The Secret of Life Rhapsody

PLANNING IS EVERYTHING I begin with the words of Winston Churchill who said that: “Plans are of little importance, but planning is essential. I couldn’t agree less with this noble man. It is time for us to Plan TODAY. What are we planning for: A Wedding, An Exam, A House Building Project, A Successful Future. Whatever it is, You have start with a plan because: “If you fail to plan, then you are planning to fail” In a nutshell, I think planning is a virtue that is readily available from the creation of the world till now, yet man barely uses planning as a tool. I look around me and I see that every new technology that is been used today is or was a function of someone’s planning.  The houses we live in are a function of someone’s planning. The decisions we make today are a function of many years of planning which is been executed by us today. Two years ago, I made a decision to join Project Management International (PMI) and a...

SOCIAL CAPITAL Man is a social being, meaning that we are bound to meet people and network with them all with the sole aim of attaining resources. Wikipedia defines Social Capital as a form of economic and cultural capital in which social networks are central. Social Capital transactions are marked by reciprocity, trust and co-operation, and market agents produce goods and services not mainly for themselves, but for common good. Economists have defined Social Capital as a factor of production. This means that if you can’t be trusted as a business man or woman, in a matter of time, you will lose your best resources namely: Your Staff, Your Vendors and Suppliers, Bankers and Investors (Capital) and the business. In my opinion, Social Capital is equated as your trust capital. It is your earnings in trust capital that you either draw from or deposit into. You must work on growing your social capital at all times, and you must be trusted at all times. Little ...

UNDERSTAND THE PROCESS AND NOT THE END PRODUCT As I write the piece, I remember what my software testing teacher used to ask us before he starts every class.  How would say to us: Can you get clean water out of a dirty pipe? And we would all chant A BIG NO. And he would say to us that is the greatest lesson in life. He would say focus on the process and not the end result. Many years later, I was preparing for an exam.  I was so confident with myself that I had already passed the exam because I had taught over 20 students who had written the same exam and passed. Guess What: I failed the exam! I came short by one mark. The passing score was 40 and I scored 39.   That result plagued me for many years. During my lessons learned debrief after failing the exam, I realized that 60% of the questions I faced on exam day were based on two topics I barely studied.  I also assumed that since everyone I taught passed the exam, then ...

LIVE FOR OTHERS My Dad is going to be 70 later this year and as we celebrate him, the only thing obvious about him is that he lived his life for others. As a child, I never understood why my father would wake up every morning and he went about finding out how people were faring because he cared. When it was time to go to school, my Dad will offer a lift to every child on the street, till the car was over loaded with kids. I still didn’t get it. He was always everywhere, helping the street association to get a bigger transformer from the power generating company, helping his own community to get electricity in 1995 and helping tenants and preventing them from been evicted by landlords. To make things more interesting, anyone travelling abroad from our community used to come and stay in our house in Lagos before travelling. One day, I couldn’t help but ask: Daddy, why do you help people who don’t even appreciate it, let alone remember you. His answer stunned...

MASTERING YOURSELF Lao Tzu said and I quote: “Mastering others is strength but mastering yourself is true power.” If you plan to get more powerful in this New Year, then please stop and read this piece. Rule 1: Meditate Every Morning and Night. Plan to meditate for 30 minutes to one hour every morning and evening. While you are at it, keep a notepad and write down any thoughts that come to your mind. Someday in the future, I know you will thank me for this. Rule 2: Tell yourself that you are the Captain of Your Life. After meditating and before leaving home, remind yourself that you are in charge of your life and that no one can make you feel lesser than yourself.  The reason is this: life is tough, only those that are mentally tough will survive. Imagine that you are a cell tower and you are receiving signals, my advice is: choose to receive positive signals, so that you can soar higher every day. Rule 3: Write down what you really, really wan...

HOW TO PASS ANY EXAM We begin this New Year with a very important secret? Read on if you want to pass any exam henceforth.  I want to share a principle that I have always used to pass most exams.  Since 2006, I have written over 150 professional certification exams. The fact is that I have been averaging one exam per month and 12 exams in a year for the past ten years. This made an active reader, however I discovered that in order to pass any exam you need to do two things: 1.     Study with your 5 senses and 2.     Write a lot of practice tests A research done by an organization in the United Kingdom lists what students do when studying for exams, they include: 1.     Making Notes 2.     Cramming 3.     Doing Practice Exams 4.     Reading over and or revising 5.     Rewriting their own notes The ideal study approach is stu...

RITA MULCAHY: THE CAPTAIN WHO LIVES FOREVER 4 Apologies for being out of circulation for a while, life and work has been hectic. However, as I woke early this morning at 5:15AM (GMT+1 time zone) up to read for my Project Management Certification, I picked up a copy of my PMP Exam Prep book written by Rita Mulcahy. I couldn’t help but wonder how this woman has impacted the world in the field of project management. She died on May 15, 2010 of Stage 4 Inflammatory Breast Cancer. However, project managers and aspiring project managers all over the world are still reading her book. In fact, Rita Mulcahy, through her company, RMC still train thousands of project managers every year, in over 30 countries. She started this project after been frustrated by the lack of quality project management materials in the late 1990s, and she started writing project management articles and books based on her combined knowledge of accelerated and extensive project management exper...