Fola Daniel Adelesi, ASM

If you are a poet then this is for you

Bluntly Speaking – This is a new poetry collection that Edible Pen is working after publishing our first (Hope of the Zealots) in 2005 and two other books in between from the publisher. Fola Daniel Adelesi.

This entry is open to all people from secondary school age and above once you are a poet.

How many poems can I submit?
3 poems but only one is guaranteed to be published.

What do I get for submitting my poems?
1.) You get published along other recognized authors
2.) You will get a certificate of contribution
3.) You are also entitled to a copy of the book when it is ready
4.) We usually send our publications to recognized local and international libraries.

Will this book be sold?
For now we are not selling but we are trying to make publications available on Amazon and proceeds, if any, are intended to be used for the support of ‘Teenagers’ Mentorship Class’ – see details on www.teenagersclass.wordpress.com

Where do I submit my poems?
www.tinyurl.com/poemsubmission

What else do I do?
Pay a sum of N3000 into any branch of Guarantee Trust Bank Plc in favour of ‘Edible Pen Ventures’ Account number: 208 722 936 110

When is the book coming out?
Tentatively October

How will I get my copy and certificate?
you will be contacted through details provided on the registration page (www.tinyurl.com/poemsubmission)

What are the rules?
1.) Do not submit any poem that has been written as if you are texting or writing an SMS. Only standard English abbreviation is allowed.

2.) Poems must be your originally written work.

3.) No poem should exceed 35 lines

4.) Check for spelling errors before submitting

5.) Authors of poems not selected will eventually be contacted for a refund.

6.) Ensure you have paid into the given bank account before going to the registration page.

7.) Deadline for submission is July 15, 2010. Submit early to avoid late hour rush.

For further information please send emails to info@foladaniel.com or call +234 704 196 0689

Fola Daniel Adelesi, ASM
www.foladaniel.com
info@foladaniel.com
+234 704 196 0689
www.tinyurl.com/poemsubmission

You can become poorer working for someone who is becoming richer even though you think you have been used as a tool to become richer in the business. If you go back to the agreement that you signed with your boss then you will admit that there was no clause that said it was your boss’ responsibility to make you richer because he or she is getting richer.

Do you cringe when you boss decides to buy a brand new car and you are even trying to get a loan from the office? Where you the one the boss even sent to the car dealer when you have not dreamt about buying your first car? Do you go crazy when you know that your boss has just bought a new house in some of the best locations in town while you are struggling to pay your rent? What was your reaction during the last holiday when your boss asked you to book a ticket for him and the entire family so that they would travel abroad while you where still thinking about having enough money for the holidays? How do you reconcile the fact that what you live in is like a slum compared to the boss’ house that you go to nearly every morning to help with whatever he or she wants to do?

The human nature has the tendency to say that “these rich people are wicked” but remember your boss did not sign an agreement to make you a richer person! When you get an employment offer from anyone you would have to remember the fact that the person’s primary responsibility is to provide the working tools for you to his business! Apart from providing working tools for you to do his business he or she will provide the enabling environment but everything in the agreement regarding the boss’ responsibility is about providing what to work with and paying you for the job if it is done at the end of the day!

Your boss may choose to be nice to you but that’s a personal thing. If your boss decides to give you some extra cash apart from what he or she agreed to pay you then you know that’s a personal thing. If you get some Christmas bonus you will have to be content with it because you really know that you both did not have that in your agreement. Does this mean I can’t be rich working for someone else? Oh, I think you can be rich working for someone else!

If you will ever become rich working for someone else you must see the fact that it is not your boss’ responsibility to prosper you. It is your responsibility to help yourself become rich and you must take that responsibility. Once that first step has been taken then you have to see your salary has a leverage for the other things that you need to do instead of hoping that it will always be increased and you will have more money to buy better things. Most of the people who became rich while working for someone else where people who definitely had some other ideas or projects they were working on. They also see their salaries as the leverage they need and when they collect their salary they set some apart for the new project or idea they are working on personally.

Some of the people who have also become rich while working for other people understand the fact that they will not become rich by being angry with the boss. If your boss is truly rich you have to learn from your boss. If you can allow your rich boss to mentor you then you are also on your way to becoming rich. Sometimes the truth is that the boss who realizes that you are willing to be a protégé and not just a salary earner will be nicer to you than other salary earners in the same office. You will never learn from the person that you detest especially when you have the mindset of someone who is being used to achieve personal means.

Looking what your boss is achieving through your “personal efforts” will limit your horizon and you will never see the bigger picture. Instead of learning in the process and building or increasing your capacity for the next level you will most likely be stuck in between trying to make your boss believe that he is wicked and that he should be nice to you.

