IT'S TIME TO BREAK THROUGH.

First, let me just say thanks for another great weekend for Temptation. The movie is doing just what I hoped it would do. It is speaking to marriages and relationships all over. Thank you for seeing it in the theaters. It really is changing lives.

Now on to why I'm writing. It's about 6.am here. Really quiet. The kind of quiet where even a still small voice can sound like a scream. I was sitting here thinking about the first time I took a flight on a small private jet. Many of you know that I'm an aviation buff. I love planes and flying. That's crazy, seeing as how my passion for it started out as a way to get over my fears. And my first flight was my scariest.

That morning, when I got to the airport, it was cloudy, raining and cold. I told the pilots that I was a nervous flyer and asked how the weather was. He said, "it’s rough down low but great up high." Now I'm looking at the sky, it didn't look so great up high to me. But I said a prayer and got on. We took off. It was so turbulent. I was bouncing all over the place. I sat there thinking, "Why would they tell me the weather was fine?"

After about ten minutes of being bounced around I asked the pilots why it was so rough. They told me that it would get better as soon as they were allowed to climb higher. I asked who was holding us at that altitude and they said Air Traffic Control. There were a lot of planes in the area and for our own safety we had to stay at that altitude. I sat down, bouncing around some more, white knuckled and all, until the flight attendant told me that we had just been cleared to climb higher. I felt the plane pitch up and the thrust of those powerful jet engines kick in. We bounced around some more. It seemed to have gotten worse. Visibility through my window was non-existent. I was about to ask them to land and let me off the plane. But then we broke through the clouds. There was the sun and the air was so smooth that it didn't even feel like we were moving.

By now, I'm sure you're wondering, "why am I reading all this?" Well, I’ll tell you. Flying through rough weather is a lot like making it through life. Sometimes there are a lot of dark clouds, a lot of bad moments. So bad that you want to give up or turn around like I wanted to. Sometimes you can't go higher because something or someone is trying to hold you back or you're being held at that altitude for your own safety. Sometimes you’re not ready to go higher. God is protecting you from yourself because he knows that you can’t handle going higher. Sometimes he’s hiding you, preparing you to be ready. (That gave me a million thoughts. I’ll save that for another email). Sometimes it's so dark you can't see which way to go. But just like air traffic control had to give us permission to go higher, this morning I wanted to give you permission to go higher. Climb!! The weather is so much better up there. The sun is shinning bright up higher. Stop living your life so low.

Now it's not going to be easy to get through those clouds. You’re going to have to hold your head up and use all the strength in your soul to get through, but you will. Use prayer as your fuel and go higher. You have just been given permission to climb higher. Fly above it all.

Tyler Perry.

Why Nobody Wants To Hire You.

 15 reasons why HR people don't want to hire you. 

I decided to compile some of the comments my professional HR colleagues were giving why “some people don’t get that job they thought they were qualified for”. Some of the points they highlighted, I totally agreed with and some I don’t . 
But it is always better to err on the side of caution 


1. You're not a magical renaissance machine willing to work for less than what you're worth- 
(Unless you are in a highly technical field, don’t go asking for N500,000 per month salary as an entry level Graduate/Trainee. Pay your dues first with experience!!!) 

2. You don't already have a job (Most employers want to hire a fully baked professional not someone they have to teach the job) 

3. Your CV is terrible (Terrible as in VERY TERRIBLE, full of grammatical errors. Always edit your CV periodically) 


4. You aren't qualified (You were either over qualified or under qualified for that Job Role) 

5. You have a stupid email address (Could you believe a young job applicant; who was supposed to be a graduate holding a fine Degree; coming in with an email address like skinnybone@rocketmail.com, strongdick@yahoo.com or pagan-pope@hotmail.com? *Hmmn* 
Even if you have such 'stupid' email addresses, that doesn't mean you cannot open another more "responsible-looking", address for official/professional use !!! 

6. You're late. (The mere fact that you are late for an interview tells me that there is a likelihood that you are a disorganized person who doesn’t plan ,which employer would want to hire that type of individual 

7. You lied about your Qualifications and Job Duties (Believe me, HR people can sense the lies) 

8. You're not passionate- (There is no life in your speech, it is either you are tired of life or life is tired of you *lol*, the interviewer is trying so hard not to fall asleep. 

