You Must Not Get Too Excited About Success-To-Failure Stories

What do we get out of every good story? A moral lesson.

What do we get out of every good success? What to do

What do we get out of every bad failure? What not to do

I know it is tempting to want to celebrate failure as a necessary pathway to success when we see the bios of so many successful people today who were once considered massive failure. Stories like those of Thomas Edison (and his one thousand experiments to invent the light bulb) and The Beatles are definitely needed to revive a tired spirit. But we must be careful.

The Questions You Must Ask To Live A Full Life

In life, we must ask ourselves certain mandatory questions if we want to stand any chance of living alive. The essence of life itself and how much we do with it are both hinged on the quality of questions we ask ourselves.

Your Past Is More Important Than You Would Care To Admit

We always talk about leaving our past behind. Jettisoning the old and embracing the new, starting afresh.

While I am a big believer in fresh starts and looking forward, I have learnt enough to know that you should never forget your past.

The 99% Completion Effect: A Job Almost Well Done

If the internet age has taught us anything, it is the lesson that 99% download is not good enough. The other day I was reading a book by Wale Adenuga titled ‘Here’s My Two Cents’ and it struck a chord with me. There in front of me was another reminder that 99% is never enough. He likened aborted success to having your internet download fail at 99%. This is a feeling we all know too well.

Trust me, it happens to the best of us. This  hit me hard again the other day when I was in the slum of Mokola neighbourhood in Ibadan, at the ‘office’ of a printer at the dead of the night (11:00PM to be precise) as I said all the prayers I know for his printer not to pack up in the middle of our print job.

I had come in from Lagos with about ninety-something percent of the prints I needed. But hey, that is not 100%. So of course, I had to get 100% for the training the next morning. As I sat in the makeshift office/storeroom/shop/messy-place, all I could think about was the power of the last 1% that brought me out there that night. Trust me, if the final 1% means anything to you, it has the power to make you survive the worst possible situations.

The Unknown Quality Of a Virtuous Woman: Shame

Earlier today, I was having a conversation with my colleague. We were joking about guys giving girls money to get their hair done. And then I heard the most epic statement ever “Naaaaa, you can’t ask me for money to make your hair, YOU HAVE SHAME”.

Shame! The previously undiscovered feminine virtue.

It sounded awkward and actually chauvinist to me at first, but at a closer glance, what he said actually makes sense.

Before I go further and have the ‘girl power’ and ‘women liberation’ over-enthusiasts ask for my head, let me clearly define what I mean. Having Shame is very different from a having a voice.

I'm A Woman. Let Me Tell You What We Want

What do women want? The age old question any man will give an arm and a leg to get the answer to.

But oddly enough, most women want to know as well. There's this stereotype that women do not even know what they want. Or so I have heard.

What exactly our dreams, our goals, our aspirations and our fears are as women, are the deep secrets we keep in our hearts. We are usually afraid because when we bare them, it makes us naked.

Which Is Working: Your Hand or Your Body?

The work of your hands.

Work is  work right?  Wrong!

I'm here, on my way back from a stressful day at a client's office,  the last thing on my mind should be work right?  Wrong again!

It is work actually work: work, work, work. But this time, the work of my hands.

So you're thinking, what's the difference: my hands work, my body works right?

Wrong yet again!!!!

There's a big difference between the work my hands do and the one my body does. I have two fundamental differences to show you now. Of course there are more than two though. But let's see these two.

1. The hand creates, the body expends.

When the work you do is the work of your hands, when you're done, something definitely would have been created. At the close of each business day, something that didn't exist previously would have been created. Builders, wielders, lawyers and accountants alike.

The work of your body on the other hand is identified by something being expended.  When the body works, calories are burnt, when the hand does, creations are made.