CHAPTER 14
#8 TAKE A PERSONAL STOCK AND INVENTORY
Thus said the Lord of hosts, “consider your ways” [Hag 1:7]. Check yourself. Make a detailed analysis of your walk thus far. To brace up and prepare to make good the opportunity your current problem bears, take a stock of your past adversities and how you handled them. Fill a personal inventory about yourself. What have been your wins and woes, blows and blasts? Look for the areas that need improvement- ones you can do better and those that requires a completely different approach. You can implore a friend to help you do this. Look for one who knows you too well. Never fear change. That the old approach did not work often means there was something wrong with it. If you must stick to your old plan, change your approach. When I was given a repeat year in school, my teacher advised me, “Your old notes, not your brains, have failed you. Burn it up and start again”. If you keep doing what you have been doing, you will keep getting the same results as before. Take a stock. Find out when and how you slipped off. Find out when and how you slipped off. As there is no problem without a solution, every problem has a cause. Events of life can be summed up under causes and effects. Find out the causes of your dilemma. Get to it its roots. Consider exactly where you hit the rock and fish out the stump. It was Nelson Mandela who wrote in his autobiography (The struggle is my Life) that “The past is a rich resource on which we can draw in order to make decisions for the future but it does not dictate our choices. We should look back at the past and select what is good and leave what is bad”.
Two major things are paramount in every man’s life- How you spend your life and whom you spend it with (company). A man’s passion is known by how he spends his time but it is the company he keeps that defines him. Now let’s take the two apiece.
First, HOW?It was Captain Jean Picard who rightly observed that, “Time is a companion that goes with us on a journey. It reminds us to cherish each moment because it will never come again! What we leave behind is not as important as how we have lived”. Time travels along with us in our journey through life. Daily we spend it, either wastefully or gainfully. The truth remains that there is no better or more important manager in life than he who manages his own time well. God gave us all an equal portion of time; how each manages his determines what becomes of him. Take charge of your time. Stop frequently and reconsider and analyze how you have been investing your own time. There is nothing so stupid as doing well what ought not to have been done at all. We all must have heard of Charles Schwab (1862-1939). Schwab was the president of Bethlehem Steel from 1905 until his death. An American industrialist par excellence, Schwab was born in Williamsburg Pennsylvania. He graduated from Francis College in Loretta, Pennsylvania at the age of 16. By 1881 he was already working. Eleven years on, in 1892 herose to the position of a general superintendent of the homestead works in Pennsylvania. In 1897 he was made the president of the Carnegie Steel Company and by 1901 had effected the merger of Carnegie Steel Company Limited with the US Steel Corps. He then became the president of this enlarged US Steel Corps from 1901 to 1903. Quite a successful life and career you will say. Yet,Schwab owes his great success to the great public relations practitioner by name lvy L .Lee. Schwab once gave Lee an unusual assignment:“Show me a way to get more things done with my time”. Both then agreed that Schwab would pay the brave consultant ‘anything within reason’ if Lee’s plan works. After some time, Lee sent the industrialist a sheet of paper with the following plan; “Write down the most important task you have to do tomorrow; number them in order of importance. When you arrive in the morning, begin at once on number one and then stay on it until it is completed. Recheck your priorities; then begin with number two; then number three. Make this a habit every working day. Pass it on to those under you. Try it as long as you like. Then send me your cheque for what you think it is worth”. That singular plan turned the magic wand that in less than 5years turned a struggling Bethlehem Steel company into the largest steel producer in the world. Time management! For his therapy, Lee got a chequeof $25,000 with a note of appreciation, “The most profitable lesson l have ever learned…”
Be an effective time manager. A time wasted is forever lost. Retrieve the time you waste on people or things that adds nothing to your life and put it in more useful ventures. Learn to believe in yourself. A thousand advices do not guarantee success. One right advice does. Mark McComark, a US lawyer, sports promoter and agent told Harvard Business School student: “To manage time well, you have to believe in your own knowledge”. Stop running about. Attach yourself to one life coach and mentor if need be. Set priorities. You can’t be everywhere and please everybody at the same time. At each juncture of your life, ask yourself, “What is the best and most important thing for me to do at this particular time?” Hear John Harvey Jones (1924-2008), “No amount of ‘tricks of the trade’ will avoid the need to set some sort of priorities when allocating one’s time”. Shun procrastination. An hour in the morning is worth two in the evening. Gallivanting never makes a gallant achiever.
