INSIDE OUT; ACHIEVING EXCELLENCE FROM WITHIN

On the 20th of September, I was privileged to receive a Nigerian Dream Personality award at the Congress Hall, Transcorp Hilton, Abuja at the Nigeria Rebirth Conference for the impact we are making through Motivators International.

At the event, the Ooni of Ife, His Imperial Majesty, Oba Enitan Adeyeye Ogunwusi (Ojaja II) spoke passionately about how we could maximize what we have as a nation. He charged the participants at the conference to start looking inside to unleash their potential. He talked about Nigeria's unexplored gold deposits, he spoke about the quality of our crude oil deposit, he epitomized the heritage of our people.

I could see in the Ooni's eyes, truth mixed with courage; confidence blended with an equal amount of passion. I could see a man who was first a King on the inside before being anointed on the outside.

In that hall, I saw the importance of adapting our greatness #insideout; that we only publicly become a reflection of our inner personalities. If the truth be told, if we focused on the real things that matter in our country, if we worked to fix our educational system, if we supported our start-ups, inspired our young people to dream, there will be no limit to what we can achieve. We will live out our fullest potentials.

Ladies and Gentlemen, to join us in the robust discussion that will characterize this year's Motivators International Youth Conference, at Bolingo Hotel and Towers Plc, on 15th of October by 10 am, you can now register through our website:

www.motivatorsinternational.org

(Please note: Only 300 spaces are available)

We look forward to welcoming you at the event.

TAKE YOUR BURDENS TO THE LORD

Today, I am sharing this old song that tells us where to cast our burdens. In life, you'll be faced with high times and low times. At high times, be thankful, be merry, celebrate and at low times, do not despair. Sometimes, you'd need to breath some deep air into your lungs and encourage yourself in the Lord. Sometimes, you need to remind yourself where God has brought you from. Momentary challenges are not permitted to stop you. You are wired to prevail and in the end, you'll be holding in your hands, the keys to your next level with a new song in your mouth.

Whenever you find the clock ticking against your courage, remember these lines: 

"If the world from you withhold of its silver and its gold,
And you have to get along with meager fare,
Just remember, in His Word, how He feeds the little bird—
Take your burden to the Lord and leave it there.

DO YOU LIKE RAP?

Sometimes I imagine I can rap, good quality rap; that is in my dream life. But whenever I start rapping real time, the words are usually deceptive. They refuse an already agreed accord. So in my mind I rap so well but in reality it is just blah. I'm tired. I can't deal.

Whenever I listen to rap music, it sounds like electrified poetry with the healthy capacity of shocking; of naked words running after each other trying to put on some clothing. Sometimes, I just shake my head to the rap's fluid sensation,
Ti, KaTi, TiKa, TiKa, Ti KaKa, TiKa...
The rise and fall of the springy beats can heal the sick and make the lame walk. But that is story for another day.

In the wake of this my new found love, I have come to notice how my generation has witnessed a surge of domestic creativity in Nigeria's music industry; not just rap. Gone are the days when western music stripped our indigenous music of its massive potential. It's something that makes me proud of being Nigerian. And when you hear good rap music calibrate your ears, you thank the Lord for the gift of creativity.

Phyno is the current rave of the moment when secular rap is concerned. If you don’t know him, he is a Nigerian rap sensation that uses Igbo language to slice through his music. The first time I saw Phyno was at Farafina 2014 final event at Eko Hotels, Lagos. He was looking fly with the microphone going up and down with chants of
'Alobam, Alobam...!'
Wetin konsain mi, eh? I no send.
I did not even sing along. Who's this one

DEWDROP TRAINING FOR PROFESSIONAL CAREGIVERS

In Nigeria, the Caregiving profession has such a massive market with a huge potential for growth. It has become one with a rising need but few competent hands to meet expectations. The field is saturated with demand yet many people roam the street unemployed without the proper qualification to set them apart for the kind of life they seek.

Many busy people who seek the services of Caregivers prefer to employ untrained hands, people popularly called House helps to work in their homes. Sooner or later, they find out that the caregivers in these homes do not possess the needed expertise. This can constitute a major harm to both children and the safety of the family.

Whether you’re looking to hire someone for your 0-5 children or to take special care of your aging parents, Dewdrop trained caregivers make it easier for you to joggle your other tasks while they deliver efficient Caregiving attending specifically to the unique of your tender children or aging parents.

To further equip more persons with professional Caregiving skills, the Dewdrop Institute training for Caregivers offers intensive three months course to students, exposing them to world class skills in the Caregiving profession. Students who graduate from the school receive a City and Guilds certificate from London and can work anywhere in the world. You can take advantage of this training to make yourself globally marketable in the field of Caregiving.

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TRUST YOUR STRUGGLE

Hello my people, it's been a pretty long time since I posted here. So today, I'm thinking about you, dear reader. I've missed you and I feel like sharing this with you; things I've been thinking about. You know sometimes, you want to see the end of all the trials in your life at a glance but still see them stare at you when you look in the mirror. Well, you're not alone in this. Trust your struggle. God is working things out for you.

Let me tell you a story.

Surrounded by towering soldiers of high repute, a young man stood at the crossroads of destiny. David; this fine faced shepherd boy stumbled upon a national assault upon his people; a defining contest where older siblings and country folks were hiding under one another’s skin, rolling their eyes and asking “who will go for us?”.

Who wan die?

For that fragile moment, fear turned men into boys and small boys had that flash of opportunity to graduate into men if they had the slightest courage to face Goliath.

