What is the best way to deal with what you perceive to be a provocation against you? Some people may say things or act in ways that tend to wind us up and get on our last nerve, so how do we deal with that?

Have you ever considered that the problem might be you? Over the lock down period, I have had a few outbursts against family, and I noticed it was getting more and more regular. After giving myself candid advice on the toxicity of such outbursts to the health of my family, I had to ask, are they becoming more annoying or is the problem with me?

I have realised that when my mind and emotions are in a very good place, it is almost impossible for anyone or any situation to wind me up. But when I start getting tired, anxious, worried, depressed and so on, I tend to snap at the drop of a pin. No one is super, and we will drop the ball from time to time, so as a plan B, I have learnt to bite my tongue.

If you are weak in your emotions to deal with with the situations that wind you up, then put your mouth on lock down to prevent those overwhelming emotions from spewing out. Walk away from the situation, take a time or sleep over it. I have found that when I have employed this strategy, more often than not, the person I thought was winding me up was actually just misunderstood by me.

Try biting your tongue when next you feel like letting is all go and see if there will not be a better resolution to those scenarios that have irritated you.

40+FAB Blog

Turn negativity around

By Olaolu Faj Opebiyi on

September 2, 2020

- 40+FAB Blog

Back in the day when pictures were physical, the film used in cameras to capture those pictures were made of a plastic strip coated in a chemical that reacted to light. The first step to getting a printed picture was to turn the film into a processed strip called a negative. Once it was processed, that film strip was set and unable to capture anything else when exposed to light.

The negative inverted everything in the snapshot, so if the scene had a white snow field, the negative would depict a black field. Black hair would appear as white, and every other shade of colour would be depicted as it’s opposite.

Negatives are normally used to make positive prints (the final picture) on photographic paper by projecting the negative onto the paper with a photographic enlarger. One negative could be used to produce thousands of positive prints by the Photo Developer.

Isn’t it funny how we can be in the midst of opportunities and possibilities yet our reaction to them results in negatives. The problem we have sometimes is that we don’t give enough attention to the negatives that we have captured to isolate them and work on them to counteract every negative thought with a positive one. Instead we either deny or ignore our negatives and so they persist.

For every no you believe, there is a big yes waiting. For every closed door, there is an open door beckoning. For every disappointment, there is a glorious appointment around the corner. For every fear, there is assurance. For every despair, there is hope.

Don’t allow negatives to remain unnoticed and hide quietly in your mind. Be like the Photo Developer and isolate them, then make them spew out all the positive images they have swallowed up.

40+FAB Blog

Dealing with negative thoughts

By Olaolu Faj Opebiyi on

September 1, 2020

- 40+FAB Blog

The mind is such a powerful tool and we are still discovering a lot more of it’s capabilities. Much has been taught about the mindset and how the state of our mind affects the state of our lives.

One of the things that fascinates me about the insane is how everything they do appears normal to them. The thing with that is, they are actually trying to make their outside world line up with their inner thoughts. If they didn’t try to do that, they would feel they were losing their minds, even though in reality they had already lost it.

As funny as it sounds, we could be walking in various degrees of insanity when we are caught up in a negative mindset. If our minds tell us that it will not work out, we subconsciously sabotage ourselves to keep the congruence between what we think and what we see.

Have you ever had the issue of always losing things? If you think back to the various times you lost something, you will remember yourself saying, “I always lose things” just after you had lost that thing. If you feel certain events always happen to you, that is what you will work towards knowingly or unknowingly.

You have to break the cycle of negative thoughts by acknowledging them when you catch yourself ruminating, and then consciously think of the positive alternative. It is not an easy thing to do, but it is well worth it because until you change your mind you are unlikely to change your world.

40+FAB Blog

Is it neglect or focus?

By Olaolu Faj Opebiyi on

August 31, 2020

- 40+FAB Blog

Focus is a great strength that helps me to accomplish much, but I need to watch out for the weakness of blindness it could create around me. It’s so easy to focus on the project and be blinded to my lack of a healthy lifestyle, it’s easy to focus on building my career but be blinded to the needs of my family, it’s easy to focus on the next promotion and be blinded to building positive relationships with colleagues, it’s easy to focus on my mission yet blinded to those helping me accomplish my goals, it’s easy to focus on my results and be blinded to my responsibility for appropriate actions.

