40+FAB Blog

Imagination is a powerful faculty that we have. It is the thing that enables us to see a future that has not yet happened.

If our imagination is filled with faith and positive feelings, we will have constructive visions of the future, and we will attract its manifestation. If our imagination is filled with fear and negative feelings, we will be looking at a future filled with despair.

Have you ever found yourself going for an interview or a meeting and being overcome with fear that the people you are meeting with will not like you? Even though that feeling may be unfounded, the fear paints a really bleak picture of the outcome. Most times we actually pull ourselves together and break through that feeling of fear, we find ways to talk ourselves out of it as we focus on the outcomes that we want.

Whatever it is you are trying to do, make sure you set a guard on your imagination and don’t let the fear in.

40+FAB Blog

I don’t know about you, but I get very excited when I get something new. That feeling of owning a new thing especially If it is of reasonable value is quite intoxicating, so much so that some get addicted to always buying something new. 

To get the best value out of anything, there must be a mindset about using it for the long run. The honeymoon period of its newness will wear out, then the real purpose of getting that thing will stare you in the face.

I got one of these new standing brush and pans, you can use it to sweep up dirt without bending down. For the first few days there was an excitement to use this thing to sweep the carpets, but as time went by the brush and pan were left to themselves and so were the carpets. The excitement of the new thing fizzled away and with the excitement gone, it somehow dampened the drive to use it on purpose. I got the brush to clean the carpet, but I seemed to put the excitement of the brush before the purpose of cleaning the carpet.

When the honeymoon is over do you remember why you got married, the new baby, job, car, house, phone, computer, office, supplies, etc? 

It’s great to enjoy the feeling of something new, but you will get more out of it if you keep the purpose of that thing front and centre of your mind and you are prepared to go with it for the long run.

40+FAB Blog

We get a great sense of achievement when we have gone through a process of learning something new especially when we really understand it. The infusion of that knowledge could easily deceive us into thinking we have accomplished something. However, there is a huge gap between what we learn and the actions we take to produce results based on that knowledge. 

I came across a quote that captured this reality. “You should know now that a man of knowledge lives by acting, not by thinking about acting, nor by thinking about what he will think when he has finished acting.” – Carlos Castaneda.

The purpose of learning is it to take action, action that will take you to a better place than you were before you learnt a new thing. 

Adopt this principle of learning-action in everything you do.

40+FAB Blog

Anything worth much in life always seems to be enshrined in challenges. Take honey for instance, we love honey, but to get it you need to know how to surmount the obstacle of bee’s.
We think it is tough for us, but what about the bee’s who are the producers of precious product? 

In order to produce 1 pound of honey, 2 million flowers must be visited. A hive of bees must fly 55,000 miles to produce a pound of honey. That is no mean feat and the sheer magnitude of the work load is enough to make any creature give up.

The next time you get discouraged about all that lies in your way to the place of significant achievements, think again, if it were easy then is it really worth it?

Remember the best of the best is hidden behind hours of effort and an army of beings protecting it for themselves. If you will enjoy it too, you have to be prepared to roll up your sleeves and put in the required work to surmount all obstacles in the way of obtaining that great prize.

40+FAB Blog

Growing up we had a few dogs and a yard full on chickens. My dad decided to add a goat to our mini farm. We got a young goat who soon felt lonely and so insisted on hanging out with the dogs.

After a few weeks, we notice that when we called the dogs, the goat would come along too with tail wagging. It would also follow us when we walked the dogs. 

Charlie Tremendous Jones said “ You will be the same person in five years as you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read.”

There is something about hanging out with people that has an effect on you. Whether it’s negative or positive depends on the calibre of the crowd you hang with. 

Whatever field of endeavour you find yourself in, do all you can to gravitate towards the best in that field. In a matter of time, you will improve, you will begin to operate just like the best.

My wife started a business making cakes and using this principle, she read books, followed websites, attended events, met people. In the 3rd year of her business she had accumulated several prestigious awards that the best in the field also held.

Connect with the right crowd and let the stuff champions are made of rub off on you all day long.

 

40+FAB Blog

Too much of everything is bad they say, and all things should be in moderation. So, let’s take a break from the seriousness of life and have some fun in whatever we do.

Children are taught through loads of activities that they find to be fun as it engages their minds, personalities, attention and actions thus causing them grow in knowledge.

I had a student on one of my courses say, “I was the most efficient worker on the team but when it was time to get rid of people I was the first one out.” In retrospect he said, “I think it is because I never engaged in any of the social events during or after work so the team never got to really know me.”

Can you think of any areas of your life that are suffering because you are too serious? Maybe it’s a relationship with your children or spouse. Maybe it’s a project and the team is disenfranchised. 

