40+FAB Blog

Recently as I have walked through the shops there have been lots of empty shelves where once they were well stacked. As people prepare for the possibility of a lock down due to the pandemic caused by the corona virus, shop stock are flying out as fast as they are moved in.

This must be like music to the ears of the shop owners as they did not get all that stock to look pretty on the shelf, but to sell what they have on offer.
The need for these items has always been there, but demand has been measured and it took an event of this nature to tip the the intensity of demand to the point where it has made a visible difference to the appearance of the shops.

The late Myles Munroe widely known for his teachings on purpose would always say, “You have to die empty”. There is so much in your shop, there is also a demand for what you have, but have you been able to leverage the right conditions to match the abundance of your stock with the intensity of the need out there?

Understand what you have stocked up and find those to whom it would make a great difference. What you have is not meant to look pretty on your shelves, it is meant to be given away and used.

40+FAB Blog

Parenting is one of the toughest jobs that anyone can get. You are tasked with raising up other human beings to be the best they can be in your home and the larger society. As cute as they can be, the reality is that children will get on your last nerve!

There is always a tussle of wills and a struggle for power between the parent and the child. This tension led me to study how best to raise my kids. I discovered that when a child loses their temper, the parent needs to stay calm and deal with it. If the parent does lose their temper and shows it, the experts says the child would feel like they have gained the upper hand and would always wind up that parent to the point of losing their cool.

This is where the trick of ‘time out’ is applied. It is as much for the parent as it is for the child. When a child goes into their tantrum, time out is a way for you both to step away from the tension of the situation and let things cool out before addressing them. The child is sent to a quiet place or room where they are left by themselves to sit and be quiet. It takes a bit of consistency and practice to get the child to abide by it, but when they yield to it, it works like a charm.

There are other areas of life where this principle can be applied, you need to send some things on a time out, or you need to take a time out from some situations so that you can clear your head and come back to deal with them like the adult that you are.

40+FAB Blog

If you have ever ridden a bicycle before you will understand what Albert Einstein meant when he said – “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”

We go through ups and downs and sometimes have really bad experiences that make us want to quit. whatever happens, don’t be like Miss Havisham in great expectations who stopped all the clocks and insisted on wearing her wedding dress every single day after she was jilted at the altar.

As ridiculous and sad as her story sounds we all have at some point refused to move on from certain experiences we have had, and we still keep on the mental garments worn and are stuck in that time period. This has introduced much imbalance in our ability to process and move forward with certain decisions that take us to the future we desire.

We learn something from rivers that keep moving, no matter what is dumped in it, it moves and its waters remain healthy as opposed to waters that are stagnant which begin to fester all unpleasant things. Life happens, and the best we can do is to dust ourselves off and keep moving.

40+FAB Blog

No one likes going through a tough time and we all work hard, hope, pray, wish and dream for an easier life. We all try to run away from adversity and find the easiest way out of a situation, but I have come to realize that, as “necessity is the mother of invention”, so it is that adversity has the potential to bring out the innovator in us. 

Thomas Edison, known as one of the greatest inventors of our time developed hearing problems at an early age and was partially deaf. In his early years, he only lasted for 3 months in school before being chucked out; he had to sell candy and newspapers on the streets as a child to make ends meet; yet in his adversity he found his ability to turn a profit and also to innovate. If he did not go through what he did, would we have had the benefits of his inventions such as the light bulb? 

I have been through many challenging circumstances over the years, and as much as I hated having to go through them, deep down, I am thankful for them as the adversity brought out the best in me. 

My brother wrote: 
“Have you ever looked for the easy way out? 
The easy way out is always the hard way in. 
So I look for the hard way in and find the easy way out.” – Kayo Opebiyi 

I have learnt to stop looking for the easy way out and stand up in the midst of adverse circumstances, to survive, to forge ahead, to let the untapped strength on my inside come out. The effort I spent trying to avoid it, I now use to live through and beyond it. 

40+FAB Blog

Psychologists agree that we are born with two main types of fear, the fear of loud noises and the fear of falling.
Every other type of fear is learned, and the last time I checked there are over a thousand different types of fear.

Fear is not necessarily a bad thing if it keeps you away from dangers that could harm you significantly. On the other hand if it is not handled properly, it could be a paralysing force that cripples and ends up being a worse condition than what is feared.

I read of a woman who died in the dentists chair, not because of a root canal gone wrong, but for hearing the sound of the drill that would perform the procedure.