I believe the law of focus is only meant for one thing at one time and not for that one thing at all times. Focus if not positively managed could easily skew to become an obsession, which causes one to operate in the law of neglect towards other important things.

There is a time to step away from what we focus on and then come back to it with a fresh pair of eyes. The eagle takes a panoramic view of the terrain where it is going for its prey. It locks its focus, swoops in, grabs the prey and then soars back out to where it has a view of the big picture once again. Its survivability relies on its ability to repeat this process time and time again.

Sometimes it’s easy to use what we call the law of focus as a cover to actually practice the law of neglect. For I would much rather work on the things that interest me rather than deal with the responsibility of other things that are very necessary yet seemingly mundane.

I have learnt to take breaks from the things I focus on to capture the big picture once again. It is also important to have a few people in my life who are able to point out my blind spots and keep me aware of and accountable for anything that I have missed which may have the potential to eventually harm me and others.

“We are only as blind as we want to be.” – Maya Angelou

40+FAB Blog

Focus: blessing or curse?

By Olaolu Faj Opebiyi on

August 30, 2020

- 40+FAB Blog

Focus is one thing that is needed if we are to accomplish any task to it’s highest standard. It is a deliberate concentration on the one thing to be done at one time. Focus is one of the characteristics of highly successful people.

I heard about something called the law of focus, and some of the various forms of it are as follows:
“What you think about expands. When you focus on positive things you push your mind in a positive direction.”
“Your mind can think only one thought at a time. When you focus on a thought, it displaces all others from your mind.”
“The most powerful concept in marketing is owning a word in the prospect’s mind.”
“Whatever you focus on, you will see even more of. In addition, you will also be blinded from seeing other options and opportunities in their place.”

To prove the last law mentioned, psychologists Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris detailed in a 1999 study how people can focus so hard on something that they become blind to the unexpected, even when staring right at it.

Volunteers were asked to watch a 30-second video clip of people playing basketball. Three players wore white T-shirts, and another three wore black. Viewers were told to count the number of passes made by one team. Afterwards they were asked for the tally, and whether they had seen anything unusual. Astonishingly, only a very few put their hands up. These individuals had seen something that should have been blindingly obvious to everyone; halfway into the film, a man dressed as a gorilla walked on court and beat his chest at the camera. Everyone else was so focused on trying to count the passes that they completely missed this surreal moment. (Watch the ‘Invisible Gorilla’ clip on YouTube to see the experiment).

Could you have missed something that posed a threat to your home, family, business, finances, etc., because, you were so focused on trying to get a certain area right that you lost sight of the big picture and inevitably allowed a saboture to hijack important parts of your set-up.

Focus is meant to be a blessing, but how we use it can determine if we are blessed or cursed by having it.

40+FAB Blog

The art of listening

By Olaolu Faj Opebiyi on

August 29, 2020

- 40+FAB Blog

It is one of the seemingly easy things to do, but the problem is we all have an opinion that we are strongly attached to and willing to defend at all costs. This is characterised by our listening to respond rather than listening to understand another’s perspective.

I recently saw a work of art that looked spherical, but it had so many facets that from one angles it looked like a cube, and from another angle, it looked like a star. If I only had one view of the object I could have concluded it was a sphere and I would have argued with the person that saw it as a star.

As it is usually said, there are two sides to every story just like a coin. But in reality there is an awkward side to a coin which is not the head or the tail, but the body around them both.

The next time you are tempted to trample on someone else’s perspective before you have truly listened to them, remind yourself that there are many ways each individual would look at the same thing, then take time to understand the other person, you might just walk away from the conversation wiser than you think.

40+FAB Blog

Beware!

By Olaolu Faj Opebiyi on

August 28, 2020

- 40+FAB Blog

Sometimes we gloss over words so well known to us that we don’t give much thought to their make up. Beware is actually the compounding of two words, ‘Be’ and ”Aware’.