Here are the lessons in simple lines:

1.) You will never become rich thinking that your boss should prosper you.
2.) The agreement you had with your boss was a salary!
3.) If you focus on immediate returns you will never learn why your boss keeps making money!
4.) To get more from your boss, maybe not financially, you should be a protégé, and a sincere one at least!
5.) Make your salary a leverage and not your ultimate
6.) When your boss seems to prosper more please admit that you are not a business associate or business partner who feels cheated. Just take his prosperity has a challenge by using his highest achievements now as your smallest goals for the future!

Once your boss is paying your salary as agreed then you have no right to be angry because you will only be bitter against someone who does not even know. The person will live a better life and your own problems will go from being physically to being emotional because you will now be bitter and your bitterness cannot remove one penny from the company’s account! That is to tell you your boss is not responsible for your wealth, you are!

Fola Daniel Adelesi, ASM
www.foladaniel.com
www.debater5.blogspot.com
info@foladaniel.com

Revelation determines productivity because it is not a questionable fact that the amount of light available to us determines how far we can go in any area. When you enter a dark room you would have to wait for the light to come on before you can move at all and if you already know the room so well then you will just need the light to move swiftly. Whether you need the light to move at all or you need it to move swiftly the most important thing that must be recognized here is that the light is needed. It must also be noted that when the light is deem then the movement will be slow. When the light goes on and off then the movement will be interrupted again and again.

When you are using a torch in a dark place and the light keeps going on and off the light will slow down the pace at which you can work and in some cases it will take some time for you to get back into what you were doing before the light went off. We must come to terms with the fact that if we do not have revelation then we cannot be talking about productivity because it is revelation that determines productivity. In so many cases I have made references to the fact that it is not the amount of work done that results into productivity and I did not say that to discourage people from working. I have only brought to your attention the fact that you need to work smarter and not harder because you can be working harder and be more frustrated especially when you see people around you who seem not to be working hard and they are legitimately wealthy.

Some people have become angry and bitter and they have hidden resentments for the people who have what they desire to have. They look at people and begin to compare the amount of energy put into the work or compare the strength exhibited by people but when results are compared they conclude that life is unfair. If we must be fair then we need to remember that the strongest things in life are not visible things so that tells us why people may not have more visible input yet they have more visible results. Take for instance if you don’t have enough oxygen it will be so obvious to everyone around you that you don’t have enough oxygen and there can be pandemonium in the atmosphere. When you analyze the situation and you are talking about oxygen it will click in the brains that this oxygen we are talking about is not something visible but it has a great visible impact.

The case of oxygen also applies to revelation and productivity. Revelation must be taken as the oxygen of life without which you cannot produce result. Revelation, I make bold to say, may not be something entirely new to you or to the society. Sometimes it just could be an insight into the potential of something that every other has neglected. When people say something is useless then you receive an insight into its usefulness and when you are ready to take advantage of that then you begin to produce result.

Isaac Durojaiye, popularly referred to as Otunba Gadaffi, is a Nigerian who was trained as a security specialist and was personal assistant to Chief M.K.O Abiola, the presidential aspirant of the defunct Social Democratic Party (SDP) in 2003 general elections which, according to reports, was said to be the freest election in Nigerian History. When fortunes turned around for the popularly accepted philanthropist, beginning with his arrest by the military government and was eventually poisoned through a cup of tea, Isaac Durojaiye (Otunba Gadaffi) received an insight (revelation for business) about what he could do with human waste. According to him there was an event coming up and they also had to prepare conveniences for the people. That necessitated a brainstorming session which he was involved in. when it was time for execution he obviously had to money to execute the project but something came up that helped him out of the situation.

A rich man’s car was snatched at gun point from the driver and the rich man was determined to know if the driver colluded with the thieves or he was innocent. He was rich enough to forget about the car immediately but was determined to get to the root of the matter so Isaac Durojaiye (Otunba Gadaffi) was invited to investigate the matter since his training was in security matters. When he was asked how much he would collect for the job he said, ‘I just opened my mouth and said hundred thousand.’ At that time the money he needed for the idea he wanted to execute was just about sixty thousand naira. He called the Divisional Police Officer of the area of was then his friend and made available some cash motivation. Within one week the car was recovered and the investigations revealed that the rich man’s driver knew nothing about the stolen vehicle. For this he was rewarded with more cash so he had more money to do the job.

With this I want to address the job mindset of some people. Many expect that their jobs would make them rich and that their monthly earning will help them reach their financial goals but they are always disappointed when this does not happen. They always have some crazy bills to pay and taxes to meet up with but you need to understand that it is not just collecting money at the end of the month that will help you reach your financial goal.

What will inspire your productivity is the insight you already have waiting for a little scent of water (your income to be invested in it) and then your productivity will begin to show. It means that when you work for someone else you have no right to be bitter against that person because the person seems to be making more money and you are not. What you have to do is to stop seeing your boss as the person whose responsibility it is to make you prosper by giving you more money because he is making more money. Don’t ever expect more money because your company is making more money. Things don’t happen that way. The only way to get more money is to have an insight or revelation or and idea that you will nurture as a seed with the income you already have. With that you would have created a legitimate ground to make more money and you would not be bitter against someone for not raising your pay when you have not acquired and extra degree or skill. You cannot be asking to earn more when you have not added to your earning capacity!

