DON'T HATE, APPRECIATE!!!

This is a like a follow-up to my earlier post. By the way, I got all your mails and also saw the fantastic comments you guys sent via facebook. Thanks guys.

Today, I want to look at an attitude that is gradually becoming a culture amongst us. In today's Africa, people speak negative of anyone better than them. A poor man believes every rich man is using ‘something’... this readily serves as a comfortable defense for his poverty. Any young lady doing well for herself is assumed to be 'using' her body. Any young man who is well-off is assumed to be into fraud.
Hardly will you find anyone who will effortlessly celebrate anybody who is ahead of him. To my mind, this is one of the foremost reasons we are still backward as a people. Why? We believe there is nobody worth learning from. The effect? This has made success to continually elude us. It is shameful that this mediocre mentality is been handed down my generation!

Fact is, you can’t become what you blackmail. You can never look like what you talk down. You can't learn from someone you are resent; you can only learn from someone you celebrate and respect. What you respect will inevitable come to you. What you do not respect will continually run from you. You attract what you revere.

In my own little finding, one of the reasons why some people are not still rich or up in their game is because they criticize the rich and those well-off than they are.
They just hate rich people! The Holy bible warns against this! In the book of Proverbs, King Solomon advised: “don’t criticize the rich, even in the privacy of your bedroom...”

Respect is poles apart from love. What is the difference? Love is when you find something attractive, while respect means to see something as valuable. Respect is not the same thing as love. That I love you doesn’t mean I respect you... It is the love of money that is the root of evil, not the respect of money. These two mindsets come with an attitude and approach. It is the attitude that always determines the end result.

There are people who are doing what you cannot do. Respect them, and show it! Don’t trivialize or belittle their efforts, eulogize them! The surest route to the ground is to continually criticize those who are up. Nature works with principles. God is a just God. He cannot give you what you openly or secretly criticize. He may not be fair, but He is just! His word says: “do unto others as you would they do unto you...” Here is the revelation: you will reap WHAT you sow, not WHERE you sow! If you appreciate someone’s crown and express it, you are explicitly telling God: “I love the crown; Lord, it won’t be bad on my head too!” It won’t take long, you would attract it. It is not people that give us our recompense, it is God!

Respect people doing what you cannot do. The Holy Bible says: “He that waters shall be watered...” In my own phraseology, this means that HE THAT WATERS WILL DEFINITELY BECOME WORTHY OF WATERING.... It is only a man that genuinely appreciates people that will experience appreciation in all areas of life. This is one fundamental law of success that cannot be broken by time, nature or persons.

Study carefully the lives of those who aren’t making progress in certain areas of their lives, chances are that they are the ones who refuse to applaud those who are ahead of them in their game/field. When they see somebody who is doing extremely well, rather than say: “THE MAN/WOMAN IS DOING VERY WELL, WE NEED TO ENCOURAGE HIM/HER TO CONTINUE...” Their pride won’t let them appreciate someone else's laudable efforts. You would hear comments like: “The Guy/Lady is ‘trying’... There is nothing special about what he/she is doing; it not something I cannot do............... I am just taking my time... Very soon, people will also know the stuff I am made of....”

You cannot resemble what you resent. A great man once said it is only those who respect money that can multiply it. This is deep, let's reflect on it!

I have seen folks who are every time uncomfortable being around individuals who are doing better than they are. They would rather be in the circles of those they are better than; so they can be seen 'stars' by those who they are 'better' than......... This is a defeatist mentality. In Africa, we call this: LOCAL CHAMPION! This is a inferiority complex and poor self esteem. If everybody around you is eating from you, you will soon dry up. Wisdom demands that you at least have someone you are also ‘eating’ from. Every child has a father... every father is [supposes to be] someone’s child!

In addition, that someone isn’t like you doesn’t mean he/she has a problem or is inferior. This belief has ruined many relationships - business and romantic. Over the years, I have noticed that people are not always comfortable with anyone who is different from them. This is wrong! How then can you grow mentally, if everybody around you is like you?

I am reminded of the university experience. Our belief then was that anyone who is studying a course different from ours is in a very easy-to-pass department. We always felt our course of study was superior to others. We were blinded to the reality that everything in life is interlaced. The doctor needs the accountant. The engineer needs the lawyer. The journalist needs the agriculturist.... At that point of our lives, we were blinded to this reality. Our feeling of self-importance clouded our sense of reasoning.

