Category Personal Leadership

I’m sharing this with you for a purpose. And here’s my promise… If you read this till the end, you’ll discover the most vital life lessons you should learn from what is happening around the world presently. If you put into practice what you’re about to read, be rest assured of multiple life-changing results.

Not just that…

I must also tell you that “This might be one of the best article you’ll read today (maybe this month or even this year). Maybe or maybe not. Dare me and let’s get started. Ok… You’ve dared me. Right? Of course, so let me prove myself.  But then… I want to tell you a story. Will you really like to read? Of course, you’ll.

Why am I even sharing this story with you? Is that not what you’re asking yourself right now? Well, I’m sharing this story because it conveys my thought explicitly. By the time you finish reading this story (and you pay rapt attention), you would have gotten 70% of what I’m about to share with you.

Well, you might have heard the story before… Maybe countless of time… Well, whether you’ve heard it 1000 times (I doubt that), it’ll still send you a very important message.

Ok, this story actually happened several years ago. You were not born. Neither am I nor my grandparents born when this story happened. We all read about this story.

What’s this story?

Here’s it… During the great plague in 1665, Isaac Newton was in his early 20’s and was a student of Trinity College, Cambridge. Because of the plague, the school told everyone to go home.

And guess what? It was during this period that the birth part of optics theory invented calculus etc. Newton returned to Cambridge in 1667, with theories in hand. Within six months, he was made a fellow and was made a professor two years later.

Why did I tell you this story?

You see, the fact we’re in tough times doesn’t mean you can’t maximize it or do something great during this period.  As a matter of fact, how best you maximize this period will determine how fast your life will move to the next level after the Corona Virus… Newton birth great invention during the great plague, you can do something remarkable during the great coronavirus period.

There’s a purpose you were born for a time like this. It isn’t a mistake for you to be around in 2020. Therefore, it’s important you maximize your time just like newton maximized his time uring great plague.  let’s get started.

How To Make Best Use Of Your time During This Period As An Entrepreneur:

1. Start Asking the right question:

Life is all about perspective. I love the quote that says “When we change the way we look at things, the things we look at change”. So, instead of asking yourself questions about what you can’t change e.g “Why Corona Virus? Why is this happening to us?, Do we offend God ? etc. Start asking the right question by asking yourself “Why is this thing happening for me? “, What are the things I’m suppose to get done during this period?”.

The first sets of questions are from a Victim perspective, while the second questions are from the perspective of someone that wants to win. Why is this thing happening for me? Is it for you to bond well with your family? Is it for you to learn a particular or multiple skill? Is it for you to develop a particular product? Is it for you to get equipped with what you lack? Is it for you to grow spiritually?  Is it for you to move your business online?

So, there’s a purpose why Corona Virus is happening for you. Just sit down and think through it, after which take action.

2. Time to evaluate the year:

What you don’t evaluate, you can’t measure, what you don’t measure, you can’t scale. So far, you’ve spent about 3 months this year. Right? Of course, you have. So, How far with your goals? How many of them have you achieved? Or better put how many are you building system to achieve?

You see, evaluating yourself will help you right the wrong, improve your result, change your Strategy (If it’s not working, etc). That’s why you must evaluate yourself during this period. Think back and think through things. Have I done enough? Have I done less than I should have? What next can I do? Asking yourself these questions will help you achieve greater things during this period.

As an Entrepreneur, you can evaluate your business and see how far you’ve achieved this year and what you can do to improve some processes in your business.

3. Set Goals for this period & Get Accountability Partner:

To fully maximize this period, set some targets for yourself and get someone to be accountable to. Get someone that will ensure you do what you planned doing this period.

Accountability makes you more committed to whatever you set to achieve during this period. So, set a specific target for yourself. Do you want to complete writing your book? do more exercise, read a book,  bond well with your kids, etc. Just be specific about what you intend to do during this period and be bullish about doing it.