The security consultant who now does, according to him, ‘shit business’ is meeting a need from the unexpected angle and is making good money. A popular slogan on most of his official vehicles reads ‘Shit Business is serious business’ or ‘You smell the shit we smell the money.’ Today he does not only talk about the shit business but also talks about Bio Gas because of an insight that is leading to his productivity. One of his contracts to supply mobile toilets to the Federal Government was worth over 400 million naira. He was supposed to buy the products for the government and make them available for a major sports festival in the capital city but the government realized they were not going to need the product after the event. He was called and the government negotiated the about with the promise that he could keep all the mobile toilets he would purchase for the government after the event! Today the shit business man speaks on the platform of the United Nations discussing shit on a global level and is the Vice President of a body that sounds like International Toilet Association. Even the highest paid bankers would have to work some years to be able to boast about a hundred million naira in their accounts.

There are monthly gatherings in Nigeria bringing together about one million people and these people need to use the toilet. He has a contract with some of the organizers of the events to supply the mobile toilets and there are strategic spots in the city of Lagos where his mobile toilets are sited. One day I had the privilege of ushering him into a meeting where he was supposed to speak and I asked him, ‘how’s business sir.’ His response, in his usual jovial manner was, ‘ah, as long as people are shitting (defecating), we are happy.’ And the truth is that he has to be happy because his bankers will always have figures to add up!

In whatever you do, be informed that more money is not what determines your productivity. It is more insight or idea or revelation that will determine your productivity.

Fola Daniel Adelesi, ASM
www.foladaniel.com
www.debater5.blogspot.com
+234 703 790 7851
+234 704 196 0689
info@foladaniel.com

It’s hard to wait but I know if this waiting does not kill you and I then it’s going to make us. The waiting can put us into situations where we begin to wonder if we ever understood the meaning of hope. Sometimes it just looks like we are not going to survive the next minute if we don’t get what we want but then the minutes drag on into hours and into days and into weeks and then finally it turns into years for some people. deep down on the inside of us we really want to ask God what’s happening but we have been told not to question the authority of God because God really is the unquestionable God so we seat down and groan. I understand that God is unquestionable but He did say, ‘come and let us reason together.’

I honestly think it’s pretty hard to reason with God about why you have to wait so long for a job when it’s obvious you are hungry and you need shelter. You are being accommodated by someone else or better still let’s use the word tolerated and you still have to wait in that same place where you are being tolerated. You have been waiting so long for a spouse to come along or for a child to come around but nothing seem to be coming. You said you were self-employed but the cash flow isn’t flowing so everybody told you to get a job and when you decided to get one the interviewer is asking you, ‘why are you looking for a job?’ This meant that they saw a potential for an employer in you and not that of an employee but the big jobs that can feed you regularly and leave some stipends in your accounts are just not coming and for that moment you can’t even think about employing others otherwise you would be employing trouble.

Sometimes we want to understand why certain things are happening and at other times we just don’t have enough strength to seat through another sermon on why the things that are not happening are for our good. We just want a situation where all of the emotions can be turned around in split seconds via the sudden provision of what we have been expecting. At this point we begin to realize that long suffering really means suffering long and not just a combination of words to fill up space in the Holy Book.

God makes a promise to us and then we feel like when we wake up tomorrow the promise is going to be there, not in words but in the forms that we pictured when the words came. For a moment we get so excited just because we have the promise – a posted dated financial instrument – and when the excitement can no longer sustain us we begin to drag into anxiety. Yes we have the promise but we are not just keen on the promise right now because we have already told everyone about the promise so they are also waiting with us to see the promise. Sometimes it gets really complicated that we want the promise not just because it was for us but because we have told others about it and we don’t want to look like liars. We are beginning to get into situations where we want God to prove that He spoke to us about something and when the people believe God spoke we also want God to defend himself. Unfortunately God does not come in a hurry simply because of the people we have shared his promise with since He does not have to defend the integrity of His word before men.

While we think that God should hurry either because we need something desperately or because we think people should see what God can do, God thinks we should just wait for THE APPOINTED time because He makes all things beautiful in its time. Then God says those that “wait” will in the process of waiting renew their strength. The aftermath of waiting will be that they will mount up with wings as eagles. In the middle of all of this we really want to believe God then we remember that He is Jehovah Jireh.

We live in nations where some seem to over all the money and others seem to have all the troubles yet they are fellow citizens. It sometimes looks like some just have it as soon as they snap a finger but others have to wait for a baby to grow.

