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Food for Living: Stand Out
By Henry Ukazu
Dear Destiny Friends,
It’s a fact of life that everyone desires to be the best in whatever they do. Nobody wants to take the second position. Also, everyone loves the best person in any field whether it relates to health, law, artisanship, or pastoral calling. Let’s take for example; if you are sick, won’t you go to the best doctor that has the capacity to cure you? Will you say because he’s black, white, has an accent, or doesn’t look like you, for that reason, he/she won’t treat you? I guess your answer is as good as mine if you truly want to live. The reason you will require the best doctor is that you know he/she has been pronounced the best in that field. What does that tell you? It simply means he or she is unique. If you’ll agree with me, the beauty of life is originality. Or if you have a legal case that can land you in prison, won’t you go for the best lawyer if you can afford him/her? The same principle is applicable if you are interested in a skilled worker, you will go for the best without sentiment.
If you truly want to make an impact in life, you must stand out from the crowd. Standing out from the crowd is not easy, especially when you have many people struggling for your attention. But the truth is that, if you truly want to see your dreams come true, you must dare to succeed by thinking like a rational entrepreneur. According to Oscar Wilde, “Be yourself everyone is taken”.
When you decide to stand out, you’ll have many voices telling you no, hold on, you can’t make it, what are you thinking, etc. But if you really know yourself, you wouldn’t care much about what other people say because their voices and opinion don’t define you. Yes, you will hear them, but at the end of the day, you’ll be rational in making the final decision when you compare their advice and you know and feel inside of you. Trust me, if the whole world is telling you, you can something, and you know you can’t do it, you’ll fail, but if the whole world is telling you, you can’t do it and you know you can do it, you’ll succeed because he that is in you is greater than he that is in the world.
The blessings of standing out are priceless. What most people don’t know is that you can stand out without making noise, and you can command respect as opposed to seeking attention when you create a niche for yourself. When you decide to stand out, you’ll make news, not noise; you’ll attract respect as opposed to attention; you’ll appreciate love as opposed to romance; you’ll be strategic as opposed to being erratic; you’ll persuade people to believe in your ideology as opposed to arguing with them; you’ll not dominate people, rather you’ll empower them with self-confidence; you won’t follow the bandwagon because they may not be right, and most especially, you’ll seek loyalty, not royalty.
In order to stand out, you must be courageous because people may not believe you, they might even call you names or laugh at you, that’s okay. Just know that according to Mokokoma Mokhonoana, “plants are more courageous than almost all human being, an orange tree would rather die than produce lemons, whereas instead of dying the average person would rather be someone they are not.” Most people are lazy to fight for the cause they believe in.
Global achievers who have distinguished themselves stood out for what they believe. They were once victims of greater circumstances, but they never gave up. They stood their ground for their convictions. A typical example of such a great leader is the former President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela fought against the apartheid laws in South Africa and he was even imprisoned for twenty-seven years. One major reason why he won the election was that the electorates believed in the cause he was fighting for.
Standing out makes your life easier, it helps original people to identify with you, but when you try to fake your personality, your true helpers will have a hard time locating you. When you stand out, your true color shines. According to Israelmore Ayivor, “If you want to miss your crown, follow the crowd. If you want to wear the crown, go alone and be yourself.”
It should be noted if you don’t stand for something, you will die for nothing. Can you imagine, if you are to leave the world today, what will you be remembered for? In this contemporary age of technology, it is very easy to decipher what a person stands for by just using a simple google search. You can also use social media to find out someone’s interest.
When you stand out, you’ll be regarded as a specialist in your field. When you stand out, you’ll endeavor to be consistent in your thoughts, words, actions. But you when you decide to play to the gallery, it won’t take time for your true colour to manifest when the vicissitudes of life hit you.
If you are passionate about a cause, you can use social media to build a platform, you can have a website, you will find it easy to collaborate and build a partnership with like minds, you’ll be authentic in your message and what you represent. This is because no one thinks exactly like you. Do you know if you decide to dance on social media, teach, entertain people, or even preach on social media, you’ll attract the right audience provided you are international and deliberate? This is one reason some people attract attention on social media; they are living their best authentic lives.
Today, I ask you, what are you willing to stand out for?
Henry Ukazu writes from New York. He’s a mindset coach and public speaker. 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 and President of gloemi.com. He can be reached via info@gloemi.com
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has resumed the upload of results from the Osun State governorship election to its Result Viewing Portal (IReV), with more than 92.53 per cent of polling unit results now available on the platform.
Tribune Online reports that 3,482 results had been uploaded out of the 3,763 polling units across the state, representing 92.53 per cent of the total results expected on the portal.
Concerns were earlier raised after result uploads on the IReV portal appeared to stall for about three hours.
The delay triggered reactions from several social media users, including Afrobeats star David Adeleke, popularly known as Davido, who questioned the halt in the upload process.
In a post on X, he wrote, “INEC IREV uploads have been stuck for almost 2 hours now. 3292 out of 3763 results submitted and then silence. This is not acceptable Why has the uploading stopped?@inecnigeria
Another X user, @mundus01 tweeted, “Osun IReV uploads have been stalled for over 2 hours. The last result was published at 8:48:08 p.m. The portal is online, but no new results are appearing. @inecnigeria, what is happening? This doesn’t look good.”
By Henry Ukazu
Dear Destiny Friends,
Last week, we laid the foundation of loving what you do. We discussed loving the topic as it relates to family, career, health, relationship, personal development, purpose and spirituality. Today, we shall be focusing on how loving what you do can be a game changer.
It’s instructive to note that in the dictionary of life; when you love what you do and what you do loves you, you are destined for not only success, but also greatness. One may be wondering how this works. Trust me, it is difficult to succeed in a major, or profession one doesn’t like.