Set weekly goals for yourself. Break down your weekly goals into daily target. Doing so will make it easy for you to achieve those goals.

4. Improve your skills or knowledge:

Coronavirus has come and will go someday but the skills or knowledge you gain during this period will stay with you forever. Therefore, use your free time to learn something. Use this time for your personal development since you have more free time now. Net worth increase aligns with better value Offering.

And for you to increase the value you offer, you have to improve your skills or knowledge. You can make only make more money when you become better with your skills. Most times, I recommend people learn high-income skills rather than low-income skills. High-income skills are skills you can exchange in exchange for a lot of money and vice versa for low-income skills.

High-income skills such as Sales & Marketing, Copywriting, funnel building, etc are skills entrepreneurs should work towards getting.

5. Build Your Spiritual Life:

This sounds funny, right? Yeah, but it’s the truth. I’m of the firm belief that spirituality is important to live a balanced life. This time afford you an opportunity to build your spiritual life and get closer to God.  Maximize the time you have at your disposal to get more rooted in God.

There you have it… Do you have any more suggestions? Kindly comment below.

Recently, after thorough self-examination, I discovered that gradually I’ve been letting go of some of the values and discipline that make me grow to who I am.

I remembered…

how disciplined I used to be with my morning ritual.

How tough I used to be about handwriting Salesletter.

How heavy I feel guilt when I do certain things.

How bullish I used to be with investing in myself.

Then, I realize the danger of our comfort zone. The danger of experiencing a small win. I realized that Comfort Zone could be a disadvantage.

It’s the reason why a poor man will become rich and neglect other poor men rather than helping them.

It’s the reason why politicians get to power and neglect the people that struggled to help them win an election.

It’s the reason why a firebrand, tongue talking Christian rise to the top and neglect God that helped him to the top.

It’s the reason why a person saved by grace rises to become General Overseer and starts acting odd both to God and to men.

It’s the reason why a janitor rises to the top of the corporate ladder and starts neglecting the Welfare of his subordinate. He forgot where he’s coming from.

Most of us often forget where we’re coming from and give ourselves away to subtle pride that will later destroy us.

Sometimes, what stops us from getting to the top is because we allow small win get to our head. Sometimes, it’s our last win that stops us from winning again.

Most of us often forget that it is easy to get to the top and hard to remain there.

You’ve to come to the realization that your past Success can hinder you from today’s success. It’s not enough to win once, what matters is to win again and again.

Well, here are my suggestions, hopefully, it’ll help you live a better life:

1. Always practice self-examination:

Constantly examine yourself. It’s easy to get lost but by constant self-examination, you can always figure out what you need to do. If I had not examined myself, a lot would have gone wrong with my life.

Unfortunately, I will keep deceiving myself that I’m fine whereas I’m getting rotten within. Stop being a stranger to yourself. Constantly evaluate your strength, weakness, habit, etc.

By so doing, you’ll be able to correct what is wrong before it becomes worse.

You’ll be able to get more things done effectively when you constantly examine yourself.

2. Always Strike harder:

Irrespective of the level of success you’ve tasted, always remind yourself that “There’s more”. “Deep calls unto Deep,” says the Bible.

So, you can never become everything you want to become. There’s always room for improvement and evolution.

So, Never get comfortable with what you have, always strive to get more.

3. Don’t let your success get to your head:

Pride has stopped a lot of people from becoming all that God created them to be.

Don’t let your success get to your head that you neglect certain practices that make you successful.

4. Discipline should be a lifestyle:

Discipline isn’t an option but a necessity.

If you’ll become great, then you should embrace discipline dearly. It should be a way of life. It should be a “MUST” for you.

No one gets to the top without DISCIPLINE and also no one remains at the top without it. Therefore, embrace discipline.

5. Don’t forget How you started:

Never forget your root. The place it all began.

Let your root always remind you how God has helped you. Most times, we’re not grateful because we forget who we used to be.

If you can count your blessings, if you can connect the dots backward, you’ll be amazed that God has really been faithful to you.