Next, your relationships! It is a common saying today that the company you keep determines the company that keeps you. Miguel de Cervantes (547-1616) a Spanish novelist and dramatist once wrote in his Don Quixote: “Tell me what company thoukeepest, and I will tell thee what thou art. Charles Tremendous Jones opined, “You are the same today that you are going to be in five years from now except for two things: the people with whom you associate and the books you read”. Something happened to afriend of mine. He was on a fast track enroute success. Everything he touched turned gold. But one day he met a fellow student that went by the accolade, Pastor. The young man, Dozy by name, spoke in tongues like most Pastors but little did my friend and his likes know that Dozy was only possessed by an evil spirit, not Holy Ghost. When sin freak Dozy visited myfriend, they both held hands together in prayer. Soon Dozy began to speak in an unknown tongue and to vibrate. As he did, he held firm my friend’s hand. My friend in no time began to feel something like an electric current being transferred from Dozy’s hand to his. This friend of mine was so excited, believing that he had tapped into the Holy Ghost baptism. Unfortunately, it was the spirit of failure. Two years on, my friend failed out of the university after five years in medicine. Have a detailed stock of people you have been spending your time with. Whom and whom contributed to your failure? Did any of them give the push? Who cushioned the fall for you? Analyze your relationships. Know who should remain in your list of acquaintances and who should be shown the eraser. Not all in your past have a role in your future. Which of the relationships must you nurture? In this life there is nothing like a casual friend.Every relationship takes you to or away from your destiny. As an associate professor soon becomes a professor, so also a man becomes like those he associate with. The Arabians have a proverbs, “A wise man associating with the viscous becomes an idiot; a dog travelling with good men becomes a rational being”. John C. Maxwell made this more lucid where he wrote, “You will acquire the vices and virtues of your closest associates.The fragrance of their lives will pervade your life”. Thus, Maxwell went on to advice, “If you want to grow up, go up. Associate with people whose achievement exceeds your own and model the growth you desire”. For, as it goes in a Latin Proverb, “He that lies down with dogs shall rise up with flies.” Choose them rightly lest they wrongly choose you. Study each closely lest you mistake a fiend for a friend.
Mark Twain once advised, “Keep away from small people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you too can become great.” Often, I wonder what Abel would have become had it been Cain didn’t kill him. Rev. Dr. Chris Kwakpovwe wrote, “There is a Brutus for every born star.” Brutus was Julius Caesar’s most trusted friend who plotted his being stabbed to death. The Great General is quoted as saying “Et tu Brute? Then fall, Caesar”. Keep off from the Eliabs of your life. Life is too short to be wasted with haters and stoppers. David walked out on Eliab.TufacIdibia left the Plantation Boys. Micheal Jackson separated from Jackson Five.
