PowerTalks | Trusted Corporate and Personal Development Consultants

Why do some dream of success while others wake up to achieve it?

Wale — Wed, 09 May 2012 02:25:39 +0000

The day you die, will it matter that you lived? Many people are living their lives dreaming and wishing for a good life yet never seeming to be able to get there. If success were the function of dreams alone, everyone will be successful. What is it that makes some people big dreamers with inspiring visions but no results to show for it while others always seem to achieve what they set out to achieve?

This book shows simple but often forgotten principles that are needed for a life of success and fulfillment. it is a book that will wake you out of dreamland and usher you into the joy of living your dreams.

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The Curse of Inferiority

Wale — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 20:53:16 +0000

I have said it before in this platform that in the battle between the lion and the shark the terrain will determine the outcome. This means that if the shark gets the lion in water, the lion will be a victim not because it is weak but because it is in the wrong terrain. Similarly if the lion should get the shark on dry land the shark will become a victim not because it is weak but because it is in the wrong terrain. No individual was born to be weak. People however take up an appearance of weakness when they are in the wrong terrain. As good a player as Didier Drogba is if you put him in the goal post to become the keeper, he will most probably appear to be weak even though it is the same game and the same sport. Similarly If you put him on the basketball court, he will not shine because that is not his terrain. He is not weak. His apparent weakness under these conditions not inherent in him. It is terrain induced.
One of the biggest problems facing a lot of people today is the problem of identity. This problem expresses itself at individual levels at corporate levels and at national levels. No society can rise to a position of dominance by being a replica of another. Originality is one of the trademarks of greatness. Your greatness lies in your originality. Great Nations like Singapore rose to greatness by being authentic Singaporeans and not British Singaporeans. The Japanese and the Chinese also rose to their position by being authentic Japanese and Chinese and not French or American Japanese or Chinese. Think of great artists like Mozart or Handel. They became great through their originality. Some people read the map but remember that some people drew the map. In your thinking are you a map reader or a map drawer? Are you an original or a clone? Are you authentic or counterfeit?
Why is it very important to become authentic in our thinking? Until we have confidence in our ability to think up things that can change our world, we will continue to conform to whatever the world gives us and we will continue to seek approval. You need no approval to be great. The world is an open platform calling out to people everywhere to reach out and take the greatness that is theirs but unfortunately too many people are seeking for approval. That is where the difference lies – the approval seekers and the takers. You need no approval to develop your mind. You need no approval to think big. You need no approval to dream. You need no approval to wake up and achieve your dream. You need to approval to be different. Unfortunately a lot of people are more inclined to conform than to stand out. Conformity is a disease that makes you feel unworthy unless you look like someone else. Inferiority is a disease that causes you to measure yourself against others. It causes you to measure your looks against the looks of others. It causes you to look down on yourself by default. Inferiority is what causes people to believe that the grass is greener on the other side and refuse to plant their own grass. Inferiority causes the horse to see the zebra and wish for stripes. Inferiority causes the zebra to see the donkey and wish for someone to trust it with luggage on its back. Inferiority causes the donkey to see the horse and want to have a saddle and reins. Inferiority causes the light skinned person to want to tan and causes the dark skinned to want to tone. Inferiority causes the male to want to be female and the female to be male. Inferiority causes the African American to want to be African and causes the African to want to be African American. Inferiority is what causes you to despise your terrain and esteem the terrain of another.
Remember my opening statement that in the battle between the lion and the shark the terrain determines the outcome? Well that is the reason for the seeming weakness of so many people. They have despised their terrain and esteemed the terrain of another and as they such they take on an appearance of weakness. The first step in your journey to a great and fulfilled life is to be authentic. Have confidence in your thoughts. Have confidence in yourself. Have confidence in your ability to rise from your mistakes. Have confidence to define how you want to be defined by others. Remember that if you do not define how you want people to define you then you cannot fault anyone for defining you the way they want to define you. Have confidence to live your life and not the life of another. You were made an original, don’t die a photocopy.
Do have an original weekend!
wale@powertalks.biz twitter@waleakinyemi

