African Political Leadership_A source of Africa's downfall

For many years, the Africans have been liberated from many forms of colonisation. The mastermind dominance to Africa, even though physically defeated, it still remains a thorn in the flesh of those born before, during and after slavery. I am yet to understand fully, as to how the African Mind, even after many decades of the declaration of freedom, many countries still suffer the effect of slavery. The impact of Colonisation has far extended beyond ordinary.  It has created a cancer of the mind such that those suffering from it do not know they have a tumor and are also imprisoned. Where will emansipation come from and in what form?

Africa remains poor, and other countries continues to join the ranks of poverty, economic dowlfall, land missuse and illhealth. I may not be an expert, but it is clear that something is not right and has not been so for a long time.  In his words,  speaker and author, Systenious Makhubele says "Africans are free, but not empowered" to access the kind of resources that they want. You are fee to travel anywhere and to buy whatever you desire, but you are not empowerd to afford those things.  There is an illusion that i believe many of us need to shake off, that since we are free, things will automatically become ours. In an ideal world, that is treu. In a practical world, the activities that need to happen to make Africans own their wealth has not yet happened fully, and that is one problem.

Another problem is with the kind of leadership that seems to have infected Africa, or some of the African States. I have observed with dismay that people are appointed on leadership roles because they are known by the people and loved. Others are put on leadeship because they can "play along" when needed to. Others are put on these seats because there is a hidden agenda that must be fullfilled with blind leadership, therefore one is put as a face; a sheep leading an army of wolves. But other are appointed righfully, because they can deliver. They can do the job. This leadership crisis contributes to Africa's contnued crisis.  Lucky Lubisi, says "Liberation movements can never run a successful government. We need to choose leaders by merit and leadership qualities. It's the only way that we all can access the wealth our continent has to offer". Tumisa Matitoane, an inspirational speaker and entrepreneur says "it only takes a winning mindset to be able to own wealth and be able to think how to make what men have on thier land to work for them. We need winners and lenders not borrowers and beggers thats kind of our leaders in Africa.

I will make followup articles on this matter, but feel free to share it, or comment. Participate in the #whyafricansarepoor and let us posses the African Wealth.

Pursuit of a dream: It's a personal agenda

Application of self descipline

Over the next few days, you will go through a series of changes that will challenge you, impact your life and your dreams, ideas and talents may later be transmuted into their financial equivalent. The translation of one’s ideas into products that can be sold for money can only be achieved through the consistent and relentless application of proven principles that have been applied through life or reinvented, perfected and retried. These principles do not respect persons, status, qualification, background or any attribute of man. They only respect he who applies them and rewards him or her with great personal confidence and wealth.

Talent is not enough

No matter how gifted you are, without the application of self-discipline that talent may raise to the top but it is highly unlikely to be sustained at the top. Talent can never be enough to sustain one’s life. It is however sufficient to lead you up into a path that you desire, but it is not enough to keep you at the top. There are many talented people that we can site for elastration’s sake, those people have risen to the top, but could not stay there because of lack of personal vision, direction, mentorship and discipline.

Your potential is the seed that is still to be unearthed, if left unattended to; it will remain yet another lost ability to impact society. I believe that with the development of a culture of learning, personal introspection, aggressive self-application, personal identification and purposeful living, one is able to translate ideas into money, principles into habits, habits into character or even transforming society, one man at a time. Your ability to achieve great success with your life is equal to your “ability” to fail and still continue trying. It does not require a second brain set to achieve success more than it does for failing life.

Success is not an accident

Over the past few years, I have determined to read as many books as possible in order to understand the nature of success. In learning learned the truth about this famous statement by John C Maxell that everything rises and falls on leadership. Simply put, your leadership capacity determines your success or failure level. Thus for you to measure what you call “success” in your own right, you also need to define your ability to lead yourself.

The world’s famous, wealthy and powerful people have declared independence from the demands of popularity and people’s opinions. Dr John Tibane, author and Leadership coach said “whatever defines you, confines you. Whatever does not build you, constrain you”. You become successful only if you walk in the best path that is meant for you. Successful people become successful by leading themselves to the path that which they desire and eager to attain.  I cannot imagine how painful it would feel to have climbed the ladder of success all the way to the top, only to find that it was leaning on the wrong platform. You have achieved everything in life, but you did not become the best you can be. You become the best second best there can ever be.

Unfortunately, this is true for the majority of our brothers and sisters in Africa.  They try by all means to be the next person or to copy somebody else’s dream. They conform to what people say about them and miss out on the opportunity of being who they are meant to be. I will illustrate to you how as to what I mean by this.

In Pursuit of a personal goal

Mercy, a young talented and known hair dresser from Mamayila became famous for her inventions and hair talent. When she was nine years old, she used to design her doll’s clothes and do her hair. She later gained fame in the community when she moved to Hluvuka High School when she turned 14. Many of her class mates and other scholars ran to her for hair styles during events. Most of it she did it for free or in exchange for lunch. Later, Mercy turned this passion into a business.

Her mother always wanted her to be a nurse. Her father wanted her to be anything her mind points her to do. On the other hand, her teachers told her that she can be anything she wants to be, but one thing she cannot be is be a hair stylist. It was considered a poor person’s Job and low class dream.

It must never occur to you to allow yourself to measure your dream or desired based on somebody else’s barometer. It can never be accurate.

The only thing Mercy could dream of was hair styles, make up and jewellery. Just after completing her Grade 12 in 2002, she decided to take a gap year without her parent’s knowing. That gap year turned into a business adventure. The concept of gap year was not famous then, but she did it against her parents’ wishes. Her parents had registered her with the then Medical University of South Africa (Medunsa) to study nursing, but she never attended a single lecture. Instead she took her talent to the streets and pursued her passion. Her parents sent her money to pay school fees, rent and buy food. She used the money to rent out a small office in Acadia, Pretoria which she turned into a small hair and beauty studio.

 By October that same year, her parents wanted to visit her, but she told them that she was going to North West to do her in service training for four months and will only return in February. Excited, her parents increased her even more pocket money for the four months, thinking that Mercy will need the money. She took that little investment and enrolled herself to be trained as a makeup artist.

That month, she met few celebrities who came to her Salon. Soon she made it to the local newspapers in Pretoria as a rising star. She soon attracted famous faces to her salon. By the end of her first year in business, which was supposed to be the end of her first year in Nursing School, she had hired four people into the salon and payed them very well. Her business turned from humble beginnings into a great success within one year. Today, she has four other shops, including a full loaded hair and cosmetics wholesale shop with over 36 employees.

The following year, Mercy went home to break the news to her parents. Her mother was very furious, but her father was proud. That night she determined to educate her younger siblings of her disobedient journey to success. “It was not an easy thing,” she started, “but I had to do it for me. I knew that my parents will not be happy because I lied to them for the whole year. I made excuses all year and never gave them a chance to know what I was doing.” She said.

Her mother was listening from the other room but she chose not to interrupt this confession. “My mother believed so much in my academic acumen. But I believed much in my dreams and talent than in my school performance. I worked hard at school, but I worked harder to build my talent and dream.” She paused and took a deep breath. “I wish I could explain this to mama, but I’m not sure...” He brother, Mikhenso interrupted her; “you don’t have to sis. You followed your dream. We understand and are proud of you.”

