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Harnessing Your Hero: Explore and Stick to Your Purpose
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By Tolulope A. Adegoke
“At the centre of your being
you have the answer;
you know who you are
and you know what you want.”
― Lao Tzu
Harnessing the hero within is often galvanised and simplified by the practice of self-exploration, or productive introspection. This is the road that all winners in life must pass through. The biblical prodigal son, for instance, came back to his senses and recovered all he had lost, not primarily by determination, but by self- exploration.
How far a man conquers the world is a function of how well he conquers himself. Proverbs 16:32 says, “He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.” Hence, the greatest, most prestigious and most rewarding journey any man would ever embark on is the journey of self-exploration, leading to self-discovery.
A man will ever remain primitive and ignorant, no matter how well he has travelled round the world, if he neglects to travel through himself. Empowerment for change or development does not come from travelling round the world; it comes from travelling through oneself.
Here is a practical and glaring example. The governments of many African countries frequently talk about attracting Africans in diaspora to come back home to make their countries better. I consider this unnecessary. Africans who will develop their countries are not necessarily those who have travelled round the world; they are simply those who have “travelled around” their minds.
Consider the case of the prodigal son again. Despite his travelling to a far country and mingling with the citizens of a foreign land, he never acquired the necessary wisdom or insight to have a successful life; but as soon as he embarked on the journey of self-exploration, he got connected to a programme of restoration.
Self-exploration enables an individual, group or nation to outgrow childish dependence on others. Rather, it helps in acknowledging, celebrating, developing and maximising innate or indigenous potentials for the benefit of others. Self-explorers do not just sit down and wait for others to make things work for them; instead, they get up and work out things by accepting the responsibility for making meaningful contributions to the world around them.
Wired for Exploits
Self-explorers are wired to meet needs. They do not waste time to first think of who to call on to help meet their needs or the needs around them; rather, they look inwards because they believe in what the Creator, God Almighty, has embedded in them. This they consciously and continuously work upon to become better and more useful to the society at large and not only to themselves!
It is neither accidental nor coincidental that life’s significant activities are usually done or carried out in seclusion. For example, real banking transactions are carried out in the “strong room”. Moreover, an organisation’s behaviour is cultivated, strengthened and accounted for in a secluded company boardroom. Also, surgical operations are usually carried out in a secluded place, known as the theatre. This reveals to us the power of self-exploration.
Often, self-exploration that leads to self-realisation requires a secluded or serene atmosphere that guarantees solitude and, perhaps, silence. Sometimes, silence tells us the truth more than words! A man who does not engage in silence is bound to perform below his potentials! In the case of the prodigal son, it wasn’t until he became alone with pigs, such that he had nobody to come to his aid, that he came to himself. The prodigal son being alone means that he disconnected himself from his previous distracting activities – he disconnected from clubbing, as well as hanging out with sluts and macho guys. He indeed disconnected himself from distractions so as to pay attention to the call of destiny!
Albert Einstein, one of the greatest scientists that ever lived, attested to the power of solitude, when he revealed:
“I am truly a ‘lone-traveller’ and never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family with my whole heart. In face of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for solitude, feeling that increase with the year.”
What the above simply means is that productive silence or solitude goes beyond locking yourself in a room and avoiding all manner of human and mechanical noise. It actually involves disengaging your mind from all manner of desires, lusts, pursuits, and associations that are not beneficial to the discovery, development and deployment of your God-given potentials. Isaiah 30:15 says, “…in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength”
The Michael Jordan Example
Michael Jordan is globally recognised as one of the greatest names in the history of basketball. Indeed, the game of basketball would perhaps not have garnered as much attention and excitement without the legendary exploits of Michael Jordan. What many may not know however is that there are reasons beyond the visible that made Michael Jordan such a timeless star. His winning edge was his mastery of the ageless art of solitude. He once wrote this powerful piece online:
“When I am out there, no one can bother me. Being out there is one of the most private parts of my life…during the game; for a few times in my life, I feel untouchable…I mean that about a game being like meditation period for me. Anytime I am playing serious basketball, it’s like meditation.
Sometimes even in the middle of the game, I am able to think about things as loud as it is; it’s almost a quiet time for me. I know that basketball game can be very exciting, but for me the game is one of the calmest parts of my life.”
Jordan’s success secret can thus be said to be his ability to be united – spirit, soul and body – with the game of basketball, without allowing external or distracting forces to affect him. By this, he was able to initiate, maximise and sustain coherence with the unusual basketball energy he is endowed with.
Curiously, the art of silence has been neglected by the vast majority of mankind; yet it is as important as prayer. This is why those who are given to prayer without being given to silence make little or no contribution to human existence. Conversely, those who combine prayer with quality moments of solitude enjoy the grace to soar and contribute meaningfully to the advancement of humanity!
