The Wrong Concepts of Success

• Having money, riches and wealth
• Having many properties and assets
• Being popular and in the news at all times
• Having fleet of cars
• Having many children
• Marrying many wives
• Having many admirers
• Being a public figure
• Being the envy of everyone around etc      

What is Success?

Success is knowing your purpose in life, growing to reach your maximum potential, and sowing seeds that benefit others. - John Maxwell

Success is not determined by acquisitions or opulence. It is the ultimate fulfilment of an identified purpose – grand or small – for the benefit of others, the glory of God, and the fulfilment of the person.

- Babatunde Oladele 

Some 22 Facts about Your Life Purpose

1. It is the key to your greatness
2. It is not determined by your past or present location
3. It has nothing to do with your family background or standing in the society
4. It may have nothing to do with your present career or the job you are doing now
5. It helps you to set your priorities in life and identify what is really important and what isn’t
6. It helps you to apportion and make use of time more productively
7. God will require an account of stewardship from you on what you do with it
8. It takes an accountability system to continually live and fulfil it maximally
9. It is what you will do with joy and look forward to doing everyday
10. It will bring you great contentment in life and give you a sense of fulfilment
11. It helps you to identify your destiny partners: e.g. who to marry, who to be friendly with, who to go into business with, who to hire as workers, who to submit to etc
12. In the field of your purpose, you are a king and a celebrity
13. It is in the Word of God
14. It takes God and His resources to fulfil it
15. You are not really successful if you are not fulfilling or living it
16. It guides you to make the right choices and decisions in life
17. It is not something you learn in school, seminars, workshops, or conferences
18. It has been in/with you all along, merely awaiting discovery
19. You might have been fulfilling it without knowing
20. You don’t have to leave your present job or career to start fulfilling it
21. You can make a career out of it
22. It can be commercialised to fetch you money and make you very rich

Problems, Solutions and Problem-Solvers

Problems and challenges abound in the world of the living. And we dare not deceive ourselves by hoping that they will all end someday. The day that one ceases to have issues to contend with is the day he bids the world goodbye. To lend credence to this fact, the Bible records in the book of Job 5:7 that man is born to trouble as indubitably as the sparks fly in no other direction but upward.

So having established the fact that problems and challenges abound in the world in different forms and sizes, how can they be solved as they arise? Where does one run to for solution when confronted with challenges?

There are a number of recourses available for men to explore in solving the various challenges of life, such as one’s learning, past experience in handling a similar situation, parents, friends and loved ones, a consultant/counselor, etc. While any or all of these measures can prove to be very helpful, however, the most effective solutions are those given by God, and the best answers to all our questions are found in the presence of God.

I derived this insight from the Holy Bible, the book of Judges Chapter 21. The Israelites were faced with a major problem; preventing the extinction of one of the 12 tribes that formed the pillars of their nation, the tribe of Benjamin.

They had themselves launched a reprisal war on the Benjamites (read Judges Chapters 19 & 20 for details) and killed hundreds of thousands of them in the war, as well as every living thing that were found on their land. Only 600 men of the Benjamites who fled from the battlefront and went to hide in the rock remained, every other person had been killed; old and young, men and women.

And since the Israelites had vowed before God not to give their daughters as wives to the Benjamites, then the tribe faced the risk of total extinction, as there were only 600 survivors left in the whole tribe, and they were all men!

This made the Israelites went to the house of God to seek counsel on what should be done. And there they found the answer to their question. Without speaking through a prophet, God gave them a circumstantial direction on what to do to get wives for the men of Benjamin without having to break their vow.

While the whole congregation of Israel was in the presence of God mourning, weeping, and offering sacrifices, the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead were not represented. Therefore, in making good their word, the Israelites sent warriors to the city and killed all the children, the men and every married woman in that land. They spared only the virgins whom they brought to the camp and then gave as wives to the men of Benjamin.

Another insight I derived from this new development is that it is those who do not spend time in the presence of God that will be made to pay the price or be used as pawn to execute the solutions that those who spend time in the presence of God come up with. The people of Jabesh Gilead who were found wanting in God’s presence were the ones who forfeited their lives so that their virgins could be given to the Benjamites as wives.

This underscores the need for every one of us to cultivate the habit of spending time in God’s presence, so that we do not become perpetual tools (for the accomplishment of the purpose) of those of who do.

Writing for Personal Development

The Cambridge International Dictionary of English (1996:1692) defines writing as “the activity of creating pieces of writing work, such as stories, poems or articles”.  In the words of Beck et al (2002:31), “writing is a method of passing information from one person to another, or to a group of people”. They however did not limit writing’s function to information alone, as they also cite persuasion and entertainment as veritable resources to which writing can be put to.

Of the four communication skills, writing is the least utilized for obvious reasons. It requires a great expenditure of time and mental efforts to write. It is a process of drafting, editing, and redrafting to usually arrive at an acceptable finished product. The more reason it has been a highly prized communication skill throughout history. Its mastery confers great powers and influence on whoever possesses it (Beck et al, 2002), Hence the popular saying that “the pen is mightier than the sword”.

The beauty of writing is not usually in its volumes, but in the style and the effectiveness of the content in achieving the set objective(s) of the writer. Effective writing essentially thrives on clarity, precision, and conciseness. In the words of Adesanoye (1995:115):

Effective writing…is a piece of written communication that conveys its message in the simplest, clearest, most concise and most readable way possible. It is also that piece of writing in which the manner of expression dovetails perfectly with the subject matter; one in which…there is a close fit between what and how.

Simplicity, clarity, readability and conciseness are thus the hallmarks of effective writing.

With this background on writing, we shall now proceed to highlight how it can be used for various forms of personal development.

Writing aids the development of the mental faculty because, more than any communication effort, it involves a lot of thinking. The writer often finds himself writing, cancelling and rewording his expressions in the effort to choose the words that will most suitably convey his heart to his reader(s). In the process of doing this, he regularly consult the dictionary and thesaurus, thereby increasing his bank of vocabulary while at the same time honing his intellect. 

Writing for Professional Development

For those whose vocation is writing-intensive, such as journalists, academics, secretaries, etc the command of a superb language mechanics is a great determinant of their success at the workplace as well as the prestige ascribed to them by their publics. People like Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, J.P. Clark, Ayo Banjo, Reuben Abati, Dare Babarinsa, are few among the contemporary people who have attained international prominence through their writing skills.

Students in academic institutions, especially those in the humanities, also need a good command of language to enhance their grades. Therefore, it behoves anyone whose line has anything to do with writing to hone his writing skill by reading and writing regularly. 

How to Write A Winning Business Proposal (Part 3)

Seven Key Questions To Keep You Client-focused

It is possible to jump into developing a proposal with the mind of engaging people to sign up for your cause or patronise your services. However, if such proposal is not developed with the receiver in mind, it will probably meet a brick wall and not achieve desired result.

In developing a proposal, here are some of the important questions you need to ask yourself that will make the document speaks to the specific needs of your client, rather than merely publicize your own solutions off the mark:

1. What is the client’s problem or need?

2. Why is this problem worth solving?

3. Which of my product/services can solve the problem or meet the need?

4. What goals will be achieved by whatever action is taken?

5. Which goal has the highest priority to them?

6. What results are likely to follow from each of my recommendations?

7. Comparing these results to the customer’s desired outcomes or goals, which recommendation is best?

Thanks for reading!

Copyright © 2017 Babatunde Oladele. All rights reserved.­