You see, Goliath, Israel’s at-the-moment nightmare, is just life. With its height of challenge and confrontation, it’s always calling men for a fight. And too many are scared because they have no experience with small victories. Too many depend on their strength and are failed too often. But real men have back up. And they brag with the source of their confidence.

So David appeared on the stage, full of guts. “What shall be given to the man who kills this uncircumcised philistine?”

But the thing is this.

Something had been giving him confidence.

It was his ANTECEDENTS.

The things he had passed through, his previous  

WHEN WE WERE CHILDREN

When we were children, daddy always bought newspapers. Like many children look forward to Suya and Ice cream, newspapers were an incredible delight. We devoured the content of each day with childish innocence and we would struggle for the fleshy pages, to be the first person to lay hold on this 'encyclopedia everdaynica' that was Daddy's everyday gift.

As a child, I wanted much more. So I began to dream big! Why read a single paper a day when I could own the whole newspapers and then read as much as I wanted. Ladies and gentlemen, this was how I began dreaming of becoming a newspaper vendor. I loved them, with treasures piled up on the head or somewhere around them, they were my momentary heroes. I would look at them with immense love and reverence and fantasize about owning the whole papers and then reading everything from headlines to cartoons to interviews to love stories.

But growing up has changed the colours of the rainbow in my eyes. I have been fed with something stronger than milk. Now, what used to be an incredible delight has gone through an unbelievable demise because I've learnt that ownership is not the same as possession. You can own a phone but not know what to do with it, you can own a laptop and not know what to do with it. You can even have access to the internet and know only of Naijabet. So my drive to become a newspaper vendor waned when I found out that it's not everyone that owns a book that actually knows what's in them.

There were many other things we wanted to be while growing up. One of my friends said he wanted to be an Ice Cream seller, so he can devour as much Ice cream as he wanted because his mum thought Ice cream was a luxury. I don't know what has happened to his passion. How endless imagination and sometimes, ignorance, can circle around the world in in the corners of our teething minds.

But you see, life happens to all of us. Priority changes with time. I remember many many years ago, the day I chyked a girl for the first time, how the world suddenly turned soft and shaky when my proposal was turned down with a staccato of confusing grammar. Certainly a bad day for democracy.

For me as it is for many people, life is stepping on a fast lane. Yet, it is important never to lose the potency of childhood brilliance. How everything was possible, how you could catch a Lion with one hand, how you could snatch a star from the sky, how you could slap a monkey and send it on an errand and it will come jumping back to you with results. Incredible, endless possibilities. Childhood.

Well, even though I did not get to become a newspaper vendor, the NGO I run publishes a magazine, Motivators International Magazine. Dreams can actually come true in bigger dimensions.

So never stop believing in yourself and in the fact that you were born to be amazing, to glow, to make a difference. Never cower because you're old or because you think time is no longer on your side. Childishness may be naivety but it carries with it a catalyst that stirs endless possibilities.

While you think you have no money, some broke ass nigga is winning the war against poverty. While you think you're too old, some older person just started a new business.

Till today, the world is still fresh for the people who will see through the glittering onyx of their minds, that impossible is nothing.

MEETING WITH THE MINISTER

Hello dear readers of Inspiring World. I know many of you didn’t like the point I left off my last post. Radiant, one of my commenters wondered what happened when the meeting with the minister finally commenced. Well, let me tell you about it.

After the arrival of the minister, we were ushered into this board room with an oval table, a slightly choky space, with seats gracious enough to contain a few persons. Yours sincerely was observing at one corner with many others. We were all asked to introduce ourselves. Some names like mine were feather weight ( who sabi me sef except my Motivator people and of course my village people?) compared to names like Amb. John Fashanu, Asu Ekiye, Amb Rachel Bakam, Abiodun Oyediran (MD of Abeysteph), which were of course, heavyweight.

Mr David Ibrahim was the spokesperson of the Nigerian Rebirth Art Project. He sincerely apologized for the lateness in the commencement of the meeting. His speech, laced with compelling candour talked about the Nigerian situation and why the perception of Nigeria must change for good in the international community.

He handed over to Captain Balami, President of Cabinet X Africa, who I was meeting for the first time. Captain Balami looked dapper in a dark blue suit and spoke with an air only found around the entitled. Needless to say how much I’ve admired him through the stories I’ve heard about him and for him to be driving a noble project such as Cabinet X Africa, you can be sure of his quality.

Some of the heavy-weight young people spoke before the minister began his speech, I was taken aback by his incredible sense of humour.

These were some of his initial words,

“Where ever people see me, they’re quick to say that I am a youth because I look young. Look at me very well, I am fifty-one years old. What will a fifty one year old person be doing as the minister of youth in a normal society?”

When he said this, I heard the sound of a pin fall down and die. His words unsettled normal thinkers looking for something to preempt.

Then he continued,

“But in an abnormal society, I have every business being a youth....
With men aged over 80 sitting at the board of companies, it will be criminal to think that at 51, I am not a young man.'

According to him, “The greatest challenge of the Nigerian nation is to liberate itself from ethnicity and religious differences. What is the religion of hunger, of love or of poverty? It's more preferable to be materially poor and spiritually rich. The only thing that can live after you is a good name. Every other thing ends with may your soul rest in peace.”


By the time the event ended, I was thinking more about the positive energy generated in that room, how much young Nigerians were committed to building a greater nation than on any other thing. I was more than excited to be in that small space with people so full of greatness. We were given a book titled A New Nigeria Is Possible written by Chris Nwani. (Good book by the way)



During his speech, the minister promised to be available in Dubai for the event in February, 2016. 

Believe me, Nigeria has a great hope in the midst of her young people. 

Are you one of them?