Bishop Oyedepo, in the book, “Maximising Your Destiny” reveals:
“Quietness enhances the quality of thinking. Quietness enhances productive reasoning. I cherish quietness and I will do anything to have it…that is why although we have many rooms in our house, I sometimes have to put certain guests in the hotel, to avoid the noise they will make in my home. Quietness is precious to me. It has great spiritual value…”
One of my enviable role models, Samson Adah Paul, wrote this mind-blowing piece that brings the creation story much more alive: “When God Almighty saw the need to create woman for man, he did not inspire man to employ the ‘art of prayer’, he simply inspired man to connect to the art of silence…” This is confirmed in Genesis 2:21-22, “And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.”
Believe it, friend – silence informs! Since it is the seedbed of ideas, it can rightly be described as the powerhouse of societal progress and development. Consequently, any quest for progress and development that is pursued without the art of silence will ever be in vain. According to Samson Adah Paul, “Africans that will experience the fulfilment of the ‘African Dream’ will have to be masters of the art of silence. Mind you, silence in this context is not about being mute and dumb; it’s rather about being immune to distracting external forces, in order for one to initiate and maximise communication with the inherent resources endowed in man by God.”
Edison’s Example
Some aspects of Thomas Edison’s life have been a great lesson to me after taking time to study about him. I discovered too that his greatest strength was his mastery of the art of silence. He recorded a number of achievements, discoveries and exploits – but they were mainly as a result of his paying attention to necessary matters, while avoiding those he considered unnecessary. He had a physical challenge from birth – total deafness in one ear and partial deafness in the other. However, rather than seeking to find a way to remedy this defect, he rather chose to bear the burden, because – according to him – it was an advantage. He wrote this interesting piece:
“Even though I am nearly deaf, I seem to be gifted with a kind of inner hearing which enables me to detect sounds and noises that the ordinary person does not hear.”
Edison did not consider hearing disability as pain but as gain. And this helped to strengthen his concentration level – leading to amazing inventions that blessed humanity, rather than becoming a good excuse for him to fail in life.
You Need a Break
Harnessing your potentials doesn’t mean that you have to burn yourself out. You are still human, after all, and must therefore devise means of conserving and replenishing your physical strength.
There is nothing to be ashamed of about this. We all get tired sometimes. This is why we must be able to manage our energy and not only our time. We must be able to know when our energy gauge is getting low, and then back off; otherwise, we might make some bad decisions.
Our Lord Jesus Christ provides a good example for us on this. He retreated occasionally, when the multitudes pressed upon Him. There were times He pulled away, and either went to the mountain (a serene and holy place) to pray or got some other place to rest. Moreover, the Scripture reveals that God, our Heavenly Father, rested on the seventh day after creation.
When you are tired, withdraw from people. Look for a serene environment and lodge there zzfor a while to regenerate and rest. Go on short vacations with your loved ones and enjoy a change of atmosphere.
Dr. Robert Schuller wrote: “When I am tired, I often do not see people. I owe a great deal to my dear wife. She knows me very well, and she arranged my calendar very clearly and carefully. She knows when my energies are taxed, and she blocks off time for renewal. Each year she plans mini-vacations for me immediately after busy times of the year. That way I never get burned out.”
I often adopt the withdrawal method too. I go to a cool and serene environment to reload my energy by having good quality rest. This way, I am refreshed and inspired towards greater exploits.
(…The End…)
Watch out for the Book titled: “The Power of an Empowered Zero” (Awakening the Giant Within You) by Tolulope A. Adegoke. Foreword by Dr Yomi Garnett (CEO/Chancellor, Royal Biographical Institute, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania U.S.A., U.K., Abuja, Nigeria.) Edited by Ola Aboderin.
Tolulope A. Adegoke is an acclaimed “globalpreneur”, with the mandate to enrich lives and provide the professional, spiritual, academic and leadership empowerment needed to birth, maximize and sustain possibilities in peoples, corporates and nations. He is a prolific writer, frequent keynote speaker and spoken word poet, among others, having written countless articles in diverse reputable fields and honoured many public invitations.
He is also a Senior Administrator.
Tolulope Adegoke can be booked for public events via the contacts below:
E-mail: adegoketolulope1022@gmail.com
Ahead of the 2027 general elections, the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) has accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of removing some of its nominated candidates from the commission’s list and replacing them with names allegedly unknown to the party.
The National Chairman of the party, Senator Moses Cleopas Zuwoghe, made the allegation in a statement on Sunday, following INEC’s publication of candidates for the 2027 State Houses of Assembly elections.
Cleopas said the names published by INEC, particularly in Anambra State, suggested an attempt to undermine the party ahead of the elections and create disaffection among its supporters.
