Principles of success -Part 1

Empowered to live….

With the daily increase in the world’s population, the high cost of living in both developing and developed countries, and the deplorable economic conditions in most nations of the world in recent times, many are perplexed about how to provide the necessities of life for themselves and their immediate families. Even the rich sometimes find themselves wondering how they could cope with this situation. Notwithstanding the current economic recession, man must still feed himself and provide the basic necessities of life such as food, shelter, clothing, education, healthcare and security. The big question now  is “how does one achieve all of these to survive” My take is that one can actually be successful and fulfilled even in the face of these challenges if they learn to follow some of the basic principles of success which are often neglected. In these principles lie the answers to those our everyday questions about how to make it in life and how to impact positively in the lives of people we come in contact with….and I will like to share some of these invaluable principles with you here today.

NO. 1 PRINCIPLE –EVERY GOOD THING COMETH FROM GOD

What many have failed to understand is that even with seeming difficulty all around us, the Almighty creator has more concern for us than any man, woman, government or non government organization we can think of. Because of this his unparalled and unequaled love he has given us all we need to survive in the vicissitudes of this life. Thus the bible said in Genesis 1:27 and 28 “so God created man in his own image, in the image of God; created him male and female created him them. So God blessed them and said to them, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and the foals of the air and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth” (NKJ Version).

This principle of labour, fruitfulness and wealth creation given to Adam and Eve continuous to be effective generations after them and will continue until the end of time. This principle also supports the fact that man can’t just fold his arms idly and expect wealth and every good thing to roll into his possessions. NO!, man must labour using his strength and mind to overcome/overpower his environment and spiritually command forces of nature to his own advantage.

God does not desire that man’s existence should be to eat and die. NO! He intends that his entire creatures should succeed. God wants you to acknowledge the fact he is the giver of fortunes. Duet 8:16-18 But thou shall remember the Lord thy God; for it is He who giveth thee power to make wealth. That he may establish the covenant which he swore to thy father even as it is this day” (KJV).  We must learn to put him first in our pursuit for wealth, for success and fulfillment. On our own, we can do nothing, his due respect and honour must be accorded to him. We must not put wealth first as the worship of wealth will invite God’s displeasure and may consequently bring about hunger, retrogression, sickness, shame and even death. Man must work to achieve success but it must be God first. That’s why the great book said that we should seek God first and his righteousness and every other thing inclusive of wealth, happiness, long life and any good thing you can think of will be added to us.

PRINCIPLE NO. 2- TRY SOMETHING ON YOUR OWN

Even if your father is Bill Gates, your brother Warren Buffet and Uncle Aliko Dangote, it is not enough reason for you to stay back and expect fortunes to roll into your pockets. Wake up my dear, things don’t flourish that way anymore. The world today does not need lazy people, have you ever wondered why successful people are skeptical about giving alms to able bodied persons who can work but rather take to begging? Do you think it’s impossible for them to give the beggars enough money for them to start something else other than begging? The answer is emphatic NO! the truth is, no successful person wants to waste resources on people who are lazy and cannot start from where they are, the same successful person will willingly partner with a hardworking committed person who would rather start from where they are than wait for the world to hand them treasures. 

I have always quipped that no one is created to fail, and none is also born a success. Success is a product of individual choices and actions which to a large extent is determined by ‘WHOM OR WHAT’ constitutes our driving force or source of power. It is incontrovertible that every individual is driven by a force. Whatever that force is, is what is guiding, controlling and directing the person’s life. These forces can be negative or positive. This is why it’s pertinent that we make consorted effort to subdue the negative forces of nature which are bent on bringing us down against our effort to live successful lives. The driving force of any individual has a great influence on the success or failure of that person.

Some people are driven by fear, others by their past mistakes while some still believe that no matter what they do, life continues to be unfair to them; they lose hope in life refusing or afraid to try something worthwhile. In situation as dastardly as the present economic recession, they sink deeper and deeper into despondency. This shouldn’t be so; we should not be driven by fear and past mistakes. It is not bad after all to make mistakes, mistakes has been said to be one of the best teacher. Mistakes are not supposed to weigh us down; rather they are meant to toughen us. Many of the successful people you see today had made mistakes sometime in their lives, but chose to sit back to analyse and study the courses so that they do not fall into such mistakes again. We should always learn from our mistakes and also from people who had succeeded where we failed. Make every effort to start from where you are no matter how little, I remember how I worked in people’s farms, help with domestic chores and even lived with someone as a maid (house help) for sustenance and to raise my school fees. Today, I can say that I don’t need to work in someone else’s garden to feed or take care of immediate needs. That is how life should be, start with what you have and do something for others, look out for services you can render and get rewarded while you wait for something better...I wish you all the very best!

Chioma Azosiri

(Excerpt from my first book Titled Success and Fulfillment)

WATCH OUT FOR MORE PRINCIPLES OF SUCCESS…..to be cont’d

Could we be expriencing a FOREX BOOM and OIL DOOM?

