Self-Motivation, Personal Growth and Entrepreneurship Development on DeoluAkinyemi.com

I have learnt a lot in the last almost 4yrs as an entrepreneur, I thought I was knowledgeable, and maybe I was, but the words, “see thou a man that is wise in his own eyes, there is more hope for a fool than him” – make more sense to me by the day. When you begin to know, you realize that the more you know, the more there is to know.  Real knowledge is a by product of the experience of others. The gap between hypothesis and theory is bridged by experience – repeated experiments. He who would be knowledgeable must be willing to either learn from a lab mice, or be one. I daresay, better is the grace of  humility to learn from the lab rat, than the grace of courage to be one yourself.  The complete life however, must balance these means.

About 3yrs ago, I was quite broke – broke as N40,000 could be what 9 of us shared in a month. I was doing everything I knew to do to keep afloat.  I had a team of guys working with me then as well as volunteers, and it was getting difficult to manage things and keep everybody together. We had sent out lots of proposals, were engaged in different small projects, but not so many results. Somewhere along the line, I stumbled on this book, Continue Reading »

There are days (a lot of days these days) when I lie down and ask myself what is really the most important thing in life. What really is worth one’s energies? Is it pleasure? Money? Impact? Wisdom? “ki la n le gan gan?” I have analysed it from a philosophical point of view, I have read the views of Aristotle – who rationalized from the need for pleasure, the desire for glory and the search for knowledge. Aristotle came to a point where according to him, the most important thing in life is the contemplative life. In the Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle analyzes the quest of all life falls on the planes of a search for pleasurable, political or contemplative. He analyzes that all life is lived for some higher purpose, he analyzes that we all pursue happiness, and the talk goes on asking about what truly brings happiness. I would never do justice to his book in one paragraph, if you are interested, you can get more thoughts on this here, trust me though, it’s not going to be an easy read for the average mind.

I have also studied the bible extensively about the answer to the same question-”What truely is the purpose of life?” What are we here to do, and what will bring the highest fulfillment. I read the thoughts of the experiential and experimental biblical philosopher in Bible – The King in Ecclestiastes. After living a life where he pursues all that man can pursue to gain happiness – women, wisdom, fame, projects, e.t.c. He came to a final conclusion that the whole purpose of man is to fear God and obey his commandments. In my own thoughts, I have come to find out as well, that the highest priority a man can pursue meaningfully on this earth is to serve God’s purpose and desire. This purpose differs from individual to individual, but in the final analysis, life is measured against a standard, and that standard is the original intention in the mind of God for that individual. Continue Reading »

The first question ought to be, what is luck, does it exist? If it doesn’t, then what are we talking about? If it does, then how can we be lucky? Is there really a secret fomular for luck?

All these, reminds me of an occurence that happened lately, I had an opportunity to relay it with a team of people in the UK last week, and it dawned on me that it really was an interesting occurrence. We had BIT (Billionaires in Training) in Lagos Nigeria and after the event, we had our normal recap. For those who do not know, the major highlight of the BIT is an opportunity for people to network, play a fun game of Cashflow 101, do an extensive recap of the learnings from the game and share real life opportunities we can all partake of to make it out of the rat race. It’s usually an exciting time, and an opportunity to meet new people.

In this particular BIT, we were doing the recap and someone noted that he observed that in the game as in life, there was a lot of luck involved. He mentioned that he noticed that a particular couple were very lucky. They seemed to get the right opportunities, throw the right scores, they definitely had luck.

When it was the lucky couples turn to respond, the answer was shocking and interesting Continue Reading »

Two young men decided to go visit a “Baba” in their quest to make money. They were both in their middle ages and they were dead sick of being poor. Both of them had struggled on various vocations, they have faced shame in family meetings, and pressures from their wives. The last straw that broke the camel’s back in their frustrated desire to get wealthy was the sudden realization that they were old enough to die. Their third person in their triad unannouncedly passed away, and it struck them, that life is short.

They decided to brave the option of making money by consulting a traditionalist, and decided to seek the counsel and craft of “Baba”. When they got to Baba, baba gave them a string of cowries to utter their desires to. The environment was filled with all sorts of artifacts that are typical of Ifa priests. They uttered their desires silently and returned the cowries to Baba. Baba then went ahead to consult the oracles on their plight. He takes his “Opele” (Opele is a string of split big seeds with a face and a back, this represent a binary code with about 65536 verses) in his hands, chants the prayer to Ifa that helps him to see meaning and interpretation from his craft. He chants while moving the Opele back and forth and throws it in front of him. As soon as he throws, he moves touches the seed, looking for the leader seed, trying to see where the binary code starts. He does a quick binary conversion and identifies the verse, he sighs – “Ifa mo roye, ela loro” – Ifa, I understand, it is clear!

Baba recites what he sees, and tells them why they have come. “You have come because of shame, you have come because of pressures, you have come, because you are tired of being poor.” – Baba tells them, as they both nod involuntarily. If Baba can decipher their quest, then he should have a solution. Baba tells them that he is interested in helping them, but first, asks if they are really ready to get wealth. They say they are ready, but he asks again. He asks them if they are willing to do anything to get wealth, at this point, one still retains his motivation, while the other becomes a part of the background to the discussions, nodding sluggishly. Baba then goes ahead to tell them what they would need to do. They would need to capture and have sex with two notorious mad women in their town! One decided to go with it, and the other backed down. Continue Reading »

I wrote down this topic 5hrs ago, and looking at it again just before writing, it seems a bit strange. Why will someone want to make God his enemy? Even if you don’t believe in God, or believe that he exists, I doubt if you’ll want him as an enemy. Would you? I wouldn’t want to too, but there are many of us who in many ways, set out to make God our enemy. Or literally set up ourselves to force God’s hands to move against us.

First of all, I’ll like to make it clear that I’m not interested in looking at this topic from a different philosophical angles. I don’t intend to waste time on the existence of God or His absence. Neither do I want to attribute the Universe to unidentified forces. I am certain and convinced, that there is a God in heaven, and he rules and reigns in the affairs of men. I believe that this God is a loving God, who made humanity in his image and cares about what he created us to accomplish. This God however is also a principled God, who does not act on whims and emotions, but based on clearly explainable principles. In the words of Albert Einstein – God doesn’t throw dice! He has ways, they are only above our ways.

There are quite a number of ways to make God your enemy, in fact, I doubt if they are exhaustive. I’m going to be share the ones that have been revealed to me, and hope that you will work to make God your friend, and not your enemy. Continue Reading »

Two weeks ago, before my trip to the UAE, my colleagues and I sat down and watched a one hour 30 minutes movie. The title of the movie was and is, the secret. Prior to that event, I had been listening to the audio consistently for another 2 weeks. If you are desirous of a better life and haven’t seen the movie or listened to the audio, I recommend that you do. I’m not making any commisions or bonuses in suggesting you buy, I just believe fundamentally, that my success is tied to helping others to become successful.

Until you listen and watch though, you can have the benefits of my perspectives and the things I learnt from the secret. I also firmly believe, that even after you have watched and listened, my perspectives will still give you a bite that will accelerate your focused move into your next level. We all see the world differently, we see the world, based on the colouration of the lenses that we wear. I believe that the superior lense with which to view the world is a lense coloured by God’s perspectives. I have also done a lot of research to apply the laW of attraction to my life, and this will be useful for you.

First of all, the law of attraction states that Continue Reading »