The NDC chairman specifically alleged that nine persons whose names were not authorised or submitted by the party had been listed as its candidates in various constituencies in Anambra State, the home state of the party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi.
He called on the INEC Chairman to immediately investigate the development and determine how the names got onto the commission’s list.
Cleopas also urged INEC to extend the investigation to other states, including Benue and Imo, where he said the party had observed a similar pattern.
According to him, the development had embarrassed the party, its leadership and its genuine candidates, while creating disaffection among its supporters in Nigeria and the Diaspora.
“We, as a party, are also carrying out our own independent investigation, the preliminary findings of which are already pointing to the complicity of INEC officials in foisting names purporting to be our candidates, but who are not from us,” he alleged.
He said the party’s investigation indicated that the uploading process was being used to intimidate and embarrass the NDC.
The party listed the following persons as names allegedly published by INEC as its candidates in Anambra:
Onitsha South 1 — Umennaajiego Jude Ezenwa
Onitsha South 2 — Akpotue Obinna Chibuike
Orumba North — Nwankwo Chiemerie
Anaocha 1 — Maduagwu Eric K
Idemili North — Ngoebisi Obinna
Njikoka 1 — Isintume Charles
Nnewi South — Nwachukwu Nonso
Nnewi South 2 — Okeke Ifeanyi Akunne
Ayamelum — Nnonyelu Samson E
Dunukofia — Azotani Chuks Francis
Cleopas, however, said the party is particularly concerned about the process through which the names were uploaded and published.
He said after the conclusion of the party’s primaries and appeal process, stakeholders from Anambra, the party leadership, representatives of Obi and the appeals panel agreed on a final list of candidates.
According to him, the list was signed off by the relevant stakeholders before being uploaded to the INEC portal using the code provided to the party by the electoral commission.
He alleged that INEC officials subsequently kept nine of the names on “Pending” status, claiming that the names were already in the commission’s system based on submissions by officials who monitored the party’s primaries.
Cleopas said the NDC formally challenged the names and submitted the identities of candidates it said were legitimately nominated by the party, but INEC allegedly declined to replace the disputed names.
He further alleged that INEC subsequently collected Form EC-9 directly from the persons whose names were in dispute and uploaded the forms without going through the party.
“To further confirm that there was a predetermined effort on the part of INEC to impose the said nine candidates on the party, and embarrass both NDC and Mr. Peter Obi, INEC went behind the NDC to collect the Form EC-9 directly from the candidates, bypassing the party, and uploading same,” he alleged.
Cleopas argued that where there was a discrepancy between names submitted by a political party and information received by INEC from its monitoring teams, the commission should have left the affected positions vacant pending clarification, rather than publish names the party said it did not nominate.
“At the very worst, INEC could have left us with no candidates for those positions, if they knew they were unwilling to engage us in addressing any perceived anomaly,” he said.
The NDC chairman accused INEC of creating a pattern in which opposition parties were allegedly prevented from uploading their preferred candidates while other names were introduced into their candidate lists.
He vowed that the party would pursue the matter through all available legal channels and seek to have what it described as its authentic candidates restored.
“We are moving to approach the court of competent jurisdiction to seek redress and restore our authentic candidates. The general public and our millions of supporters should note that these are not our candidates,” he said.
Nepal said Sunday it had begun burying some of the hundreds of bodies recovered after devastating floods, after taking DNA samples and marking them so families can later retrieve them.
The dead are traditionally cremated on funeral pyres in Hindu-majority Nepal, so the burials are viewed as long-term storage until families can retrieve them.
Foreign Secretary Amrit Bahadur Rai told reporters that all those buried were carefully recorded, but also appealed for international support, saying Nepal needed “more than a thousand” freezer units to store bodies.
The announcement of the burials came as Nepal’s disaster ministry increased its toll again on Sunday to 752 bodies recovered and 2,502 people missing.
That list includes 589 foreigners unaccounted for.
Chinese state media earlier confirmed 16 dead in Tibet and 546 people missing following Wednesday’s disaster, taking the overall toll to 768 dead and 3,048 unaccounted for.
“Following standard and accepted protocols, such as those of ICRC (Red Cross), the mortal remains of the dead, especially those not recognisable… have been temporarily buried,” Rai told reporters.
“Medical teams took DNA samples from every victim prior to the burial so that families can match-reference later, and would be allowed to exhume for necessary rituals.”
Nepal has called for freezer storage units and DNA testing kits, as it is overwhelmed with the number of bodies to store safely.
“We have requested different countries for freezers; we will need more than a thousand,” Rai added.
“Many dead bodies have been collected, and they have started decomposing. To preserve public health, we had to bury the decomposing bodies,” he added.