9. You look like a jerk online (Google your name and see what come up) 

10. Get a LinkedIn Profile and update it (Network through Facebook and LinkedIn) 

11. You lack confidence 

12. You're just had a bad interview 

14. You're inarticulate (The HR person is trying to understand what you are saying, it’s like you are speaking Latin/French which he doesn't understand) 

15. You're just not likable (You come across as arrogant or cocky) *hmmn* 

Finally, you might be shortlisted for an interview...you pray hard for success...you get there and you perform very well...and then you go home to wait for their call. On the day the HR man calls to inform you of the good news (you have the job!) It is either he hears Shakira comes on stage with her hips that don’t lie...or maybe Davido starts dancing ‘Azonto’.... as your ring-back tune? Anyhow, the company man might end the call before you even answer it OR YOUR NUMBER IS NOT REACHABLE. You would think you missed a call but unknown to you, you just missed a job. There are many reasons people lose job opportunities, including trivial ones like this. 
In the end, some youths would complain that there are no jobs or that they applied everywhere but no one called them back for interviews. 

Share with your friends, SO WE DON’T PERISH FOR LACK OF KNOWLEDGE .

We Remember Differently: Chimamanda's View of The Civil War.

We Remember Differently

I have met Chinua Achebe only three times. The first, at the National Arts Club in Manhattan, I joined the admiring circle around him. A gentle-faced man in a wheelchair. “Good evening, sir. I’m Chimamanda Adichie,” I said, and he replied, mildly, “I thought you were running away from me.” I mumbled, nervous, grateful for the crush of people around us. I had been running away from him. After my first novel was published, I received an email from his son. My dad has just read your novel and liked it very much. He wants you to call him at this number. I read it over and over, breathless with excitement. But I never called. A few years later, my editor sent Achebe a manuscript of my second novel. She did not tell me, because she wanted to shield me from the possibility of disappointment. One afternoon, she called. “Chimamanda, are you sitting down? I have wonderful news.” She read me the blurb Achebe had just sent her. We do not usually associate wisdom with beginners, but here is a new writer endowed with the gift of ancient storytellers. Adichie knows what is at stake, and what to do about it. She is fearless or she would not have taken on the intimidating horror of Nigeria’s civil war. Adichie came almost fully made. Afterwards, I held on to the phone and wept. I have memorized those words. In my mind, they glimmer still, the validation of a writer whose work had validated me. I grew up writing imitative stories. Of characters eating food I had never seen and having conversations I had never heard. They might have been good or bad, those stories, but they were emotionally false, they were not mine. Then came a glorious awakening: Chinua Achebe’s fiction. Here were familiar characters who felt true; here was language that captured my two worlds; here was a writer writing not what he felt he should write but what he wanted to write. His work was free of anxiety, wore its own skin effortlessly. It emboldened me, not to find my voice, but to speak in the voice I already had. And so, when that e-mail came from his son, I knew, overly-thrilled as I was, that I would not call. His work had done more than enough. In an odd way, I was so awed, so grateful, that I did not want to meet him. I wanted some distance between my literary hero and me. Chinua Achebe and I have never had a proper conversation. The second time I saw him, at a luncheon in his honor hosted by the British House of Lords, I sat across from him and avoided his eye. (“Chinua Achebe is the only person I have seen you shy with,” a friend said). The third, at a New York event celebrating fifty years of THINGS FALL APART, we crowded around him backstage, Edwidge Danticat and I, Ha Jin and Toni Morrison, Colum McCann and Chris Abani. We seemed, magically, bound together in a warm web, all of us affected by his work. Achebe looked pleased, but also vaguely puzzled by all the attention. He spoke softly, the volume of his entire being turned to ‘low.’ I wanted to tell him how much I admired his integrity, his speaking out about the disastrous leadership in my home state of Anambra, but I did not. Before I went on stage, he told me, “Jisie ike.” I wondered if he fully grasped, if indeed it was possible to, how much his work meant to so many. History and civics, as school subjects, function not merely to teach facts but to transmit more subtle things, like pride and dignity. My Nigerian education taught me much, but left gaping holes. I had not been taught to imagine my pre-colonial past with any accuracy, or pride, or complexity. And so Achebe’s work, for me, transcended literature. It became personal. ARROW OF GOD, my favorite, was not just about the British government’s creation of warrant chiefs and the linked destinies of two men, it became the life my grandfather might have lived. THINGS FALL APART is the African novel most read – and arguably most loved – by Africans, a novel published when ‘African novel’ meant European accounts of ‘native’ life. Achebe was an unapologetic member of the generation of African writers who were ‘writing back,’ challenging the stock Western images of their homeland, but his work was not burdened by its intent. It is much-loved not because Achebe wrote back, but because he wrote back well. His work was wise, humorous, and human. For many Africans, THINGS FALL APART remains a gesture of returned dignity, a literary and an emotional experience; Mandela called Achebe the writer in whose presence the prison walls came down. Achebe’s most recent book, his long-awaited memoir of the Nigerian-Biafra war, is both sad and angry, a book by a writer looking back and mourning Nigeria’s failures. I wish THERE WAS A COUNTRY had been better edited and more rigorously detailed in its account of the war. But these flaws do not make it any less seminal: an account of the most important event in Nigeria’s history by Nigeria’s most important storyteller.

