Sometimes, life does not quite take the turns we had bargained for and it is easy to go into panic mode when we get into unfamiliar terrain.

We need to have a plan for our life like a map or a flight high above the horizon. When you look down on it, everything looks pretty and the view reveals all surfaces looking like they are level. However, when you get into the thick of things there are great obstacles on the ground that seem insurmountable.

That vision of what you have seen from your vantage point view is usually what will come true for you if you hold it in your consciousness as you navigate the sometimes painful details on the ground.

No matter how high the mountain may seem, if you have seen the other side of it on your map, then you will do all you can to conquer that mountain and get to the other side.

The next time you find yourself in the unfamiliar, take a pause and focus on your map, then redirect yourself out of the temporary troubles and back on to the way of your desired destination.

40+FAB Blog

Someone speak up

By Olaolu Faj Opebiyi on

June 14, 2020

- 40+FAB Blog

Martin Luther King Jnr said “The Ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but silence over that by the good people…in the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends”.

Our silence can be quite damning to us and the ones we love or those to whom we have a duty of care. I look back over the years and ponder the points in my life where I kept quiet; I wish I could have spoken up.

However, coming back to the present, I have learnt to speak up even in the most difficult of circumstances, I have learnt to speak up and say I don’t know the answer to the questions, but something needs to be done.

I have learnt to speak up and say I made a mistake.
I have learnt to speak up for another going through pain.
I have learnt that there is somebody somewhere going through what I am going through who has found the courage to speak up; I should listen to what they say and draw strength from them.

40+FAB Blog

I kept quiet

By Olaolu Faj Opebiyi on

June 13, 2020

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Life would sometimes throw up sudden random questions that it perhaps expects us to answer.

The unexpected death of a loved one occured, then came the questions, but answers were hard to find so I kept quiet.

Relationships were tried due to reasons beyond control, cracks began to show and breakups were inevitable yet I kept quiet.

All hell broke loose on the job, accusations flying and confidence diving, yet I kept quiet.

A good friend is going through a very rough patch and needs great amounts of time and resources to get out of it, yet I kept quiet.

Someone is being abused and the thought that it might really be happening is too hard to handle, so I kept quiet.

I kept quiet because I did not know the answer.
I kept quiet because I felt hurt by the actions of others against me.
I kept quiet because I did not know how to help.
I kept quiet because I did not have enough to give.
I kept quiet because I was discouraged too.
I kept quiet because I had messed up badly and was too ashamed to acknowledge it.
I kept quiet because I did not want my situation to be exposed.
I kept quiet because I was so scared.
I kept quiet because the challenge looked too great to surmount.

I need to find the strength to open up my mouth and speak! I need to find the courage to stand for what is right even when it may momentarily cause me grief.

40+FAB Blog

Hush hush

By Olaolu Faj Opebiyi on

June 12, 2020

- 40+FAB Blog

My schooling years in Nigeria were fun, but at the same time they put the fear of God in me. I went to a military secondary school and the style of teaching was such that when the teachers asked a question, everyone was expected to know the answer. If you did not know the answer, all I can say is God help you! There was a particular maths teacher who traumatized us. We would see him marching down the corridors like a man who had just lost something very precious and was frantically searching for it. He would bolt into the class and then pointing his finger at a random student he would shout “You, 7 times 8!” he would wait for all of 2 seconds for an answer and if he didn’t get one he would ask that student to come out and kneel down in front of the class, he would then go on the next random student asking the next random question from the multiplication table and so on.

This made the students very wary of speaking up in the class as you could get into trouble for not knowing. I guess his methods were to scare us and jolt us into doing our assignments and reading our notes so that we would be able to answer questions that came up suddenly.

At those times I kept as quiet and still as I possibly could because I did not know the answers and I did not want to get picked on.

I found that keeping quiet was a kind of defence or protection mechanism just like a small creature would do trying to avoid the attention of its predators.

Hush, hush I don’t want to rock the boat, I don’t want to be seen, I don’t want to be heard, I don’t want to get it wrong, this certainly can’t be the way to live a life of significance.

40+FAB Blog

Decision point

By Olaolu Faj Opebiyi on

June 11, 2020

- 40+FAB Blog

There comes a time when we have to make a choice, take a stand and stake our claim. This is the point of decision.

A time of crisis is a time that forces us to the decision point more than anything else. It crushes our consciousness and gives us no wiggle room out of showing our hand at crunch time.

Even if you were to remain neutral, listen to this, “To remain neutral in situations of injustice is to be complicit in that injustice” – Bishop Desmond Tutu.

What will you do, where will you stand? You may blame the circumstances for forcing your hand to have made the choice you made, but consider this, “Crisis doesn’t create character, it reveals it” – James Leary.

40+FAB Blog

Illusion of knowledge

By Olaolu Faj Opebiyi on

June 10, 2020

- 40+FAB Blog

Knowledge is a very funny commodity because having it makes you feel like you have the change that it can bring. The reality however is that until you apply that knowledge consistently, it produces absolutely nothing for you.