You might not be where you want to be but most importantly, you’re not where you used to be.

My parting word is that “the enemy of today’s success is yesterday’s success. So BE WATCHFUL”

Over to you…

Do you find this piece valuable? Let me know in the comment session.

P.S: Why not share with someone? Someone needs to hear this right now.

As a practicing Behavioral Therapist, I’ve seen issues that their root cause is Idleness. Most people often neglect the atrocities associated with being idle.

Recently, I had a conversation with a friend and the conversation was centered on “Idleness”. She shared her story with me and one of what she said was that “It was because I don’t have a job that I took LinkedIn seriously, it was then I discovered I love writing and develop my writing skill”.  Guess what? She got her present job just because she is good at writing.

Why did I share this story? I see a lot of people who are unemployed and all they do is to blame others (Government, Poor business policy, lack of certain privileges, how doing business in Nigeria is hard, etc). I see a lot of people blame others except themselves.

They enroll themselves into “The BLAME PARTY” and months and years down the line, they have little or no result that shows that their life is improving. You see, the fact that you’ve no job is not a prerequisite for Idleness. Having no job is an opportunity for you do something about it and peradventure even create jobs for others

You have to know that “It’s not what happens to you that matters but the interpretation you give to it”. If you give a good interpretation to not having a job, it will open you up to doing great and massive things. Joblessness doesn’t mean mindlessness. You have to get something doing. Why? Because the more you become idle, the more you become less effective and productive.

While growing up, there’s a common saying that says “An Idle hand is the devil workshop”. I’ve seen that true over and again.

Here’s the fact, Idleness reduces your creativity and productivity, it reduces your thirst for greatness and once you don’t have the thirst of greatness, poverty, lack and limitation are inevitable. Idleness makes you always think negativity rather than positivity.

That is why you need to do all it takes to get engaged in something. What God blesses is the work of our hands (irrespective of how little) not our Idleness.

Just like my friend, who started writing consistently on LinkedIn just because of she has no job. You never can tell, the little thing you engage yourself with will go a long way to help you better and move you forward in life.

Interestingly, we live in exciting times where anything can take you from zero to become a worldwide HERO. We’ve seen people who started their mega empire just by posting on social media.

We’ve seen people who get sponsorship Deals just because they’re addressing a need in their immediate society.  There are just a lot of possibilities in the little things you do daily. Now, imagine those people didn’t do the little things they’re doing, how will they move from penny to plenty?  In this century fast-tracked by technology, just anything can make you talk of the town.

The purpose of this post is to enlighten you to possibilities and share important ideas with you.

Here are my suggestions On What to Do While Waiting for Your Big Break:

1. Acquire Skills:

Having skills is the new goldmine. This is the best time to arm yourself with the necessary skills that will shape your career and future. There are tonnes of skills that you can learn. And interestingly most of them you can learn it for free or cheap. There are two major types of skills, we have soft skills and technical skills. Soft skills such as emotional intelligence, communication skills, Teamwork, Adaptability, Problem-solving, Critical observation, Conflict resolution, Leadership, etc. Technical skills are the skills that are needed to perform specific tasks.

Both are very important because ultimately they will determine how well you’ll harness opportunities that come your way going forward.  There are tones of online courses that you can take. It’s the skills you have that will determine how valuable you’ll be during the course of your career. Rather than spending time on social media posting pictures or browsing through your newsfeed, utilize the same data to equip yourself with skills.

Sites such as www.udemy.com,www.edx.org, www.coursera.org, www.businessballs.com, etc have courses and resources you can pick up and learn from them. You can also choose to learn offline. Just arm yourself with skills.

2. Volunteering:

I’ve seen people who got their big break just by volunteering. Personally, volunteering has made a lot of way for me. Discover what you’re passionate about and chose to volunteer for any organization, group, or individual working towards addressing those challenges.