Also, taking stock and inventory well goes beyond the time and people management. It gives you the tact, energy and courage to face the present problem. When faced with the adversity of Goliath’s challenge, David told Saul, “I have killed a lion and bear…” Meaning? “If I could kill the strongest and largest of carnivores, this Goliath won’t be a problem”. We all need to establish some memorable land marks in our lives. Such land marks would serve as a remainder of a time in your life when God intervened on your behalf, when perseverance paid fourth and when you came fourth successful and better from a situation in which there seemed not be hope at all. A writer once quipped, “We are not slow learners, just quick forgetters.” Each time God does a great thing for his people, He would instruct them, “Raise a memorial!” We all need a past to face the future. God asked the Israelites to build a monument of twelve stones after parting the River Jordan. He saw other minor challenges ahead of them that eluded their eyes. Thus he prepared for them something to fall back on and have hope. Monuments serve to remind us that we once conquered or surmounted similar or even worst adversity than the present. Each time discouragement and doubts come knocking, always send past victories to open the door. Past victories and divine interventions in past adversities were what kept Jeremiah going throughout his period of adversities and daily lamentations [Lam.3:21-23] “This I recall and therefore I have hope”. What you recall about your past determines how you will handle your present condition. What you think and hope for in any present crisis will be determined by the experiences you have had in the past. David’s killing of lion and bear gave him a track record to fall back on. A child who has experienced the divine provision of #200 could easily believe God for a £200 pounds bill than one who has never known divine provision. There are no insignificant battles in life. Learn to stand on your ‘God moments’ in order to withstand your dull moments. The little victories of the past gingers and prepares us to make happen the huge ones that shapes our destiny.
One day, I was so discouraged that I felt like ending it all.I was out of school, no degree, no job, no money, no food and yet very sick. Then the Lord whispered to me, “I made you an essayist, write on about your past in comparison with your present condition”. I began. I wrote about my childhood:Asthma passed, this too shall pass! I wrote about my early teens: Poor grade in GCU passed, this too shall pass! I wrote about my mid-teens: The pains of ghastly motor accident and scorpion bite passed; this too shall pass! I wrote about my lateteens: failing out of NnamdiAzikiwe University plus wrong arrest by the police passed, this too shall pass!It thendawned on me that I have been through even worse times than the present and all of them turned big testimonies. “That God cannotjust change now,”I concluded, “this too will surely turn a big testimony”. Whenever you recall God’s faithfulness to you, it causes hope to rise once more in your soul. Facing the future with confidence again becomes easy. When it comes to testimonies and pastvictories, looking back and remembering becomes scriptural provided you don’t “dwell so long on that mountain”. Joshua set up twelve stones in the middle of Jordan (John 4:9), Jacob set up a pillar in the place where He encountered God (Gen. 35:14). When God used Samuel to deliver Israel from the Philistines, the Bible says, “Samuel took a stone…Set it up and called it Ebenezer, saying, “… thus far the Lord has helped us” (I Samuel 7:12). At a time in David’s life he was so discouraged that he began to see God as one who fails to answer, when called (Ps. 22:2). Yet his perspective changed all of a sudden when he suddenly recalled of God’s faithfulness in the time past. He then wrote “Our ancestors trusted you and you saved them. They who called on you for help were not disappointed” (Ps. 22:4-5). He who did it for Lazarus can do much more for you. He who intervened when in the past you were completely hopeless and helpless has not changed a bit.
Today, it is a common knowledge that those who fail to learn from their past mistakes often repeat them. Taking an inventory helps you to check mate repetition of your past errors. Dr. MichaelOkpara, a famous Nigerian politician, is ascribed as saying, “First fool no be fool, second fool nahhim be proper foolish” The Chinese put it better, “When mistakes become habitual in a man’s life, failure becomes inevitable”. Take stocks. When I was young, my mother taught me early in life to set goals, listing all the goals in a sheet of paper and pasting in on any part of the wall where I can peruse it always. “Go through the list every dayand mark asterisks on whichever one you achieve.” She instructed. Years later, my father taught me that achieving one’s goal is not the ultimate in life but the experiences you had along the way and what you become by it. With a proper and well detailed inventory, one can learn as much from failure as one learns from success. Don’t just write the vision, write the experiences too!
