40+FAB Blog

This is not a lesson on how one can gain power from the occult, it is however another unique perspective so please read on.

I am sure you have heard this repeatedly said, “behind every successful man is a woman”.

Maybe that statement is not quite correct because marriage is a partnership of sorts and the woman comes along, beside the man to build a family and future.

So why would the devil behind a man make him successful? I can’t help but refer to what Jesus Christ said – “Get behind me Satan”. He told the devil to get behind so that He could focus on what He had to do.

In a court of law saying ‘the devil made me do it’ is never an excuse. You are ultimately responsible for what you do.

What devil is hindering you? Could it be excuses, laziness, backbiters, lack of money, disadvantaged upbringing, haters, procrastination, personal vices, painful experiences, ignorance, frenemies, impossibilities, the past and so on.

Any successful person will give you a catalogue of  things they put behind them to go on and achieve what was thought impossible.

Consider this statement, “A man is as much as what he has put behind him as what he has done before him.”

Put that devil behind you and go on and achieve great success.

40+FAB Blog

I heard someone say, “Most things are not designed to be difficult. If you are trying to produce a result and it is proving too difficult, then you are probably not doing something right”.

Take the example of a child proof medicine bottle. It has a cap like most other bottles, and so you pick it up then start to twist the cap to open. After a few energetic twists, nothing happens, you try even harder yet nothing moves. Frustration soon sets in and you may put it down concluding something is wrong with the bottle, or you might get an object and damage the cap to get the contents in the bottle.
If you had stepped back and taken a closer look at the instructions, you may have seen that you needed to depress and cap and twist. With that knowledge, the bottle is open in a couple of twists. 

When you go into any venture and things do not work out as you expect, frustration is the sign to take a step back and reassess the situation you are faced with. You may need more knowledge, skill, patience, help, persistence etc. 

Don’t let frustration drive you to give up or destroy what you are working on, but let it lead you on a new path to accomplish your aims.

40+FAB Blog

On the 14th of October 1947, Chuck Yeager a US World War Two pilot broke the sound barrier to achieve flight faster than the speed of sound.
Supersonic speed was finally achieved after several years and trials by various scientists and engineers all over the world. Before this was achieved, pilots noticed that as they approached the speed of sound, there was a great resisting force that pushed on the aircraft preventing it from going any faster. Finally with the increase in power and the design of the X-1 aircraft, that barrier was overcome.

In 2007 as I sat in the living room of my host in The Netherlands, I heard a loud boom and all the windows in the house were rattling. I was alarmed and asked what was happening. I was assured that there was nothing to worry about as the Dutch military were carrying out a test flight of one of their supersonic jet fighters. I rushed out and looked up in the sky to look for the jet, but it was way out of sight in less than the minute it took me to look out.
The loud sound that we heard was the jet breaking the sound barrier. My only hope of seeing that jet would have been before it broke the barrier, but after it breaks that barrier it would be far out of sight in seconds.

There are several barriers that we face in life and the reality is that the effort to fly before the barrier is similar to the effort that it takes to fly after the barrier. The difference however is that the effort you put in after the barrier produces exponential results. We all have 24 hours in a day, yet some people make ten times as much as others every single day. They are both working hard, but one has broken an income barrier that the other hasn’t.

One needs to go through a boost and a significant shift in the mindset and outlook on life to break any barrier. For a period of time every focus and concentration will have to be on getting past that point. It takes a season to break a barrier, but once the barrier is broken then people will hear of your progress and before they locate you, you will be far out of sight.
Put in what it takes to break your barriers.

40+FAB Blog

Thank God It’s Friday! TGIF has been made famous all over the world, and why not? I mean who doesn’t look forward to Friday?
It’s the start of the weekend, pay day is usually on a Friday, in some places it is a dress down day or a work from home day.
Black Friday which happens once a year is also another great reason to love this day for the stupendous deals one can get.
The mood always seems to be optimistic on a Friday as opposed to say a Monday.

Different people have different motivations for their liking of Friday. For some it is a time to get away from work they do not particularly enjoy, for others it is time to rest from a busy week and spend time with family, others are looking forward to the partying or putting in time on a side hustle. 

Whatever the reason, we have a need for anticipation to keep us going. Our ability to anticipate a day, an event or even a meal keep us motivated to get through some exceptionally difficult seasons.
It is great to have something to look forward to, so when next Friday comes around, do get excited and take the time to focus on those things that you anticipate that will help you through a tough day.

40+FAB Blog

“Do it again!” She blurted out. I can’t recall what number time it was I had written the words between the guided lines in my note book, yet I still had to do it again on the instruction of my primary school teacher.
Can you remember an instance when that teacher, instructor, parent or boss who you felt delighted in your pain made you do that task over and over again?

Thomas Edison believed that he would not find the best way to do something without discovering the many ways to not do it. He had no problem with doing it again so much so that he tried 10,000 times before he finally succeeded with the invention of a light bulb.
Repetition is the best way we learn, not only to get things right, but also to recognise the wrong way and quickly avoid it. 

Some of the greatest sports personalities will tell you stories of practising a style of play hundreds of times.
English footballer David Beckham said “’I must have taken tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands [of free kicks]…When my dad got home from work, we would go over to the goalposts together. He would stand between me and the goal, forcing me to bend the ball around him. People looking on must have thought we were mad. We kept going even when the sun had gone down, playing by the light coming out of the windows of the houses that surrounded the park.”