The world we live in has a lot of problems and some change agents and Non-Government Organizations are working towards addressing those problems. Interestingly, you’ll also build yourself while you volunteer. Volunteering gives you opportunity to change the world while still learning.  Volunteering gives you opportunity to connect with change agents around you, it improves your social and communication skills, gives you opportunities to utilize the knowledge you read up in a book or learn etc. Rather than being idle, identify a cause and volunteer to be a part of it.

3. Build Your Personal Brand:

This one might sound strange but it shouldn’t be because a lot of opportunities are associated with maximizing social media. When you build your personal brand, post consistently on social media, people see you as an expert and might even pay you for your knowledge and coaching service.

Posting consistently on finance will make people perceive you as a finance Expert, posting consistently on feminism will make people see you as Feminism Advocate. Interestingly, when you get consistent with the message you’re putting out there, a lot of opportunities will start opening up.

Also, we now have companies and businesses looking for content writers, you can choose to start writing content for companies or businesses.

We’re in the era of content marketing, when you’re consistent with posting some content on your social media, people will be eager to do business with you. Build a brand around what you love doing and you can always monetize it along the way.

4. Intern in a company:

Internship gives you the opportunity to gain experience, it’s not enough to learn, it is also important you know the practical aspect of what you learn. Most organizations love to take in intern to train them while some later retain their interns to become a member of their staffs. Seek out for internship opportunities.

Internship equips you with skills and most internship comes with payment of token. Rather than being idle, write to companies or reach out to them via social media to make known your desire to work with them.

You can utilize the opportunity to learn as much as you can and you can capitalize on those skills to apply to bigger and we’ll paying organization.

5. Work for Free or Cheap:

Working for Free or cheap is 200% better than being idle. Work for free for anybody doing what you love and you’ll be amazed by the resultant effect.

You’ll learn a lot in the process and what you learn stays with you forever. Also, you’ll have opportunities for some network that might eventually make way for you. So, rather than being idle, take a big step by choosing to work for free or cheap.

Mike Akintayo in his workspace

6. Start a business: 

I believe you can start a small business. Your delay might be because God wants you to build another empire. He wants you to be another employer of labor. Why? Because your Small business can grow to employ thousands of people.

So, start small and you’ll go big. Just don’t be idle. We’ve seen a lot of people build great businesses just because they couldn’t get the job they want.

7. Attend conferences, seminars, etc:

Waiting time is a time for personal development. Aside from the opportunities to network with quality people, another advantage is quality knowledge.

Conferences, workshops, etc helps to widen your perspective and gain valuable insight. There are tonnes of events that happen weekly. Check Eventbrite.com, find those that suit your need and go-ahead to attend. Don’t shame from paying to attend training too, don’t rely on free training alone. The best investment is the investment in yourself. Therefore, do all within your reach to invest in yourself.

8. Keep Godly Company:

“Evil association corrupts good manners” I can’t overemphasize that enough.

You’re salt of the earth and the light of the world, keeping bad companies will dim your light. Sieve your friends, be mindful of your Association. Keep quality friends because your friends can make or mar you. Keep friends that help you dream big and inspire you to be better not the other way round.

9. Read Books:

Books are a lifesaver. Get a book to read. There are free ebooks available online if you can’t afford paperback. Check pdfdrive.net, you’ll see valuable books to download. Keep reading.  Check out the nearest library and read a book, Don’t just read motivation books, read Business books, psychology, Science, etc.

Mike Akintayo.

10.Draw Close To God:

I believe in the sovereignty of God. I believe drawing close to God is important during our trying times. Spirituality is still a strategy that shouldn’t be neglected. So, draw Close to God.

Save your older self from tears, maximize your youthful life and shun Idleness. Your dreams are valid if only you start living it.

Now, I want you to do this: Can you share with us:

1. What’s your most valuable lesson in?
2. What other things do you think can be a cure to Idleness.
3. Why not share this post to reach several youths?

I can’t wait to see you conquer the world.

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