An excerpt from the book has ignited great controversy among Nigerians. In it, Achebe, indignant about the millions of people who starved to death in Biafra, holds Obafemi Awolowo, Nigerian Finance Minister during the war, responsible for the policy of blockading Biafra. He quote’s Awolowo’s own words on the blockade – ‘all is fair in war and starvation is one of the weapons of war. I don’t see why we should feed our enemies fat in order for them to fight harder’ and then argues that Awolowo’s support of the blockade was ‘driven by an overriding ambition for power for himself in particular and for the advancement of his Yoruba people in general.’ I have been startled and saddened by the responses to this excerpt. Many are blindingly ethnic, lacking in empathy and, most disturbing of all, lacking in knowledge. We can argue about how we interpret the facts of our shared history, but we cannot, surely, argue about the facts themselves. Awolowo, as de facto ‘number two man’ on the Nigerian side, was a central architect of the blockade on Biafra. During and after the war, Awolowo publicly defended the blockade. Without the blockade, the massive starvation in Biafra would not have occurred. These are the facts. Some Nigerians, in responding to Achebe, have argued that the blockade was fair, as all is fair in war. The blockade was, in my opinion, inhumane and immoral. And it was unnecessary – Nigeria would have won anyway, it was the much-better-armed side in a war that Wole Soyinka called a shabby unequal conflict. The policy of starving a civilian population into surrender does not merely go against the Geneva conventions, but in this case, a war between siblings, people who were formerly fellow country men and women now suddenly on opposite sides, it seems more chilling. All is not fair in war. Especially not in a fratricidal war. But I do not believe the blockade was a calculated power grab by Awolowo for himself and his ethnic group; I think of it, instead, as one of the many dehumanizing acts that war, by its nature, brings about. Awolowo was undoubtedly a great political leader. He was also – rare for Nigerian leaders – a great intellectual. No Nigerian leader has, arguably, articulated a political vision as people-centered as Awolowo’s. For Nigerians from the west, he was the architect of free primary education, of progressive ideas. But for Nigerians from the east, he was a different man. I grew up hearing, from adults, versions of Achebe’s words about Awolowo. He was the man who prevented an Igbo man from leading the Western House of Assembly in the famous ‘carpet crossing’ incident of 1952. He was the man who betrayed Igbo people when he failed on his alleged promise to follow Biafra’s lead and pull the Western region out of Nigeria. He was the man who, in the words of my uncle, “made Igbo people poor because he never liked us.” At the end of the war, every Igbo person who had a bank account in Nigeria was given twenty pounds, no matter how much they had in their accounts before the war. I have always thought this a livid injustice. I know a man who worked in a multinational company in 1965. He was, like Achebe, one of the many Igbo who just could not believe that their lives were in danger in Lagos and so he fled in a hurry, at the last minute, leaving thousands of pounds in his account. After the war, his account had twenty pounds. To many Igbo, this policy was uncommonly punitive, and went against the idea of ‘no victor, no vanquished.’ Then came the indigenization decree, which moved industrial and corporate power from foreign to Nigerian hands. It made many Nigerians wealthy; much of the great wealth in Nigeria today has its roots in this decree. But the Igbo could not participate; they were broke. I do not agree, as Achebe writes, that one of the main reasons for Nigeria’s present backwardness is the failure to fully reintegrate the Igbo. I think Nigeria would be just as backward even if the Igbo had been fully integrated – institutional and leadership failures run across all ethnic lines. But the larger point Achebe makes is true, which is that the Igbo presence in Nigerian positions of power has been much reduced since the war. Before the war, many of Nigeria’s positions of power were occupied by Igbo people, in the military, politics, academia, business. Perhaps because the Igbo were very receptive to Western education, often at the expense of their own traditions, and had both a striving individualism and a communal ethic. This led to what, in history books, is often called a ‘fear of Igbo domination’ in the rest of Nigeria. The Igbo themselves were insensitive to this resentment, the bombast and brashness that is part of Igbo culture only exacerbated it. And so leading Igbo families entered the war as Nigeria’s privileged elite but emerged from it penniless, stripped and bitter. Today, ‘marginalization’ is a popular word in Igbo Land. Many Igbo feel marginalized in Nigeria, a feeling based partly