I can’t contend the promises or the capacity of God but I just want to say, ‘God, don’t let this waiting kill me.’ It is possible for some people to wait for something for so long such that they would have lost the essence of waiting by the time the waiting is over. I don’t know about you but I guess you are so spiritual that waiting is a natural thing for you. As for me I think the only reason waiting seems natural is because the only thing I have to do is to wait. If truth must be told many of us are waiting because we don’t seem to have alternatives and we really can’t help ourselves. Deep down on the inside we claim to be waiting but we are also checking out the possibilities of alternatives. We are human beings and we live within time and when God makes a promise to us our constraint of time makes us desperate enough to forget that the maker of the promise created time but does not live within time.

As for me I don’t know how long I have to wait an even if I say I can’t wait for this to be over I will still have to wait for it to be over. So in all of these I just want to say dear God:

1.) Don’t let this waiting kill me
2.) Don’t let it quench my faith
3.) I don’t want to wait so long and then forget the essence of waiting
4.) When the waiting is over help me to quickly say you did it so that I would not be punished with another waiting over something that can come in a jiffy.
5.) Don’t let the waiting present me as a superstar but as a message from God in everybody’s mail box
6.) When the waiting is over let me enjoy the reason for which I waited.
7.) This is hard but I have to say take me through the next waiting that will take me through to the next level.

Oratory is not my intention in this piece so you can excuse my repetition. It’s hard to wait but God, don’t let this waiting kill me.

Fola Daniel Adelesi, ASM
www.foladaniel.com
www.debater5.blogspot.com
www.teenagersclass.wordpress.com
info@foladaniel.com
+234 703 790 7851
+234 704 196 0689

We find it easy to tell people how insignificant what we have are or how infinitesimal they are. We always talk about the negligible status of the things that we carry and desperately yearn for the possession of another thing while still carrying the one we call insignificant. No matter how insignificant or useless what we carry seems to be we need to understand that it is still what we really need to get started in life and it is not what we do not have that has gotten us stuck where we are. It is what we have that we are not using.

You can easily find people talking about the car they don’t have, the shoes they have not bought, the clothes they are still looking forward to, they kind of meals they would like to have, the kind of houses they would love to live in, the kind of people they would love to meet and the kind of places where they want to be seen. It’s not that office space that you do not have that is stopping you from starting the business. It is your mind that is stopping you from starting the business. It is not the money you don’t have that will not let you get anything started. It is the small ability in you that you have not put to use that has not allowed the money that you need to come around.

What we need to do is to start something with the little that already exists and see how much more we can access when the little is put to use. There is a principle that guides this and you can call it the law of use. I want to call it the law of use for some reasons. First it is what you use that lets people know what you do. What they see you do is what they will come and pay you for. What people are paying you for is what will be enlarged in your hands and then you can use the resources that have come in as a result of the use of the first one you had to go after the things that you thought you need. Certain people should also know what you have and this will help you understand why a widow in the Bible couldn’t get help until she mentioned what she had. There are people we will meet in our lives who will be in a position to spark off something that will be an explosive experience but that experience will only depend on what we tell them that we have.

When I started out in Public Speaking I didn’t know so much about entrepreneurship and I think that helped me in a way. If I had know something about business I probably would have started out thinking about money to rent an office space and materials to work with but I didn’t. I jokingly said to people, ‘my head is my head office and my room is my branch because that is where my computer is.’ In other words I had the mindset that pushed me away from focusing on the things I did not have at that time and worked with only my computer and my mouth. After using my computer and my mouth so well the other things I needed began to surface. Today I have published books, been on radio and consistently appear on television. The resultant effect from that is having people who have watched the TV broadcasts calling me to request my services but let’s note that I started with the seemingly insignificant which helped me to get the significant thing I still looked forward to.

So many of us have to begin to scrutinize the multiplier effects in the seemingly tiny seeds that we carry in our hands can produce if only we put them to use. In some cases what we have may truly be what someone else needs and that person also has what we need. What should be done is to let people know what we have so that we can use it as a leverage to get what we want. For years I can tell you from experience that there are people I have wanted to do business with but the reason I couldn’t do business with them is that I don’t really know what they do. For some it can be embarrassing to ask them what they do especially if there is nothing in the tone of the conversation that will lead to a business discussion and you do not want to embarrass them. When people do not talk about what they do simply because they think it is not good enough they are constantly short changing themselves and closing up doors of opportunities right in front of them.

Sometimes you just cannot tell who’s standing next to you and if you will succeed with the little that you have first you must believe that whatever you start with the little can yield and if only you will do something there will be a greater result which you can them use to get more and more until you get to the level of abundance. This is a statement consequent upon the fact that even a tree stump and the scent of water can still live again. Your action is the only lever that your ability needs to get you the results that you desire.