***

I am not in the business of breeding rebellious young people, but I am challenging you to pursue your talent and gifting with all your strength. Like Mercy, she understood that she can be anything she wants to be, but for her to do so, she had to separate herself from other people’s wishes, no matter how she loved them.

You cannot be trapped in other people’s opinion and wishes about you. By the time you wake up to your own desires, they may have rusted inside of you. John Maxwell, Author and global leadership coach and speaker writes “talent is not like a savings account: a saving account compounds in interest annually. You can deposit money just once, and then leave it for years. The longer you leave it untouched, the more you will get out of it. The longer you leave it, the more it increases. But your talent is not like that. The longer you leave it, the more it decreases”. Dr Mike Murdok says, “Talent that is not recognised is not celebrated. And talent that is not celebrated cannot be rewarded.”

Start valuing your dream, your desires, your talent and abilities. That gift can make room for you. It will open doors for you in areas you never imagined.

BUY THE FUTURE (PART 2). BEWERE OF FIRE FIGHTERS

I believe when it comes to success, there are three kinds of people:

1. Those who think and dream about success.

 They are like window shoppers. They always go out to see what’s in the market, they know all the latest trends, all the ups and downs, but they are not part of it. They know who is in business, and who is out, but they never get in. These are people that give others a great business ideas. They talk imagine and talk about all the great strides they wish to make but remain inactive. The sad thing is they imagine themselves rich but never get to it. They are like a man who brings in game from his hunting expedition but fails to roast it for good meat. I once heard  one say you cannot till the ground by tuning it over and over in your mind. 

If you fall in this category, you are one who tend to think rich and successful thoughts but are afraid to make mistakes. By the time your life comes to an end, you will b regretting how you allowed birds to hatch in your head, but never got to eat their meat.  Norman Cousin, a writer and editor wrote this powerful statement: “death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies in us while we still live.”

2. Those who talk about success.

 I believe that we were created with two great abilities  that can be developed for better use: the ability to think our own thoughts and the ability to speak and say what we want. Sadly, some people talk and never do what they say. Others wait for things to happen so they can talk or write about it. They have no thoughts or activities of their own, they need you and me to develop things so that they can talk about it or write articles about it.

They are like columnist shoppers. They know all the trends, they talk about it. They can even write about in and advice others about things they have never known nor experienced. They can talk about someone’s business as if they are in it first hand. But they never dare do. They know how to talk about things, but they do not know how to copy good tricks. 

On the contrary, some may be filled with more negative talk than the group I described above. When you share ideas with these kind, they will give you all the reasons why it cannot be done. Be careful of this type. They can kill a good product before it is even born. They are what is described as firefighters.

Firefighters are those people who go all the way to stop the passion or the fire in other people. They prevent you from releasing what’s inside you before it comes out. They kill dreams. When ever you come up with a good ideas or plan to do something, be it personal, at home, at work, in sports and any other area, they will pull out all fire fighting equipment’s they have in their minds. 

You will notice them with the following common sayings every time something new comes up:

• Its not in the budget 

• That’s not practical

• We tried that before and it didn’t work

• We have never done that before

• Yeah, Yeah... but...

• That’s not the way we do things here

• It will never work

• No one will believe that

• You are getting too big for your shoes

• Who do you think you are

• No one will fund that

• Its not good enough

• You are not qualified for that

• You are black, it will never work.

3. Those who do succeed indeed.

They don’t talk much. They do much. I learn this from my wife. When she sets her mind on a thing, she goes for it and gets it. She is so disciplined and focused.  It is an a quality i noticed in almost every successful person i've studied. I is also sited by many authours on the subject of selfhelp, business, family, sports, music, art and reliegion.

You have be so determined that you can’t be easily deterred her off target.  You have to “focus on the end result”. Rudy Ruittiger said “if you really believe in your dream, you will get there.” You have to deal with the doubts that are created in and around you to break the cycle of negative influence. Franklin Roosevelt said this profound words that fit here well: “the only limitation to our realisation of tomorrow will be our doubts of today”. 

I believe that most of the changes, successes and breakthroughs that we need in our lives and business do not necessarily require money or physical strength but psychological strength: believe in yourself. That is an attribute of successful people. They believe their beliefs and doubt their doubts.

NEGOTIATING FOR A BETER LIFE_ BUY BACK AFRICAN WEALTH

Five years from now, or even tomorrow. You will meet with someone you met today or some years back with whom you may have exchanged ideas about how your futures will be like in terms of your “prospective marriages”, business ambitions, etc. and may have also discussed your ideas and goals. They looked really good at the time. Sometimes you were described a positive thinker who is on the road to success.

As you compare your “talk, then” with your experiences “today”,  one of the following two things will happen: you will be excited to share your accomplishments, or embarrassed to discuss them with that person.  This will because you either would have Improved significantly or completely underdeveloped yourself. Maluleke Hlulani Int’l, a known speaker and business coach loves to say “love does not get better by chance, it gets better by choice.” I truly believe he is right. It has to be made clear that your life is not anybody’s lottery project that may or may not work well. It’s not a gambling tournament, it’s a personal journey whose road is constructed by choices. Whether you arrive at your destination of purpose or not, is your choice.

REASONS FOR EITHER ONE OF THE OUTCOMES ARE

• The values you have developed and adopted. Your values shape your thinking and actions. People without personal values are tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine. They are swayed by every blow. 
• The way you trained yourself to see life and respond to it. I head of this statement, “it is not the weight of the object that’s too heavy, its your muscle that’s weak to carry”. Your ability to respond to challenges is based on how you have developed yourself.  

Growing up in the villages made me realise this is true. Ordinary people celebrate when it rains for a moment after a long sunny day. But then,  they complain about the same rain they welcomed with joy few hours later. At the same time, a farmer will celebrate even more if it rains a bit longer because it will water the orchards and fill the dam such that it becomes easy for him to continue with the plantation. Their response to the rain is not due to the rain it self, it is attributed to the meaning of rain to either one of them. A farmer is trained to appreciate the importance of rain because it brings in production. An ordinary person complains of rain because it keeps him indoors unnecessarily. 

The quality of the choices you make daily. The kind of results you are seeing in your life are an elastration of the kind of choices you make. People with a well established value system have a clear understanding of the impact of their choices in their lives. When I see what people are getting out of their lives, I can tell of their value system.

IMPACT OF CHOICES

You are where you are today because of the choices you made yesterday. And you will be where you will be tomorrow because of the choices you are making today. I have often heard people say “I have worked hard for so many years...now I am reaping the rewards.” Your actions decides your results. It is however, possible that you may be doing much and getting less. In that case you need to check other factors such as the environment where you are working. But in any case, you reap what you have planted. 

I believe that your choice have some form of effect in your life that are decided by natural laws. Take for example, the such as “for every action, there is a reaction” as stated by Sir Isaac Newton; no matter how we can argue that law, you will still find it affecting your life, one way or another. Our choices determine:

• Whether we live in the comfort of what we have today, hoping it will stay that way, or we create better opportunities for ourselves.

• Whether we live from hand to mouth, or plant a garden that will sustain us beyond working years.

• Whether our choices fulfil short term needs or long term purposes.

• Whether we allow the desperations of today to make us ignore the consequences that our current decisions and actions have on our future.

Our actions are usually based on two value systems. These systems have a bearing on what you see in many African people. If we can be able to overcome these somewhat distorted mentalities, we may be able to overcome poverty in Africa.