What can you do to make if fun for everyone involved? Something to laugh about, something to cheer, something to play. You will be surprised at the renewed energy, initiative and productivity that will be released by just having fun.

40+FAB Blog

When I rise, it is to take a prize,

Striving to gain it without compromise.

When I rise, I do so with gusto,

Igniting an attitude to conquer any days filled with agro.

When I rise, I have a great boldness,

To let my fears know they will never stop my progress.

When I rise, I take a good strategy,

Employing the very best in my armoury, making clear the path to mastery.

When I rise, I let my light shine,

As someone out there will need it to get through their own climb.

When I rise, I have no doubt I will establish,

For life seems to relinquish the best it has for the one set on a path to accomplish.

40+FAB Blog

Did you know that the majority of our conversations with others will not flow intelligibly without an abundance of questions? Think about it, when you meet someone I bet you say, ‘how are you?’, or to a colleague, ‘do you have a minute?’ and it goes on and on. More importantly, the way we reason within ourselves is largely a set of questions that we ask. 

You can try to have a conversation with family or friend and skip asking any questions. If you are able to carry on successfully, after a while they are bound to ask, ‘what is wrong with you?’

Psychologists understand the power of questions. They say a question stays in the mind and lingers until it gets an answer. In other words, your mind can be hacked by the questions that are thrown at it.
The power of questions play into the two types of dispositions a person can have – a negative one or a positive one.  

Notice whenever you feel depressed you are asking questions like ‘what is wrong with me?’, ‘why can’t I do it?’, ‘why me?’, ‘when will this end?’. All these are questions that experts say belong to a victim mindset.

So how does one break out of that mindset? Well it starts by asking questions that counteract negative ones. If things go wrong, ask, ‘what can I learn from this?’, ‘how can I be ready for the next opportunity?’, ‘what are the practical steps I should take to resolve this?’, ‘who can I talk to that has overcome this?’. You can also give positive answers to any negative questions, so when the thought ‘what is wrong with you?’ comes up, you should answer promptly, ‘absolutely nothing!’ 

Take a hold of your mindset and challenge the questions that have been silently sabotaging you.

40+FAB Blog

A UCLA survey from a few years ago, reported that the average one year old child hears the word, ‘No!’ more than 400 times a day! It may sound like a crazy number, but it is true.
As a parent with two very boisterous boys, I found that I was spending the better part of my time with them telling them ‘No!’, ‘Don’t!’, ‘Stop!’
One day it really struck me how much I expressed to them what I didn’t want.

Children are explorers and they want to experiment, with loving direction, they will learn, grow and improve on what we teach them. Always saying no shuts them down and takes away initiative and creativity from them.
There are times when we need to say no, but it should be in reasonable proportions and not the only thing they hear.

I am making it a habit to tell them more of what I want to see and not what I don’t want to see. I am learning patience to ask them what they think is the right thing to do, and then take the time to educate them on what it should be if they get it wrong. It’s hard work, but it’s work well worth it.

I suspect that the adults around us in our relationships, at home, at work and leisure would warm up a little bit more to us if we practiced the same thing of telling them what we actually want and move beyond expressing what we don’t want.

40+FAB Blog

From time to time we go through disappointments in life, maybe dished out by someone we relied on or more painfully by ourselves.
Someone said, don’t let a passing phase become a dwelling place. Too often we are ready to set up camp at the place of a debilitating disappointment.

I remember a close friend of mine in high school whose situation taught me a big lesson. As we were moving to the next level, his grades were not good enough and so he was made to repeat the year while the rest of us moved up. He was gutted and moaned about what would become of him and I worried for him and wondered how he would cope with the shame.
After the long summer holidays, we all came back for the new term, I was expecting to see my friend still hurting about his lot, but I was pleasantly surprised by him. His family had interested him in electronics over the holiday and he had spent time learning and building stuff. He came back to school with a remote controlled car he had made himself and other gadgets too, we were all intrigued by this and no one remembered his predicament.

Years later when I finished from Uni, we reconnected again and he was working as a senior engineer at a very large electronics company in the UK, while most of us who moved up to the next level at high school were still trying to find our feet in the work place.

In contrast to this story, I had an acquaintance in Uni who failed his 1st year and was asked to leave. He never told anyone, not even his parents, and he stayed on pretending to be a student. We only got to find out in our 3rd year, he had wasted 3 whole years because he did not want to live up to his disappointment. 

Whatever we go through is never permanent, as surely as there is night, the day will follow. We need to always put things in perspective and keep moving forward as long as we have life. Defeat is never final when we choose to rise from the ashes.