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Food for Living: Be Prepared
By Henry Ukazu
Greetings Dear Friends,
Growing up as kids we all had desires, dreams, and visions of the kind of profession we wished to be identified with or engaged in. We all had that fantasy personality we wished to be. Fast forward to two or more decades later, we realise that while we have been able to achieve some, some are still in process and a lot more may have eluded us.
However, regardless of where you are, just know that it is never too late to live your dream. According to George Elliot, It’s never too late to be what you might have been”. Even if you have been able to achieve your childhood dream of being a lawyer, doctor, engineer, etc., C.S Lewis opined “You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” The difference between remaining first and being the first is that the former engage in a productive activity in order to remain on top while the latter just attained the position. The underlying factor responsible for our success and failure is summed up in preparation.
What is preparation? Preparation is simply the act of preparing — getting ready, planning, training, or studying with a goal in mind. According to Alexander Graham Bell “Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.
We all have desires in life, but some of us are not doing much to achieve those desires. For example, you may have desires of being the president of your country, governor, chief executive officer of a company, etc., but you need to ask yourself if you are doing enough to get to the position/title
There’s no limit to what preparation can do; take for instance, you want to prepare a delicious meal, and you will definitely need to have all the ingredients ready in addition to adding them in the right proportion. That’s simply the way success in life works. It can never be in the reverse position. You may be hoping and trusting God for a car, job, wife/husband, or a particular opportunity of interest, but you are not doing enough to receive the blessings/opportunity. It’s instructive to note that opportunity meets prepared minds. So, if you are hoping to get a car from an angel, you must learn to drive, get a license and then work towards getting the car.
We shall be discussing how we can prepare in addition to sharing instructive notes relevant to preparation.
One of the most important parts of success is preparation. You must plan for success, otherwise, you’ll fail. Isn’t it true that failing to prepare is preparing to fail? There’s nothing like luck. According to Bobby Unser, “Luck is where preparation meets opportunity” If you are not prepared for any job, even if you get it, you’ll fail. You must be positively intentional about anything you plan to do. Success is like faith in action. You must put in the work and allow it to work for you. Even the Holy book made us understand that faith without work is dead.
If you are an in business, a strong skill to have in order to succeed is being proactive. Let’s say you are a public speaker and you are called for an impromptu event, your ability to succeed at the event will more or likely be as a result of previous speaking events or even practicing by listening to accomplished speakers. Furthermore, if you a public servant or a good consultant, for you to succeed in your profession, you must prepare for whatever situations you encounter from your clients. This is because a question might be thrown at you at any point in time and your ability to answer them will add more caps to your glory. You can be prepared by reading vast, researching to know what’s trending in the industry, or listening to the news.
Getting Prepared:
There’s a thin line of difference between preparing and be ready. When you are preparing, it basically means you are preparing for an opportunity, but when you are ready, it means you have finished preparing and now good to deliver. For instance, if you need a promotion or raise in your job, it’s imperatively important for you to prepare yourself by getting more knowledge which can come in form of academic qualification, certifications or more training like the acquisition of related skills needed for the job. When you finish preparing yourself, you can be termed ready for the position.
Another way of getting prepared is by surrounding yourself with people/experts who are knowledgeable about the area you are interested in. The more specific you are about your intentions, the more chance you’ll get to succeed. With so many free resources available, there is no excuse not to learn something about any subject matter. I’ve seen people with barely entry-level skills outshine the supposed experts simply because of how prepared they were.
Success entails preparation
Trust me, you have a duty to come prepared for anything that matters to you. I will share a personal secret to you; most of the success I have attained in recent times are consequences of preparation. I always prepare myself with the right message, network, resources, opportunity, and information before I explore any opportunity of interest. All these preparation add up in one way or the another to achieve a common goal. I have no choice but to do the hard work of preparing for the expected and the unexpected. I’m far from perfect, but by preparing again and again for each new situation, I get better and can deliver better results. Yes, it takes late nights and long hours, but if you aren’t willing to do the hard work of preparing, then you shouldn’t take on the task in the first place. If, however, you have taken on a project, you have an obligation to yourself and to the client to be willing to dive in and prepare so that you can really deliver.
Benefits of preparation
I cannot underestimate the benefits that come with preparation. It is truly priceless. I belong to the school of thought which believes that hard work is prayer in action. This is because you can attain success when you put in the desired work. While some people are academically and scientifically gifted, others are naturally talented and skillful, while some succeed by learning how to do the job.