1. The hunter’ Value System (can be called the African or the consumer’s value system). This system is based on the strong desire to satisfy the immediate need and less about the future or long term consequences of today’s actions. It is also seen with a compulsive material consumption and inability to preserve wealth.

2. The farmers value system. This system focuses on the choices and actions employed today in relation to the results or bearing they have on the future. These are described well by the ever so wise King Solomon when he said “cast your bread upon the waters, for you shall find it after many days”. He teaches people to sow in the morning, at noon and at night and never observe the wind. Unfortunately, only a few minorities have grabbed this liberating truth and has set them free.

Both the systems have benefits, losses and consequences, but the first value system has more consequences than benefits.

The Hunter’s value system

This is the systems that tend to see small things as big and big things as small. Usually small problems are magnified to an extent of terrifying people from taking positive action. At the same time, the things are real problems that require focused, intelligent attention and solutions, they are often ignored or banked for future intervention which more than half the time, they are never looked at again until crises arises from such ignorance.

People in this system usually have one natural talent but are not able to industrialise it. They can be seated on a well of Gold, but never realise its potential. You see, this kind have the ability to catch  a good prey but fail to roast it ant eat. Proverbs 19: 24 says “a lazy man buries his hand in a bowl. And will not no so much as bring it to his mouth again.” And further says in chapter 13:23 that there is so much food in the land the poor. The question is why are they not eating it but starve to death in a fat land? 

I believe the following explains their behaviour:

• They focus on what is seen and needed now, to satisfy the needs of today. Anything hidden does not exist in their vocabulary. For something to exist, it must be visible or have been seen before in their natural eye.

• They focus on enticing activities that may not have any pain involved (most of the time). These don’t like to pay the price, and enjoy later. They want to eat and then, pay. Sometimes they do not afford the price and end up losing life or pay it with their dignity. They do not see that life tends offer opportunities wrapped in hard work and temporal pain.

• They think of working when they want to eat, or to get something to satisfy the need of today.

• They tend to think on their stomach. They make decisions that are motivated by a hunger. Hence they can start rich and end in poverty because of the consumption mentality. 

• They work like worms, mostly eat their food and leave nothing, or a stink. Worms are very important part of the ecosystem. They help in making sure that the natural grazing land gets fertilizers from decayed natural products. The problem is, after eating and turning carcases into secondary products, they die. Their life cycle is be born and then eat your way to death.

• Hunter’s usually do not see the diversity of their wealth.

- Like African’s: they can be surrounded by so much wealth and opportunities and not see them. They can import the food that they have because they can’t process it. I mean, Africa produce so much from the wealth of natural resources such as Gold, Diamond, Oil, Platinum and many other products, but we still have to send these products to be processed else where.

- I believe that’s why many foreign nationals flock into South Africa to South Africa. Thy can come to your village, or city and start a legitimate business next to your house, or even rent your garage to take the wealth that you did not see.

- South Africans see Poverty... Foreigners see wealth. 

• They have long term exposure to negatives that end up becoming realities. 

• They are skilful in Identifying their prey: but they are somewhat underdeveloped in catching the pray.  If they do catch it, they struggle to process it.  

- They can identify one prey, but spend the whole day trying to catch it, and fail. The good thing about them is that they can study the animal so well: how it sleeps, how it moves, its weaknesses, etc. But the same animal that they have studied so well, still plays mind tricks with them that leave hungry and frustrated.

- Mostly they have more abortions in their minds than they give birth to what they conceive. If ideas were tangible products that expires if not used, some people’s minds would be dirtier than a Municipal Waste Site

• They are single minded. They can only pursue one thing at a time. Hence   the phenomena of multiple streams of income sound like unnecessary. Instead, they would  rather work over time. They can’t have two investments at once but settle to work for a salary for life. Once they get into one thing, it’s difficult for them to pursue another goal.  Because of lack of diligence, they are put to hard labour for life. Systenious Makhubele, a speaker and author of Get Out of Your Way says; if hard work paid more, our parents would be very rich.

• They use more strength, time and resources to achieve one single item. Their activities cannot be equated to the results.

• They can’t breed their own food; they rely on what is available out there.

• They have to start afresh every day. They cant develop a system that sustains their provision without them. For them to eat, they have to go to the field by themselves. Similar to the tender business. You can wake up broke, sleep rich and be broke again the following day because your business can’t produce products that sell themselves and generate income when you are not watching. You are not rich until you make money in your sleep.

• They don’t know how to expand to new territories.

• They think that the only way to get rich is by putting extra hours without redesigning the system. 

• They have more but cannot determine the value of what they have. Hence the poorest nations are those endowed with more natural resources, they can’t decide on the price of what they have. They cannot even process it to secondary products. They eat what they have as it is.

• They have a plan for the next weekend or two, but have no idea how their lives should be in five years. Live in the moment

***

I WILL SHARE WITH YOUR THE FARMER'S VALUE SYSTEM ON MY ENXT ARTICLE.

however, let me conclude this articel by siting that successful people are those who had the courage to answer the questions that we were all asking and later turned around to sell their answers to us (not my own).

FAMILY: THE FIBRE OF SOCIETY

Family is the backdrop of society

I thought I’d write about the importance and role of family in society. A family unit is the longest standing and self-sustainable institution on Earth. From the beginning of mankind, to date: mankind still live in family units and still desire to. Even though there is an increased rate of Divorce globally, the family unit still plays a critical role in crafting the fibre of society.

For us to have a successful impact on society using the family strand, we must be grounded on the principles of God for the family as seen depicted throughout the Bible. By staying in the unit that God assigned for mankind, we find the source of strength, courage, divine direction and help as well as sustainable strategies for keeping the family intact. In America, 83% of adults were married in 1930, today, only 49% are married. There has to be a reason for that drop. And the same decline is linked with increased crime rate and violence.

Impact of families on children

Research shows that child headed families had children not going to school, involved in violent behaviours, theft and robbery. Girls sell their bodies (sex slaves) for food and money to support their younger siblings from a very young age. And boys fall into drugs and join gangs.

Little children emulate family units in the plays and games. That longing for healthy family is in every child, but it gets distorted by the existing family strand through divorce, domestic violence, absent fathers, etc.

Where the family unit is intact, such parents become effective role models to their children. Studies show that, where both parents are actively involved in their children, the following will happen to their children:

They are more likely (55%) to go enrol for higher education; 78% more likely to volunteer in community building or charity activities; 81% more likely to participate in sports; 200% more likely to hold a leadership position in small to large scale groups: sports, peers, school, business, etc.

Children with both parents also have a lesser chance to go through depressive state or being involved in drugs (46% less), alcohol (27% less), violence (33% less) and 55% less likely to skip classes or miss school.  These children tend to have good self-confidence and believe in themselves than children without both parents. Other alarming statistics were published on fatherless families.