Whoever is not like you is not inferior. They are just who they are – DIFFERENT/UNIQUE! God never created anything useless. If you believe you are not useless, then nobody is. Refuse to think less of another man. Fact is, we don’t really see people as they are. We see them as we are!

It is high time we develop the praise/appreciation culture and dump the hate culture. The easiest and surest way up the ladder is the celebrate those who have succeeded in climbing. Like the bible says: “Seedtime and harvest time will not cease...” If you don’t respect other people’s authority, you will never become an authority!

READING YOUR STORY FROM THE RIGHT LIPS....

Isn't it amazing how we most times go all-out just to win the approval of people? We do everything just to be on the good books of anybody and everybody, even when it is noticeable that some of them don't really give a damn about our person!!!

Over the years, I have discovered that many people lost their fire for life, their fighting spirit, their daring attitudes, their will to be and do --------- merely because of one form of rejection or for the reason that somebody somewhere registered his/her abhorrence and intense dislike for them.

I have always believed that anything good will be hated by anything evil; the best will always be hated by anything average...
On the other hand, people will always criticize what they don’t understand. Besides, it wouldn't be an act of wisdom for anyone to embark on a ‘you-must-love-me’ campaign... Life is too short to permit that luxury! We just have to live our lives the best way we can and trusting God for the grace to be the best person we should be!

I am tempted to believe that Jesus Christ was faced with a similar situation at one point of His journey, hence the remark: “all the people the Father has sent to me must surely come to me....” He was confident destiny had assigned some special people to His life and no matter what, they will surely come to Him and stick with Him. This ought to be our conviction also, we also need to have same perspective if we must enjoy our journey through life!

This is the reality of life: no matter how nice you are, there will still be haters around. While some will hate you for being 'too nice' - they will describe it as 'foolish', others will hate you for being 'too independent' - they will describe it as being 'rigid'.......... There will always be persons who have intense dislike for you merely because of your physical height or body built...... Some hate you for being 'too smart', whereas to others, you are just one dull chap! Some will say you are 'too rich' to be their friend, others will say you are too poor..........................

The truth of the matter is, most of these folks are people who envy/admire you and will do anything possible to be like you. Isn't it a shame that it has become a culture to us Africans to always criticize anyone better than us? This is why to the average man on the street, anybody richer than he is definitely got his money through shady means........ This attitude is what I like to describe as IGNORANCE ON RAMPAGE!

While it is important to sometimes hear/listen to what people think about you, don’t ever make the mistake of asking/listening to anyone who doesn’t have any ‘investment’ in your life to tell you your 'story'. You will never get the truth from their lips!
Imagine asking the devil to give you God’s resume? Everything you will hear from him will be lies and proof of his hatred/jealousy!
You will never get the true picture of your life from the lips of those who have not invested anything in you!

At another point of Jesus’ journey, He needed to know what people thought about Him, so He asked His folks: “What does the public think of me...?” He got some responses. But, as if to prove that what the ‘crowd’ think doesn’t matter much, He didn’t emphasize on what He was told their perspectives were. Rather, He went further to ask those who had invested their time, sweat and resources on Him: “who do you think I am....?” These were the comments He eventually held dear to His heart!

Don’t try reading your story from the lips of those who don’t like you; they've made no deposits in you, so they won’t speak right about you!
Refuse to fake just to win admiration from people; you are not a failure because some loser somewhere said so! Stay true to who you are and you will attract genuinely nice people.

You must happen!

SOME DREAMS WILL NEVER BECOME REALITY!

Anybody can have [or own] a dream, it cost nothing, absolutely nothing. In fact, it is the freest commodity on planet earth... I once said in one of my articles that the challenge of this generation is actually not the lack of dreams [or ideas], but lack of focus. Focus is the major prerequisite for the realization of any dream.... Every young kid on the street has dreams, but most of these dreams are still in the category of WISHES.

As I travelled around Nigeria during the month of October to honour several speaking engagements, I had the privilege of meeting a number of young Nigerians; the [supposed] hope and determinant of the beauty of the future of this nation.

I was really astounded with the discovery that most of these young ones may end up living the kind of sorry lives their parents had lived, if not worse! One of the core reasons for this conviction is that most of these young ones have very impractical dreams/ideas about the future, their approach and attitude to life and their dreams are not any different. The truth is, our parents had dreams of and for their future... But, where did they end up? Isn't it clear through their lives that having a dream is not the only basis/criterion for greatness? There is more to what success demands than just dreams.