Look at where he is today facilitated by his track record of doing it again.

I am sure there are a few things you need to go and do again.

40+FAB Blog

One of my favourite birds is the Flamingo. My first sight of these glorious creatures came when as a child my father got me a viewmaster – this was like a pair of binoculars with a slot on top of it made to receive a circular card which had a circumference surrounded by individual film strips. When the card was inserted and you looked through the lenses, images bright, clear and magnified could be seen in full colours.

The first image I viewed was of a flock of flamingos, covering the Lake Nakuru of Kenya in the most magnificent hues of pink I had ever seen. The picture was so alive and I felt I was part of it. At every opportunity I’ve had to go to a zoo since then, I’ve always headed straight to where the Flamingo’s were so I could enjoy watching them once again.
Did you know that these birds are born grey? Their natural colour is boring, but they get their pink, orange and sometimes blue tint from what they eat. Someone said you are what you eat, so if you are looking to be more interesting, then you need to immerse yourself in interesting experiences. That however is by the way.

What struck me the last time I saw a flock of these birds was their environment. As pretty as they looked, there was all their mess on the banks of the stream where they stood, and it had a truly poignant aroma. 
It made me realise that no matter how good something looks, there is always the maintenance deficit that comes along with it. It’s a fancy car, but its servicing cost… It’s a big well decorated house, but the time taken to keep it clean…It’s a nice new well paying position, but the amount of responsibilities to fulfil…He is tall, dark and handsome, but his constant need for attention…
It’s great to fall in love with inspiring pictures of things we find desirable, but we should also never forget that there is a price associated with receiving them. Let’s hold both realities in balance so that we are not quick to throw away what we have received when its costs come to light.

40+FAB Blog

Ok, so who doesn’t know the famous Sesame Street?

If you didn’t watch it for all the quirky puppets like Oscar, Big Bird, Grover, Cookie Monster, Elmo and more, then you surely would have tuned in to catch one of the big stars featuring on the show like Michael Jackson, Backstreet Boys, Destiny’s Child, David Beckham, One Direction and the list goes on. 

This TV programme was very good at doing one thing – focusing on a word, letter and number for the day.

They would sing it, talk about it, act it out, spell it and whatever else they could do so that the viewer would surely leave with that word ingrained in their mind. It has been so many years since I watched it as a child but I still remember the words I learnt on Sesame Street.

What if I could live my life like Sesame Street, focusing on imbibing one value, character, attitude or goal for a period of time until everything within me and everyone around recognised I had adopted that virtue as my own.

When the grouch in me shows up, I would point to that value, when the greed comes out, I would teach it that character, when the fear awakens, I would act out that attitude, and when the carefree whistled along, I would sing that goal.

I think I will go back to Sesame Street, how about you?

40+FAB Blog

Every year on the 11th of November, we remember those who fought and paid the ultimate price for the freedoms of their countries during World War 1.

Our ability to remember can do two things.

One, it can strengthen our resolve to ensure whatever pain we experienced in the past will never repeat itself again  as we learn from what happened and do our utmost best to live above it.

Two, it can incapacitate us as we remain victims and prisoners of the past living in uncertainty, hate, and fear of everything that happened then and any semblance of it in our now.

Today, choose to remember wisely, strengthen your resolve to be, do and have the best. The past is always a lesson we can learn from to improve, grow and create a better future.

40+FAB Blog

Continuity is a difficult word to spell, but an even more difficult concept to fulfil.
As an electrical engineering student in university, I learnt that what helped a piece of wire to deliver electricity from the point of generation to the point of consumption was continuity. Simply put, the wire was not broken at any point in its length from where the electricity originated to where it was used.

We are good at generating ideas, policies, promises, roadmaps, visions of the future and all that good stuff but it takes continuity from day to day, government to government, one generation to another, to deliver on those things.
The problem is seldom with what is generated at the source for they are often brilliant concepts, and neither is it with the ones that would benefit from that idea.
The problems lies in the ability to be consistent, seeing that thought from the place of conception to the place of delivery. Sometimes is takes days, other times months and maybe even years, but as long as there is continuity, the end goal will be reached.

Be like an efficient power company that delivers on its promises because it has built in infrastructure that has continuity to get the electricity to its customers.

40+FAB Blog

It’s so funny that when you get in some form of public transport and doze off, you always seem to wake up just before your stop.

Anticipation of where you are going has a way of configuring your whole system to be alert to any indication that the destination is close. It could be by seeing, hearing, smelling or feeling, but as soon as any of your senses picks up a signal that the destination is at hand, your whole being gathers itself together to get up and go.

You know that feeling I am talking about when you smell your favourite food joint.

If one sets other tangible life goals of where they want to get to next, then the same principles of recognition and perception will kick in to prepare them for that place.

Just as it is crazy to get on a ride and not have a next stop, so it is to go through life without goals marking your next stop.

It’s funny when you see someone who has slept past their stop, when they wake up you see the confusion, panic and definitely crazy display in their trying to get off and reroute.

As crazy as they look, they are still better than the person who got on with no destination in mind.

Are you ready for your next stop or are you displaying the qualities of one who slept past their stop or had no stop in mind.

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