Being Prepared Enhances Self Discipline
Nothing disciplines the human race more than preparing for a lifetime opportunity. Imagine having an opportunity to meet your dream investor to pitch your idea, or being asked by the president of your country to meet him/her in a week’s time to discuss your business proposal. I will imagine you’ll take all the time the world to prepare for this meeting and this preparation entails disciplining yourself.
Being Prepared Enhances Our Strategic Thinking
Preparation also enables you to think out of the box. Preparation will make you to reason. Preparation will make you to explore options and opportunities. A strategic thinker is very proactive because they prepare for the next move when the desirable is not available. The more complex the task, the higher the degree of strategic thinking is required. Strategic thinking is a skill that is born through practice and experience. On a daily basis, our brain process so much information without you knowing. We may not always recognise our thoughts as being strategic but each act of preparation is working with our brain.
Being Prepared Develops Our Resilience
Resilience is the ability to become strong, healthy, or successful again after something bad has happened. It is in preparation that we develop our mental resilience and it is through failure that we develop a life of resilience. We all know that not every plan leads to success and it is through failure that we reach success. Having resilience allows us to stand up ten times after we’ve been knocked down ten times and to continue on our course by making adjustments and realignments.
Leadership:
All great leaders are readers. You cannot be an effective leader if you are not prepared for the task. According to John Quincy Adams, “if your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” As mentioned earlier, any height you want to reach in life, you must prepare for it, otherwise, you stand a great chance of failing when you get the opportunity even if you have great advisers because in one way or another your intuitive and rational skills must be tested at different moments. A great way of succeeding in this area is by applying the SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely goals for all you want to do.
Yes, you are prepared, I know you will say, but how prepared are you?
Henry Ukazu writes from New York. He works with the New York City Department of Correction as the Legal Coordinator. He’s the author of the acclaimed book Design Your Destiny – Actualizing Your Birthright To Success. He can be reached via henrous@gmail.com
By Henry Ukazu
Dear Destiny Friends,
The importance of timing cannot be overemphasized. Timing is everything in life. It is critical to one’s success. You can lose your money and get it back in many folds. You can even lose your health and get it back all things being equal, but when you lose time, you can hardly get it back again.
The importance of timing can be seen in crops. Every crop has a season, a good farmer won’t plant maize when it’s time for oranges, nor will he plant pears when it’s the season for mangoes.
Time is very instrumental to the success and failure of anyone. Imagine having a meeting or interview at 9:00am and you arrive at 10:10am, it will take the grace of God to be interviewed. As an employee, apart from one not being able to diligently do his job, one of the fastest ways for an employee to lose his job is by being late to work.
When I was in New York Law School studying Taxation law, I did a course titled, the Problem of Timing. During the semester, I learnt about cash and accrued income. Let me do some academic exercise here. In cash income, just like the name entails, one is paid in cash as soon as the work is completed. It’s just like going to the market to make a purchase. One can either pay directly with cash or with debit or credit card. But Accrued income refers to revenue a company has earned by providing goods or services, but for which payment has not yet been received, one will have to do the work first before getting paid. This is applicable when one works in either a public or private organization where one is paid either weekly, bi-weekly or at the end of the month depending on the stipulated mode of payment.
It’s important to note that before the money is paid either in cash or accrued, one would have earned it. It’s just like one learning g before earning, and one will have to update to upgrade. These are just the practical principles that will work with life.
In the same way, in life there’s a seed time and harvest time. It’s a universal principle of life. Whether as a parent, entrepreneur, student or employee. As a parent, if you don’t train your kids very well, they will grow up to reflect the opposite of what you desire. As an entrepreneur when you invest in your business, you will get the reward in due time. As a student, if you take your studies seriously, your grades will improve, and as an employee, you stand to get promotions and opportunities when you add value to your work. In summary, one will have to put in the work before recognition comes on.
To understand how seedtime and harvest work, imagine where parents tend to like one child more than others just because they see potential in him, or he’s smart, hardworking or even creative. They fail to understand that every child is different and as such their timing can be different. Some kinds take time to develop.
I personally believe there’s something so unique about each individual which God has deposited in everyone of us. It’s just a matter of time for it to manifest. Your timing of manifestation is different from your siblings and colleagues.