The story of Florence May Chadwick (1918-1995) gives one something to chew on. Florence was the first woman to swim the English channels in both directions. Born in San Diego, California, Florence swam in her first race at a startling age of six. She schooled in San Diego State College, Southwestern University of Law and Balboa Law School. Her swimming career plummeted when she went from directing and producing aquatic shows to taking a job with an oil company in Saudi Arabia. It was while in Saudi Arabia that Florence trained in the Persian Gulf, planning her English Channel crossing. She finally conquered the English Channel on August 8, 1950. She swam from France to England in a record 13hrs, 20mins. The following year, she swam from England to France, thus, fully conquering the English channels through and fro.
With the English Channel conquered, Florence was spurred to set her eyes on the Catalina Channel. By July 4, 1954, she was on her way to becoming the first woman to swim the Catalina Channel. That day, with the entire world watching, Florence fought off the dense fog, bone chilling cold and on several occasions the sharks! She was striving to reach the shore but each time she looked through her goggle, all she saw was dense fog. The mist won’t let her see the shores! Thus, Chadwick May Florence gave up. Unfortunately, she was even more disappointed when she later found out that she was only half a mile away from the coast when she gave up. All efforts wasted, Florence did quit only because her goal was not in sight anywhere. Later that year, hunted by the press, Florence told the world, “I am not making excuses. If only I had seen the land, I could have made it”. Barely two months later, she went back and swam the Catalina Channel. This time, in spite of the bad weather, she had her goal in mind. She kept on seeing the shores in her mind irrespective of the weather.Gracefully, Florence did not only reach the shores, but equally broke the existing men’s record by two hours! How was Chadwick able to make it, howbeit at her second attempt? She learnt from her mistakes in her first attempt. Had she failed to take correction by taking a stock after the first attempt, she would have repeated that on the second attempt.
Take stock. Keep a detailed diary of lessons from your past failures and successes in juxtaposition with you future goals. If it will pay you, pen it. Don’t say you will always remember. The truth is, the sharpest brain is never half as sharp as the faintest pen. Daily review the lessons your past failures and victories have taught you. This will always put you one inch closer to your goal each time you do so. Every failure serves as a lesson for future endeavor. Every success serves as an inspiration for future victories. It was rising up to the challenges of lions and bears that prepared David to face Goliath. Reviewing lessons from your past failures helps bring into perspective the actual weight of the failure. The initial shock might have made you to exaggerate things. A cup that is half empty (failure) is equally half full (success). Pen down all the success stories buried within the failure and build on them. This would go a long way to lessen the pain of having failed. You can even ‘commercialize’ your experience by publishing it for people to learn from your mistakes while amassing wealth for yourself.NiccoloMachiavelli (1469-1527), author of THE PRINCE made so much name, fame and wealth through this means. My very first book was on why and how I failed Remedial (Pre Degree).
Since all of us must one day give account of how we spent our lives here on earth, it won’t be a bad idea to begin now to master that act. Take an inventory at each pointon how you have lived thus far. The prophet wrote, “Consider your ways.” Dissipating energy does not amount to work. I once read of Fable’s famous experiment. The French scientist named Fable (not real name), conducted an experiment with processionary caterpillars. Caterpillars usually follow the one in front of them blindly. Fable arranged them in a circle in a flower-pot so that the lead caterpillar was thus behind the last one. That way, they formed a perfect circle. Fable then put pine needles (food for the caterpillars) in the center of the flowerpot. The caterpillars kept going in a circle in the pot. Eventually, after a week of circling around, they all dropped dead out of exhaustion and starvation despite having much food just few inches away from them. Learn from those caterpillars. That you have been working hard on a thing does not mean you are making progress. Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) put it more explicitly where he wrote, “It is not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?” No matter how persistently and committedly you walk on a wrong road it can never become the right one. A log of wood faithfully lying in a river for years does not turn it to a crocodile. One of the most frustrating paradoxes of life is doing so well what does not suppose to be done at all.