on experience and partly on the psychology of a defeated people. (Another consequence of this psychology, perhaps, is the loss of the communal ethic of the Igbo, much resented sixty years ago. It is almost non-existent today, or as my cousin eloquently put it: Igbo people don’t even send each other.) Some responses to Achebe have had a ‘blame the victim’ undertone, suggesting that Biafrians started the war and therefore deserved what they got. But Biafrians did not ‘start the war.’ Nobody with a basic knowledge of the facts can make that case. Biafrian secession was inevitable, after the federal government’s failure to implement the agreements reached at Aburi, itself prompted by the massacre of Igbo in the North. The cause of the massacres was arguably the first coup of 1966. Many believed it to be an ‘Igbo’ coup, which was not an unreasonable belief, Nigeria was already mired in ethnic resentments, the premiers of the West and North were murdered while the Eastern premier was not, and the coup plotters were Igbo. Except for Adewale Ademoyega, a Yoruba, who has argued that it was not an ethnic coup. I don’t believe it was. It seems, from most accounts, to have been an idealistic and poorly-planned nationalist exercise aimed at ridding Nigeria of a corrupt government. It was, also, horrendously, inexcusably violent. I wish the coup had never happened. I wish the premiers and other casualties had been arrested and imprisoned, rather than murdered. But the truth that glares above all else is that the thousands of Igbo people murdered in their homes and in the streets had nothing to do with the coup. Some have blamed the Biafrian starvation on Ojukwu, Biafra’s leader, because he rejected an offer from the Nigerian government to bring in food through a land corridor. It was an ungenerous offer, one easy to refuse. A land corridor could also mean advancement of Nigerian troops. Ojukwu preferred airlifts, they were tactically safer, more strategic, and he could bring in much-needed arms as well. Ojukwu should have accepted the land offer, shabby as it was. Innocent lives would have been saved. I wish he had not insisted on a ceasefire, a condition which the Nigerian side would never have agreed to. But it is disingenuous to claim that Ojukwu’s rejection of this offer caused the starvation. Many Biafrians had already starved to death. And, more crucially, the Nigerian government had shown little regard for Biafra’s civilian population; it had, for a while, banned international relief agencies from importing food. Nigerian planes bombed markets and targeted hospitals in Biafra, and had even shot down an International Red Cross plane. Ordinary Biafrians were steeped in distrust of the Nigerian side. They felt safe eating food flown in from Sao Tome, but many believed that food brought from Nigeria would be poisoned, just as they believed that, if the war ended in defeat, there would be mass killings of Igbo people. The Biafrian propaganda machine further drummed this in. But, before the propaganda, something else had sown the seed of hateful fear: the 1966 mass murders of Igbo in the North. The scars left were deep and abiding. Had the federal government not been unwilling or incapable of protecting their lives and property, Igbo people would not have so massively supported secession and intellectuals, like Achebe, would not have joined in the war effort. I have always admired Ojukwu, especially for his early idealism, the choices he made as a young man to escape the shadow of his father’s great wealth, to serve his country. In Biafra, he was a flawed leader, his paranoia and inability to trust those close to him clouded his judgments about the execution of the war, but he was also a man of principle who spoke up forcefully about the preservation of the lives of Igbo people when the federal government seemed indifferent. He was, for many Igbo, a Churchillian figure, a hero who inspired them, whose oratory moved them to action and made them feel valued, especially in the early months of the war. Other responses to Achebe have dismissed the war as something that happened ‘long ago.’ But some of the people who played major roles are alive today. We must confront our history, if only to begin to understand how we came to be where we are today. The Americans are still hashing out details of their civil war that ended in 1865; the Spanish have only just started, seventy years after theirs ended. Of course, discussing a history as contested and contentious as the Nigeria-Biafra war will not always be pleasant. But it is necessary. An Igbo saying goes: If a child does not ask what killed his father, that same thing will kill him. What many of the responses to Achebe make clear, above all else, is that we remember differently. For some, Biafra is history, a series of events in a book, fodder for argument and analysis. For others, it is a loved one killed in a market bombing, it is hunger as a near-constant companion, it is the death of certainty. The war was fought on

