On June 14th, 2014, I had the privilege and the honor to be the guest speaker at an African Youth Event in Denver. The topic of conversation, with the youth, was “Life is about choices, not chances”. I first shared the videos on Facebook and people seemed to enjoy them. Now I am sharing with you, the readers of this blog. There are two videos, part one is the presentation and part two, the Q&A session. Thanks for watching!
Part I
Part II
For lot of people asking for help makes them a burden, or so they think. It makes them weak, inadequate or incapable, or so they believe. The truth of the matter is asking for help just makes you human, it does not make you a failure, or a parasite. It just means that you are a normal human being, therefore not perfect. No mater how much knowledge you have, there will always be something you do not know. No matter how much you possess , there is always something that does not belong to you.
Think about it! When you ask for help, you are not the first and you will not be the last. So what is the big deal? The next time you are having a problem asking for help, think of it as you are doing somebody a favor. Yes, a favor! When you ask someone to help you, you are giving them an opportunity to do something good and feel good, a good deed is never lost. You are allowing them to be of service, and we all know by now thru our own experiences that the secret of success is indeed in service.
A wise man once said that if there was only one key to success it would be honesty. But what is honesty? Is it the same thing as integrity? You will probably agree that the two are inextricably linked. Let’s take a look at the definitions: Webster defines honesty as “the quality of being fair and truthful” while, according to the same dictionary, integrity is defined as “the quality of being honest and fair” but also “the state of being complete or whole” Most of the time the lack or loss of those qualities determines whether you succeed or fail in your endeavors.
Thank God we have the power to choose! Let’s analyze three choices that will lead to inevitable success in whatever you do. However, these choices should not be situational, they should be absolute, for them to deliver the desired results. You should not choose when and where to make them, you should make them all the time.
1. Integrity. There is a story that I heard from Les Brown that I want to share here to illustrate a point.
There was a man who was an efficient builder, he had worked for years in a large company and had reached the age of retirement. His employer asked him to build one more house it was to be his last commission. The builder took the job, but his heart was not involved. He used inferior materials, timber was
Developing an attitude of gratitude will help us a long way towards getting our lives’ desires. Since being grateful brings about positive vibrations and the law of attraction states that “likes attracts likes” or “birds of feather flock together”, it is very clear then than gratitude is surest path to a life of positivity, peace and bliss. I have compiled here 18 quotes that will stimulate your thinking on this area. I hope you you will find them useful.
Have you ever been hurt, been hurt so bad that you cannot forget or forgive? Have you ever been betrayed by someone you really trusted. How did it feel? If it was depressing or was filling you with hatred, you need to let go. Your well being is more important than dwelling on someone’s past actions, even though they negatively affected you. You need to release your anger in order to live a healthier life! You need to forgive, to live happier! But what is forgiveness and who do you forgive for?
A definition of forgiveness that I like very much is “Forgiveness is the process of waiving any negative feeling or desire of punishment” The reason why I like this definition is that it has little to do with the wrongdoer. However my favorite ones are two that I once heard on the Oprah Show: “Forgiveness is giving up the hope that past could be different”; “Forgiveness is seeing the other person in the light of love rather than in the action of what happened”
Of course other definitions are still good, like “the act of pardoning somebody for a mistake or a wrongdoing”, “to grant free pardon and to give up all claim on account of an offense or
The riches in the world are not found in the famous gold and diamond mines, where many men and women are digging for them. Most riches in the world are found in the cemeteries and grave yards, buried with people’s dreams, aspirations, and unfulfilled potential. Why is it so?
Countless men and women die without never having the courage to follow their own paths, the paths they alone could fill in this earth. Maybe because they were afraid to violate some kind of societal norms, or maybe they were afraid to be alone -as most paths for self-actualization require of us-, or maybe simply because they preferred to settle for the familiar. They went to the grave, with a song that will never be heard, a piece of poetry never written, a dance step never initiated, a heart full of dreams and aspirations; leaving behind a life full of potential yet no legacy.
Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. – William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Certainly you’re already familiar with the question “are leaders born or made?”. The fact of the matter is we can find truth on both sides. There are scientific studies which revealed that leaders have brains that are wired differently. However, if that was a 100% accurate, then countries, states, companies and associations would have their people be head scanned before they appoint anyone as a leader.
One of the most important skills for success, if not the most important, is the ability to get people to do what you want them to do, willingly. Some people have been paid millions of dollars for this skill, other rose to fame and power thru its mastery. No matter how knowledgeable you are in your field, you will only be average until you master this skill or better yet this art. The art of influencing others. In today’s post I would like to share some ideas that I gathered thru reading and personal experiences on this subject. This post will be in two parts. In the first one I will be addressing the importance of communication in the art of influence. In the second part, which will be posted next week, I will explore the other aspects of influencing others thru persuasion, hard power and soft power.
Unless you are living under a rock, communication is a very important aspect of your life. We can even go as far as to say that it will determine your level of success in business and in life. Since “the most important successes in life are rarely birthed alone” according to Robert Holden, author of Success Intelligence, you will need people to help you along the way in your journey. So the way you communicate with them will have a great deal of impact on your achievements.
This is a repost of an article that I wrote last year that I want to share with the new readers of this blog because of its importance. I hope you will find it useful. There are only three important days in every one’s life and two of them you don’t need to worry about. Serigne Fallou Mbacké, a Sage and Man of God, who lived in Senegal (West Africa) between 1888 and 1968, used to say, “the day is today, it is the only day, the past is gone and will never come back and the future belongs to God”.
Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1811–96, American novelist and humanitarian, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin once said almost the same thing, “the past, the present, and the future are really one; they are today”.
Many studies have confirmed that worrying has lot of not so positive effects on our lives and can deteriorate our health. Worrying can make us tired, stressed and can speed up our aging process but most of all it can make us more prone to depression. So why many of us indulged in it? In reality, 90% of things we worry about never happen anyway! Life is not easy, that goes without saying and no one ever promised us that it was, worrying two thirds of our waking time is not going to help.
What’s bizarre is that people worry about things that they have no control of, one great example is worrying about the future. The future can never be predicted, the sooner we accepted this truth the easier our lives will become. What we can do instead, is to make practical plans about it and live by the moment. Focusing too much on what’s not yet here, can steal a lot of our precious time in the present. Another reason why we worry too much is that we seldom focus on what we have, the tendency for most of us is to dwell on what we lack.