The journey of life can be challenging, stressful and unpredictable. When one is trying to set up a business, there’s bound to be setbacks maybe due to a new policy or meeting up with the requirement, there could challenges of funds; in academics, if one choose a major one likes, despite the associating challenges that may arise, one will still manage to pull through because he that is in him is greater and stronger than he that is in the world.
Also, in relationships and marriage, if one values friendship, they won’t allow their ego to have influence over them. Rather, they will invest time and resources in the relationship. That’s why it’s always good to place values above physical features in a human body when it comes to settling down for marriage because at the end of the day, the human body features can fade away, but values and friendship will not fade away, rather, it will serve as the binding factor that keeps the relationship.
One’s career is not an exception; one can tell who likes their job and one who doesn’t like their job. In workplaces, if one is happy at work, they tend to put in extra hours to get the job done. But when they are not happy with the job, they’ll do the bare minimum just to get through.
Let’s spend a minute to understand how loving what one does can be a game changer in one’s life. Just imagine, one is inspired to write a book, there will be challenges, however, it is the inspiration and determination of the person that will determine if they will finish strong. But if they are inspired by the wrong source, they might finish weak. Here is the gist, it is your desire to succeed that will outweigh your fear of failure.
Again, imagine a scenario where one is starting a business but has no resources and structure behind him. The fact is that if the person loves what he’s doing, it will be hard for the person to give up because their force is internal. I can vividly remember when I was working on my first, second and third book, I had many reasons to quit, but I refused because I love the work I was producing.
Furthermore, when you love what you do, you’ll endeavor to learn something new in addition to spending quality time to improve the work. I say this because rational minds don’t invest time and resources in what they don’t like. There’s a saying, if you want to know a man, give money, women and power. One of them would like to subdue him, but if he’s able to overcome them, he is a man.
This principle of loving what you do cuts across all facets of life whether we are taking care of families, academics, religion purpose, health, career, finance and even spiritual life. For families a man/woman who is intentional in building their family, must love their family and loving their family intends sacrificing for the family.
For health, if one loves their health, they won’t take harmful substances, just because they love their health; they will be intentional in exercising, and in doing so, they must love exercising. For finance, an intentional person must spend time learning about stock, budgeting and investment. These are avenues to show that they have interest in growing their income. Even in spiritual life, when one shows interest in loving God in truth and spirit, God has a way of coming through for them because they have been tested and trusted. This is simply how life works. Even in relationships if one loves their partner, there’s a high probability they would like to invest time and resources into that relationship.
In summary, endeavor to love what you do because there’s a certain level of spiritual strength, blessings and corresponding opportunities that’s associated with success, when one loves what they do. This is basically how life works.
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- Actualizing Your Birthright to Success, Unleash Your Destiny and The Six Pillars of Success . He can be reached via info@gloemi.com
The Osun State Government has approached the High Court of Osun State seeking an order compelling security agencies to investigate Senator Francis Adenigba Fadahunsi over his alleged threats against members and supporters of the Accord Party ahead of Saturday’s governorship election.
The suit, marked HOS/M.157/26, was filed on August 12, 2026, at the Osogbo Judicial Division, three days before the August 15 election.
The Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Oluwole Jimi-Bada (SAN), filed the application seeking an Order of Mandamus against the Inspector-General of Police and the Commissioner of Police, Osun State Command. Fadahunsi, who represents Osun East Senatorial District, was listed as the person affected or interested party.
The government said its action followed a video circulating on social media in which Fadahunsi was allegedly captured addressing a political gathering in front of the Owa Obokun’s Palace in Ilesha on August 11.
According to the court documents, the senator allegedly made statements interpreted as calls for violence against members of the Accord Party.
The government said a transcript and translation of the speech showed Fadahunsi allegedly directing supporters to attack Accord members wherever they encountered them and making threats against their families.
The court filings also alleged that the senator instructed his supporters to chase Accord members out of hotels where they were found and made derogatory comments about the party’s yellow caps.
The government further alleged that Fadahunsi threatened that the election would not hold if Accord members resisted the actions of APC supporters.
The Attorney-General is asking the court to compel the police to investigate the video and determine whether the alleged statements constitute criminal offences under applicable laws.
The government is also seeking an order directing the police to preserve, authenticate and conduct a forensic examination of the complete video to establish whether it has been altered or edited.
Other reliefs sought include compelling the police to take preventive measures to protect Accord candidates, members and voters from intimidation or harassment before, during and after the election.
The government also wants the police to ensure that registered voters and Accord supporters are not prevented from accessing hotels or other locations during the electoral period.
It further asked the court to order the respondents to submit a report on compliance with the court’s directives within 48 hours of the orders being granted.
In the supporting affidavit, Nurudeen Kareem, Special Adviser to Governor Ademola Adeleke on Legal Matters, said Accord members had expressed “reasonable and legitimate concerns regarding their safety and security before, during, and after the forthcoming election.”
The government argued that the police have a statutory responsibility under the Police Act 2020 and the 1999 Constitution to prevent crime and maintain public order.
It maintained that waiting until violence occurs before investigating an alleged public threat would undermine the preventive role of law enforcement.
“The Applicant believes that waiting until actual violence, deaths, or injuries occur before investigating an alleged public instruction to kill political opponents would amount to a dereliction of duty,” the government said.
The Attorney-General also clarified that the suit was not asking the court to determine Fadahunsi’s criminal guilt, stressing that such a determination would require a proper criminal trial.
Rather, the government said it was seeking to compel the police to carry out their statutory responsibilities and take appropriate preventive action.
With the election scheduled for Saturday, the government said “time is of the absolute essence”, warning that failure to act on the alleged threats could expose residents to “irreparable harm, loss of life, and widespread civil unrest.”