Studies published in the Unites States shows these alarming results of absent fathers in the lives of children:

• 63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes – 5 times the average.
• 90% of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes – 32 times the average.
• 85% of all children who show behaviour disorders come from fatherless homes – 20 times the average.
• 80% of rapists with anger problems come from fatherless homes –14 times the average.
• 71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes – 9 times the average.
• 71% of pregnant teenagers lack a father or direct involvement of a father figureFamily is the backdrop of society

 Impact on society

• Politics will be based on sustainable family values, not selfish ambitions.
• Church will be built on sustainable family values. Mike Murdock says if you cannot conquer your family, you cannot conquer in the world.
• Business enterprises will be sustainable: because no one will steal from any one knowing that they will be affecting their own brother’s family. Successful business men attribute their success to the support from their wives. Happy families produce better citizens. The opposite is true as well.
• Schools will be intact. That would mean: the School Governing Bodies will comprise of  parents/ families with the same or similar values, the children will be groomed in the same neighbourhood love
• The rate of violence and crime against humanity will be less.
• Peace.

Imagine a situation where the families were united in prayer, values and priorities for child development, for community policing, education, it would be peaceful. I believe that if families were built on values embraced by children, or their wishes, there would be neither divorce nor violence in society.

THE DREAM FACTOR (part 2)

DREAMERS RULE THE WORLD

People who dream big dreams rule the world. The products of their dreams control the economy and influence global decisions, markets and many other things at a greater level. Another point to note is the fact that great dreams do not die, the dreamers do. Ancient history has proven to us that men who dreamt dreams that shook the word still affect the earth long after they are gone.

I also learned that dreams are attached to purpose and assignment to which one is born for. With the dream, comes loaded within it great potential to make manifest the same dream. The sad thing is many people dream but doubt their capacity to deliver. It becomes even sad to realize that people end up dying with their dream because of fear of engaging robustly with their dream. Thomas Edison once said, 5% of people think, 10 think that they think and the other 85% would rather die than think.  The latter also possess great wealth of ideas, but fail to give birth to these because of fear.  Napoleon Hill said that more gold has been mined from the mind of men than ever been mined from the earth. That mining was carried out by working out people’s dreams.

CHARACTARISTICS OF GREAT DREAMERS

People who tend to success more than ordinary people have certain admirable characteristics, those are:
1. Positive attitude. They think “I can all the time”. Henry Ford once said: whether you think you can or cannot, you are right.

2. Self-Discipline. A dream can lift you up, but discipline and character will sustain you.

3. They do not depend on the ideologies of the crowd.

4. They keep company of like-minded people and they value their contribution

5. They are relentless. On the contrary, most people walk away from things on the first sign of defeat. There are so many people who have had dreams that took too long to manifest. At times people may mock, scorn and ridicule you for having a dream. They do that because they expected the dream to be fulfilled in their watch or in their time. That may create negative pressure for the dreamer.

6. Self-confidence. Nothing beats a confident man. What others believe about you is not as important as what you believe about yourself.

7. They think ahead, creatively and BIG. F.S. Nukeri says: creative people hire lazy thinkers, make them do hard labor and pay them less. They have the goals written down and followed after,

8. They think things through before they quit.  They have a strong belief that the current circumstance or status is but for a limited time. What makes some people to fail in life is their lack of persistence in creating new plans that will replace those which fail (Napoleon Hill).

9. They constantly acquire new knowledge and sharpen their skills.  They tend often attend seminars and courses that develop them in the areas of their application or their dream. It is said that 77% of poor people watch more TV compared to 27% of wealthy people who watches TV for less than hour a day.

People will pay you based on what you know. But you will be paid even more for what you do with what you know. The more you learn, and apply what you learn in the practical situations, you become sought after so that you are given a platform to use the knowledge that you have. And as you use what you know; your income may grow, depending on how well you apply what you know.

10. They are not afraid to think differently.  Great discoveries were made by people who were not afraid to look at the same thing as others, but think differently about it.  Sir Isaac Newton once said no new discoveries were ever made without a bold guess.

So go ahead, keep your dream alive because success is intentional. It is not an accident or a random act.

THE DREAM FACTOR (part 1)

Imagine lying on your death bed in your last moments, and the ghost of your dreams and potential coming to you and say; we came to you because you had the ability to make us manifest, impact the world and create employment opportunities for thousand others, but you are dying with us. What would your response be? I think if potential could speak, many of would have been in court many times.

What if you live your whole life, only to realize that you never lived, you never scratched the surface of your potential. You need to decide to live in full and die empty.

I want to try and help you move from small to big, from failure to success. Whenever you see success in another person that means that person has mastered the craft of his destiny. He/she has learned and proactively answered the question: what is your WHAT? And what is your WHY? If you can be able to describe explicitly what is it you want in life, and why you want it, then anything that tries to stop you will not be able to limit you.
Let me show you how to do that in six simple steps:

1. Ask what is it you really want to achieve in your life. Write it clearly on a clean sheet, diary, and paste it where you can see it every day.  You must be definite with your objective.

2. When do you want to achieve it? Put a time frame to it. You must be specific.

3. Determine exactly what you are willing to give in return for your dream.

4. Decide on how and when you are going to start to build on it.

5. Find few people that you will call "accountability circle" or what Napolion Hill calls, the Master mind group. The trick here is to choose people who can be able to push you to your limit and support you when you fail.  By the time you decide who should be in the group; you should have developed a definite plan.

In the plan you should be able to describe your vision clearly. Thereafter describe the role of each members of the group in fulfilling that dream as well their individual benefit from it. As you do, remember that no one has sufficient ability, experience, education or knowledge to make accumulate any amount of wealth or achievement of any goal without the cooperation of other people.

6. Start NOW. Many dreams die in the womb because since they were conceived, they were never given birth to. Many people tend to think and think and never act. It is impossible to till a land by just turning it over and over in your mind. You have to act. You have to make the bold step to move towards your dream. Sometimes the road may seem cloudy and somewhat incomplete, but you still have to forge your way.
Look at yourself, and ask yourself: why do I want this thing that I want. Know that if you can master your why, you can endure almost any how. The world has a habit of making way for those who know where they are going.
For more: email: ngmafarafara@gmail.com

Power Tip no 2

power tip no 1

Mistaken Identity

Introduction

The world has a system of classifying people into certain groups based on multiple factors. They are classified or categorised based on their gender, skin colour, educational achievement, family history or contribution to society, physical ability, personal accolades, societal and social association or status and more. Others are just labelled based on a hunch of the community. Then others have personally deliberately mislabelled themselves based on their personal experiences of the past, family history, upbringing and so on. 

If you are an associate of a prominent business man, sports man, or politician, you find yourself receiving a certain status in the society that is not necessarily your own. People respect you based on association. The day you separate from such influential figures, your status also dissipates. Others, like Pastors kids, pastor’s wives and children born of the highly intelligent or prominent people receive high esteems in the society with “perfect” expectations of their performance. Their behaviours, performances and achievements are measured based on their parents or spouses accolades, and not of their own.

I can imagine the pressure that these people have to go through each day trying to match the status of their parents or spouses. The pressure sometimes makes them vulnerable to more mistakes in life than they normally would had they not been exposed to the competition with the status that is not theirs. How I wish they could share with us how this kind of life makes them feel.

Celebrities have to deal with the people who expect them to be super perfect beings; hence they turn to drugs and image reconstruction to meet the expectations of the public. They miss out on giving the public and their followers the genuine feel of who they really are. They rather ascribe themselves to what the world expects of them and it brings more frustration.

Looking into biblical history

History shows us that this is not new. Biblically there were circumstances like these before. During the times when Jesus physically walked on earth, His disciples were expected to act and perform miracles like He did. Later they were identified as those who “walked with Jesus”. At this level, this was a good thing.

