40+FAB Blog

As long as I can remember, I have always seemed to be getting ready for something. In my very early years, my parents were like, “get ready for school”, and if it wasn’t school, it was, “get ready for bed”.

Many years of school went by with several ‘get ready’s’ for exams etc. Formal schooling ended, then it was get ready for a job, get ready for a promotion, get ready for marriage, get ready for a house, get ready for children.

Where does the preparation start, or where does it end? Life seems to be one continuous state of preparation. If we spend so much time preparing, then when do we actually get the time to enjoy what we had been preparing for?

A wise man once said, “he who has a why to live for can almost bear any how”. Have you found your why? 

All the preparation, all the how’s become tedious when we do not have the why. I am choosing to do things differently now by training myself to identify my why. 
I am also going to give my children a good sense of a why so that they can throw their lives into meaningful preparation to live out their own why.

So back to my base as I continue getting ready. 

40+FAB Blog

Effective communication is always a core attribute of any great relationship, business, institution, or even nation. 

There is the story told of a battle that was lost for want of a nail. The nail was needed for the horse shoe which was needed for the horse which was needed by the rider with the message that would have guaranteed victory. Something went wrong with that communication channel and so the result was a great loss. 

Have you come across what I call a communication line of no return? People, businesses or governments have a line that is meant for interaction, but how frustrating it becomes when you speak, call, write or show up at the door and get no response. 

This line of no return is self sabotaging to any of those entities that have them. If you have a communication line, it is meant to be manned, it is meant to respond, it is meant to give audience to the caller, it is meant to interact.

Don’t fall into the trap of being too busy or not being bothered enough to make a return on that line. If so, People will take their business with you elsewhere.

Relationships, businesses, elections and other battles have been lost on the line of no return.

Be alert and be open to ensure that you are taking the right steps to respond when someone initiates communication on any one of your lines.

40+FAB Blog

Before most people get to the limelight for what they are skilled at, they are usually hidden in some obscure place unknown to the world for the talent that they possess.

It only seems fair for those with the best abilities to rise to the best places where their talents can serve humanity. We want to see the best doctors serving in the places where their skill touches the most people, we want to hear the best singers, watch the best actors, eat from the best chefs, read from the best writers. There is something about being served by the best that makes us a little better off.

But before the best can have all eyes on them, they need to get that one eye which recognises their ability to get them onto a bigger platform. There are gate keepers to the realms that can take an individual from obscurity to notoriety. Once you catch their eye, you have the best chances to break into the world that they guard.

As you go about developing yourself, honing your skills to be the best you can be, make sure you find out where you are likely to get the eye of the gate keeper. They are looking long, they are looking hard, they are looking for the best but they can’t look everywhere, so make yourself a bit more findable.
Post a video on a platform, go to some competitions, enrol in an academy that develops your talent, talk to a stranger about what you do. 

Before you get to the place where you can say ‘all eyes on me’, you have to pass through the phase where ‘one eye is on me’.

40+FAB Blog

There are two stories that have come to be known with Christmas. The one of Jesus Christ’s birth and the other more modern tale of Santa Claus. 

Santa Claus as he has come to be known was born Nicholas sometime around 280 A.D. in Patara, near Myra in modern-day Turkey. Much admired for his piety and kindness, St. Nicholas became the subject of many legends. It is said that he gave away all of his inherited wealth and traveled the countryside helping the poor and sick. There remains very little historical evidence of his life, nothing was found written by him or maybe his proteges.
It has therefore been easy for his story to morph from one of a generous helper of men to that of a big fat man with a red bag living at the North Pole who rides on a sleigh once a year to give presents to children all over the world. As flattering as Santa sounds, I am not too sure St. Nick will be too pleased with what he has transformed into. 

The older story of Christmas has however remained constant over the years. Jesus lived about 300 years before St. Nicholas, yet the account of his life is much clearer. Maybe it’s because he referred to himself as The Word and therefore lived in a way that caused his-story to be written in the hearts of his proteges such that each one that wrote about him had very similar accounts of his life and accomplishments. 

Who would you allow to record the narrative of your life and times? or would you leave it to chance? 
Living our life in a way that will cause another to write accurately about us is what we should strive for, but taking our own pen to write our own story is a sure way to guarantee that we do not end up as a version of the fat man with the red bag.

40+FAB Blog

The Christmas holidays are usually much anticipated for many reasons. Apart from the presents and time off school, it’s amazing how excited my children get about spending the day with   grand parents, cousins, uncles and aunties.

 I was on a crowded train the other day and someone was trying to squeeze in where there was practically no space, a voice from the middle of the carriage called out and said, ‘common let’s all squeeze in, it’s Christmas’, we all laughed and shifted together as much as we could. That scenario would have been very different at the middle of the year.

There is something about a gathering that humans love and it is rather unnatural not wanting to be a part of it.  However, most of the year we have a guard up whenever we approach the gathering. What are we afraid of when we get there? Whatever inhibitions we have are probably shared by most.

Why is it that we let our guards down and embrace the gathering at special occasions like Christmas and not as often as we can? 