Whatever it is that you have must be worked on because the only way to have more is to start something with what you already have. You cannot afford to do nothing while waiting for what you do not have because when what you desire comes around it is your previous work that will qualify you for it. That relates to how the labour market also works. If you say you don’t have a job and you do nothing because you don’t have a job you need to know that your doing nothing will affect you when you eventually get an opportunity. One of the questions they will ask you is ‘what have you been doing since you left school or since you quit your last job?’

You have all you need to get started even if you don’t have all you need to finish it.

The key issues here therefore are:

1.) What you don’t have is not the problem but what you have that you do not put to use.
2.) No matter how small your resource or ability is it needs you to believe in it.
3.) Nothing bigger will come until you use the small one that you have.
4.) Let people know what you have and what you do so that they know where to come in.
5.) You can only get recommendations for the things that you publicise.
6.) You cannot afford to do nothing while waiting for what you don’t have because you do not qualify for more when you have not started anything.

Fola Daniel Adelesi, ASM

One of the most difficult questions I have had to answer many times is, ‘what kind of business can I do?’ These people have a sincere question but if the truth must be told it is the wrong question.

I honestly think that people cannot think about a business to do and succeed at it if they have not found out what to do with themselves as individuals. You can only say this is my business because it is what you like to do and want to do with or without the monetary remuneration involved. It can be your business and I can agree that you will excel at it if you are willing to hang on in there even when you have done every right thing for the business to succeed and nothing positive seems to be coming.

If you want to know what the right business is then I strongly recommend that you first discover who you are as an individual and what you seen naturally wired to do. The things you can easily succeed at if they were your businesses are the things that you do with all the energy inside you even when every other person around seems to question your interest and they do not understand why you will be so positive without any concrete result to look forward to!

When people hear me teach about entrepreneurship and business development the next question I can be sure to get in the interactive session is, ‘so what business do you suggest I do.’ As much as I do not want to be nasty I must confess that this question comes from people who do not even know themselves. I discovered who I am and what I am supposed to be doing. I found out what I really want and not what somebody else thinks is lucrative. I began to develop myself first to be a productive person and a relevant person in the society.

One thing that helped in which I have now converted into business was that I found a major skill in my life and my purpose in life became clear. When my purpose became clear I began to see what I could do as a business and still fulfill purpose. I found out that I could talk a lot and I was so passionate about getting some information across to people. when I started developing my speaking skills I realized the need to start writing what I have been talking about so that the people who could not make it to the meeting could get some of the things I said on paper. Initially my writing skill was developed because I had no stable speaking platform so I thought about a way to still say what I wanted to say even if they would not give me the microphone in the meeting. At some point I successfully said what I wanted to say through the papers written and the writing became consistent. Having built the abilities inside me it was not difficult to decide what business to do when I thought about doing business.

I simply took my gifts or talents and placed it in front of me. I thought about all the business that people with my talents were doing and that gave me an idea of what to do. That was how I got into professional speaking, compere services, writing books, publishing and management training was added to it because of my passion for excellence. This was easy for me to decide because I first found a skill rather than looking out for where to make money.

For some others it may not work just the way it has worked for me because I had a physical skill that was backed up by passion and I could convert it into services as a business. You may have seen one or two things that you like or you may have seen one or two things that seem mysterious to you. I remember the story of a young man who decided to study medicine because his father constantly had a pain and he wanted to find out why his father had that pain so that he could help his father.

There are people who also go into some kinds of businesses not because it is really their passion but they have discovered that it is a need and they cannot afford to always wait for someone else to come and meet the need.

For some others it may not be a need that they have stumbled on. It could be a mistake they made while playing around with several materials. You will be surprised by how many inventions we have all over the world today not because of ingenuity but because of mistakes.

While some are jumping up and down about what kind of businesses they should do or how they should work on their skills to give it a commercial value there are some who simply go in the direction of their role model. While this can be dangerous it is still proven to have worked for a few. The danger in it is that some end up just copying what someone else is doing without knowing what the person’s intentions were before he started what he was doing. The influence of the role model could be a positive one if the person who is replicating what someone has already done has a close rapport with the person whose works or strategy he seems to be replicating. At that level he will have an understanding of what the person is doing instead of just trying to do what the other person is doing without knowing why.

In plain words, apart from what I have said above, the kind of businesses you can do will be determined by:

1.) The gifts or talents that you have discovered in you.
2.) The abilities or skills that you have acquired through training or cultivation
3.) The dire or urgent need in your environment.
4.) A mistake that you made which turned out to be what someone needs.
5.) The influence of a strong role model in your life.

Whatever the case is just make sure what you want to do or what you are doing is what you really like to do.

Fola Daniel Adelesi, ASM
www.foladaniel.wordpress.com
www.debater5.blogspot.com
www.teenagersclass.wordpress.com
+234 703 790 7851
+234 805 247 2448
info@foladnaiel.com

I have been through stages and I am still going through stages in my life, just as almost every one of us, where nothing seems to be happening. At such times it is easy to get discouraged and call for a pity party hoping to find some consolation in something external rather than looking inward for solutions.