We sometimes get drunk after we have gorged on knowledge and we dispense it with such authority, yet have little results to show for it.
Have you found yourself learning a lot about finances and feeling really good that you got to know how to save, invest and attract extra income?

How much of that have you applied consistently? Maybe you did something for the first month but now you are back to your default way of managing money. However, you still feel good about your knowledge and will share it proudly with anyone who cares to listen.

Don’t live in an illusion, go beyond knowledge to establish the change that knowledge can bring.

40+FAB Blog

Knowing all the parts

By Olaolu Faj Opebiyi on

June 9, 2020

- 40+FAB Blog

Success at anything is rarely ever an accident. That being said, knowing all the parts that make success work could sometimes cause what was an accident to become a success.

Understanding things like the right attitude, persistence, learning, hard work, prioritisation, problem solving, communication, relationships and so on, would lead down the road of progress.

I am sure you have heard of the post it note. This highly successful product started out as a failed project in 1968. It was meant to be a strong adhesive, but instead turned out to be quite weak. For years the inventor, Dr. Silver, struggled to find a use for his invention because even though it was not a strong adhesive it had properties that he thought were useful, so he kept touting the merits of his creation to colleagues.

He later said, “I came to be known as Mr. Persistent because I wouldn’t give up.” In 1974 another colleague who used paper strips as a book mark in his hymnal got the idea to sick the paper on his pages with the weak adhesive. The rest they say is history.

If you are willing to study all the parts that make a business, relationship, product or any other venture work, you are most likely on the paths of success.

40+FAB Blog

Should we forget?

By Olaolu Faj Opebiyi on

June 8, 2020

- 40+FAB Blog

When trouble rises, the number of opinions that come up to explain it away are numerous. I couldn’t help pondering on a comment I heard in the last week that said “black people should forget about the past and move on”, “they should stop playing the victim card and do something for themselves”.

Those might be fair comments to make to someone who has lost a job or maybe a lover, but when they bomb down your buildings and thousands die, why not forget rather than raid their country and burn it to the ground?

When millions of Jews are killed at the hands of a despotic and wicked ruler, why nor forget rather than make the world remember that this should never happen again?

When thousands of soldiers loose their lives while fighting for the cause of freedom for their beloved country, please let’s forget because it is in the past.

The ill’s of slavery, apartheid and all atrocities against the black man are among the worst against humanity over the last 400 or so years. Millions have died, more are still dying, yet we are encouraged to forget.

Evil is evil and must be stood against. The oppressors chains physical, mental, emotional and material need to be broken and the prisoners truly set free. Whatever is wrong needs to be called out so that it is not perpetrated again.

The injustice done to the black man have never been truly acknowledged, but rather keep being denied and the black man is continually blamed for his own trouble. We will keep to remember and to stand against them, lest we all soon forget.

40+FAB Blog

Repetition for change

By Olaolu Faj Opebiyi on

June 7, 2020

- 40+FAB Blog

When I went through the school system in Nigeria, one was not allowed to move on to the next class if they did not pass the final exams of the current class. Everyone dreaded having to repeat a class as their mates would be a year ahead of them and they would be stuck with those a year younger.

I remember failing my first practical driving test in the UK and I had to repeat the test again. It was not a pleasant feeling, but the UK government was not concerned about my feelings but for my safety and that of other road users. So, I had to demonstrate that I understood what it took to be a good driver and only then was I granted a license to drive.

Repetition is not as bad a thing as we sometimes make it out to be. In fact, repetition is necessary to imbibe a new state of thinking and acting, it is quite necessary for change.

As we navigate through these dark days of having to face up to racism, let us remember that it will not go away after one season of protests. The conversation for change needs to be kept on the table and the practice of a new way of thinking about others needs to be repeated until the acknowledgement of equality for all finally sticks.

40+FAB Blog

Use what you’ve learnt

By Olaolu Faj Opebiyi on

June 6, 2020

- 40+FAB Blog

Knowledge is great, but it does the one who possesses it no good until they decide to use it. I was reminded of this truth again today as I decided to set aside some time to automate a task that would save me having to do it manually for the next 5 months.

I had been studying how to do this for some time and had all my facts together. After about half a day, I had prepared all the excel files in the right format for upload. I hit the upload button and to my horror, I got an error message. I went into trouble shooting mode for the next hour and did all I could to make it work, but it didn’t.

As I was giving up on it and muttering to my wife how I felt I had wasted half a day, I remembered what Thomas Edison said about learning 5000 ways of how not to do something. I got up from my desk and took a short break and came back to apply persistence. Within 15 minutes, all the files were uploaded and everything worked fine.

It was not enough for me to know about persistence, when the moment it was needed came, I had to apply it remembering the lesson and the example of another who used persistence to win.

Use what you’ve learnt because it will come to mind when you need it most.

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Not according to plan

Someone speak up

I kept quiet

Hush hush

Decision point

Illusion of knowledge

Knowing all the parts

Should we forget?

Repetition for change

Use what you’ve learnt