I was listening to a speaker at an event this week and he turned on the light bulbs on this for me. He said, “You have to be aware before you can beware”.

I remember years ago, my dad dropped off my younger sister for her first visit with one of her friends. At the time of pick up, he went through the gates to knock on the door, then out of no where a massive Alsatian dog pounced on him and took a bite of his behind. Someone had forgotten to put up the sign ‘Beware of Dog’, and my sisters hosts also had not mentioned that care should be taken on pick up because of the guard dog. If my dad had been aware, he would not have put himself in a situation to be attacked by those dogs.

Sometimes in life, for whatever reason, we do not get the memo of what to watch out for, or maybe there isn’t even a memo. The onus therefore always lies on us to take the time to improve our awareness. This can prevent us from falling into many unpleasant situations that could be avoided, or it could also make us aware of opportunities waiting to be seized.

Make sure to open your eyes and mind to Be-Aware!

40+FAB Blog

Perfect for a moment

By Olaolu Faj Opebiyi on

August 27, 2020

- 40+FAB Blog

Our understanding of the word perfect relates to making something completely free from faults or defects, in other words, making it as good as possible. The problem with that definition is, there will always be room for improvement, so no matter how good you make a thing to be, it could still get better and so perfection will keep eluding us.

The Greeks have a word for perfect which means mature in English. When an orange tree begins to flower, I know that the fruit will follow. The tiny fruit begins to form and to grow and as long as it is in that process of maturing, it is not perfect. It’s moment of perfection comes when the orange fruit is ripe. At that point, it is mature, it is perfect, and it is meant to be eaten or juiced. It will never get any better than it should be after it matures, in fact, it begins to rot if it is kept for much longer.

From this paradigm, ‘perfect’ has a limited time or season to exist before it is gone. Perfect is meant to exist for a moment, it is meant to be consumed by those who waited for it, and then the process to attain the next point of ‘perfect’ or should I say mature, continues.

Understand the timing of maturity and how to use what maturity brings into the seasons of your life. Enjoy ‘perfect’ for its moment, and then work towards the next moment of maturity.

40+FAB Blog

Better than sterling?

By Olaolu Faj Opebiyi on

August 26, 2020

- 40+FAB Blog

I was recently refreshing my knowledge on quality of jewellery for a project I am undertaking. Did you know that sterling silver is silver that is at least 92.5% pure, and the rest of it is made up of impurities?

So why would something that’s not perfect be regarded as something of great quality? Well the simple answer is that if the silver was 99.9% pure, that is ‘perfect’, then it would be too soft and not any good for making jewellery that can be properly used.

In that case, there doesn’t seem to be much functional value in being better than sterling. Don’t get me wrong, we must strive to be better today than we were yesterday, but if we focus all our our time and energy on trying to be perfect at the expense of being functional, then it doesn’t do anyone any good.

40+FAB Blog

Live in the now

By Olaolu Faj Opebiyi on

August 25, 2020

- 40+FAB Blog

Sometimes, we can get so caught up in trying to bring that future vision to pass that we somehow forget to be in the present. Slowly but surely the cries of our loved ones for our attention fades further and further into the background until eventually they fall on our deaf ears.

We justify our unavailability with the line of trying to make a better future for the family, yet we are practicing building that future by excluding them.

Aristotle said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then is not an act, but a habit.” We can also infer from this that what we do daily is what we become, or it is the future that we will actualise.

Whatever you are working on today to bring the future to pass, ensure it is filled with all you want to enjoy in your future, that includes your loved ones. Stop for a moment, take a look around you and live in the now remembering that if you repeatedly include all you enjoy in your now as you prepare for your future, then you will have those things accompany you into your future.

PREVIOUS POSTSPage 32 of 63NEXT POSTS

Bite your tongue

Turn negativity around

Dealing with negative thoughts

Is it neglect or focus?

Focus: blessing or curse?

The art of listening

Beware!

Perfect for a moment

Better than sterling?

Live in the now