Whatever it is you are going through is not something that will remain that way for the rest of your life. Life will always look like a tunnel at some points where it is going to be dark and you still have to drive through. The problem with so many other people is that when they drive into a tunnel in life they want to wait for the light to come on in the tunnel but the tunnel probably was not designed to be lit up. You are not supposed to stay in the tunnel because it is a passage and not your destination! When you remember all the time that the tunnel is your passage and not your destination then you will think about what to do when something starts happening.

If you are hoping for a job I think it is safe to strive to be a part of some professional training before the job eventually comes and that will imply that you improved your earning capacity. You can’t stay out of employment for several years and you think your worth will be increasing without doing something like getting additional degrees or taking some other training. The truth is that the more you stay out of school the less relevant you become. For those who are entrepreneurs you also have the advantage to improve your service delivery or other relevant skills in your business at the time when your business does not seem to have all the demands you expect it to have. One thing we unknowingly do against ourselves is to continually wait for something to happen for us while doing nothing to make ourselves better.

A lot of people wait for something to happen and when something begins to happen they realize that what is happening to them is lot bigger than what they bargained for because they did not go after more information or seek to improve their professionalism. I honestly admit that waiting can be a difficult thing and sometimes can be very frustrating for the person who has to wait for months to get a client in a business. It is one thing to get people who really are interested in what you do and make a lot of promises but it is another thing for them to request your services and be paid.

Just as you know somewhere in your heart that a time will come when you will not beg for clients, then you should prepare for that time by knowing more about your field and improving your skills. The time to plan your innovation is when nothing seems to be happening to you. The time to increase your earning capacity is when nothing seems to be happening. The time to work out your professional excellence is when nothing seems to be happening rather than just waiting and hoping for the opportunity because you will get to a stage where people will say, ‘we know you can do this and we do not want to give it to another person.’ At that time there may be no chance for preparation. You will only have to go on with whatever you have been equipped with so far. Do something now!

It is easy to think that the teenagers are too ambitious and to conclude that some of them are already delinquent but what we are ignorantly doing when we do not help our teenagers to enjoy church is to cultivate a spirit of rebellion in them when they have to keep coming to church as a result of necessity. Nothing drives anyone towards rebellion faster than being forced to a place where you do not derive maximum satisfaction. For the fanatics it may be wrong to say that the church is supposed to be fun what is the entire essence of the church when the people coming to it do not look forward it in any way?

Many churches are preoccupied building projects and fund raising activities at the detriment of members and unfortunate at the expense of teenagers who still depend absolute on the information being churned out in the society rather than seating down to process information from within through mediation. It has come to a time when pastors and church leaders must recognize the fact that we are not building anything when we use people to build churches and we can be referred to as mega churches when we cannot point to the ‘mega lives’ that we have built. There are schools in the society today who can boast about the great men they have produced for the society and sometimes some of them boast about how many presidents they have produced for the nation and I think it is time for the church to focus primarily on the relevance of its products to the society rather than being to concerned about the relevance of those people to its series of activities within the church setting.

Teenagers are full of energy and are always waiting for something to do or always looking forward to the next engaging activity but too many religious bodies only deem it fit to keep them in the church and organize an annual youth conference to say we thank God for sparing your lives for another one year. For those who do not wait for one year they probably have some meetings where the teenagers or the youth bodies are just gathered and somebody talks over their heads.

For churches to be productive in these times they cannot only begin to think about productivity in line with how many parents are prosperous or look prosperous without looking at the productivity of the teenagers so it is imperative to have a structure that “engages and involves” the teenagers as a way to unlock the potentials inside of them. There are so many teenagers who have heard teachings on holiness and they have become so holy but also so useless to the society. The system of any purpose driven church must accommodate the capacity building for young people through which the church can refine lives not just with words but with proven skills that the teenagers have acquired or learnt.

We have told them too many things that they should not do but we have also left them to keep wondering what is the right thing to be done? They already know they should not smoke, drink, fornicate, lie, kill and so many other things. Unfortunately what should not be done is the focus of a lot of people who see to have been called into the youth ministry. We scare the hell out of them and forget that it is easier to go back to what should not be done when that is the only thing they are looking forward to. Let us remember that when Jesus told people what they should not do he also empowered them to do what they were designed to do. He found disciples and led them to God. He taught them upright living but did not leave them to start looking out for who was going to break the rules. While he was teaching them upright leaving he focused more on the productivity of the disciples and that was why he said stuff, ‘oh ye of little faith.’ What that implies is that there is something they had learnt by watching him or there is something he had taught them which they still could not demonstrate. We have instances where he spoke to the people about the talent which was a parable on productivity. We also have instances where he spoke to the people about the poor in the society which meant the focus of any productive person is not only to be blessed but to also be a blessing to the people around.