Biafrian soil. There are buildings in my hometown with bullet holes; as a child, playing outside, I would sometimes come across bits of rusty ammunition left behind from the war. My generation was born after 1970, but we know of property lost, of relatives who never ‘returned’ from the North, of shadows that hung heavily over family stories. We inherited memory. And we have the privilege of distance that Achebe does not have. Achebe is a war survivor. He was a member of the generation of Nigerians who were supposed to lead a new nation, inchoate but full of optimism. It shocked him, how quickly Nigerian fell apart. In THERE WAS A COUNTRY he sounds unbelieving, still, about the federal government’s indifference while Igbo people were being massacred in Northern Nigeria in 1966. But shock-worthy events did not only happen in the North. Achebe himself was forced to leave Lagos, a place he had called home for many years, because his life was no longer safe. His crime was being Igbo. A Yoruba acquaintance once told me a story of how he was nearly lynched in Lagos at the height of the tensions before the war; he was light-skinned, and a small mob in a market assumed him to be ‘Igbo Yellow’ and attacked him. The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Lagos was forced to leave. So was the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ibadan. Because they were Igbo. For Achebe, all this was deeply personal, deeply painful. His house was bombed, his office was destroyed. He escaped account from him is a remarkable failure of empathy. I wish more of the responses had acknowledged, real experiences like Achebe’s must have left behind. Ethnicity has become, in Nigeria, more political than cultural, less about philosophy and customs and values held by which ethnicity, which revered leader must be turned into a flawless saint. We cannot deny ethnicity. they were mutually exclusive; I am as much Igbo as I am Nigerian. I have hope in the future of Nigeria, mostly (We could start, for example, by not merely teaching Maths and English in primary schools, but also teaching For some non-Igbo, confronting facts of the war is uncomfortable, even inconvenient. But we must hear one of our different experiences, we remember differently. Biafrian minorities were distrusted by the Igbo majority, particularly in the Midwest, suffered at the hands of both Biafrian and Nigerian soldiers. ‘Abandoned property’ changed after the war, creating “Rumu” from “Umu.” Nigerian soldiers carried out a horrendous massacre in Some Igbo families are still waiting, half-hoping, that a lost son, a lost daughter, will come home. All of these Achebe has told his story. This week, he turns 82. Long may he live.

                                                                                           Chimamanda Adichie.

TAKING HARD DECISIONS

Just recently, in the last two sessions of SPL, I added to the curriculum, amongst other things, a session where I teach my students about the necessity of firing people. Okay, I know I am bad. That is not news, but can we just please pretend that I am good? Thanks. And not just about firing people, but also how to fire good people; people who are really putting in their best but their internal bandwidth is not just big enough. Okay, now we know I am really bad! But please, let’s get over that.In this life you must learn to take hard decisions.

One of the most common mistakes among Christians today is trying to play God. You are not God. You have never been, you are not, and you will never be. So, please, don’t try and hijack God’s job description. God has not called any one man on earth today to save the rest of the world. He sent Peter to the Jews and Paul to the Gentiles. So, let’s stop this fuss about trying to save the rest of the world.

Because you are concerned about one person, you condone all manner of nonsenses from that person and you start playing God. And before you know it, you become ineffective in reaching out to the many others who you should have reached out to. Some now go to the extent of employing diplomatic measures to salvage a relationship that was never meant to be by avoiding the cancerous tissue that is staring at them in the face. The lump you don’t deal with today will become the cancer that will kill you tomorrow. It’s just a matter of time.

I really believe in training people, watch them grow, see them make mistakes, and bounce back. I believe in giving people time because some other people did the same for me. But, believe me, not everyone wants to grow. And doctors will tell you, when it gets to a point where they have to choose between the life of the mother or the life of the baby, the mother comes first. And that is my stance. David Cho said, “If I cannot cast away the demon, I will cast the man and the demon away.”

You need to know that you are the CEO of your life. And your top two job descriptions are to hire and to fire. If you say you are so filled with the Holy Spirit and therefore you will not fire anybody, your patience is everlasting, your organization, which in this case is your life and others God has blessed you with, will crumble before your very eyes. You will end up losing everything. Don’t play God. He never sent you to save the rest of the world.

Be careful who you let into your boat. Sometimes the reason your boat is sinking could just be because of someone in your boat. If you are able to identify that person, don’t be afraid to throw him into the sea. God may just have a fish waiting for him. But if you let him remain in your boat, you, your crew, and your boat may sink while that person may still be saved. God was ready to sink a ship, killing everybody in it and still save Jonah.

Trees shed their leaves, Bears hibernate, Reptiles change their skins. All these are for us to learn from. If you want to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders, then you have made yourself El Shaddai and you shall soon die. You will split heaven’s gate wide open but when the books are open and you see all that God destined for you that you never accomplished you will weep, then God shall wipe away your tears. (Rev 7:17)

The process of pruning is not easy but it is a necessary step. Some branches just don’t produce fruits. Period. Why keep that branch with you? Even in the corporate world, occasionally, organizations collapse entire departments when the departments no longer contribute to the overall objective of the organization. That is where outsourcing came from. Some organizations have to downsize and cut down on the salaries of those who scale through for the organization to scale through some tough times. If you cannot brace yourself up to take some tough decisions earth has no place for you.

