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

Today is the last day of this month, by tomorrow, the last month of the year will start, and before we all know it, the year would end. This year has been the best year of my life so far, and somehow I’m persuaded beyond any doubt that the last days of the year are going to be crowned with goodness. I know that in the last month of this year, many expecations are still going to be met, many people’s prayers will still be answered, many unfinished goals will be achieved and dreams will still come through and true! I’m about to embark on a 30 days journey of success, and I want you to come with me.

When I say this year has been good, it’s on all counts. Just this morning for example, I had the privilege of giving out a gift of an all expense paid vacation to two people, and not the first time this year. This year, I have gotten to meet and built great relationships with fantastic people, people I had never met have become my friends and partners. This year  I have also enjoyed financial progress, enjoyed freedom, enjoyed a number of vacations, watched my kids, family and friends make progress. This year I have heard a lot of thank yous, a lot of God bless yous and so much gratitude has filtered into my life.  This year, my mum stepped up to glory, and even though not here, I feel peace when I draw inspiration from her life. Very importantly too, this year, I have experienced God’s grace, guidance, protection, leading and wisdom in ways too amazing and numerous to describe.  As this year wraps up however, I have a mandate to help a few more people achieve their goals and dreams, meet their future partners, attract wealth, be a blessing to someone else, whatever it is that’s going to crown your year with goodness. All you need to do is simple and brief. Continue Reading »

The process of living is the process of dying – literally. I usually tell people on their birthday’s that one year more is one year less. As we advance in years our life reserves get reduced and we embark on the process of dying. Just like the pages of a book, as the left piles up, the right dimishes until we hit the back cover and turn the book over. Living is dying.

It is however more interesting that in order then to live life fully, one must embrace the possibility of death. Full life is impeded by the fear of dying. The pages drag slowly, the moments lack zest, when we refuse to plunge or dive because we are afraid! We have only one shot at life, yes, but it’s going to end with death anyway, so why not live it fully with no regrets? Why not enjoy the journey since the destination is sure? Why not live it the way it was designed to be lived – with passion, excitement and fulfillment?

“People living deeply have no fear of death” – Anais Nin

I shudder at the statistics of people who really live deeply? Only a few percentage of people ever live beyond ordinary lives. Many of us unconciously live with the template of Solomon Grundi, our lives follow a predictable sequence. We wake up early every morning and engage in a race to work and back. Our key motivation is not more life, but the fear of not losing the one that we have. We race to work not because of passion, love or excitement, but because to put food on the table we think we must! We hope that maybe one day we will live our dreams, one day we will suddenly have a rush of courage and give up who we are for what we are capable of becoming. One day comes one day late, and then you are late and it’s late. Yank off your life from the slow road guarded by fear, move into the lane where life is rich and adventurous. It’s not a road void of challenges, nay, but it’s exciting and full of stories. It’s also empowering and capable of actually making you a guiding light for thousands or millions of prisoners of fear.

Here are 5 things you can do to live life more fully. Continue Reading »

“Sorry for the password on yesterday’s article, I will remove the password as soon as I get clearance”

Last week monday a collaboration effort started between Visible Impacts – Project RAISE , the New Nigeria Club, The Future Movmement and Generis Solutions. The objective of this project is to inspire 1,000,000 secondary school leavers to excel in the forthcoming S.S.C.E exams and J.A.M.B and to sustain this number and more for the coming years. The current facts on ground are alarming – Out of the 1,188,142 that took S.S.C.E only 188,136 passed S.S.C.E with Credit in English and Maths and 3 other subjects. Out of the 1,145,961 present for J.A.M.B exam 548,543 candidates scored above 200. This means that over 1 million people certainly have sat at home and would do both exams again in the next 1yr, and guess what they’ll have a good number of fresh takers joining them.

Like all great initiatives, it rises and falls, not on the excellence of the idea but on the commitment of the people and the ability of the system to reward it’s key drivers. I have led a number of informal organizations in my life, and what I have learnt and vowed to do my best not to repeat is that great ideas collapse if the real needs of those that are driving it are not met. I remember feeling remorse after my tenure as the president of my university department, I chronicled my thoughts into my hand over notes – “directing people that you have no power to reward or punish requires truly inspirational leadership, or it will be frustrating”. It is however more frustrating if you as a leader are powerless to meet their urgent needs. This thinking has formed in my mind into a philosophy, a philosophy that if you observe me closely you will realize, I will never engage in any activity that will not create a way for the people that I consider principal to the achievement of the goals, to be duly rewarded!

It is with this philosophy in mind that I am glad to announce to you that we have just set up a system where we can create inspirational role models, teachers and trainers for over 1,000,000 nigerian students in the next 1yr, helping them to succeed. Continue Reading »

I and a team of my friends and colleagues rushed down from Lagos to Ilorin yesterday night. We got to Ilorin around 7.30pm haven kept about 500 students waiting for over 2hrs. Manchester United was battling it out with Arsenal within a few minutes from our getting there, but the students waited for us to come, and waited again for 3 more hours while I shared some thoughts and strategies with them on how to position themselves in the next few months.

Being in Ilorin and speaking to these crowd of eager youths was fulfilling and exciting for me. By the time we finished, it was 11pm, and we didn’t have so much time to answer questions. I am dedicating this post to them, to fill in their comments, and ask their questions. 