Rather than just saying teenagers are this and that we have to begin to create systems for these teenagers and build them after helping them to discover themselves. There so many churches who cannot boast of having helped their teenagers to discover purpose. When we cannot boast of having helped these teenagers to discover purpose then we should know that anything is meaningful to a purposeless person. It is when a man has become purposeful that it becomes more meaningful to begin to set priorities right.

For too long the church has built structures rather than people. Consequently the society has produced more powerful individuals than the church has produced even though we have people who are so anointed but cannot command national attention. This is not surprising to an extent because even some church members have relegated their pastors’ relevance to church activities or spiritual issues. You also may not expect too much because the same pastor that preached powerfully on Sunday is now at the economic mercy of the congregation from Monday to Saturday.

I strongly think that the church is one of the places where you can help teenagers prepare for life spiritually, academically and professionally and any church that does not do that is working against what it is preaching. When we have people who are so spiritual and are not economically empowered they will get to a level where they question the capacity of the ever invisible God and resort to ‘self-help’ which consequently is ‘self-destruction.’ The church has the great opportunity to make not just the teenagers but every other person understand that the rate of unemployment is not as high as the rate of unemployable people. There is unemployment but the bigger problem is there are unemployable people and the church to a great extent is indulging some of these people. You have kept someone since he or she was a teenager without questioning his or her productivity and now they have gotten to levels where their productive abilities should yield for them and you are praying for them to receive miracle jobs.

If I was a church pastor and you came to me about receiving a miracle job I would first ask you about what skills you have acquired before expecting a miracle job.

Let’s create systems that

1.) Challenge the mediocrity which the teenagers have grown to observe and are likely to pick easily.
2.) Help the young ones and every other person think outside the box and not always looking for help when they can unlock what they have and help others.
3.) Help people discover who they are and always know what they carry which has been lying dormant in them.
4.) Teach people to be upright but at the same time productive and seemingly indispensable in the society.
5.) Make people feel so grateful to the church for its impact on them and consequently look forward to church every other day.

Until we do this we are going to be complicating problems that we are supposed to be fixing when we know that it is easier for teenagers to rebel than to listen. While praying for our teenagers let’s also do something about their perspective to life!

A female Nigerian pastor who goes by the name Williams once said, ‘if your church does not change you then you need to change your church.’ I have also heard Pastor Mathew Ashimolowo say, ‘instead of the people to perish they change their parish.’ For so long a time we have had to debate the necessity of changing a church and I did keep quiet for some reasons but the long silence is killing some people and it is time to voice my opinion.

It is important to first note that when we were born we did not choose the churches that we attended and for a long time we sat in the pew not because we were blessed but because our parents got ‘stuck’ in some of those churches and we also had to stick. This is a time when people no longer just go to church just because it is important not to forsake the gathering of the brethren as it is the culture of some folks but we have to be in the gathering where tangible values are deposited and physical progress is made. Today we have people driving several kilometers to attend churches even when there are churches practically ‘littering’ the streets where they live. That should leave us with the important question of why would people want to leave tens of churches around them and go to some churches miles away from their house?

What happened to the churches people were in before they thought about leaving and why do pastors fight the people that are leaving their churches. I honestly understand that leaving a church could be for the right or the wrong reasons depending on the person in question. Some leave their churches for other churches because of the new facility that the other church has but some others leave their churches for another because the other seems to be delivering the values they can point to. Some leave their churches because they want to be seen as people who attend Pastor “So … So … So and So’s Church but other have discovered the connection in destiny and they understand that this other pastor has been through the paths that God wants to take them through.

At any point my opinion has always been that when you first get born again it might just be necessary to have a place where your soul is nourished but at some point it might be necessary to change church when you discover purpose and it is very obvious this other pastor can guide you through your specific path of purpose. Let’s be real here! It is not every pastor that can guide you to your destination so you have some pastors that can at best help you to be spiritually sound but you also need someone who can take you beyond being spiritually sound to being productive and purposeful. A lot of pastors can teach and preach but only a few have mastered the art of coaching such that when you sometimes need to take some decisions your pastor’s voice can resonate in your ears even if he is not there when your decision was being taken.

So why do pastors fight members who change churches? Some of the pastors are fighting for the soul of the members which means that they know the person in question is not mature enough to jump from one place to another. They would have had no problem with the person is they know that this person is spiritually sound enough to know what is good for him per season because there are spiritual seasons in every man’s life. For some others the case is not the same. They know this guy’s tithe is very heavy so he can collapse the church’s finance if he decides to leave. For some other it has to do with the key role the person has been playing in the church. They do not want a person to leave because he is a choir master or a unit leader in some key departments of the church. It has, in some places, gone as bad as pastors cursing their members which is an outright abuse of the anointing because it was given to you or any other person so that you can bless and impact the sheep.