Dreams can’t and don’t fulfil itself. While it is your responsibility to develop dream for yourself, it is also your responsibility to work it out. God’s responsibility is to reward you for fulfilling your responsibility. This is apparent in His word: “I will bless the labour of your hands....... Whatever you lay your hands to do, it shall prosper.........”

I have discovered that many young people in our generation have very lofty dreams, great and fantastic dreams. But, most of these dreams have no ladders. There is no [concrete] plan on how they intend to fulfil it; most of these dreams would finally end up in the trash can of wishes or in the comfort of their graves when they finally exit this earth! Someone once said: “If wishes were horses, everybody would own one!” The question is: “what is a wish?” A wish is a plan-less aspiration. Simply put, a wish is a desire without plans/strategies to meet its actualization. If only we could just think and ask ourselves why our fathers failed!!!

God had to CREATE planet earth... He went beyond dreaming; He constructed a ladder [plan] to the actualization of the dream. Developing a personal dream/vision is the first phase, but most people make it look like the only phase!

In one of my recent meetings, a young lady told me how she has dreams of owning one of the biggest schools in Abuja, she told me how the school would look like and lots of other fantastic things. I was so enthused by this great dream that I asked her: “what are you currently doing to ensure that this great dream become a reality....?” She had no answer, none! All she stopped at was the dreaming aspect of success actualization. I wonder how she hoped it will ever come true! It was obvious she was already thinking like many religious folks who always shy away from responsibility by saying: “God will do it....”

Truth is, every great man who is presently at an enviable height had to begin from where he was... he had to act on whatever dreams he had.... any man who got to the mountain top had to CLIMB there, not JUMP!

At another meeting I had recently, a young man said his dream is to become a presenter on CNN in the next three months... While his case looks in some way ‘nice’, this is because he has given himself a time frame... Yet, the laughable angle is that at present he has nothing to do with any media house in Nigeria.... He’s never had! But, he his dream is to become a top-notch presenter for CNN within a year!

Nothing wrong with the dream, but he needs to create a ladder! I told him CNN is like a ‘destination’. He needs to have bus-stops; places where he needs to horn and refine his skills – he just may need to start out as a co-presenter with any of our local TV/radio station, gradually he would build his confidence and know-how of the job.... A 'height' like CNN is not for amateurs. They don’t give starters the opportunity to learn there. They don’t groom starters, at least his kind.

You may want to conclude that these two folks are really dumb. I beg to disagree! I see folks like these ones everyday... Theirs is quite reasonable, compared to others who can’t even explain their dreams, but they know they have one. This is the challenge of our generation.

Many of our university graduates either have no dreams of where they are taking their lives to, while others have some ludicrous and unworkable dreams. I believe this is one reason why the spirit of entrepreneurship is gradually dying in Africa; the spirit of responsibility! I have interacted with lots of university graduates who just stay in life to grow older – nothing more, nothing less and nothing else!

While I am a strong believer in having big dreams, what however makes a dreamer and his dream look daft and dippy is when there is no ladder to the actualization of his dream.

Success is a product of planning. Success is a product of strategies. Every dreamer must learn how to create plans. You must have a structure/plan of HOW you hope to achieve whatever great dream you have. Most probably, it will require you to start somewhere. Your plan will also tell you where you should start from, how and why.......... A dreamer without a plan is actually playing. He is but a joke, and his life may also end up same way.

In addition, you must learn, understand and appreciate the power of action. The difference between a failure and a success story is that one effectively used the gift called: “NOW!” Any man who truly wants to live his dream must first wake-up and if you will ever make progress, you have to first get started!

A conventional dreamer may know what to do, but the wise ones know what to do next. They don't just hope on their dreams, they ACT on them! They don’t squander their present, hoping miracles will happen! They know that success comes in bits. Thus, they look at their dreams and ask themselves: “What can/must I do now? How can I maximize my present so that my future will appreciate?” They create a plan ---- short term, midterm and long term strategies that will see them getting to top of their game............... These are the few ones that slowly but surely become the celebrities and success stories amongst us.

Folks, it is not enough to dream. Create plans. Start from somewhere. Align yourself with folks who have what you don’t have but what your dream needs. Access your strengths and your weakness. Start strengthening your strengths and look away from your weaknesses; the quality of people you connect with will help cover your areas of vulnerability and deficiencies.

You must happen!