There are however circumstances that are somewhat difficult. Like in the life of Moses, who after having rescued a Hebrew from the hands of an Egyptian, whom he killed on the spot was rejected by other Hebrews. As he walked around the Hebrew natives, he was described as a man who kills his own that he had to run into refugee camp far in the desert for 40 years. Can you imagine, 40 years away from your people because one incident that people have used as a permanent marker of who you are. 

It is very difficult to be identified with the past all the time or with the character that is much more capable than you are and yet you are not. It makes one feel unwelcomed and maybe inferior.

21st Century dilemma

Having said all the above, which we may say it’s rather an ambiguous illustration of reality and truth. The 21st century generation is living in times where in people have mistakenly taken the identity of other highly acclaimed personalities such as sports celebrities, musicians, actors and so on. While they themselves may be living in the world of realities, (well some of them of course) those who follow and admire them have bought into their images such that they want to buy into the images that others have naturally inherited with money. The pain ascribed to the notion of facial changing, skin bleaching and so on is robbing youth of their true lives which could have been lived in full.

It is not a problem to admire someone, but it is rather totally wrong to admire a person such that you want to lose yourself and try and be them. I heard someone say “if you imitate someone, the best thing you can ever come close to being, is to be his/her second best”. But if you pursue being yourself, building your brand, you have more to gain than becoming second best.  Your true identity is not borrowed and cannot be bought with money but can be worked on by yourself through determination. 

I had a meeting with one of the guys I admire in the 21st century generation, Thulani Mphahlele and he was telling me about his organisation, The CEO Speaks. He said “we all have the power to engineer our lives”. I guess it so true. The reality, however, is that others have engineered their lives to death.  There are many people who have scraped off their beautiful self to “things” they do not enjoy. What is the use of spending years and years trying to fake being someone you do not know while there is a beautiful woman or a handsome man in you wrapped in God’s glory? Embrace yourself and enjoy your life.

Peeling off the layers of toxicity

If there is a tough thing that we can do for ourselves, it is peeling off the layers of mistaken identity. We ought to build the image that is locked within us by God, the creator and giver of life even if it is difficult. I can make reference of many people who have found what they were born to do, sharpened their skill and have become internationally recognised heroes in the world’s hall of fame. 

We can talk of Dr John Tibane, who based on his intellectual gifting was directed into becoming a medical doctor. He later realised that it was not what he wanted to be, that is what people wanted him to be. He left medical practices and became a well-recognised speaker who now is enjoying the arena and empowering people’s lives than he would being a Doctor.  

People like Nick Vujicic, a man who has broken beyond extreme boundaries and hit the sky with brain power and limitless attitude. He writes in his book, life with no limits that “knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power”. Now that is being free from the ideologies of others about you and mastering the true you. This man has no legs or arms. And yet he lives his life better than many who have. I mean, what is stopping you from being the best you can be? You are far too smart to be the only thing standing on your way.

Eliminate yourself from the boundaries of people’s idea of you. People, who set their agenda of you, lie to you, waste your time and mislead you to what they think you are. You are a person by yourself and not according to what other say of you. You have to get out of your way and stop limiting yourself by embracing wrong ideologies, opinions and perceptions of you.

Challenge yourself

Set your mind to a goal that you have never attained before. It does not have to be an extrinsic challenge. It must be something that you have personally desired to do. It could be a dream you have been laying off for years and were intimidated to follow, it could be a course you wanted to enrol, or a business you were told it’s too big for you. Give it a try. 

What you need to do is try to answer this question: what do I stand to lose for doing or not doing this? Step up, step out and climb that mountain. After all,  you will never know if you can do it until you try. So you have to put your attitude, your mind power, your skills and all to the test.

Invest in your mind

A friend of mine is writing a book which will be released soon. In his book, Investment in your personality, Nyiko L. Mthombeni writes, “the greatest investment is not in things, but in you. Your mind is a garden that can only be watered through use”. I totally agree. I will publish a summary of his book in this blog later on for you to read.

Your mind is the best factory where all products, tangible and intangible are manufactured. Napoleon Hill said “more gold has been mined in the mind of man than from the earth”. That is a reason enough to make you want to invest in it because more gold is found in there. You can be physically impaired, but if your mind is still intact, you can live beyond what many physically abled people can achieve. But you have to know yourself well enough to get to that.

If you do not live up to the reality of your purpose, you rob the world of what God has invested in you. Bonnke Shipalana asked a question that is very profound and I want to leave you with it; “should you die, what would the world have lost?’. Dr Myles Monroe said the richest place on earth is the cemetery. People have died with ideas never realised, dreams never pursued, books never written, music never sang. 

Refuse to miss out on your identity!

STEP OUT, STEP UP-Pursuing God''s big idea

Step-Out, Tep-Up 2

Ever wondered why certain things that you so much desire are not happening as you wish they should be happening. You have dreamed, talked, written down, thought about it so many times but nothing seems to be moving beyond the thought life. Life seems to be moving like a small wheel in one small area.  I mean, when you look back over your life, nothing much has changed except that now you maybe in another grade, or promoted to another position, married with kids. BUT, personally, you have not changed. Your dreams are still at that stage where they were few years ago. That book has not been written, the business is not yet registered, the problems you had are still the same, you still financially limited as before. The question is WHY?

I believe I may be on to something here. Not that all the answers have been written in this blog, but I want to try and set you on a mind journey of self-discovery. As long as your life's environment has not changed, your life may still remain the same. 

The Metamorphosis of Caterpillar 

Each and every person’s life has to go through various development stages in order to mature to the fullness of his or her potential. Imagine the beautiful butterfly that you may have seen recently in the garden. Before it matured to that beautiful, colourful, admirable and decorative state, it was but an egg, the size of a Sesame seed. The little seed was laid underneath a green leaf somewhere in the garden and abandoned to hatch on its own.

The egg hatches into a living organism less admirable, a Worm. When we see a worm in our environment we hardly take a second thought but hastily suck the life out of it with a shoe, or plank, or whatever it is. Like you my friend, at some point you may be feeling like the worled is sucking the life out of you. Being rejected refused all over and everywhere you go. You may have tried this and that to set your self apart from the pain of rejection, failure,  resentment,etc, but you still find yourself rejected.   

Don’t worry; you are just a caterpillar, a worm going somewhere to be a beautiful butterfly. The caterpillar begins to eat away the shell of its egg for nutrients. There after it eats every leave it finds for days. It has to survive on its own.

Man was made to find his own means of living. We cannot afford to live without having to work for something to sustain us. The caterpillar there after finds a small twig, hangs itself there fixatedly and peels off its old skin. That is the skin that held her up as a crawling organism.

After few hours or days, it will hide under a new shell while developing into a new being with wings. It thereafter emerges as completely new organism, a butterfly with beautiful wings. And it flies away to anyplace where it admires to reach, eat in new grounds, break new heights and reach new territories. I can almost hear you say; so what? It’s a butterfly, it’s meant to fly! Yes, that is true. It is meant to fly. What are you meant to be? 

You are meant to be big, live a purpose driven life, live out your dreams, fulfil your calling, make a difference and touch people’s lives. Your life is totally different from that of a caterpillar or a butterfly. But a caterpillar knows that it is not just a caterpillar, it is a butterfly hidden in a worm’s body. So are you, an executive hidden in a student body in the class room. You are a President hidden in a servant’s body. A business woman hidden in a cashier’s uniform. The point is, you are more than what you think yourself to be. 

