demoralising over the long term. There is nothing quite like controlling your own destiny to reduce stress and aid success.‎

#successprofile10. NO EXCUSE

Most people think success comes from good luck or enormous talent, but many successful people achieve their accomplishments in a simpler way: through self-discipline. No Excuses! shows you how you can achieve success in all three major areas of your life, including your personal goals, business and money goals, and overall happiness.Each of the 21 chapters in this book shows you how to be more disciplined in one aspect of your life, with end-of-chapter exercises to help you apply the "no excuses" approach to your own life. With these guidelines, you can learn how to be more successful in everything you do--instead of wistfully envying others you think are just "luckier" than you. A little self-discipline goes a long way…so stop making excuses and read this book!

Celebrating God's General of our time: Pastor E.A Adeboye @73‎

On monday, March 2, the General Overseer of Redeemed Christian Church of God RCCG), Pastor E.A Adeboye turned 73, and he marked it in style.

He had a special birthday service (Divine Encounter) in the early hours of Monday.

Then followed by hours Marathon Praise session which was held to thank God for preserving the life of the General Overseer.

Still basking in the euphoria of his day, Daddy G.O, also celebrated with his family members and close friends.

Felicitating with the Man of God, lots of Nigerian celebrities took to their social media platforms to wish him a wonderful celebration at 73.
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Pastor Adeboye, minister, teacher, evangelist, and academic, is the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, a network of over 15000 parish-churches spread across the globe, with active churches in 100 countries.

In the forefront of missionary activity out of Africa, Pastor Adeboye has achieved, through various global ministry and social organs, a great following for Christ Jesus.  A counselor to pastors and heads of governments, this venerable elder statesman’s influence has today far outstripped his lowly background, and his all-pervading humility.

In recognition of his contribution as a global icon and teacher of the word, he was voted in 2009 as one of the world’s 50 most influential people by Newsweek magazine, USA.

Pastor E.A. Adeboye website chronicles his journey of faith, his sojourns, his milestone achievements, and future programmes and plans.  It details his itinerary, his biography, his bibliography, and his resources.  The site brings to life this legendary yet unassuming personage and opens a valve- through contact, chat-room, prayer interface links-to his many children, as he calls his members, and for all who wish to know, follow, and interact with this God’s General of our time.

COMMANDED TO BE GREAT

 Pastor E.A Adeboye's Excellent Testimony

Born on March 2nd 1942 to Moses Adeboye, a farmer and part-time traditional musician, and Esther Adeboye, a trader in locust beans, Enoch's poor parental background painted a grim picture of a child that  would be confined to the peasant life. But the little lad, whose father had migrated to Ilesha now in Osun State in Nigeria to settle, had a different agenda for his life. Enoch was registered at St. Stephen's Anglican Primary School, Ifewara to begin his primary education.

Brilliant, calm and reticent with amiable primness, his teachers had no doubt that the lad had a scholarly aura and a cut for the academic event at that tender age.

It was therefore, not surprising that young Enoch Adeboye soon gained admission into Ilesha Grammar School. But therein lay the acid test and indeed a gulf to cross. The bruising truth was that Enoch's tall ambition to pursue an academic dream in a high school was irreconcilable with the abject poverty of Moses, his father.

Destiny indeed smiled on Adeboye as Moses and his wife were compelled to sell their few cherished possessions and borrowed from kind neighbours to ensure that their son's dream took a step towards a practical reality. And so, Enoch landed at Ilesha Grammar School. And the little chap soon began to see a grey light of dawn on a horizon. In school, his closest companions were poverty and hunger. But he carried his pains with stoical poise. He never had a fat wallet but he sure had a fat will. And so he resolved to work hard to succeed and to lift his parents from the despicable dungeon of poverty. He almost did. But this noble dream was fractured while he was in his final year. The sad news sneaked in that solemn afternoon: Moses his father was dead. It was shocking and traumatic news.

