It's time to graduate

We all have dreams and visions in life but the truth is only few of us actually get to live those dreams. It's funny how when we hear people talk about their unaccomplished dreams, we actually think that can never be us. Uhm...the sad truth is, that would be many of us in the next couple of years if care is not taken.

The easiest part of anyone's dreams is to sit down and talk about them. I find it's very easy to talk about what we want to achieve in life. Oh, do we love to hear the sound of our voices talking about where we see ourselves in 1 year, 5 years, 10 years and so on and so forth. The question however is, how many of us would actually take the next step; the next step being taking actual steps to realise those dreams. The hardest part of fulfilling any dream is putting in the hard work and commitment it takes to make those dreams a reality.

A lot of us have dreams and visions and we do not even know what it takes or what we need to do for those dreams to come to pass. A lot of us want to own businesses but we have never read a book on how to start a business, or books on running a successful business. We want to be an entrepreneur but you have never read a book on any successful entrepreneur. Uhm.....and you actually think you are serious about your dreams.

I was teaching a class of young people one day and I asked them what they wanted to become in life and they all started telling me how they saw themselves as doctors, lawyers, accountants and much more. I was like, waoh, good, you guys are so ambitious, I like that, then I asked my next question; what do you need to do to get there? What subjects do you need to study in school now? What grades do you need to get? What colleges offer those courses? What other alternative routes are available to you? How much time do you spend studying? Lets just say I was very disappointed at their responses. So I told them, their future might pass them by if they do not start actually working towards these dreams. It's okay to have dreams but it's far way better to work towards those dreams. I told them dreams do not materialise by accident, you have to be ready to put in the work. Dreams do not come to pass by magic. It is only a lazy person that sits down and hopes that his dreams would come to pass without him doing the work that is needed. The book of proverbs chapter 6 verse 6 says "Go to the ant, you lazy man! Observe it's ways and become wise" which means if you do not work hard at your dreams, do not expect them to come to pass. I also love what the bible says in Proverbs 24 verse 33 - 34 " A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep; so shall thy poverty come as one that travellers; and thy want as an armed man". This basically means a lazy person would achieve nothing in life but poverty. Well, as the bible says, whatever you sow, you shall surely reap, I love that scripture because it applies to very aspect of our lives. If you do not read for an exam, you simply fail. If you do not take steps in actualising your dreams, it surely would not come to pass. So I leave you with this simple statement tonight, " Quit talking about your dreams, it's time to graduate to actually taking the required steps to fulfilling those dreams".

Knowledge is power

The one lesson I can boldly say that I have learnt as I work in various spheres of life, is the respect people who are experts in any field actually command.

When people want an opinion on any matter, they look for what we call a subject matter expert. For example, if I a pregnant woman needed information during pregnancy on matters concerning her pregnancy, she would seek out a gynaecologist. If you had problems with your car, you would not take it to a gynaecologist, you would take the car to mechanic. If you wanted to become a computer scientist, you would not go to college and enrol for Business and Finance. These examples are the simplest of examples. When you begin to dig deeper, people then begin to separate the wheat from the chaff. What do I mean by separating the wheat from the chaff? I mean people begin to separate mediocrity from excellence. If  a lot of people had their way, they would go to the best school there is to study a particular course or would take their car to the best garage there is to make sure they were getting the best education there is or their car was getting the best service there was.

When you venture into the working world, you get paid for what you know. The amount you get paid should be synonymous to what you are worth. What you are worth is judged by what you know.

Truth about life is you can never really excel beyond your level of knowledge. The application of the knowledge you know births wisdom. This wisdom that you have is what helps you to be a problem solver. 

When people begin to see that you have knowledge and wisdom, they would begin to sought after you thereby giving birth to power. All my life I have loved the scripture study to show thyself approved, I'll stop at the first line of that scripture. The same way victory as Christians would elude us if we do not study God's word is the same way when it comes to our chosen career paths in life, we would be without success if we do not begin to study to show ourselves approved in our chosen 

fields. The anchor scripture in life that God gave me as a young Christian was wisdom is the principal thing, therefore get wisdom and with all thy getting, get understanding. Honestly, this scripture did not make sense until I ventured into the corporate world and I began to be sought after because I always seem to have the answers because I applied myself to knowledge, to studying to show myself approved.

I recently read a book by Dale Carnegie titled the quick and easy way to effective speaking and one of the important keys he stated as being able to be a confident public speaker is having knowledge about the topic you want to speak about. You cannot confidently and effectively speak about a topic you know nothing about. This to me meant knowledge gives you power.

In life, you can not excel limitlessly if you are lazy about getting knowledge and wisdom, it applies both to spiritual things and natural things. So decide what side of the fence you want to be on. The sad thing I just realised is that those of us who are lazy in getting spiritual knowledge are also lazy acquiring physical knowledge.

Nobody pays for mediocrity, decide to live a limitless, excellent life today.

The LGP team.

You BE what you believe

All day today I could not shake of this statement. You BE what you believe. As I kep thinking about it, a lot of things kept playing through my head and I began to see that my life is actually a product of everything I have ever believed, both the negatives and the positives, uhm.....I am what I believed.

This statement actually made my soon to be two year old twin boys seem very fascinating to me this evening. As I watched them play, I saw two fearless, bold and confident toddlers that believed they could climb anything no matter how high or low and by the way that includes human beings. They will climb all over you to get to what or where they wanted to go without fear. The question, then occurred to me, when do kids loose the everything is possible attitude? As I watched them, I saw two people who did not think anything was impossible or out of their reach. It suddenly dawned on me that just as God said that unless we become as these little children, we shall not enter His kingdom, truth is that applies to His kingdom here on earth as well, if you want to enter into your promised land and be fruitful in life, you have to be like children, fearless and believing that all things are possible.

Funny enough, we all started out that way but somewhere along the line, LIFE happened and we began to allow circumstances dictate what we can achieve and for those who go about life fearlessly, we call them RISK TAKERS. Truth is fearlessness was what God had in mind when He said in Genesis that He had given us dominion. So people who fearlessly reach for their goals are not risk takers but are acting out the innate nature of having dominion.

As I pondered further, it struck me that it is easier to believe in negativity than in positivity. What negativity does is make you lazy. The fact that you believe it would not work out is enough to get your mind into the state of not wanting to bother trying and once your mind is in that state, your body begins to act that state out. Positivity on the other hand means you have to work hard and persevere but your mind has to believe that what you are reaching for is possible so your body would begin to act out your state of mind, suddenly the scripture Romans 12:2 springs to mind, we need to renew our minds to be able to reach for our goals.

I looked up the word BE in the dictionary. The word BE means to exist, occur, happen, materialise, arise, come about. They all point to the same thing, which is what we are.

Like I said, positivity is hard work but it is very possible. Have you ever wondered why anything you sincerely believe you can achieve eventually happens and anything you believe is out of reach always remains out of your reach. Truth is, if you really search yourself, you tend to apply yourself to things you believe you can achieve.

So I leave you with one challenge today, what is that one thing that you really want to achieve but somehow you have convinced yourself it is impossible, write that one thing down and begin to work on your mind first and come up with a plan on how to achieve that thing and trust God who says that with Him nothing is impossible to those who believe.

Come back and share your testimonials when you see results.

The LGP team.