Wonderful things happen when we allow ourselves to embrace the gathering. I am sure you can tell some great stories of how much you gained from being open at such an occasion.

Take the opportunity to note what makes you tick in the gathering this season and task yourself to apply it as much as possible to the frequent huddles you are faced with all year round.

40+FAB Blog

Gifts play a vital role in many societies and they are given at simple or momentous occasions. You can’t help but notice those that either give flamboyant gifts or give in a flamboyant way. However the gift is given, we must consider more importantly what the receiver benefits from that gift.

I heard a radio presenter talk about giving to a need being the best way to give. It struck me as I listened that I might have been missing a trick in my giving.

What does a wealthy man need? That question shot through my mind and immediately tested the formula I had just heard. The reality is that everyone has a need in one area or another. It may be material or not. Some are in need of love, acceptance, safety, protection, respect, self esteem, companionship, shelter, food, clothing, a few more dollars, and the list could go on.

Identifying what a person really needs means thinking about them, taking the focus off yourself and being consumed by satisfying another.

What we have to give may not require a physical gift, but it takes real mastery to package a gift that satisfies both a material and immaterial need.

40+FAB Blog

Running out of supply is a scary prospect especially if you do not know where the replenishment will come from. It is a wise thing in life to know about the source and plan to stay close enough to it for the sake of topping up your supply.

Some of the greatest cities on earth are built on the bank of rivers, this is not coincidental, people recognised the importance of a supply of water and so they built their habitations close to the source.

What are the sources of your supply for inspiration, ideas, influence, knowledge, security, finances, companionship, relevance or anything else you consider an important need?

If knowledge comes from reading, then stay close to it. If inspiration comes from nature, then stay close to it. If influence comes from some expertise, then stay close to it. 

Familiarise yourself with the true sources of these things and strategise how you will stay close enough to keep your supplies at acceptable levels.

40+FAB Blog

It is great to have values that guide how we live and respond to others in life. Values should be simple and beneficial, not only for ourselves, but for the sake of others. Our values are the things that we hold dear at the very core of our being.
Principles on the other hand are rules or beliefs that govern our actions. They are firmly formed and based on our true values. Values come to life in our principles.

If one has a value of honesty for instance, then their principles could be never to tell a lie even if it means enduring trouble for it. 

Saying you have a certain set of values yet operating by principles that contradict those values seems to be quite common these days. How often do people turn a blind eye to their principles when someone who contradicts their values shows up to favour them, especially economically. People are still being propositioned like in the movie Indecent Proposal. How one responds in such situations really shows what their true values are.

 Values will be tested in tempting situations inciting us to hate where we claim love, to hoard where we claim generosity, to be closed minded where we claim knowledge, to be frivolous where we claim sobriety and so on.

Don’t be too quick to shout about what you say your values are especially when they have not been tested. Whatever stands up to your greatest temptations are your real values.

40+FAB Blog

We moved to a new house in a really good part of town to be closer to my sons school. It was a very comfortable house in an ideal location. We felt really lucky and blessed to have found it at the price it was advertised.

A couple of weeks after we moved in, we woke up one morning to find the garage flooded with water from the sewage pipes and a lot of things that were in the garage waiting to be put in their proper place in our new home got wet. This was very distressing for us and what we felt was a dream seemed to be turning into a nightmare.
That same week, the former tenant drove by and said, “we had that same problem a few times while we were in there”. They only stayed for 6 months of their 1 year tenancy. Surely enough, we had that problem a few more times in the space of 5 months.

We thought about moving out to another place to get away from this incessant problem, but I picked up on something that the emergency plumber said when he first came to unblock the pipes. He advised that we go a tradesman who had a special device fitted with a camera that was used for investigating problems in sewer pipes. Eventually the managing agents heeded the advice and we got the camera to view the pipes under the building. 
In about 10 mins, they discovered that the problem lay in one of the pipes that had a rubber sealant the shape and size of a small pencil hanging like a string from the top to the bottom of the circumference of that pipe. This was what caught the tissue as it flowed by and after a few weeks it would lead to a blockage. Within an hour, they had it removed and that was the end of that problem.

It really hit me when the problem was solved that I was going to move out of an ideal location for the sake of a problem the size of a pencil. How many times have we been put off what could have been ideal for us because of a problem we did not know where its root lay? 

One has to make every effort to investigate the root causes of a problem before making a life altering decision to walk away from it. If you really dig deep, you may find that the cause of the problem is pencil-sized compared to your house-size opportunity.

40+FAB Blog

People love to have what they consider a good time, it is one of the basic human traits for self satisfaction.

An issue however arises when our quest for a good time puts ourselves and others at risk. This is where the value of self discipline is needed.

At this festive time of the year there are several Christmas parties to attend, so it wasn’t surprising when the regional head of my company sent out two emails in less than a month reminding us that as much as we enjoy ourselves, we should be careful to preserve our personal reputation as well as that of the company.

You would think it is a given that responsible professionals would have this at the back of their minds always, but the truth is, discipline is not easy or likeable however necessary it may be.

Spider-Man was told by his uncle, “with great power comes great responsibility”.

As we go into the holiday season exercising our great power of gratification, remember that with great enjoyment should come great self control.