How to step out

In my previous article titled Step-out-Step–up I wrote that you have to think outside the box, think creatively and plan into the future. I want to add some more things for you to know and do in order to separate yourself from here and climb to there. But before that, let me quote again from that article:  “ to step out means to consciously determine to move outside the normal circle of thought, language, actions and step into an arena where you see things from a magnifying glass. Where you do  not only see your life in today’s terms but also in impending metamorphosed state and be prepared to work it”. That’s where you need to head to:

1. Realise that you are not a regular person.  

You are made of the image of the Most High God to manifest His creative ideas on earth.

2. Realise that there is a higher life awaiting you.

No one can achieve beyond the limitations of his or her own belief. Your life, your success, your vision is measure of what you have chosen to believe.  God has place within each one of us a higher call of His purpose. That purpose is intertwined with the very strong urges and desires that are not yet met. God exposes them as hunger or irritations to you. He knows that you are capable of sorting them out, step up to the game. Until you believe that there a life of purpose awaiting you, you will remain a caterpillar crawling from here to there for life. 

3. Realise that failure is not final

Dr Myles Monroe said failure is not the absence of success; it is the neglect of trying. When we meet failure, we need to step up, try again. Success is not achieved on one attempt. There should be a repetition of efforts towards a greater goal. 

4. Align yourself with the original intent

Lean to speak the right words to yourself. Say to yourself that “I am bold. I am confident. I am smart. I am capable. I am not a failure. I am fearfully and wonderfully made. I am blessed. I am a winner”. Keep saying words like that until they become real in your own imagination. That is how God sees you. 

When you align yourself to God, you become like the tree planted by the rivers of water (see Psalm 1). The tree has constant supply of nutrients and is able to bear fruit in season. Even if it loses its leaves in the dry season, it remains with more green leaves because of its attachment to the source of life.

Proper alignment can be better explained using the life and function of a moon. The moon has no light of its own. Even though it lights up the earth beautifully at night, it has no light on its own. what it does so good is the way it aligns itself with the bright light from the  sun and it emits that same light from the sun to us. The moon positions itself at a good angle that allows it to receive sufficient light from the sun and then reflect it to the earth. And then we celebrate the moon and thank God the nights are not as dark as should be because of that. The moon acts as a mirror. It mirrors the glory of the sun. It has no glory of its own.

Your position with the creator affects your productivity. Imagine what it would be like to be constantly connected to God and receiving guidance from Him every step of the way. We would be able to display His glory all the time, with ease.  Jesus when speaking with His disciples in John 15:4-5 said “abide in me…then you shall bring forth much fruit”. That’s the beauty of it. Stay connected, and fruitfulness in accordance with your potential is possible. And you will increase. Our fruitfulness is hidden, secured and sustained when we connect ourselves with the source.

Step Out-Step Up

Step Up-Step Out

Daily we are each faced with the opportunities to make choices about our current and future state of life. The circumstances present themselves in different ways. Some may be urgent and some not.  Some may be important, some not. Some may yield great profit and others may set us on a path to make great returns later in life. It is therefore important for us to know which is which because the manner in which we approach any situation affects the outcome.

Stepping out means consciously determining to move outside the normal circle of thought, language, actions and step into an arena where you see things from a magnifying glass. Where you do not only see your life in today’s terms but also in impending metamorphosed state and you be prepared to work at it. Stepping out means you are employing tactics, actions and efforts and work twice as smart and twice as hard as your peers.  It is not a secret that great rewards cannot be and are not associated with regular thinking and ordinary efforts. So you can be in the same place as your peers, but you chose to think outside the moment in a way that sets u apart from them.

Look at your world around you and you will see many examples of people who have employed their minds far out and above what we call normal and we even go to the extent of saying “I never thought about that” and bla, bla, bla! We all are products of our thoughts and work employed "after the thought process".

The ten Virgins.

The story of the ten virgins in the bible illustrate this very well for me. When the girls heard the groom was coming to meet them in the few hours to come, they washed up, dressed up to their best (I believe) and took up their oil lamps to go with in the waiting area. I believe it was known that sometimes they have to wait in the dark night and had to provide for their own lighting.  Interestingly, the bible labels the virgins as five wise and the five not so wise. The wise virgins took extra oil and the not so wise took their lamps without extra oil. Since the waiting did not have a defined period, they ran out of oil in the night and darkness filled their waiting area. 

The girls did not think of the future. They thought about what was needed "now" and made no provision for the unknown or the latter life. Stepping out and up is to be  like the wise girls. You do not only think of your present, but you mitigate for the future known and unknown. The foolish girls resembled a thinking style that I believe is for the poor. They think not of anything but their hungry stomach. They do not think of growing food for more than their stomach or their cooking needs for today. Instead they think of who should be next donor for their next ambition in a way that yields no results for self sustenance or reproduction.

To step out of this low level of thinking and into a better productive life, you need to employ what is called “creative thinking”.

Creative Thinking

Creative thinkers have chosen to do the hardest and most paying work anyone can do: thinking.  Albert Einstein said; Thinking is hard work; that’s why so few people do it. And David Schwartz said “Where success is concerned, people are not measured in inches, or pounds, or college degrees, or family background: they are measured by the size of their thinking.” Now that should call for some thinking about yourself now.

 So here is what thinkers do on daily basis:

• They value ideas
• They explore options
• They embrace ambiguity
• They celebrate the “offbeat”. Meaning they celebrate what people call awkward. 
• They connect the unconnected. They harness the power of being able to take what others have left in despair,rejected and thought it can't bee done. They take everybody's rejected ideas and make them one big idea.
• They do not fear failure. They always jump in and and explore new territories.

Thinking outside the box challenges the thinker first, then those around them. A person who thinks outside the box tends to challenge the status quo. People of this nature are usually associated with more challenges in life and they embrace it as fun for them. Like Richard Branson, who amidst all his successes, he has embraced every challenge in his life as part of fun, and that made him great success in his business endeavours. In obstacles, he looked for the part that has fun, and stepped his game up almost all the times.

I can go on and on, but let me give you these little nuggets that I believe may be crucial for you going forward as you think outside the box and step up. 

1. As a person who wants step out, I want you to know that doing that will improve the quality of your life and those around you. it adds value to you and everything . John Maxwell describe it as “being able to see what everybody else has seen and think what nobody else has thought so that you can do what nobody else has done”. These people see the world through new eyes and develop solutions for problems that are known to them and the people they live with. 

2. Thinking outside the box draws people to you and your ideas. People and money are drawn to people who think outside the box. 

3. Thinking outside the box gives you options or the ability to look for options. Ernie Zelinski puts it this way “Creativity is the joy of not knowing it all. The joy of not knowing it all refers to the realisation that we seldom, if ever at all, have answers; we always have the ability to generate more solutions to just about any problem. But being creative is being able see or imagine a great deal of opportunity to life’s problems.”

As a thinker, you need to learn to recycle ideas, combine two or more ideas that people thought will not work and make an exceptional idea. That is how big business grows. They do not necessarily invent completely new things, the take what already exists, improve it and make it work more efficiently. They stepped out and think outside the box. Remember, it is hard to see a picture while inside the frame. Step Out, and Step up!

