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Food for Living: Patience As a Bedrock to Success
By Henry Ukazu
Dear Destiny Friends,
“The day you plant the seed is not the day you eat the fruit” – Fabienne Fredrickson
One of the least discussed ingredients of success is patience. Patience can mean positive and negative things to different people depending on how they interpret the associated signs that come with it. While patience can be a blessing when applied to understand lessons and someone, an uninformed mind can see patience as an illusion or loss of hope in disguise.
As widely stated, there is no overnight success, you must pay the price for success. My late dad had always told me that ‘any name you wish to bear, you must work hard for it’, and that entails having patience to see it manifest. Just like a little child must crawl before they can walk and run, that’s exactly how a progressive mind must put in the work which comes with dedication, disappointment, failure, setback and discipline in order to succeed.
To understand how patience works, imagine a farmer who plants crops; the crop will be infested with weeds. The weed will have to be uprooted for the crops to grow, mature and ripe before it can be harvested. An interesting perspective to consider in the life of a farmer is that, if the farmer is not patient enough, he won’t reap the fruit of his labour. In the same manner, if the farmer is not diligent enough to remove the weeds from the crop, he won’t be able to harvest good crops. Again, if the farmer decides to harvest the fruits without waiting for it to mature and ripe, he won’t enjoy the fruit. That’s simply how patience works.
The benefit of patience is priceless. One needs patience to understand the writings on the wall. To know a person, you need patience. To pass an exam, you need patience to read, to build muscle, you need patience to exercise, to train a child you need patience. To build friendship with someone, you need patience to understand the person, and this entails several trials and test determine his personality, and the value the person believes in. It is sad to note that many people have lost great friendship because they were not patient enough walk with the person. An example is a mentee who sees value in a mentor, but he is blinded by scarce and poverty mindset, thinking of monetary value instead of gaining knowledge.
When you learn patience, you learn to think critically. You will need patience and perseverance to graduate from school, college, or the university. You need patience and perseverance to lose weight. You need patience to build relationships. You need perseverance to build trust with customers. You need to patience to make marriage work. You need faith to serve and believe God for a blessing.
Patience gives you the strength to navigate through obstacles and challenges that may come your way as you go through the process. Patience gives you a better perspective which enables us to analyze things and situations beyond their face value. Patience helps to reveal who people are. Little wonder why It is said that no matter how long it takes; the truth will always triumph over lies.
To succeed in life, you must apply the three essential Ps essential in achieving any goal, personal or professional. They are patience, persistence, and perseverance. You can’t force success when you haven’t developed the capacity to attract success. It should be noted, that you will achieve success when you have developed capacity to attract success because everything has it time and season. In the same vein, you can’t force the process to happen when it is not the appointed time.
Here are a few advantages of exercising patience.
Positive Energy
It is instructive to note that changing a habit requires strong motivation. When you like what you are doing, you will need patience to make it work. When you like a person, you will also be patient, and tolerate the person, in addition to sacrificing for them to make the relationship work. It is the the other way round if you don’t like your work or the other person.
Smart decision-making
Patience helps us to make informed
decisions, and proper use of patience makes us to see things clearly. You will avoid rushing into a relationships, signing an agreement, making a promise, or taking any form a of decision when you take time to think through the process.
Hope
Patience brings and gives hope. When we are hopeful, we tend to have a natural resilience and willingness to keep trying because we trust in the possibility of a good outcome. A positive hope makes us understand that delay is not denial.
Positive team culture
Patience brings a good working culture. Patience can help us to manage people, especially when they irritate and try to frustrate us. When you have and exercise patience, you tend to be better at managing people.
Excellence
Building a brand and reputation takes time. We cannot plant a seed and expect it to flower overnight. Success always begins with patience and the commitment to put in due diligence necessary for excellent outcome. Patience develops excellence because it makes you dedicated and attentive to the work at hand. As Thomas Edison said, “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”
In summary, the simple truth is, nobody knows when they will achieve success despite applying all the principles. We all have different biological clocks. But one thing for sure is as long as you keep trying, exercising patience, the universe will favour you at the appointed time.
Henry Ukazu writes from New York. He works with the New York City Department of Correction as the Legal Coordinator. He’s a Human Capacity and Mindset coach. He is also a public speaker, youth advocate and creative writer. He’s the author of the acclaimed book Design Your Destiny – Actualizing Your Birthright to Success. He can be reached info@gloemi.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.
