40+FAB Blog

I haven’t met a person yet who likes the idea or feeling of being rejected. Most people take it really badly when this happens. No matter how benign the rejection presents itself, it is still received like a forceful punch.

have you been for a job interview where you were told, you did so well and we were impressed by you, but there was a candidate with more experience? 
Have you come out of a relationship where your partner said, “it’s not you, it is me”? I am sure you get the point.

There are two reasons why one may be forced out of a station in life. A pregnancy illustrates these reasons perfectly. The foetus can be forced out naturally before time due to health issues or it can be forced out at the right time when gestation is complete. There is always the sign of contractions in both cases which tell something is about to happen.

For instance, one can be forced out of a job prematurely when there is a ‘health issue’. You will notice the ‘contractions’, strains in relationships or change of behaviour of a boss or colleagues. When this happens, you need to ask yourself, “what am I doing wrong?” Premature evictions could be avoided when we readjust ourselves to do better, like kicking out a tardy or lazy trait.

Again, one can be forced out of a relationship and when you check it, every thing has been done right, but the other party just doesn’t want you around anymore. Again, one needs to do a health check and if all is ok, like a baby that has come to birth, it’s time to move on to something better. It may hurt to make that move, but consider this, it is more catastrophic to be in a place that you have outgrown.

It’s never a pleasant thing to be forced out, so become an expert at performing diagnostics and determining if you need to make readjustments or if you need to start preparing for your next stage which is always a bigger and better one.

40+FAB Blog

I thought to myself the other day how unfair life may seem at times. We were taught to say please and thank you, and generally to be polite to others we encounter.
I began to question these rules because it didn’t seem to apply to those who were ‘rich and successful’ as somehow they seemed to be excused for their behaviour, even when they had a bad attitude.

Upon deeper reflection and study, you will find that those so-called ‘rich and successful’ people with a bad attitude are in the minority. When someone of a certain class or race does something offensive it is easy to quickly condemn the whole group, but that should not be the case.

I know a very wealthy gentleman who told me, you have to be careful of how you treat people on the way up, so that when you come down, they will treat you right also. He realised that no condition is permanent and there could be moments of fluctuations in ones life, business and career. The most important investment, is the investment in people and you can’t really do that with a bad attitude. 

I am sure you have heard of some wealthy persons recently who got exposed for one thing or the other and then the stories of their dealings with others around them came out, immediately you realise they had a bad attitude, then you also know that with this exposure they are likely to not recover from it as they are now reaping what they sowed. 

Whatever you go through, keep a good attitude, treat people with respect, treat people right. You will be sowing seeds that will come back to you in a harvest that ensures you are treated right when you need it most.

40+FAB Blog

Shipping has been one of the oldest forms of transportation known to man. Today, it still accounts as the main mode of transportation for the majority of products being moved from one region to another. A large ship known as a tanker, can be as long as 790 feet and carry up to 318000 metric tons of goods. Once a ship docks at a port, it needs to be anchored to the bottom of the sea floor to prevent it from drifting off while it is unladen. As massive as the ship is, it is held by an anchor on either side (port and starboard) weighing about 7 tons. That is about 0.02% of the weight of the ship. When you hear the academics talk about the potential of the human mind, this picture of a great tanker carrying so much material to be distributed at its destination port comes to mind. Yet, so many brilliant persons have never been able to share their true potential with humanity because they are drifting. What anchors the mind and the personality is truth, not just truth, but balanced truth, on the left side and right, like the great tankers. Little truths that don’t compare to the weight of talent and ability we carry are the very things that ground the individual to be able to disseminate what they have to offer. How many great men and women have had their careers cut short over a little act of indiscretion? The simple things like honesty, integrity, accountability, humility and so much more were not taken aboard their vessel, and when they landed at a port that really mattered, they drifted before they could give us all they had to offer. If you forget anything on your voyage to higher heights, please don’t forget to take with you the anchor.

40+FAB Blog

Some say that the two most important skills to learn from an education system is the ability to read and the ability to count. In other words the literacy and numeracy skill.