Rules of Effectiveness

Effectiveness is a measure of how well does an instrument perform its intended function given the surrounding circumstances. It is a statement that is ascribed to equipments, machinery, medicines and people as well and is attached to the extent to which they do what they do within a certain space of time. Now as I read, make observations and assessments I discovered that the most effective people have discovered some secrets that ordinary people may have not discovered as yet. They have mastered and practiced some activities habitually as rules governing their lives, and this has led to them achieving success. I break them into 11 rules of effectiveness.

Rule 1: BE GOAL ORIENTED

Set up your short, medium and long term goals. Goals give you a measure of accomplishment over certain time.  He who lives to achieve nothing is as good as dead. You ought to have something that you have set over the future that you want to attain and that should be the centre of your thoughts. As you think more about it, it creates new realities in your own life. People achieve what they always think about, whether positive or negative; as a man thinks in his mind, so is he. Know this, whatever you keep meditating on, you will attract.

Goals energise. They propel our minds and action. So set goals, make them as big as you can. Make them as bold as you can. Your goals do not necessarily have to agree with the pattern of life in terms of being realistic. The people who have achieved great results have determined to defy the odds, set goals that no one had attained before and came out better than their peers.

Rule 2: SET PRIORITIES

If you want to achieve your goals, you need to start having a priority based activity plan of action. That should be daily, weekly, monthly and for life.  If you don’t learn to prioritise, then any distraction that you allow can be a thief in your own life.

There is no one who has ever become a great success by doing anything and everything that appears on their tables or drops in their minds. Author and Speaker, Steve Covey talks of a Time Matrix, which has four quadrants which have the following: Q1: urgent and important, Q2: urgent and not important, Q3: Important but not urgent, Q4: not urgent and not important. If you want to achieve success, you need to teach yourself how to set priorities according to these. Urgent things that are important should be treated first. Then the rest will follow.
I have discovered that having to answer to every call and SMS and Email every time your phone receives them costs people so much of their valuable time. Very small things have been allowed to be destructions in our lives that the most important things have been left undone. You end up missing deadlines, having to work yourself under tremendous pressure and robing yourself of the quality of results you disserve.

Rule 3:  MAKE AND FOLLOW A TO-DO LIST

Keep a daily to do list. Update it each morning and review it each night. I have been learning to do this and made a good observation over a two months period. One month I followed a to-do list for all my work days. Then the other I left it out. When I reviewed the two months, I found that I had accomplished more at work and personally during the month that I kept and followed a “to-do list.”
Schedule you day according to specific activities and allocate time for them. For example: allocate time for gym, for reading, leisure, checking and responding to emails, etc. You may at some point miss it, but if you learn to stick to it, you will achieve more. People who read every email that comes in usually fail to respond properly to the ones that are important. Rather set time for those while you focus the rest of the day on other important activities.
The trick is not to over-burden your day. Start with one or two main activities for each day and practice it for at least 21 days. You will soon discover that it comes naturally with practice. Do you realise that you don’t need to consciously think of brushing your teeth each morning when you wake up, its nature to you because you have practiced it many years. The same goes for anything and everything else. The more you practice scheduling your activities in a to-do list, the better your results will be and easier it becomes for you to do so.

Rule 4: DO FIRST THINGS FIRST

DO first things first. Every expert will tell you this is crucial. I can’t emphasise it any better. Doing everything as they come will cost you millions. So learn to prioritise in your life. Start today, the skill become well as you practice it. No one became better at anything by thinking about it too long. Refer back to rule 2.

Rule 5: LEARN TO BREAK YOUR BIG TASKS INTO SMALL MANAGEABLE TASTS

You eat an Elephant by chewing it one piece at a time.  By combining rule 2, 3 and 4, you will realise that nothing can be achieved by pressing on it all at once. Even the biggest companies that exist today started by breaking their dreams into pieces that we can call development milestones. The rule applies to life as well. Life is like building a house or baking a cake. You have to do it one step at a time.

What causes frustration is the desire to see the full picture all at once from start. This frustration can be overcome by deciding which tasks should be done over a certain time. Each activity must be designed to build towards the bigger picture. It should not be done in isolation.

The rules above are not a limiting performance based model, there are many things that we can do to be effective, these are just simple things that we can do.

In my next article, I will give you rule 6 to 11.  I hope you enjoy reading.

Do not hesitate to contact me on ngmafarafara@gmail.com or on twitter @mafarafara for more on these and other productivity reading and training.  Otherwise, leave a message on the comments section

Understanding your Purpose_ (part 2)_Kenny's testimony

GOD'S DESIRE

It is the desire of God that every living being should uncover and understand his/ her purpose.  Any person who does not understand his purpose is subject to frustration and abuse. In  the simplest of its form, we all need to fit into that which we were born to accomplish.

God keep on drawing us closer to him through experiences and desires. We find ourselves longing for deeper relationship with a higher being that cannot be filled with any thing on earth but Him and Him alone. Day after day He makes the call and invite us to an intimate fellowship with him.

MAN'S SEARCH FOR MEANING

Some few days ago, I met a very inspiring man and formed friendship with him. I invited him to a meeting where I intended to know him better. I wanted to understand what drives him, what makes him unique and why does he think so. In the beginning of the interview, he told me how he actually started to do what he does, and how he has actually grown into his organisation that is transforming young people in South Africa. I narrate his story here under. His real name ha been changed to protect his identity.

KENNY's story

In a small village, kaMajosi, about 47Km west of Giyani, lived a noble young man, Kenny. He was known for having answers to almost every question. Young people at school referred to him as the Village encyclopedia. Kenny always gave an ear to anyone who had something to say. At some point he would even host small life empowering seminars for high schools learners. He lived his high school life to the best of his abilities that earned him a good name in the community.

Few years later, he walked the streets of Mamelodi. He was now wearing a new helmet. The village boy was now “Mr Smart Guy” rooming the streets of Mamelodi. He had just graduated as an Environmental Health Practitionerd, and was walking as junior municipal consultant. That gave him the same platform as he had back in the village; to talk to people. That was something that he really loved doing all his life.

The streets of Mamelodi smelt his scent on every weekend. Because he did not have much to do, he spent much of his time in bars, night clubs and shebeens. He felt like the village had robbed him of fun and now it was time to explore the different delicacies that the township and near city life had to offer. From drinking he added cigarettes, which made him broke from time to time, but he took a puff of the wrong smoke and still, he did not relent. His friends would attest that he said he needed to prove a point. But he never disclosed as to who needed an explanation for his life.

It was not long that he found himself having tabs in different bars and night clubs. Sometimes he would open a tab for all his friends to have one or two rounds of their best shots, their choice. His tabs sometimes ran to as high as R15, 000 at a time, a debt higher than his basic salary. He woke up one morning on the entrance of a night-club in Rosebank wearing white socks and boxers and a black vest. When he asked the securities guards for answers, they all looked away and said; ‘boy, who taught you to drink? Go ask your mama?” It was cold, Kenny was freezing, almost naked in the streets.

Turning point

He hid himself in a corner near a waste bin. I listened to him narrate what happened shortly after that morning.”I was so cold that morning. I could do anything for warmth. I had never felt so cold like that ever before. I felt like my bones were breaking. Few hours later, a young beautiful lady walked by and heard me groaning. She lovingly approached me and looked at me with eyes I’ve never seen before. Her look made me feel empty and like I was being judged.” He stopped for a moment, took a deep sigh and said, “thank you Jesus.” I wondered where that came from, but I listened to him continue his story.

