...Discovering Purpose, Fulfilling Destiny

Have you ever attended a success seminar? If yes, I am sure you must heard conversations similar  to that below: 

Facilitator: “How many of you would like to be successful in life?

Everyone raised their hands

Facilitator: “Everybody?!… Okay. How successful would you like to be?”

Random answers from class: “…very” “…extremely” , “very very”…

Facilitator: “Okay…Who would now tell me what “very very” means to them?”

Only a few come up with cogent responses.

Facilitator: “Very well then. So how many of you are ready willing and ready to pay the price?”

Class is silent.

This are the typical kind of answers you get when you converse with the average man next door. Most of us know we want to be successful; many have a vague idea of what successful looks like; only a few (I mean very few) are willing to pay the price. Little wonder only very few succeed.

Forming the picture of success is not my focus today however, I would not fail to mention that it is the first vital step that you must take in the direction of success (the second would be to write down what the picture looks like). My focus today is the price that must be paid for success.

Recently, I have been studying biographies of very successful men who have accomplish great feats in their respective fields and have impacted lives of humans all over the global. One thing I found they all had in common was their willingness to pay a handsome price for their success. Many of us only see the glitz and glamour in their lives today and fail to realize that there once was a time when it looked like they were never going to make it. We must pay the price!!

Paying the price is strictly a matter of choice. No one would force you to go in pursuit of your dream  (that is if they believe in it in the first place – remember Joseph), it is strictly a personal decision. Only a few would encourage you, so your motivation would have to come from within and it can only come when you carry a picture of success that is much bigger than you. A picture that challenges you to give in your very best every step of the way.  It is only such a big, compelling picture that would enable you endure hardship when it comes. Tell me what would make a woman carry a child in her womb for 9 months and go through such horrendous pain during child birth? If it ends here we can understand but she is also willing to nurture the child through his/her growing years and endure all the pain and sacrifice that comes with the process. It can only be the undescribable joy of motherhood that would make a woman know all this and still allow herself get pregnant.

Now why am I sharing this? I discovered that soooooooooooooooo many of us do not understand this principle and as a result we miss out on our best in life. So few are willing to pay the price for anything. And those who are willing to pay a price are not willing to pay the full price. They keep bargaining and when life is not yielding to them they walk away. Unlike the local merchant in the market, life would never call you back. It is a monopoly. Life knows if you are really serious about getting what it has to offer you would come back and pay the full price.

In everyday market, a good bargain would mean beating down the price for a fixed quantity of a commodity. But in life’s market, the prices are fixed! Negotiating on price is a no go area. You can only negotiate on the the quantity of the goods (rewards) you expect from life. Remember this old classic poem?

“I bargained with Life for a penny,
And Life would pay no more,
However I begged at evening
When I counted my scanty store.
For Life is a just employer,
He gives you what you ask,
But once you have set the wages,
Why, you must bear the task.
I worked for a menial’s hire,
Only to learn, dismayed,
That any wage I had asked of Life,
Life would have willingly paid.”

The task which you must bear is fixed. The wage you get from life is what you can negotiate.

I know a guy who passed his CFA examinaition on his first attempt. He is the first that I have known to accomplish such a feat. I decided to enquire how he went about it. After a long discussion with him,  I discovered that he had a sound understanding of the principle we are discussing today. HE PAID THE PRICE!!!

Can you imaging working your regular job 6 days a week. Leaving home  5.45 a.m. everyday. Working till about 8.00p.m. Resuming reading (at the office) from 8.00p.m. and leaving for 10.30p.m. everyday. Every single day for six months!! When he shared his life goal with me, I understood that it was not a matter of how he felt but a commitment to his big picture.

Excuses are the cheapest commodities you can buy. Every corner you turn you would find people hawking excuses under different brand names. Some under the I Am Tired®, others under No Time® and Busy®. I think the bestselling brands of excuses in Nigeria today are Work® and Nobody To Help Me®. They sell like crazy!!! Everyone seems to buy them. The thing you must remember is that people may accept your excuse and sympathize with you, but at the end of the day you would remain where you are. Not your boss, not your family, not your friends but YOU! YOU would not have progressed as you ought!! You would remain a professional mediocre instead of being the world reknowned specialist in the field that God created you to occupy; the receipient of the ”employee fo the year” award for the third consecutive year instead being the “employer of choice“ with your company rated among the top 100 companies to work for globally.

Have you noticed that I have published more articles in in the last 3 weeks than I have since the begining of the year. It is due to the realisation of this truth that I have just shared with you… If you allow it sink deep into your soul. I am sure it would cause the divine energy and abilities, which have been programmed in you to propel you into your future, to burst forth and cause you to do things others think are impossible.

Have a lovely weekend.

Deji Olatunde.