Led by his principal, Adeboye returned home to pay his last respect to his father and went back to school same day to face his exams; his mind blurred by the interrupting memory of his father's freezing silence.

Adeboye finished his secondary school career, winning prizes for the best student. However, on the prize-giving day, the pain of poverty once again loomed. At the ripe age of 18, it dawned on him that he had neither a pair of trousers nor a pair of shoes, even if ugly, to wear to the prize giving ceremony. He borrowed a pair of shoes and pants from a relative. Even though they were the wrong sizes, and he must have looked awkward and ludicrous in them, he wore them with pride to pick his prize. This poverty for him must be the spur in his quest to be a paragon of success in life.

Enoch taught briefly at a local school before gaining admission into the University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN). Here, he joined the volleyball team, not so much because of his love for sports but because of some free meals. The Nigeria civil war jeopardized his career at UNN. The Ifewara lad later obtained his bachelors degree from the University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU).

Enoch, now caressing the sunny side of life, soon obtained his Masters degree, and a PH.D in Hydro-Dynamics from the University of Lagos at the youthful age of 30. His whole ambition now was to be the youngest University Vice Chancellor in Africa

But Adeboye's ambition was short lived; for he would soon have his own 'burning bush' experience. One of his daughters became ill and orthodox medicine proved ineffective. This was in 1973. A cousin had invited him and his wife to a church, The Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), to seek divine healing for their daughter.

What the Mathematics Teacher and his adorable wife did not know, and could not have imagined, as they stepped out of their house that day was that they had begun to walk into God's ultimate plan for their lives.

Adeboye could not understand why this bunch of illiterate preachers felt he had to surrender his life to Jesus Christ in order to overcome his afflictions. “What do these ones know about the philosophy and psychology of religions?” he thought to himself.

Finally the Word of God penetrated, and on July 29, 1973, sobbing like a baby, Mr. Adeboye ran to the altar to accept Christ as his personal Lord and Saviour.

Radical Zeal

The young convert received a divine touch, and peace returned to his life. As he heard the message of complete holiness, he decided to live by the Word. He rarely missed church services. He started reading the Bible after he found out that the mostly illiterate members of the church had better grasp than him. He decided to take Sunday School very seriously and pay attention to the weekly memory verses.

A Living Witness

From the moment he gave his life to Christ, Pastor Adeboye eagerly shared the gospel. His colleagues and students at the University of Lagos were the primary targets of his evangelical zeal. His passion to win souls for Jesus led him to reach out to members of his extended family, and neighbours. In 1977, Pastor Adeboye paid 15 years rent to hire a cocoa warehouse in Ifewara, for use as a branch of RCCG.

The Mantle Falls

As Rev. Josiah Olufemi Akindayomi grew old, the issue of his successor crept up. But before he passed on to glory on November 2, 1980, at the age of 71, he had left a clear statement about who the Lord had chosen to succeed him. Pastor E. A. Adeboye, was the choice. He and his wife began to desperately cry to God to let the cup pass over him. But in January 1981, Pastor Enoch Adejare Adeboye became the new leader of the church.

Coming from the ivory tower to a modest apartment in Mushin, a densely populated area of Lagos, was like falling from grace to grass. But that turned out to be the beginning of a new thing. The new leader's modesty would not permit him to be called Reverend or General Superintendent, so he changed his title to Pastor, and his designation to General Overseer. The vision which God dropped in the heart of an unlettered man began to blossom in the hands of the scholar. From 40 parishes, which he inherited in 1981, the Church now has more than 15,000 parishes in more than 100 countries.

Pastor Adeboye's delivery of the gospel is unique. Points follow one another in a logical sequence, as if he is proving a mathematical theory. He is also a giant in prayer and worship. He spends hours with the God whose message he bears daily. As a Pastor, strict discipline and unusual hard work strike a balance in his caring heart.