I know many people think I am too tough. Some say I am too serious. So, when someone is chatting with me and see me use ROTFL, LOL, and other laugh chats, they are surprised. But truth is, I enjoy life just like, if not much more than most people. I have many editions of Night of a Thousand Laughs, I listen to Tuface, P-Square, Bracket, etc. I visit the cinema for movies. But I am a well trained person; trained by the best. And I have developed myself to the point where I know the line where emotion stops and reality kicks in.

Life is a complex machine, but the principles by which it operates are very easy.  Once you align yourself with the principles, everything becomes easy. The problem is that these principles have no respect for emotions, tribes, religions, creed, or skin colour. These principles have no boundaries. If you practice them, they will work for you. If you break them, they will break you. That is why four times every year: January, April, July and October, I devote the whole month teaching people these principles from a biblical perspective at the School for Personal Leadership.

The one whom Jesus loves,

Mute Efe,

THE PAIN OF PLEASURE

 What I want to share with us today is about the pain of pleasure. We live in a world today where we are literally killing ourselves with pleasure. We are dying everyday, not out of pain as we define it, but out of pleasure. And nobody seems to be saying anything about it. We are amusing ourselves to death and nobody really cares. Stella Damascus, the Nollywood actress, shared in her column in PM News about how a friend of hers was mad at her because when her(the friend’s) kids wanted to watch TV the only channel that the decoder was locked on Nickelodeon and the kids wanted one of the “more interesting” channels like Ben Ten where some real violence take place.

Today, entire families sit in front of the television box and are ingesting pleasure capsules hour after hour not realizing that they are dying. May I suggest to you that just like any other thing in this life, pleasure can be addictive? And the addictive nature of pleasure brings about negative repercussions. I don’t have to be a genius to know that unless urgent measures are taken to fight this addiction we are going to keep seeing an increase in divorce rates as families become mere acquaintances of one another. And an increase in divorce rates will lead to an increase in fatherless and motherless homes, which leads to half-prepared children sent out to face the pressure of society, which leads to these kids growing up to be men and women who are not responsible enough to be fathers and mothers themselves but have the tools between their legs to make them have babies. So, when they have kids they abandon them. They never knew what it is like to have a father or a mother so they have no idea how to be one, themselves.

Besides the long term effect of the addictive nature of pleasure like just narrated in the preceding paragraph. I also see that one of the more immediate effects of the pain of pleasure is the reluctance to learn. I see a dearth of knowledge all around. All that is on the minds of recent graduates now is how he or she can get his or her own Blackberry. I hear the cost of a new Blackberry today begins at N20,000 ($130). I even hear that the cost of some go for as high as over N100,000 ($660). Is that true? And when I turn to have a decent conversation with one of these young and beautiful ladies brandishing their Blackberrys all around, I get the shock of my life that all there is is a Brazilian hair and an empty brain. Except for the well developed part of the brain used in pinging.

I and a friend in Benin run what is commonly called a Business Center. Nothing much, just a few copiers, about 10 computers, 2 printers, a scanner, two good digital cameras for passport photographs, etc. You get the drift. He manages the day to day running of the business, since I reside in Lagos. But once a year I go to Benin and spend a couple of weeks there. And whenever I am in Benin, I usually spend some time with him at the shop. In my last but one visit to Benin, I was at the shop with him when a beautiful young lady in her NYSC Khaki pants came in. She needed to work on her CV. The two employees we have working for us are just Senior School Certificate holders, so we just pointed to one of the computer systems for her to use by herself. To my utter disdain she knew nothing about Microsoft Word. Maybe she is only used to Excel, but I doubt that too. It was one of our employees that ended up working on the CV for her. But she had in her hands one of the higher classes of Blackberry. Of course the lower classes are for guys.

I worship in a church where there are over 20,000 regular members. My church seats over 5,000 people per service and holds 4 services every Sunday. And this number does not include children who have a different building. It’s one of the new generation churches. Once in a while corporate trainings are held so members can develop themselves. These trainings are not free but very cheap. As low as N7,000. There was even one that was for N2,500, but the training materials was like N5,000 which was optional. One would expect that for a new generation church where everything from religion to business is being taught there will be a mad rush for such trainings. You will be surprised to know that for some of these trainings only 700 people participate out of over 20,000 members. And these are trainings that go for as high as N100,000 in the corporate world. But why should I spend N5,000 for a training when I can get some good time with my babe in a fast food restaurant with some cups of ice cream?