A few thoughts have run in my head since last night, I’ve been doing some thinking about what I said and what even I have learnt. I don’t know who is out there that needs to be blessed by these words, I can assure you however that if you practice what you are about to read, you will make history! These are not the things I spoke about, if you want that, buy the tapes , let the student body make some money Continue Reading »

Where are you? Can you attempt to answer that question? While you are at it, that was the first question that man was ever faced with. The Bible records in the book of Genesis chapter 3 verse 9 : GOD called to the Man: “Where are you?”  I recon that since it is the almighty asking the question, it wasn’t because he didn’t know the answer. Asking however, makes the one being asked to ask him or herself a fundamental question that can help in quick recovery. 

I would have thought that the first question that God would have asked man was the question of “who are you?”, “why are you here?” e.t.c. The first question however was not any of these soul searching philosophical questions, the first question was, “where are you?”. Who you are was done and delivered before you were formed, it’s not an answer you cook, it’s an answer you find. It’s the same with why you are here, the answer existed before you were formed in your mother’s womb. Where you are however, is interestingly your doing, and you are answerable to God! Continue Reading »

Dante Gabriel Rossetti a poet and an artist was once approached by an elderly man. The elderly man approached him to show him some of his works of art, for the great artist to make a few comments about their value and viability. The story says, that when Rossetti saw the works of art, he could not conceal his assessment of the fact that they were useless. Being a kind man however, he did not make fun of it, he simply explained to him, that he could not lie to him and felt that the works of art were of little or no value. The elderly man as you would guess, was disappointed, but the didn’t let it shake him too much. Before turning around to leave, he asked the great artist for an opportunity to get his remarks on the works of art of a student of his. The artist obliged him, and the elderly man presented the works to him. The eyes of the artist lit up! 

Dante Rossetti, was impressed with the works of art, and generously poured accolades on it. In fact, he told the elderly man to ensure that he did whatever he could to encourage the student. From what he could see, he really has real talent and something unique. Contrary to Rossetti’s expectations that the old man would feel hurt that his student had potentials to be greater, the old man seemed visibly moved, emotionally so! “Is that your son, the great artist asked?” Seeing that there must be some connection. The elderly man responded, “no, it’s not my son, that was me 40yrs ago, I only wished I had heard what you just told me now then, I would have been encouraged to paint.” Continue Reading »

Announcements

The winner for top commentator last month was Jesus Freak {applause}. He wins his own hosting and domain account. Please contact me to redeem it. I will announce the other winnings with other posts.

I am not sure if I ever mentioned what this year was for me, in case I didn’t, it’s my year of shining. At the time I accepted that as my word for the year, I didn’t have clarity on how much darkness would exist. I was more interested however in knowing what I needed to do so that my light could shine.  It’s one thing to be a light, it’s another thing to shine the light. 

There is no gainsaying that if you have any light in you, this year is one of the best times in the history of the world to shine it. People will move from absolute obscurity to prominence this year. People will rally round carriers of light. This is the year that if you have knowledge, information, the capacity to enlighten or educate, you will be sought after. Darkness is covering the earth, and gross darkness it’s people, but as always, that darkness provides an opportunity for some to shine. So the question today is since we know that there is darkness, how do we shine in these times. Continue Reading »

1. Access to Kings

I woke up very early yesterday morning, earlier than I usually would, to leave my house for 5am and head for the Airport. I was going to meet Fela Durotoye and Bunmi Ajagbe a member of his team, on our way to see the Minister of Education in Abuja.  

It ended up being a fulfilling meeting. Our objectives met with favour, and it was a good learning experience for all of us and me in particular.  I didn’t clamour to go see the minister, I was invited to come, that felt good and like the fulfillment of desires. The day went well. Continue Reading »

I usually write my titles before I start writing. The titles usually motivate me to write. Looking up at this title today, and seeing what lies ahead of me, I know that this must be a lot briefer than it should be.

Right now I’m in Ikeja, I’ll be in Maryland by 3pm, and I need to be in the UK for a meeting tomorrow morning – Billionaires in Training. I need to also be back almost immediately as I have other meetings and engagments all over the place. I really desire to write everyday, this is my ideal, but atimes things just swing into accelarated mode, that I catching my breath is a struggle. Blogging is still a first love for me, I feel like telling the whole world to join me online as well, and let’s position ourselves as Nigeria’s New Media.

Tomorrow will make it exactly 3yrs after I made my first. 3 sentences post on blogosphere. I remember starting then, going on for about 3 days then having a 5 months break before I posted again. In those 5 months, I could very much have stopped, but somehow, I kept getting reminders like this post, and decided to go for it. Today, I’m 1 blogger, with about 450 posts, 9000 comments, and 400,000 visitors. I didn’t know how powerful having a blog was, until I gave it a good shot. Today, it’s helped me to achieve a lot, and if you digest this history lesson, and take a few tips from it, it might help you too. Continue Reading »

Today, July1, 2008 is the beginning of the second half of the year… so Welcome to Second half!

In the last one week, one particular thing has consistently been coming to my attention. While I have been busy, I have also had the time and opportunity to have some fun. In the midst of it all, I have come to realize that the greatest benefit you can do for yourself in this second half is to up your game!

The greatest enemy of great is good. The greatest enemy of exceptional is average. Rarely are people get motivated to do beyond where they get comfortable. Do you have a benchmark? Do you have standards you aspire to? Did you set goals for yourself at the beginning of the year, are you taking stock? If you are far from your goals, it’s alright, you now only need to up your game.

Here are a few tips on why and how you need to up your game this year. Continue Reading »