Mummy G.O., Pastor Folu Adeboye, wife of the General Overseer is a strong pillar and efficient planner that complements the efforts of her husband. She is endowed with immense initiative, and great capacity for hard work. Her attributes have helped the G.O. to obey God's command to be great.‎

'JUMOBI HONEST: #successprofile

'JUMOBI HONEST: #successprofile: Benjamin Carson  ‎ Benjamin Carson was born on the 18th of September 1951 in Detroit, Michigan. His mother Sonya had dropped out of ...

#successprofile

Benjamin Carson ‎

Benjamin Carson was born on the 18th of September 1951 in Detroit, Michigan. His mother Sonya had dropped out of school in the third grade, and married when she was only 13. When Benjamin Carson was only eight, his parents divorced, and Mrs. Carson was left to raise Benjamin and his older brother Curtis on her own. She worked at two, sometimes three, jobs at a time to provide for her boys.
Benjamin and his brother fell farther and farther behind in school. In fifth grade, Carson was at the bottom of his class. His classmates called him "dummy" and he developed a violent, uncontrollable temper.
 
When Mrs. Carson saw Benjamin's failing grades, she determined to turn her sons' lives around. She sharply limited the boys' television watching and refused to let them outside to play until they had finished their homework each day. She required them to read two library books a week and to give her written reports on their reading even though, with her own poor education, she could barely read what they had written.
Within a few weeks, Carson astonished his classmates by identifying rock samples his teacher had brought to class. He recognized them from one of the books he had read. "It was at that moment that I realized I wasn't stupid," he recalled later. Carson continued to amaze his classmates with his newfound knowledge and within a year he was at the top of his class.
The hunger for knowledge had taken hold of him, and he began to read voraciously on all subjects. He determined to become a physician, and he learned to control the violent temper that still threatened his future. After graduating with honors from his high school, he attended Yale University, where he earned a degree in Psychology.
 
From Yale, he went to the Medical School of the University of Michigan, where his interest shifted from psychiatry to neurosurgery. His excellent hand-eye coordination and three-dimensional reasoning skills made him a superior surgeon. After medical school he became a neurosurgery resident at the world-famous Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. At age 32, he became the hospital's Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery.
In 1987, Carson made medical history with an operation to separate a pair of Siamese twins. The Binder twins were born joined at the back of the head. Operations to separate twins joined in this way had always failed, resulting in the death of one or both of the infants. Carson agreed to undertake the operation. A 70-member surgical team, led by Dr. Carson, worked for 22 hours. At the end, the twins were successfully separated and can now survive independently.
Carson's other surgical innovations have included the first intra-uterine procedure to relieve pressure on the brain of a hydrocephalic fetal twin, and a hemispherectomy, in which an infant suffering from uncontrollable seizures has half of its brain removed. This stops the seizures, and the remaining half of the brain actually compensates for the missing hemisphere.
 
In addition to his medical practice, Dr. Carson is in constant demand as a public speaker, and devotes much of his time to meeting with groups of young people. In 2008, the White House announced that Benjamin Carson would receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.
Dr. Carson's books include a memoir, Gifted Hands, and a motivational book, Think Big. Carson says the letters of "Think Big" stand for the following:
Talent: Our Creator has endowed all of us not just with the ability to sing, dance or throw a ball, but with intellectual talent. Start getting in touch with that part of you that is intellectual and develop that, and think of careers that will allow you to use that.
 
Honesty: If you lead a clean and honest life, you don't put skeletons in the closet. If you put skeletons in the closet, they definitely will come back just when you don't want to see them and ruin your life.
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Insight: It comes from people who have already gone where you're trying to go. Learn from their triumphs and their mistakes.
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Nice: If you're nice to people, then once they get over the suspicion of why you're being nice, they will be nice to you.
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Knowledge: It makes you into a more valuable person. The more knowledge you have, the more people need you. It's an interesting phenomenon, but when people need you, they pay you, so you'll be okay in life.
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Books: They are the mechanism for obtaining knowledge, as opposed to television.
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In-Depth Learning: Learn for the sake of knowledge and understanding, rather than for the sake of impressing people or taking a test.
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God: Never get too big for Him.‎

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