As a rule, always put your experience on paper. Whether it pays or pains you, pen it. He who does not know when the rain began to beat him would not know when it stopped nor dries. Even God Almighty always tells his people “write it down”. All the prophet plus John at Patmos, received this same injunction, “write it down(Exo.17:14, Exo.34:27, Deut.27:8, Deut.31:19, Isa.8:1, Jer.30:2, Jer.36:2-3, Ezekiel 24:2 and Rev.1:11, 19)!” Write the vision.Document all the lessons and experiences. God Himself in Deuteronomy23 wrote the Ten Commandments by Himself!
Again, take stock of every word that proceeds out of your mouth. Many have dug their own graves with their own mouths. Nothing destroys a man like what comes out of his own mouth. Jesus reported, it is not what goes in through a man’s mouth that destroys him but what comes out of it. Preview every word that has ever come out of your mouth. Think it thoroughly, before voicing it out. There are no mere confessions or words. Every spoken word is a powerful force and spirit sent on an errand. Jesus said “the words that speak to you, they are spirit and life” (John 6:63). They never return void. He went further to say in Matthew 12:37, “For by thy words, thou shall be justified, and by thy words, thou shall be condemned”. As God created the world with spoken words, we daily recreate and reshuffle our own Worlds with our own words. Your confession determines your possessions. He who talks carelessly lives and dies carelessly. A life lived talking anyhow, ends anyhow. Watch what comes out of your mouth for that is the fountain of life. Do not talk yourself into defeat – I once did. How has your confessions brought you to your present situation?
CHAPTER 15
#9AUTHOR YOUR OWN DECISIONS
Polonius is quoted in William Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’ as saying: “Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice. Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment!” Give everyone a listening ear but take your own decision. Your mind is like your personal bed where you lie; always make it up, to your own taste. The truth is this; you will always be the one responsible for how your life turns out, not your advisers. Many seem to have great ideas for others, never for themselves. I believe we all should have the same mind set with my mother who believes that the person who has the greatest idea required for her own success dwells in her own mind. When asked for the formula for success, Herbert B. Swope, replied, “I cannot give you the formular for success, but I cangive you the formular for failure which is:‘trying to please everybody.’” It is Bernie Marcus opinion that most of the problems people incur stems from their not trusting their own judgment. Be an active listener to people’s advice but solely author your own decision. The Chinese has a proverb, “A wise man makes his own decisions,an ignorant man follows the public opinion”. “The ideal committee” writes Donald Gresham Stokes,“is the committee of one”.
As a rule, never make people’s opinion your priority. One day I was discussing my dream with a guy who came to pass the night in my neighborhood. I was so discouraged by his opinion that I almost decided to re-write my vision from square one. While bathing that right, it struck me that I never knew the guy before that night and probably may never meet him again. He, who begins to sing or learn a new song from the middle of it, will always sing it out of tune. The man who says, “If I were in your shoe” almost always doesn’t wear your shoe size. The man who knows how best to score the goal is often the one who watches from the television, who probably has never ran round the field before. Since you will be the only one that would give the account of your life at the very end of it, wisdom demands that you make it count exactly the way you can easily account for it. One day, I stopped my little niece telling her that her colour combination doesn’t match. “Please, change it, I don’t like it that way,” I pleaded. With a fetching smile she said to me, “I am the one putting it on. I like it that way. I’m the one people will ask, “Why are you dressed this way?”” How right she was.
