Perspectivessssssss.................

Friday evening going home from work.........
I am in a bus thinking of how terrible the traffic is and how many hours it would take me to get home from where I was. The heavy build up of traffic was a long one. Suddenly a few miles on the traffic is gone and the road is free! What do you think ran through my mind? This is the way life is and even business! You start out the day and it seems as if nothing will work or that business will be dull, then out of nowhere things start working out.

In some other cases.........
You start out a journey and the road is free and its seems its going to be smooth sailing but then almost to the end of your journey you meet with a terrible traffic that lasts hours. This is another paradox of life, letting you know that its not always as smooth as we want it to be.

You wake up in the morning.........
The sun is not out and the rain is pouring. You need to be at a meeting and looking at the time you are already late! Leaving the house nothing works according to plan. First the car does not start, the Tyre is flat and the rain has flooded the road in places that driving is a disaster.

What a way to go.............
When you find criminals been celebrated and honorable men waiting in the shadows."Ni ilu to l'oba to ni Ijoye?" People are funny at times, ascribing the role of messiah to criminals who will just continue to blindfold them while he bleeds them dry like a leach.

Looking through a mirror..................
Most times we look and just go away without the picture in our head. We forget thatno6thing is as it seems and so life will continue to pass us by if we don't sit up and play our part. It takes you standing in front of the mirror before you can see yourself and the size and position of the mirror determines how much of yourself you can see. Mirrors this days are no longer rose colored either so take time to properly position yourself.

What we see is what we get.............
Everyday we look around and blame the whole world but ourselves for whatever situation we find ourselves in. We fail to realize that what we have today is a culmination of what we have been building for a long time. Growing and nurturing it to where it is today and yet we refuse to embrace it for what it is? When we encourage negativity and all things bad it is impossible for us to get something else from life aside from what we have sown.

Perspectivessssssss.................
The enjoyment that we think we get from life sometimes results in pain. Really freedom and responsibility means the same thing. It means free dominion and responding to the ability to make choices. What we chose to respond to and how we are able to exploit our dominion is then left to us while God watches on.

Put life in a better perspective and remember its not always as it seems!

THE YEAR 2010: TAKING A LOOK BACK

“Defeat is a choice, so is victory; you can only be beaten when you decide that you can never win. As long as you have breath and life in you keep on fighting and you will come out on top! - Anonymous”

At the start of the year, I had so much expectations; some of which I achieved completely, some in parts and some not at all. But! There were also the unexpected that signified and brought to the fore the beauty and goodness of God and his enduring mercies. To a lot of us what I am about to do is “counting my blessing and reviewing my losses”.

“MY BLESSINGS”
1.It will be remise of me not to start with the greatest expectation of all i.e. been alive to see the end of 2010 and starting a new year. GLORY BE TO GOD WHO MADE THAT POSSIBLE!!
2.Good health, this year I have not been to the hospital for any kind of ailment but only to visit with my sister when she gave birth
3.I am still single but I am also happy in that God would do the best
4.My business is moving forward a step at a time
5. Made new friends, great friends so much so that if I start mentioning names I might have to write a book. I hope we enjoy many more years as friends!!
6. Got selected to participate in a Youth Entrepreneurship program bootcamp out of about 1,000 applicants. Made it to the top 30!!
7. Volunteered for a teaching project, PROJECT RAISE ONE MILLION. Taught English to WAEC students of a school in Lagos and got a certificate to show for it!!
8. My sister got married and in December gave birth
9. Was selected to be part of the SMEDAN training of trainers program organized for enterprise developers
10. Was and is part of a facilitating team teaching entrepreneurship to a group of young men
11. Attended a minimum of 10 seminars and conferences all of which have opened my mind to new and greater things
12. A year older and wiser
13. Helped a friend organize the flow of caterers on her wedding day
14. Was on radio; Unilag FM (stood in for a friend actually) to speak about “business planning”
15. Was featured in Vanguard newspaper in Patricia Omoqui’s column ALLURE
16. Started three (3) blogs and still run them
17. Volunteer for a leadership school, NGOs, and causes
18. Reconnected with old friends even some as far back as my primary school days
19. Visited another state in the federation
20. Started another income generating project a bit staggered but with good potentials
21. Discovered a new and vital service that Nigerians and Nigerian Businesses need to help them survive. All I need now is the right person that can run with it!!
22. Go to bed each night and wake up to a new and better day each day!

“MY LOSSES”
I would like to call this part moving experiences that tried my faith in God and myself and not losses.
1. Did not meet my expected number of clients for 2010 (and I know why)
2. Failed to make it to the top 20 list for the YEP trip to Miami
3. Ended the year with a broken relationship (his loss is someone else’s gain)
4. Made a bad investment decision and I have the scars and dents in my pocket to show for it!!
5. Discovered a new weakness in my business (although I am not sure if this is a weakness) which has resulted in slow growth of business
6. Was unfortunate to be introduced to 2 persons (make that three) who turned out to be untrustworthy. You know yourselves!! You cost me money and a lot of trouble
7. Worked on a proposal for a LGA project but due to bureaucracy and the choppers syndrome it did not fly
8. Was broke for a third of the year, I wonder why!!