Personally, I didn’t mature fast with my contemporaries. Overtime, I have seen much improvement in my personal and professional life. Maybe because I have added value to my work with the assistance of mentors and good friends, or God had to humble my colleagues and mentors . Why do I say this? During my formative years, I had little or nothing to show for it. I was looking at my contemporaries as mentor and seeing my mentors as small gods whose feat is unattainable, but now, the reverse seems to be case as I have developed capacity some of my colleagues are yet to attain, while I have even surpassed the achievement of my some of my mentors in some quarters.
In all these, they are all surprised how it happened. Some are yet to comprehend or articulate the feat. It’s just like watching a film where everyone slept and woke up to see the game and tides have changed. The secret behind it is the seed time and harvest time. I was probably learning the trade while in the wilderness, and when the training season matured and ripe enough to be harvested, I became attractive to almost everyone who loved the seed I was producing.
There are litany of examples of people, who have been in the wilderness during the seed planting season. Let’s take a case study of Joseph in the Bible, his journey to stardom took a little twist. Despite the travails he experienced in the hands of his siblings who sold him, his experience while in the jail, and with Portiphar’s wife, who tried to seduce him; they were all set ups for success. The moral here is Joseph seed time and harvest time was quite different, it wasn’t a smooth journey. Ordinarily, one would have cursed his siblings or his friends who were with him in prison and forgot him after they were released. But at the end of time, everything worked out for his favor. Joseph’s seed days were his dark days while in the wilderness.
Another inspiring story of note was that of Pastor Ibukun Awosika, the former board Chairman of First Bank of Nigeria. She once shared a pathetic story during her formative years of being in business. According to her, she sojourned for about 15 years. She cried because lines were not adding up for her and she wouldn’t do what her contemporaries were doing to get opportunities. At a point in her business, it appeared like she was in a race of own life because everything seemed to be against her, but at the appropriate time, lines began to fall in place for her. Appointments, business opportunities, favours and goodwill began to fall in place for her. Again, she had a fair share of seed time.
An interesting question I would like to ask you is, what’s your seed time? Have you ever been in the wilderness when you appeared to be fixed? It’s unfortunate many people are not willing to pass through the storms or experience seeds and harvest time. Amidst all these, one must do some work before they get opportunities. However, before such opportunities will come up, one will have to plant the seed.
In conclusion, seed time and harvest time is critical in the journey of life. Take a seat and determine what seed you would like to sow and what you’ll like to harvest.
Henry Ukazu writes from New York. He works with the New York City Department of Correction as the Legal Coordinator. He’s the founder of Gloemi. He’s a Transformative Human Capacity and Mindset coach. He is also a public speaker, youth advocate, creative writer and author of Design Your Destiny Design Your and Unleash Your Destiny . He can be reached via info@gloemi.com
By Eric Elezuo
The Senate has suspended Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghen for six months over her sexual harassment accusation and other disputes against the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio.
The Senate also withdrew her salaries for the period of the suspension, as well as her security details.
The chamber however, soft-pedaled on the salaries and allowances of her aides, who it was argued would not have any source of livelihood within the period.
Globacom is welcoming new customers on its network with the introduction of the e-SIM. The e-SIM activated in any Gloworld shop or Dealer outlet comes with an introductory free 5GB data when the customer buys a data plan of N1,500 or more.
Customers already on other networks can now join the Glo network with e-SIM as an additional SIM. Existing Glo customers can also enjoy this “SIM-less” freedom.
With the e-SIM, customers no longer have to worry about space for a physical SIM on their phones. The e-SIM is a software-based digital chip built directly into smartphones or wearable devices, thus eliminating the need for a physical SIM card for customers.
The use of e-SIM enables customers to have seamless switching between phone numbers without a physical SIM. It is ideal for upwardly mobile people who travel frequently. The e-SIM also guarantees security, as unlike physical SIM, it is harder to remove from devices. It is also eco-friendly and reduces plastic waste.
Globacom’s launch of the e-SIM enables enables it to cater to high-net-worth individuals and enterprise customers, and it also reinforces the company’s commitment to providing seamless and future-ready services to its customers.
A customer seeking to activate the Glo e-SIM needs to check the compatibility of the mobile handset by dialling *#06# on his or her phone. If an EID number reflects on the mobile screen, the device is e-SIM compatible.
“The customer can then proceed to the nearest Gloworld shop or Glo Dealer outlet to migrate to e-SIM. The process takes only a few minutes and the customer can thereafter begin to enjoy the use of an e-SIM”, the Marketing Department disclosed.