Give them all a listening ear, but take the final decision for yourself. Never allow someone talk you out of your dream, who does not buy your idea – of course great dreams and ideas are too expensive to be affordable by cheap minds! Imagine what the world would have been had it been all those who did not witness the burning bush experience were able to talk Moses out of his God given dream. The truth remains that you are the only one who fully understands the vision as God allowed no eye witness at the venue where and when your vision was born. I have an only brother who is quite perfect at giving one a listening ear no matter one’s status or ebb. The day I asked why, his response startled me:“Grant people their rightful opportunity to be heard. It is their legal right. But always bear in mind that the right to be heard does not cover the right to be taken serious.” Author of One Door Closes, Another Door Opens, Arthur Pine, once told the story about how the film producer Mervin Leroy lost Gone With The Wind. On his return home from a business in New York, Mervyns Leroy was to course between California and New York on a three day rail road train trip, with his beautiful wife. He gave the manuscript of Gone With The Wind to his wife to proof-read in the course of the journey. She accepted. On getting to Los Angeles, he asked for her opinion about the book. Her response was both petrifying and dispiriting. “Just another civil war story, you’re seen dozens of them and read dozens of them too”, came her sharp reply. After listening to his wife, discouraged, Mervin Leroy sent the manuscript back to the agent and his rival, David O. Selznick, ended up with one of the greatest money making movies of all time: Gone With The Wind! No doubt, that incident marked the very last time Leroy gave his wife, Kitty, a manuscript to read.
Never allow your dreams and aspiration to be forever GONE WITH THE WIND because of someone else’s opinion. It will no doubt be great if everyone else sees what you see but that is not always the case. The worthwhile dream you cherish so much may not worth a while in the eyes of your family and friends. Don’t always allow their comments influence your feelings. What people call dry barren land may hold your own Acres ofDiamond.Always remember that it was the infamous barren womb of Sarah that bought forth Abraham’s Isaac (Laughter). The truth is not a function of population census, even if a million people believe or do something stupid, it is still something stupid. A million people backing the wrong thing won’t make that thing right. Be like Honda who said that once his decision is taken, he accepts no one’s advice except his own. Always be your own boss no matter who bosses you around. Pat Riley once advised, “Never allow other people to tell you what you really want.” God, according to John Mason, rarely uses those whose main concern is what others are saying. Many must have tried to talk Noah out of his assignment of building an ark. A friend lovingly encouraged Henry Ford to do away with his idea of wasting his time on automobiles and to do something worthwhile with his time. Learn to ignore the naysayers. Shut your ears against all discouragements. A famous poet captured it best in the following line, “Beware of those who stand aloof and greet each venture with reproof. The world would stop if things were run by those who say, ‘It Can’t Be Done.’” The story of the bubble bee often keeps me at the edge of my seat. Many scientists said it. Writers wrote about it. The press discussed it, and in every school and college, students were taught the fact that and the reason why the bubble bee cannot fly. It sounded so real. Yet, the bumble bee is not a scientist. Since it never went to school, the bubble bee does not even know how to read let alone reading. Again, having no satellite dish of his own or an access to his neighbour’s; the Bubble Bee never watched Discovery Channel. Thus, while the scientists, writers, press, gossips and educationist were busy with their facts, laws, theories and analysis the bubble bee goes on flying, everywhere. Mary Ash reported this story thus, “Aerodynamically, the bumble bee should not be able to fly, but the bumble bee does not know it, so it goes on flying anyway.” It does not know. It does not even care to know. It is so busy flying around that it does not have time for impossibility thinkers and Nay Sayers. It simply keeps flying every day.
Be like Mohammed Ali. The great boxer once said, “I don’t have to be what nobody else wants me to be and I am not afraid to be what I want to be.”An astute and highly outspoken boxer, Mohammed Ali remains one of the greatest fighters the boxing world has ever known. Ali entertained his fans and intimidated his opponents with his colourful, talented and often controversial disposition – dubbed “float life a butterfly, sting like a bee”. Born Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jnr in Louisville, Kentucky, many questioned why such a great boxer would in 1964 suddenly change his name and swap to Islam. He had won the world heavy weight championship that year and was poised to defend it the following year. Despite so much uproars and challenges, Clay cum Ali held to his decision. In 1967, as a Black Muslim minister, Mohammed Ali refused to be inducted into the United State Army. America at that time was at the middle of the Vietnam War. Ali chose to remain a conscientious objector. If you are in the habit of going around trying to please everybody, you will sooner or later grow lame in both feet. In the words of Charles Schwab, “The man