“She reached out to me and handed me her big scarf. She did not say a word. Then she gave me her coffee.” He stopped talking for few minutes, he expressed a deep sigh of relief from what I believe I was about to be enlightened. “That woman was sent from God to me. She said to me in one blow that shot through my heart and left me shattered, ‘you need God brother, you need God’. Then she asked me to walk with her to her car. Her husband was waiting for her in the car. The husband walked out and handed me his jacket, drove me to my flat and said no word to me. Just like that. I wondered what kind of man would do that. When we arrive at my door, he opened his mouth to ask one question, ‘why are you destroying yourself?’” With an angry look, Kenny stood up and hit the table where we were having our drink. My drink splashed all over the place. But I kept my cool.

“I felt like God was looking at me right in the eye with indignation,” he continued. From that moment he told me a very long story of how he started searching for meaning. No one had any answer for his question. In his search for meaning, he ran even faster into the path of destruction. He started drinking everyday of the week. He started changing women weekly.

He spent most of his days drunk and searching for answers. He spent all of his fortune trying to find meaning to life, but there seemed to be no answer to his quest. The more he searched for meaning, the more he drowned himself in alcohol and nicotine. Even worse, he was drowning in dept. It was not long before the bank repossessed his car and then he was “kicked” out of his flat because he could no longer afford to pay his monthly rental fees.

He looked for God, and seemed as if God has turned a blind eye on him.

The lady that picked him up in the cold met him again on his way to drown his sorrows with friends. She called him aside and invited him to church on the next Sunday. “I felt like this lady was becoming a thorn in my flesh”, he said. “It felt like every time I meet with her, she just adds more sorrow to my already diminishing life. She never spoke much, but there was a strong convicting power in her that judged me when I was around her.” Kenny continued.

That day, he turned back to his new flat. He lied on his sleeper couch facing the counting what seemed to be layers of sorrow the whole night.

I believe God wants me to preach

The thought of going to church, meeting with a group of people who cry “without cause”, clap and dance all over the place and sometimes keep their hands lifted up high too long was not acceptable in Kenny’s mind. He tried to pass the thought around with some friends and they laughed at him. May I say that none of his friends knew what was going on in his life. They regarded him as “the man”. He still maintained his high standard of intellect.

Need me to say, many times we go around with people and we do not know what they are going through. We seek the fun and joy of their presence but we never seek to discover the inner thought. Many people go through life pretending as if everything is alright. They spend their life hiding from the same people that share a meal with them.

Husbands and wives may spend their lives hiding the truth from each other in the name of “sparing them pain”. Children suddenly lose their parents to a dreadful disease which these adults kept from their children in the name of “sparing my children pain”. People spend their days hiding from the truth.  Like Kenny, he never told anyone about the worm that was eating him from the inide. But his life was rotting slowly.

After his friends scorned him for telling them that he wanted to meet with the creator at church, he said something that baffled both him and his friends: “I believe God wants me to preach.” That is somewhat unexpected form someone who had never been in church. The same weekend he went to a church nearby but he did not spend 30 minutes in side. He said the people were pretending.

He spent the next five weeks going from one church to another on Sundays. On each occasion, he did not spend more than 30 minutes. His view was all church people are full of hypocrisy. But even with that, the longing for God did not stop. It was like he was becoming addicted to seeking the true meaning of Life from a God he never knew. His pursuit for meaning isolated him from his friends. At work he was sidelined from meetings because sometimes he would find himself switching to another world not known to others and mysterious to him as well.

One Sunday morning he remembered that lady who gave him coffee and a scarf in the cold. He remembered the warmth that he observed from her face. The love that he believed her husband had for her and the compassion he sensed from him when he borrowed him the jacket. It was almost as if they were not from the same planet. All his life he knew people who expected something from him. He was expected to perform to a high standard; hence he suffered inside because he did not have anyone to talk to. But when it came to this couple, whom he did not even, know their full details except the name of the church that was on the bumper sticker of the car. He thought he might as well try it. If he still finds pretending people, he was determined to never try it again. He resolved in his heart that if the next church he visit does not give him what he wants, he is never going to think of God or his intuition of being a preacher ever again in his life.

Right in the arms of God

When God calls you, He puts in place all the mechanism that will drive you to Him even if you are ignorant. Like He did with Moses, when he was born, Pharoah, the monster king of Egypt in pursuit of the Hebrew boys two years and younger. He was determined to kill all sons of the Hebrew generation. But Moses managed to escape through a mini bucket in the river to the enemy’s camp where he was raised by the same man who wanted him dead. Later he ran for his life after killing an Egyptian man. Fast forward to 40years later, he is on a mountain standing in front of a burning bush that was not consumed by fire. God had him where he wanted him to be. No more running around. No more games. No more excuses.

Kenny woke up on a beautiful Sunday morning. Put on his Red Suit, a white shirt and black tie. He asked his friend to drive him to church early in the morning. When he arrived, the meeting had already started. The atmosphere was intense; there were sounds of excitement, joy and celebration. He described the people that he sow as those who had appeared to have no worries about anything. They seemed to be in an atmosphere not easy to contextualize. Kenny looked all around to see that everyone was focused on God. It appeared as if God had visited that place and He had no intention of returning after He left. So everyone had to make sure they impress Him by pouring out their hearts on Him.

As was still wondering, he felt a warm strong hand around his shoulder. He turned his head to be greeted a young man in a black tuxedo. “Welcome home my brother. My name is Mpho, I’m an Usher. This is the house of my father, and your father too. My I walk you to your seat?” said the young man. Kenny did not utter a word; he was still in awe of what he was seeing. “By the way,” continued Mpho, "it is an honour to have you hear. Please tell me your name and if it is your first time here.”

“Kenny”. That’s all he said. “All right brother Kenny”, responded Mpho, “is it your fist time here?” Kenny just nodded his head as he reclined to a comfortable seat next to him. He felt like he was in another world. The lady that assisted him that cold morning was singing. “I do not remember the song, but it touched my heart, I cried that day. Throughout the service my mind was wondering if I could ever have the same feeling another day. I wondered what would happen if God came into me and made me feel what the rest of the people in that church hall were feeling.” Said Kenny.

I looked at him as he narrates the story to me. He had an expression of a love struck man who had just found the girl he had been dreaming of all his youth. He accepted the Lord that day. And he said after saying “’yes, Lord’, I felt like a mountain had just been removed from my shoulder”.  A new life had just begun.

From that day, Kenny speaks as CEO of his life. God has turned his life around. He has since stopped drinking and going all over the country speaking about what God can do if one lets Him in. Through the years of desperation, he knows now that there is no meaning to life without God.

I would love to share more of his success, but the page is limited. but I can say that he has started an organisation  that serves to capacitate young men and women all over South Africa. He helps people discover their potential, their drive and move on to a place where no one and nothing can stop them unless they do so themselves. 

(It is written in honor and recognition of men and women who have found God and allowed Him to drive them to peak of their abilities and to salute men like Thulani Mphahlele, Author of The CEO Speaks and Stay on Track Diary (www.thulanimphahlele.com)), who has helped me plot this story.

God can do it for you too.