Instead of fear we need courage in the face of the very things that threaten us. That is how man has been able to make considerable progress over the centuries. Sir Winston Churchill said “Fear is a reaction. Courage is a decision.” and Mark Twain said “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.”

As we are faced with unprecedented events in the first quarter of this year that gender an atmosphere of fear, let us take the necessary precautions and observe best practice to be safe, but in response to fear we must show great courage that keeps us going in spite of what we are afraid of.

40+FAB Blog

I was listening to a debate the other day and a question was asked to one of the panel which had all the connotations to be confrontational and put him in a defensive position.

He then said, “I have to be careful when I am asked a question that I am not just answering the question, but I am actually answering the questioner.”
That statement took away any need for the panelist to be defensive in his response and let the person asking the question know that he saw him as a person with a valid view who needed to be engaged in a respectable way as an answer was given.

It made me think about how I have handled questions thrown at me in the past. Was I just eager to answer those questions and let the person know how smart I was and that my view was the right one, or did I really listen and see the other person and try to understand where they were coming from?

How do you respond to people? Maybe it’s time to start answering the person rather than just the questions.

40+FAB Blog

If you hang around children you will discover that they have an uncanny ability to describe the world in a way so simple and easy to grasp.
I remember my 7 year old son asking me one day “Dad, can anything kill water?” I answered and said water is not really a living thing so we can’t say it can be killed.

His question however made me think more deeply about water than I had ever done. It can’t be killed, yet it supports all type of life, human beings consisting of 60% water. Without it, we will die, yet it is not alive, or is it?
Many religions and philosophies use water as a metaphor for life. So with one simple question from a child, I got a deeper answer on why water is life.

I think children are master communicators of ideas and thoughts as John C. Maxwell says, “Educators take something simple and make it complicated. Communicators take something complicated and make it simple.”
Albert Einstein also said “If you can’t explain it to a 6-year old, you don’t know it yourself.”
It does not have to be complicated to be brilliant or true. Kudos to children who cut through the complication and present it in an obvious way.

If we are able to see things from the eyes of a child, I believe this will improve our outlook in life in so many ways.

40+FAB Blog

One has to be certain of the journey that they are embarking on, be it by faith or adequate information, before they burn the bridges from where they are coming from.

Is it always necessary to burn bridges? I think this depends on the individual. There are very strong willed people who can walk out of a situation and they will never turn back. But there are others who need to make it dramatic, not because they love drama, but because they know that if they don’t take a very public stand and burn those bridges, they will be back to those things they are trying to walk away from in a heartbeat.

Sometimes we must only walk away for a season, sometimes it is final. Whatever the situation, know yourself, and make sure you are very convinced that it is the time to walk away because once you burn that bridge, there will be no way back.

40+FAB Blog

I saw an awesome quote the other day as I was doing some routine reading.
It said, “A dog has many friends because it wags its tail and not its tongue.”

There is much that can be said about the virtues of speaking kind words and having an amiable disposition towards others. However, we do get tempted from time to time, running our mouths or being overtly animated in expressing ourselves when we get rubbed off the wrong way.

There are amicable ways to resolve sticky situations rather than wagging the tongue in condemnation or wagging the finger in accusation. Do this often and you will soon find that you hardly have any friends or acquaintances who truly want to be around you.

There is some wisdom to be learnt from the dog and we should wag our proverbial tails in acceptance of others letting them know that we value them more than whatever mistakes they have made or hurt they may have caused us.

40+FAB Blog

It is no doubt that the male and the female are two similar yet very different beings and we must therefore disabuse our minds from the thinking that different means inferior to what we are or stand for. The differences between the male and the female are things that are very complimentary of one to the other.

The future of mankind deeply depends on the ability of both to work together. If man is like the seed, then the woman is like the ground. She has the ability to give form and structure to what the man brings.

Simply put in the words of William Golding “I think women are foolish to pretend they are equal to men. They are far superior and always have been. Whatever you give a woman, she will make greater. If you give her sperm, she’ll give you a baby. If you give her a house, she’ll give you a home. If you give her groceries, she’ll give you a meal. If you give her a smile, she’ll give you her heart. She multiplies and enlarges what is given to her. So if you give her any crap, be ready to receive a ton of sh*t!”

That right there is the power of the feminine touch.

(Happy International Women’s Day 2020)