In 1820 it is believed that only about 12% of the world population were able to read and write, today that number stands at about 84%. At no other time have we had so many literate people as we do today, and the plethora of information available has superseded that available at any other time in history.

We are in an age of what is called the ‘Information Revolution’. The ability to thrive is heavily dependent on ones assimilation of information. This is where reading comes in as anything that is being done today is written down in some document somewhere and it can be learned and replicated.

The wealthiest and most successful persons in any field you can think of will tell you that they are ardent readers, and this has kept them astute in their area of expertise. 

A scientist called Buckminster Fuller created the “Knowledge Doubling Curve”, he noticed that until 1900 human knowledge doubled approximately every century. By the end of World War II knowledge was doubling every 25 years. Today knowledge is doubling about every 13 months. 

Whatever you learnt a year ago is possibly outdated today based on these statistics. You wouldn’t open a can of food with an expiry date of last year and attempt to eat it would you? So why would you want to embark on any endeavour with outdated information?

There is no better way to catch up on latest knowledge than reading about it and with the availability of various sources of information out there, no one has an excuse to not know.

Make reading a regular habit and you will discover that it keeps you at the top of your game.

40+FAB Blog

The expression, ‘building from the ground up’, connotes starting from scratch, starting with ‘nothing’ or starting at a foundational level. No one would argue with the wisdom of this saying.

Thinking about it on a deeper level, most things, if not everything we build seems to come from the ground. 

To build your muscles, you need the right food to eat which comes from plants which are grown from the ground, so the muscle builder technically built muscles from the ground up.
The same would apply to the goldsmith. I haven’t yet heard of gold that fell from the sky, it is mostly found somewhere on or in the ground. So the jewellers built from the ground up.
Think about most modern day appliances and what they are made of, plastics, glass microchips etc. all these materials come from the ground.

There are new opportunities being created regularly by people who have discovered something new that came from the ground. The thing is, they take what looks like nothing and create value out of it. They take it out of the ground – a hidden place, and build it up – a process of adding value and showcasing it in a prominent place. 

Whenever you are about to initiate your next project, whatever it is, go back to the basics, the foundations or the proverbial ground – whether figuratively or literally – and take the ideas, the materials or whatever you find there, add value to them and present them to your audiences. You will find great success comes when you build from the ground up.

40+FAB Blog

I come from a generation that grew up on books as our entertainment, I am not sure what generation we are called.
The fairy tales were possibly the most gripping of stories and they made a huge impression on our minds when we  were just learning to read. We read such stories possibly hundreds of times.

If I were to ask a room full of that generation what were the first lines in any of these story books, you would hear a loud chorus of “Once upon a time…”. I would probably get a plethora of answers for what was in the middle of the story, but the commonality would have been of a Prince, Princess, Dragon, Witch, etc. Again, if I asked what was the last line in the story, the answers would be resounding, “…And they lived happily ever after”.

I have come to understand that one of the strengths of marketing products is the association of the product with the psychological needs of man. Most teenagers of my generation got lured to smoking cigarettes because we believed that someone who smoked was cool and successful as depicted in the adverts. We did not necessarily want the cigarette as much as we wanted to be the life of the party and pillar of the in-crowd.

I keep hearing people say that it is every girls dream to marry the Prince and become a Princess, but being a princess is the product. What every girl really dreams of is happily ever after! Thats what we all want, and thats what we were sold subconsciously in those stories.

Ever wonder why someone got the dream job, married the ideal spouse, signed the enviable contract, became very famous, yet they seemed to despise it all and wanted out? 
The answer is not complicated, they became the princess, but the happily ever after was missing.

Let us learn to look beyond the product, status, wealth, achievements and all that, and tune in to what is really important to our soul. Happily ever after does not come with an event, it is a lifelong process and attitude that we must be committed to actualising everyday no matter where we stand.

40+FAB Blog

One of the statistics that got me thinking really hard after I turned 40 was the one that says you lose over 5% of muscle mass every decade. The more inactive a person is the more muscle mass is lost leading to loss of strength and susceptibility to bone fractures.
The losses can actually be stymied if there is constant exercise and use of the muscles. Instead of losses, small muscle gains are possible as long as they are being used consistently.