Whichever way I look at it, I find that “MY BLESSINGS” far outweighs “MY LOSSES” for this I give all glory to God who has made me see this. But most importantly I thank God for my losses and those events that I have not listed (so many of them) for without them I can never be a better person come 2011!

“Don’t look down while passing through life for your vision and faith is not linked to the ground. Look up and ahead because your vision is from God (who is up above and inside of you) and the sky is just the beginning”

OUR DESTINY, YOUR DESTINY, MY DESTINY

Destiny?! A great word with the simplest of meaning, the meaning is so near you that we tend to fail to see it.

Destiny is like cake in the oven, beautiful and delicious, filling and satisfying. However, without the right heat the cake would not turn out as we expect. So is our destiny!

Destiny is like a well-laid out business plan, one that investors read and get moved to risk their money. However, without the right mindset, skills and motivation/innovation to implement and make it a success, the business plan is a waste of effort.

Destiny is like beautiful lyric to a song, it makes good sense and touches the soul. But without the voice and personality to carry it the beauty of the song is lost and has no value.

Destiny is like a well-written constitution that covers all the areas of importance to a nation and takes it people and their will into consideration for which it is written. But when the people have refused to read and understand it, or have no respect for it then it is of no value.

Destiny is a properly drawn out plan of a house, drawn with specification for a structural masterpiece. However, without workers and builders to translate the drawn out plan into a dream house, the house cannot turn out as it is on the plan or as the architect had drawn it.

Or maybe it’s like a building in which the contractor has decided to cut corners? The house would invariably crumble and maybe kill or injure people living in it.

Destiny is like a bundle of cloth that has been laid aside for a Princes, she decides the design and style that the cloth should be cut into. This she wears and must be proud of. THE CLOTH IS HER’S.

Destiny is like a beautiful clock bought and set in a place of prominence to mark time and sound the alarm but the owner forgot to set it to the right time. The clock would mark the time wrongly and wake its owner up at the wrong time.

Destiny is like a road to a magnificent house that has been left to crumble and overgrown by the owners, it becomes difficult every time they embark on a trip out and back to their magnificent home.

Destiny is like the ugly duckling, an eagle living with ducks. His life would be limited by the surrounding and environment he finds himself and it won’t be able to fly until it is among its own.

Destiny is like a talent that each and every one has, a talent like the proverbial guy in the bible who took his talent of gold and hid it in the ground, it would not multiply and yield fruit.

Destiny is like a beautiful lady who decides to not take care of herself because people have said she is beautiful believing that without care her beauty would continue to remain, and then wakes up one day to look in the mirror to see a fat and ugly woman instead of the beauty.

Therefore let us all remember that even though we have all come to this world with our own destinies, destiny is what we make of it. We have a choice to make good of it or make it bad. The life of man is like an open book and we have been given the pen to write the story of our lives. What you write in that book is dependent on you alone and no one else. NOT EVEN GOD CAN HELP YOU WRITE YOUR OWN STORY. Remember it is your destiny, your life and your story to tell.

Make your destiny your own today and take the choices that would take you on a journey of fun, success and the envy of everyone around you!

BACK FROM THE DEAD.

After living away from home for five years Tony finally comes home with his family to his parent’s burial and stays on for a while. In his father’s will he has been named the sole heir if he can be found or else everything goes to his cousin. His parents are very rich and the thought he had died because of what his cousin had told them and some picture of him, his wife and son.

About four years back there were threats been made on hibroken hearts, s life. Then eventually one day he came back and found his family had been kidnapped. He’s a detective who runs a private company. He had a problem with his parent five years before their death because of his choice of wife and resigning from government service. He had to find his family so he embarked on a long search for them, he’s been frustrated but eventually he gets a break but this leads him into a web of family hatred and spite. His cousin wants him and his family dead so that he can inherit. He gets proof via tapes and pictures, then…

After finding his family, he is captured along with them again and his cousin, present at the scene confesses, believing they would die but unknown to him Tony is wired and everything is recorded at home. Two days later the tape is discovered and removed and Tony is beaten up.

A week after they escape but they are followed and eventually during a heavy down pour their car skids over and their car drops into a very deep pit. The cousin believing they would die there leaves them there. The next day they are still there, unconscious and pictures of them were taking by Rex, the cousin, and sent home to his parents who became broken hearted by what had happened. They went to the scene of the crime but when they got there Tony and his family were missing. Rex tries to persuade his uncle to change his will in his favour to no avail.

Now Tony is back for revenge. First thing he tells Rex is that he is back to working for the government and they have tapes and pictures of him and his boys. They know about his drug deals and everything about his plot against his dead parents. Then he disappears again at this point Rex realizes that his days are numbered so he puts his business dealings in order and makes a run for it. The next time Tony comes back, his family is not with him and they (Tony and the authorities) go after Rex and his gang who are now at large.
Eventually they are caught and brought to book for their numerous offences after which Tony returns to be united with his family.