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Food for Living: Succeeding with Grace and Favour
By Henry Ukazu
Dear Destiny Friends,
Everyone needs a support system as they journey through life. This support system can come from any source; family member, friend, associate, colleague, mentor, mentee, boss, spiritual leader, or even a stranger. Without a strong support system, the journey to life will be an arduous task.
It’s imperative to note that we live in a wicked world where not everyone wants to see you succeed. They fail to understand they are not the creator who destined everyone to succeed at different times and seasons. These set of people have the Pull Him Down (PhD.) mentality, and don’t want to see the success of their perceived enemy.
Success is not limited to any shape, size and colour, it only produces results, and that’s what people care about.
It’s worthy to note that nobody achieves genuine success without favour and grace. Favor is like a perfume, which when sprinkled on someone, the aroma will attract people to them.
Overtime, I have come to the sublime realization that when you shower people with favour and love, it has a way of coming back to you in ways and manners one may not understand. However, some uninformed people think that when they have money, they are blessed and favored.
I agree that money is necessary for success, but there are certain levels of blessings that money cannot buy, and this form of blessings come with favour and grace, especially when one is not qualified to have it. Just to give you an example; there are people money cannot buy, and so, one’s prayer should be they agree to work with you because they are literally priceless.
In life, we all need the blessings of our parents, mentors, boss, and authentic spiritual leaders to speak into our life. This is because no matter how hard you work in life, there’s a limit you can go, especially when you don’t have a favor following you. You can have favor, but favor comes in different ways. For instance, if you are destined to be an Accountant, and you decide to study Law or Business Administration just because you feel they are lucrative courses or you just like the name, you might “succeed” but may not get the true fulfilment.
To understand how this works, at creation, everyone has an assigned angel following them. This angle is designed to help you succeed in your place of assignment.
Did you know there are people who have been positioned to assist you in your place of assignment?
So, imagine if you decide to study Law while your destiny helper is an Accountant, you might be frustrated having a boss, who is an accountant or even a colleague who is making life unbearable for you despite having money. This ordinarily might not happen if you have studied Accounting. In fact you’ll thrive with relative ease in the profession and might be offered more lucrative offers just simply because the universe is working in your favour.
To understand how the grace of success works, when you have it in your journey, you will attract favour from men, you won’t have to work as hard as your counterparts, your product will receive recognition even though it might not be the best. In the journey of life, most of us struggle too much and get little or no result, while some of us work less and get more results. One may be wondering why. Well, the answer is not far-fetched. I call it the spirituality of success because the universe has a way of connecting people when they are working according to its purpose.
Let me share a practical experience: In 2019, I met a great mind, Sulyman Sodeeq A’akeem who reached out to me on X According to him, he has been following me on the app. He requested me to be his mentor, an offer I gladly accepted, especially when he showed me a series of quotes he got from reading my articles.
When we began to relate closely, he shared touching information based on his trajectory in life. We didn’t spend more than six months relating closely, I made him the Chief Operating Officer of my company when I saw enormous and ingenious talent in him. For a lack of better word, he is extremely resourceful. He’s simply awesome! I call him an ideal hand for every progressive mind interested on resourcefulness.
Fast forward to four years, many people have a disdainful attitude towards him and look up to him for succor. The moral of this post is that not only did I bless him, but I also became the greatest recipient of his knowledge, wisdom, loyalty, profound articulation and understanding and most especially, honesty and steadfastness. The interesting part of our friendship and brotherhood is the grace that has found both of us. It’s instructive to note that, I’m not the richest nor the best to work with, neither is he the best of the most resourceful, but we tend to have bonded and mutually benefited from each other because we greatly share similar interests and values. I call it grace and favour.
When you have the grace of success following you, you will attract favour like a magnet. Whether you are in business, academic, pastoral ministry, or marriage, you will receive mercy wherever you step.
You might be the least in a company, you may not even look or have all the qualifications or experience, but when favour locates you, the rules will not only be broken for you, you will see people agreeing to work together just to make sure you succeed.
Did you know that when favour is at work, people will buy your books and share it among their friends and network as an author; your business will be referred to people of interest, people will unusually trust and like you. When people google your kind of business, despite seeing other people doing what you are doing, they will be attracted to settle for you for reasons they can’t understand or explain. When you have favour and grace following you, it will be easier for your talent to be unleashed.
While most people work hard, strategic, and smart people understand the role luck has to play in order to actualize their vision.
According to a renowned Economist and philanthropist, Tony Elumelu, luck played a big role in making him who he is today. While he acknowledged the role of hard work, he knows truly well, there’s a limitation to hard work because luck can trump hard work.
Did you know that if you can do everything in life without anyone assisting you, you are not favored. You should be able to get to a stage in life where people will naturally assist you in doing somethings for free. For example, if you are a success, you don’t need to pay for all the services you get.
In conclusion, as your journey through life, be intentional in seeking favour because it will save you numerous stress.
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 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.