Not using what we have can lead to us losing it, but what is even more alarming is the nature in which those things unnoticeably slip out of our grasp and we wake up one morning to find that they are gone. Think about your skills, relationships, habits and yes muscles too. You never realise you are becoming rusty because you still take for granted that you have them.  

I used to be quite good at playing the guitar and writing songs in my university days and got to the level of playing in a band and performing my songs at a State concert. After leaving university, I let my guitar sit in a lonely place for years and even though I pick it up and play from time to time, I am no where near the proficiency I used to have back then. I am unlikely to make any bands at the moment unless of course I focus many hours on trying to recapture a glimpse of my past.

Whatever is important to you needs to be prioritised for consistent use, don’t let the vicissitudes of life lull you into a place of neglect and false security on what you have. Set yourself up to use it so you don’t lose it.

40+FAB Blog

For thousands of years the great civilisations have always built great cities and monuments on the basis of a plan. Take for instance the Egyptians who built the pyramids that are still standing till date, or the Greeks that built amphitheatres of such grandeur, or the Chinese that built the great walls. These cities and structures were not haphazard whimsical projects being executed as the builders saw fit, but rather they were carefully thought out designs given the very best of materials and men to execute.

The first house I remember living in when I grew up in Lagos, Nigeria was close to the town planning office. They ensured that houses were built according to the plan of the state and each property would be allocated the necessary utilities like water, sewerage and electricity provided in that plan. As the city grew, the philosophy of town planning seemed to get lost and development spiralled out of control. This led to many complications in the city like people building over areas marked for natural drainage thus causing flooding in several places.

Up till today, Lagos struggles with many issues because the population grew faster than the planning for it did.

Human beings have a characteristic to grow and also to grow things. That business will grow, the family will grow, the career will grow, interests will grow, hobbies will grow, cities will grow and so on. Whatever it is, the structure for it should be put in place long before it gets off the ground. Structure the business before it starts, structure the family before you marry, structure the city before it is built.

Don’t make the classic mistake of not being prepared for growth. You have to structure to facilitate growth, you have to structure to manage growth, you have to structure to prevent growth from retarding. Whatever you do, structure for it!

40+FAB Blog

We all have the same time given to us to produce results in life, how you use your time is crucial to what impact you will have in your lifetime.

If you use your 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for the appropriate activities, you will become stronger week by week, if you don’t, then you loose ground and become weaker.

7 days of overeating without exercising makes one weak.

7 days without reading and educating the mind makes one weak.

7 days without sowing the seed of diligence on the job makes one weak.

7 days without cultivating the right attitude makes one weak.

7 days of worrying about things you cannot change makes one weak.

7 days of procrastinating instead of being proactive makes one weak.

7 days of isolation from family, friends and colleagues makes one weak.

7 days of spending without saving makes one weak.

Use your week wisely so you don’t end up weak.

40+FAB Blog

I couldn’t help thinking about the story of these tennis greats, the Williams sisters. The story however does not start with them, we see their Father, Richard, catching a glimpse of the future and seeing his daughters reigning as champions on the tennis courts. That vision drove him to get them practicing tennis from the age of 4 and a half years old. The rest they say is history.

At the point he had the dream, it probably was not based on any potential he could see in his daughters, but holding on to that dream and taking the practical steps to see its fulfilment unlocked the great abilities in each of his daughters that have seen them top the game in every way.

I wonder, what if Richard never followed that vision through? After all, he was not the player that would win the accolades. He could have gone on and done his own thing and left his girls to make their own way.

I cannot even imagine the effort, sacrifice, long days and sleepless nights he must have gone through to keep that picture front and centre of their minds. He had to own it for them for years bearing every burden of the dream before it became theirs and they took off with it. 

Did you ever have any vision keepers in your life that pushed you to unlock your best abilities? Do you have any now? It’s not too late to hook up with a vision keeper who will bring the best out of you. 

More importantly, why don’t you be the vision keeper of the next generation in your home, place of work, community or nation. That vision you see has the potential to raise up champions that will rule in their world.