AFP
By Henry Ukazu
Dear Destiny Friends,
Everyone loves influence. Everyone wants to be a person of influence. Everyone wants to be relevant. Everyone wants to be celebrated. Everyone likes attention, appreciation, approval, and admiration. All these are products of influence.
The question I need you to ask yourself is, are you a person of influence? Are you influencing anyone? Do you have a positive or negative influence on your children, spouse, friends, mentors/mentee, or even strangers? Take a minute to listen to yourself.
When we talk about influence, uninformed minds just think influence is only about money, power, authority, or even being a mentor. Influence is far from it. We are all influencers in one way or another. Many people have influenced us in different ways, some positive, some negative. Similarly, we have also influenced many people in good and bad ways.
But today, I’m here to share with you what influence is about and the positive ways one can be a person of influence. Influence comes in different ways: as a politician, you are influencing people; as a leader, you are influencing policy; as a youth advocate, mentor, teacher, pastor, and employee, you are influencing somebody in one way or the other.
Do you know you can influence someone with your lifestyle? Yes, the way you talk, write, lead, dress, eat, exercise, preach the word of God, do your job, serve people, train your children, etc., are all part of influence. Influence is powerful. It has a way of permeating someone without them knowing. I believe that’s why my late mother would always say, if you are hanging out with a friend, only take the good part and leave the bad part.
We currently live in the 21st century, where the internet leads. The internet is regarded as the fifth estate for a reason, because it empowers networked individuals and alternative media to hold traditional institutions, governments, and mainstream media accountable. Everyone and almost everything is on the internet; however, sometimes, the information we get on the internet is regarded as fake because it’s unverified.
In some quarters, the internet has been regarded as a bad influence on the younger generation because of the limited restrictions and the negative information it has exposed their minds to think in a particular way. Some other schools of thought have opined that the internet has done more good than harm due to the knowledge it has exposed their minds to, as opposed to the information being peddled by some other schools of thought. Regardless of the aisle one belongs to, the internet truly has its pros and cons, especially as it relates to influence.
The big question one needs to answer is what influence is. According to Nosakhare Tune Oni – A Pan-African Strategist, leadership and business coach, “influence is when people trust your judgment enough to act on it. It is when someone calls you before making an important decision. When your recommendation opens a door. When your name carries weight in a room, you’re not even in. When people are willing to put their reputation behind yours. That’s influence.
Let’s take a minute to dwell on those lines again. Has anyone played any of such roles in your life? If yes, that’s the best definition of influence in a nutshell. Influence is not about quantity, but quality. The quality of people in your life is more valuable than the quantity of people one’s life. Do you know we don’t really need battalions of friends, whether online or in person, but just one person of influence can be a game-changer. According to Les Brown, a leadership coach, we need only quality people.
Do you know we are everywhere and nowhere at the same time? Do you also know that we can be everywhere and still have very little influence? Influence is about knowing your value and the right people who appreciate the value you bring. Do you know one can be a person of value to the wrong person or audience?
Influence is about having followers who believe and follow your teaching. We can have visibility with little or no influence. One may have 100,000 followers. We may trend on Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok, LinkedIn, or even WhatsApp. Your name is a household name. That is visibility.
Let me give you a practical example. If you have a large crowd of people following you online or in person. The critical question one must ask oneself is: why are they following me? Are they following me because of my ideology, my talent/gift, academic process, position, profession, vocation, skill, or jokes? If they follow you because of the ideology you represent, you are a person of influence. If they are following you because of your jokes, you may be a content creator or comedian with little or no value in influencing them to do or not do certain things. Real influence provokes action.
According to Nosakhare Tune Oni, influence is built differently from attention. Attention can be bought. Influence must be earned. You can manufacture visibility with advertising, controversy, or constant posting. But you cannot manufacture trust that easily. It comes from consistently being useful. Keeping your word. Knowing what you’re talking about. Showing up when it matters. Building relationships before you need them.
And creating value for people without constantly asking, “What’s in it for me?”
Do you know a person with 1,000 followers and deep trust within a particular industry may have more real influence than someone with 100,000 followers who nobody listens to. So, I don’t think the goal should simply be: “How many people know me?” A better question is: “How much does my presence actually change things?” Because visibility gets you noticed. Value gets you remembered. Trust gets you listened to, but influence is what happens when people trust your value enough to move.
As I prepare to conclude, please take a minute to ask yourself: are you a person of influence? Do you have influence? What positive influence have you had on people or anyone? Today, I want you to be a man/lady of influence like Martin Luther King Jnr, Mother Theresea, Evangelist Ebuka Obi, President Nelson Mandela, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Dr. Kola Adesina, Dr. Joe Abah, Dr. Dele Momodu, Barr. Henry Ukazu and Miss Ginika Dike.
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