It was recorded in the bible that some of Jesus’ disciples left but we never heard that Jesus fought or cursed them. In fact he never mentioned it again the moment they left. When pastors begin to understand that people can leave at any time then they will not make people so indispensable that their leaving unexpectedly will cause a lot of pain where it does. A church system is supposed to be an institution and at that it means that even when key pastors leave it will not shake the church! If anything happens to they key pastor the church will continue without any struggle because there is a structure in place to make sure that the focus is building lives and not enlarging congregation so that we can have a robust resume when talking about pastoring experience.

When people leave churches just as they were the ones who walked in willingly before you began to call them members it should be noted that a personal relationship with the people exiting the churches is more important. There are people who love you enough to be your friend or even listen to you as a mentor but they just do not want to be a part of the congregation and I think you should not fight people for that reason. Some of the people who have even taught about leaving could be won back into the church if only we genuinely follow them on personal grounds and they are convinced that these people are after my heart and not my money or talents which has always been useful to the church.

Instead of fighting people for leaving our church we are supposed to seat down and consider why people would want to leave our own churches for some other that might even be far away. In Nigeria I know about people who drive for about one or two hours to get to church every Sunday so the question should be what are they looking for that will make them leave all the churches around them and stay in traffic some times for as long as three or four hours just to attend a service!

Rather than fighting people who leave our churches I strongly suggest that church leaders should seat down and stop concluding that everybody who left the church has backslidden into sin. There are hundreds of people changing churches without backsliding. The truth is that they have even grown stronger in the word and have results to show in the new places their feet are now planted. Let’s re-evaluate things and sincerely answer the question of why people are leaving our congregation because it means there is something they are getting in the other places that we are not offering. When we find what it is and it is scriptural, we must provide such for our people because there are people who will not leave the church and at the same time they are not satisfied with the things they experiencing.

I should also have mentioned that some people leave churches because their values no longer align with the core values being propagated in the church and I would rather have a person leave the church because his values do not align with the values of the church than stay in the church and fight everybody. Sometimes it’s amazing how churches can tolerate the people who will not leave and still cause chaos in the church but will never celebrate those who decided to leave quietly because they do not want trouble and they still want to grow at the end of the day.

After all many of these pastors who fight people for leaving their churches preach that there is no denomination in heaven so why do you fight people to stay or come back to your denomination if you truly admit there is no denomination in heaven?

I over heard a group of photographers discussing in a recent conference that I attended and they lamented their state of stagnation. One of them believed witches and wizards were responsible and he also taught that they could have been richer if their parents taught them how to make money. It is true they could have been richer if their parents taught them how to make money but he erroneously believed that all the people in the developed world taught their children how to make money. I only wish he had read ‘Rich Dad, Poor Dad’ but the problem again is that people like that don’t read.

One day, a preacher said, ‘if the devil has an opportunity to defend himself before God he would say, ‘God you know that most of these things I have been accused of were not done by me. You also know that I was in Asia when this man in Europe said I was the one that tempted him’ but the devil will never get that chance because he is condemned forever.’ Unfortunately today we have people who are not putting things right and are attributing their failures or stagnation in life to the devil and his cohorts.

A long time ago I settled it in my mind that I am responsible for whatever becomes of me especially knowing that God already planned a great future for my life and that it will be my responsibility to access what he had preplanned before I came into the scene. Witches may be able to manipulate the destiny of others but yours is secured if only you know who you are and what you carry. You are an exemption to those who can be tossed in any direction provided you have found out the area where you do not have to struggle to stand out.

I have read in the Bible that if the ways of a man pleases God he will make his enemies to be at peace with him so witches and wizards can be at peace with you. Let me also shock you that witches and wizards can be compelled to join in helping you fulfill destiny and I will back this up by the story of a pastor that I heard. He went into a town for a crusade and it was time for him to begin to operate then the witches showed up. When they realized who he was they said, ‘this is a ‘no-go’ area and they also promised to back him up.’ That was strange because witches should be all out to destroy and not to help.

People have come to believe that they do not have power yet they agree that they serve a very powerful God. God is not like your political government that has so much power and its people are so powerless! It is written in the Bible that our names are inscribed on the palm of his hands so I do not understand how witches can control the destiny of a man whose name is inscribed on the palm of God’s hands. The one who watches over me does not sleep nor slumber and he is the only one that has that quality so who’s that wretched witch that can get God to go to bed and decide what happens to me if God goes to bed?

Do I agree there are witches? Oh yeah I do and I remember Jesus in the Bible helping some men to cast out the evil spirits in them and sometimes at the peril of the swine. The more important thing is for to understand that we have and serve “The Almighty” God who upholds the world by the word of his power and has made us Kings and Priests unto our God. He also makes us understand that we have overcome by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony.

The conversation of the photographers was that of someone who was mentally weak but unfortunately did not understand how much God had invested in them. You are too much to be stagnated or terminated anyhow. Your destiny is on a high voltage if you are on a voyage with God