The Abundant Mind

Wale — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 03:10:54 +0000

Many years ago read a book by John Avanzini with a very interesting title: “The wealth of the wicked, yours for the taking” . The figures quoted in the book are probable slightly different now but you will get the message. In this book, I found some very interesting information about the wealth of the world. We will now take a look at some of those figures and projections as well as the consequences and conclusions. From his research, Avanzini gave statistics of the world’s wealth as measured in commodities. His findings were that the world as at 2005 had 220 billion dollars of copper, 50 trillion dollars of gold, 300 billion dollars of silver, 360 billion dollars of aluminum, 600 billion dollars of iron, zinc, tin, and lead, 16 trillion dollars of oil, 1.5 trillion dollars of barley, 4 trillion dollars of corn, 19 trillion dollars of meat, 4 trillion dollars of rice, 4 trillion dollars of pork, 3.6 trillion dollars of wheat….. Consider the oil reserves that have been discovered in the last few years. Consider the dollar value of electricity and other forms of energy and we cannot but conclude that truly we live in the midst of abundance. Is it not sad that in the midst of all this wealth, some people still live in abject poverty? Is it not sad that many people will live their lives through and never handle one hundred dollars in their entire lifetime? Contrary to what anyone may think or say, we do live in a wealthy world.

Success or failure are not nationalities of any country. They follow mindsets. That is why in the poorest nations of the world you will find extreme wealth and in the wealthiest nations of the world you will find abject poverty. If the wealth of the world were to be evenly distributed today so that everyone has the same amount of money, a research showed that within 5 years those who were previously rich will be rich again and those who were poor will be poor again. Why? Because there is a mindset that commands success. Chasing money without developing the mindset will only lead to frustration. You can ask the countless number of lottery winners that return to poverty after their spending sprees. The truth is that true wealth comes in trickles. These trickles may then begin to grow in momentum and then the momentum increases and then it gets to a tipping point where it just continues to flow – where to him that has, more shall be added. One of the biggest deceptions of the age is that money is the solution to a financial problem. This deception is what has led so many people to chase money with all they have including their integrity. When you have the correct mindset concerning money, you will not have to chase it. It will come to you. Money however never flows into a vacuum. It flows after ideas. It flows after creativity. It comes after solutions.

What is the mindset that attracts resources? It is a mindset that sees solutions to problems. There is the story of two shoe sales people who were sent to prospect in some parts of ancient Africa about the possibilities of setting up shoe factories. One returned and said, ‘it’s of no use. They don’t wear shoes. It will be a complete waste of resources to go there. ‘The other seeing exactly the same thing said, It’s a great opportunity. They don’t wear shoes. It will be the best investment we ever made.

Many minds are too heavily skewed in the negative to see anything positive. Even if you have nothing in your hand today, develop an abundant mind. An abundant mind is a mind that is constantly loaded with information and that is able to see possibilities in the midst of impossibilities. An abundant mind is what made President Obasanjo become president despite not wearing shoes till he was an adult. An abundant mind is what made President Obama rise against all odds to become the first black president of America. An abundant mind is what made the Beetles continue pursuing their dreams even when they were turned down by Decca records – the leading recording label of their time. An abundant mind is what made Michael Jordan one of basketballs greatest even after he had been dropped from his school basketball team. An abundant mind is what made Thomas Edison become one of the greatest inventors of all time despite the fact that his teacher labeled him as too stupid to learn anything. An abundant mind is what caused Walt Disney to become one of the greatest of all times in the film world despite the fact that he was fired from a newspaper because he was said to lack imagination and original ideas. An abundant mind is what made Abraham Lincoln continue in his quest even after losing election after election. An abundant mind is what has made you read this article today and what will make you rise to the next form of your life. Arise! Shine! Your light is come!