I advice the young ladies, I am focusing on you because you are at the frontline of the receiving end of the ills of the society. I advice the young ladies, there is more to life than “my boyfriend dresses well and smells good. Hmm! I am so in love with him.” It’s high time you started asking the right questions. How much of his budget does he invest on Personal Development? How many books did he buy in the last six months? How many has he read? What did he learn? When was the last time he spent his own money, not the company’s, to attend a training session for himself. You need to have an answer for these questions because perfumes never made any marriage work. Any marriage where the woman has a flare for personal development and the man does not, can never be a happy one. Just listen to one episode of Real Life issues aired on Inspiration FM 92.3 in Lagos if you doubt me.

If you, referring to the young ladies, would follow through on the advice given on the previous paragraph, I promise you, many of you will be shocked to discover that that guy you’ve been kissing for more than a year now, has not bought a single book in the last one year. That means all he knows now is still the same things he knew like 3 or 5 yrs ago. Except maybe that Jonathan did not have any shoes. I have met guys who never bought a book in the last 5yrs but never failed to renew their DSTV subscription. And when you are the type that wants to spend your Saturdays attending seminars and your husband sits at home to watch football, then trouble is brewing. Why not nip it in the bud now? It may hurt but you will be saving yourself a lifetime of pain.

From my personal projections based on the number of people that have enrolled for the April session of School for Personal Leadership, for the first time in three sessions ladies will outnumber guys by a long pole. And this is a trend that is beginning to show all over the world, especially among the black race. In the United States today, the ratio of educated black girls to guys in the corporate world is about 3:1. There are not enough good guys to go around anymore so sex is now being used as a weapon to keep the few good black guys. The crave for pleasure in the Rap industry is causing a lot of young black brothers to drop out of schools while those ladies in bra and G-strings dancing in the music videos are attending night classes to further their education.

Am I going to continue to see this kind of trend in the School for Personal Leadership that current projection is indicating? More ladies interested in Personal Development than guys? Are guys only interested in buying Blackberrys for the ladies so they can at least get some sex in exchange for it? But I want us all to have a rethink. The problem with the world today is not just pain as we know it. It is pleasure. The pain of pleasure is far worse than any other kind of pain you can think of.

I want to encourage you. If you are the type that has never seen the need to invest in Personal Development, begin with School for Personal Leadership. It holds right on Facebook, completely flexible, you go into the online classroom when it is most convenient for you. You get to meet people from different fields, different states of the nation, and residing in different countries. It is awesome. 

Thanks,

Mute Efe
www.facebook.com/mutehimself

REASONS WHY BLACKS ARE BEAUTIFUL.

A 50- something year old white woman arrived at her seat on a crowded flight and immediately didn't want the seat. The seat was next to a black man. Disgusted, the woman immediately summoned the flight attendant and demanded a new seat. The woman said "I cannot sit here next to this black man." The fight attendant said "Let me see if I can find another seat." After checking, the flight attendant r

eturned and stated "Ma'am, there are no more seats in economy, but I will check with the captain and see if there is something in first class." About 10 minutes went by and the flight attendant returned and stated "The captain has confirmed that there are no more seats in economy, but there is one in first class. It is our company policy to never move a person from economy to first class, but being that it would be some sort of scandal to force a person to sit next to an UNPLEASANT person, the captain agreed to make the switch to first class." Before the woman could say anything, the attendant gestured to the black man and said, "Therefore sir, if you would so kindly retrieve your personal items, we would like to move you to the comfort of first class as the captain doesn't want you to sit next to an unpleasant person." Passengers in the seats nearby began to applause while some gave a standing ovation.

Blacks are Beautifullllllllllllllllllll!!!

The DAYO Story: Creating Memorable Moments With Our Partner.

 

The DAYO Story.

WOW!!! I came across this lovely piece recently online and i wish to share this story with you!

The DAYO Story

WOW!!! I just had to share this story! CONTINUE.....

My name is Dayo. I’m a typical Nigerian guy and I cherish my Fridays a lot; I get to hang out with the sickest guys every Friday night and secondly, It’s another escape from my nagging and boring wife. I get confused sometimes on whether she’s my mother or my wife. Don’t get it twisted; I love her pieces. It just gets complicated; like I wish we never got married…marriage has turned her into something that doesn’t amuse me. I wish she was still the adventurous, charming, high spirited lady I dated for five years.

A lot of people say its unethical for married guys to be found in a club, but I wish everyone won’t be too quick to judge and understand that people look for fun to run away from their problems; they just want to breathe, like me.