I’ve heard a lot of people blame our current situation and untold hardships on oil doom and general fall of oil in the international market, a good number of them have gone further to even quip that a barrel of oil is now sold at less or more than $40 as against 100USD or slightly below sold in the past. This got me thinking really hard and I am going to let you into that thought in a jiffy but first let’s quickly reason together.

In the time past, $1 (one USD) equals to plus or minus N 160 (One hundred and sixty Naira), currently, the same one USD is sold at N 405 and 420 in the parallel market. Are you thinking what I am thinking? I am going to further break it down, but again I have to remind you that I am not an economist neither am I a qualified accountant hence I may be wrong or I may be right but hey after all it’s just a loud thought. Simply put, ‘there is an oil doom but there’s also a forex boom’ how about that? A barrel that could have gone for N 15000 –N 16000 at $100 now goes for 16200 at $ 40 per barrel. Isn’t that like better or something? Before you go calling for my head on the platter, digest this thought and think about it too, who knows, we may not be that poor after all… I could always swear that I am right but then again, it’s just a thought, a loud random thought.  

Do have a really lovely weekend.

Cheers.

Americans Confuse us a lot

Growing up, during my elementary days we were thought the alphabets. My teacher thought me that the letter 'T' is pronounced as 'Ttsee' if you know what I mean. She also said that 'R' is pronounced as 'arrr'. I was very happy with that until I grew up and started conversing with people of other nationalities. One of such people that have succeeded in planting doubts or confusion as it were in my mind as to what the correct pronunciation is  are Americans. When they call water- Warrer and Peter Perrer I get confused. Since we as a people are all about learning and adopting western lifestyles and basically everything west, should I continue to pronounce T as Tsee or Ree? and most importantly how do I teach that to my little girl who is just starting to learn ABCD?

Again here's letting you into my loud random thoughts
Chioma Azosiri
08:58 AM 16-07-2016

Different Shades of Haters

When I say I’ve seen it all, believe me I have really seen it all, and I am going to be sharing with you simple ways to deal with chronic haters. Before I go further, I’d like to throw more light on the different kinds of haters and how to recognize them.

There are those that can’t seem to understand why good things happen to you, as far as they are concerned, you don’t deserve it. By their standards, they are more beautiful than you, more qualified and should have all the good things of life while you are simply given the leftovers. The disappointments however is that the Almighty God does not see things as we humans do (Isaiah 55:8-9).

There are also those who hate you just because you are alive, you are happy, you are smiling. For them your very existence causes them a lot of heartache, you didn’t do anything directly to hurt them but they just can’t stand the sight of you. They silently wait for the day they will hear you are gone and secretly rejoice at your misfortune and blame you for whatever ills that befalls you. They see it as the punishment from the universe. They forget that God makes the rain to fall on the good and the bad alike (Math 5:45). 

You also have the people you stepped on their toes, it may be consciously or mistake. These may be people you know closely, they trust you, and they just can’t understand why you betrayed their trust. They are not concerned with the motive for the betrayal. They secretly plot revenge, looking for every opportunity to bring you down. These ones are perfect examples of what the psalmist meant in Psalm 21:11 because the Lord makes their plan to fail.

Then you have the recruited haters. This group of haters may not know you or transacted with you on personal grounds, they can walk pass you without realizing or recognizing you, yet behind you they slander you as if they have had an encounter with you. They are simply recruited to join in the evil agenda to hate you. Their head is filled with whatever ill they’ve been fed/sold about you. They carry your matter dey waka for road like say na you be the next worse thing after Ebola. If they ever come in contact with you, they are spending a great deal of physical and metal energy to poke holes in your person just to justify their hatred for you.

I can’t understand why anyone will expense such a great deal of energy hating on someone that he/she does not even know, it baffles me beyond understanding that someone can just tell you negative things about someone that has never hurt you and they take it and run? Odikwa egwu really.

So, how do you recognize them?

They abound around you, in form of friends, acquaintances and colleagues and even strangers. You feel it in your guts that such people do not like you, you see it in the ways they try to frustrate your joy, you can also see it in the way they stop talking when you enter a room. There are so many ways to spot them but the most effective is the instinctive direction. Some people call it spiritual discernment, which is actually one of the nine gifts of the Holy Spirit (1^st Cor 12:4-10). Nature never goes wrong with these things. Once it begins to tell you to be mindful of someone, do yourself a favour and head it. You’d be glad you did.

How do I deal with them?

Simplest of the whole epistle is how to deal with them, for you to give them more reason to hate or more heartache and sleepless night, feign ignorance of their activities and continue to show them kindness. Kill them more with your kindness, buy them meals if you can. Follow what the book of Proverb says that you are not only doing a good deed by being kind, you are also heaping a coal of fire that will burn them out of the surface of the earth upon them. (Proverb 25:21-22)

Number two, ‘SUCCESS’ I can’t stress it enough that the best thing you can do for yourself and your haters is to succeed more than you ever imagined. Resolve within you not to ever fail, even if you fail, be sure to get up and dust yourself up and keep succeeding.  Success is the best treatment for a hater. Let’s go and achieve success together.

Chioma Azosiri

12:48. 15-07-2016