Transformative Living: Beyond Fear

Wale — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 02:53:10 +0000

Those who are scared of being wrong reduce their chances of being right. The fear of being wrong has confined too many people to the same form and while they experience motion they are not making progress. Think of the number of ideas you have had that you did not implement because you were scared of being wrong and then suddenly you hear of someone who is making waves doing the same thing you thought about long before. You then console yourself by bragging to your friends how you had that same idea many years ago. If they are like you, they will be impressed. They fail to realize that an idea in your head is worth nothing if not executed.
Fear is rooted in pride and ignorance. Pride because you think you’re all that and you don’t want your reputation for being perfect to be tarnished in any way. Only those who are ready to lose sight of the shores discover new lands. Only those who turn their backs on the crowd will conduct the choir. Greatness is reserved for the unashamedly humble – those who are humble enough to be wrong. Fear is rooted in ignorance because the people bound by fear do not realize that even if it doesn’t work like you plan; the greatest successes have been born out of the greatest failures. Success is not a destination. It is a point on the road to greatness. Failure is also not a destination. It is also a point on the road to greatness. It therefore follows that success and failure are not opposite sides of a coin but the same side. They are both stepping stones to greatness.
A research on the regrets of people about to die revealed that most of them have regrets of omission rather than commission. They regret that they did not do some things that they wanted to do. The fear of failure is the strongest confining agent on the face of the earth. By that fear potential kings have remained servants. Potential CEO’s have remained unemployed dreamers. By that fear potential billionaires have remained paupers. By that fear potential leaders have remained followers. The psychology of fear elevates the negative consequences above the positive. It highlights the negative without giving the positive a fair hearing. As an insecure young man I couldn’t ask some girls out even though I wanted to because of the fear of rejection. Now think of it, if I was turned down, would I have died? No. I was confined by fear. Years later, I often bump into these now very accomplished women in their different fields and in the course of talking they tell me about how they had a crush on my when we were in school and how they would have loved to go out with me!
What is your greatest fear today? If you can conquer your greatest fear, you are on the way to living your highest life. What is it that fear has stopped you from doing? Swimming, riding a bicycle, starting a business? The more you put it off the more difficult it becomes to do. You have to get to a tipping point. This is the point I got to when I realized that I had been living my life on the terms of others. That’s exactly what you do when you are motivated by fear. I did not take certain steps I wanted to take because I was scared of being rejected. I did not want to fail because I was scared of what people would say and so I lived on the cautious lane and did not do a lot of things that I really wanted to do. Because I lived on cautious lane my life was confined to the same form and never went across forms. The cycle went on! I had two people living inside me. There was the one who appeared to be the nice boy who pleased everyone publicly but got home and resented everyone. Then there was the adventurous one who occasionally was able to sneak out and say something or do something that he really wanted to do but had suppressed because of what people would say. He would feel so good but will quickly sneak back into the traditional form before he got caught. I even wore clothes that I did not like simply because it was fashion. I could not express a thought that was different from the masses because I wanted to be accepted. If you spend all your time trying to impress people you will get to the end of your life and realize you merely passed through the earth. You never lived your life.
I can only imagine the number of people in this position today. I knew there was more to me than the world had seen but I was confined to my little cocoon. It did not help matters that around me were small brained people who felt that the little cocoon was a massive palace. This compounded matters because I thought – ‘wow, I must really have something going.’ BEWARE of people who have small brains and make you think that your cocoon is a palace. You need visionary people and straight shooters around you who will call a spade a spade and not an agricultural implementation tool! I got to a place where I had to confront my fears and delete all the small brained people from my contact list and my memory. I developed my personal guiding mantra which is – ‘The world is my stage, The Lord my audience.’ As long as my audience is happy I really don’t care what the stage thinks!
Do have a very adventurous weekend!