I forgot to say that I work in Guarantee Trust Bank along Lekki, I love my job and my job loves me, maybe its because I’m the senior banking officer. Lol. This particular morning, a lady breezed into my office. My heart raced faster because I had not sighted anything this beautiful in a long while. She wasn’t the typical slender Barbie, in fact, she was a bit chubby but her smile, cuteness and…I was tripped.

“Hi Good morning! Your ATM has swallowed my card!” She laughed, unlike a typical customer that would ram you.

I just tried to form Boss laughter…

“Good morning, You know what? I’d personally make sure they get it out for you, but not today. Can you wait till Monday?” I smiled

“GTB shaaa! OK, can I just drop my number so you could call me up or just text when its ready so I don’t come twice? Please? My name is Nancy” She blinked her eyes in a funny way.

“Sure” I smiled

We exchanged numbers. What a lucky Friday!

So it was 10:00pm and I headed to the club…as usual my friends were chilling for me. My wife had called a couple of times, I just ignored it. She knows I’m never home Friday nights.

“Look at you!” I heard someone say. I raised my head and it was the ATM lady-Nancy.

“Wow, look at you too!” I was surprised to see her but I was happy I didn’t have to wait till Monday to see her again.

“Happy Friday!” She screamed because of the noise, “Wanna dance?”

I didn’t even have the chance to answer, she already pulled me to dance floor. I really suck at dancing but she helped me; she was a great dancer! I had fun! At some point we decided to go to a private area and we talked, ranging from work, business to personal life. I tried to hide my ring as much as possible, I certainly didn’t want this to end now.

“You are a really wonderful lady. You are so interesting…any guy would want to be with you all day” I said.

“I wasn’t always like this but I have learned the hard way that life is just too short to be sad” she sang

Then her phone rang…

“Hey baby! Yeah I’m at the private lounge, I’d like you to meet someone…alright boo” she talked excitedly as usual.

I was in shock until this tall handsome man walks up to her and kisses her.

“You were late. Meet Dayo; I met him this morning, he’s helping with your ATM I told you got swallowed and Dayo this is my B to the O-O,” she laughed “Meet my husband Kolade, we only come here to dance every fortnight Friday; away from work, stress and kids.”

“Wow, a pleasure” I managed to shake him

Then she stood now excitedly holding her husband’s arms.

“Why don’t we invite Dayo for Mimi’s 16th birthday tomorrow?” Her husband said

They have kids too? How long have they been married and they look like a couple just dating!

“Silly me, please come for my second daughter’s 16th tomorrow. It would be an honor” She brought out an I.V from her purse.

I began to feel so ashamed of myself…this was another guy like me, getting it right with one woman.

I collected the I.V and promised to be there.

“See you tomorrow! Have you had something to eat Kolade?” she talked and dragged her husband along.

They left and I kept staring at the thin air like I had seen a ghost. They come just to dance together every fortnight Fridays? Why didn’t I think of that! Temi loves to dance…she also likes long walks, she loves to talk…she loves jazz music, there’s this vivid picture I have of me putting her hand on my chest when we danced at a jazz club on our first year anniversary…I found myself typing all the things I knew Temi loved to do on my Ipad and I realized I had denied her of all…I had made her the old woman she acts.

What the hell was I doing here! I didn’t even tell my friends goodbye, I walked out of the club into my Jaguar. Temi’s call came through and I picked at first ring.

“Temi?” My heart raced

“I know you are not coming home…”

“I am, stay up so we can gist. Been a while” I decided to do everything on that list and to even add many more for the rest of my lifetime with her.

“Are you alright?” She was shocked I suppose

“And I’d like us to go for a birthday party tomorrow. I want you to meet this amazing couple”

“You sound different Dayo”

“Maybe I’m different”

“Don’t say it! don’t say it! when you come we will gist very well” she laughed

She laughed!!! In just that laughter that I hadn’t heard in a while, she sounded like the lady I married six years ago…

Dear reader,

I wrote this natural piece just to remind us that creating memorable moments with our partner matters. Do you know that little things are the sweetest things? Just creating time to gist and laugh with your partner, having a day in the week that’s exclusively for you both-No friends or kids allowed.

Lady, when last have you told your partner he is so darn hot? Guy! When last have you told your lady she is the sweetest thing? When last have you whispered ‘Thank you’? When last have you been quick to say ‘I’m sorry’?

Do you even have a clue on what your partner loves to do?

When you ignore little things, they are the little pieces of rocks that build up to become a mountain you can’t easily break down.

Pay attention to little things, believe that they work and experience new bliss!

Yours Truly,

Dayo.