Motivational Monday – The Similarity Between Success & Failure Is One’s State Of Mind

  Motivational Monday quote to get your week started.

“The similarity between success and failure is one’s state of mind.”

There is a phrase that I like to use, “Show me a successful person and I will show you a failure.” What that means is that a majority of people who have attained success have experienced failure.

If one was to look the word “failure” up in the dictionary, two definitions would appear: the first being very simplistic, i.e., heart failure, kidney failure, etc. The second is as quoted, “Defeat, collapse, the condition or fact of not achieving the desired end!”

However, my definition looks at failure in a totally different way. Failure is a gateway to success.

Daystar donates school materials to 20,000 children

  One Saturday last September, Ilabeshi Gabriel, a bearded man in his mid twenties, stood for close to 10 hours, defying the harsh Lagos sun, to help facilitate in the distribution of back to school kits to some 20,000 students on behalf of Daystar Christian Centre. Two days later, Gabriel, who attends Daystar, took to Facebook to share his emotions.

“We plead and screamed in an effort to control the crowd,” Gabriel wrote, “But none of that mattered, not even the pains we went through. What mattered was that we were part of something. What mattered were the kids and the priceless smile on their faces. It didn’t matter if I had to stand for another 12 hours, as long as the kids were happy, excited with eyes full of hope; that was everything; that is everything.”

Gabriel’s effusive outpour of emotions resonates with the vision of Daystar’s leadership and why the church decided to undertake such a project. Senior Pastor at Daystar, Sam Adeyemi, has said the value of any church is measured by its impacts on the society where it exists and not the built cathedrals.

Tips For a Successful Marriage

  My husband must be tall, dark and handsome. Anything apart from that is a big NO. He must be rich too. Many women make these lists before marriage. Thanks to fairy tales that have brainwashed us by telling us the couples lived happily ever after- just like that. To some extent, we unconsciously have been made to believe that all that matters is physical attraction in addition to status off some sort. Since princes are not that common, neither are castles, we seem to have settled on the fact that “he has to be rich”, “he has to be handsome” – all to fit into this box.

Have you ever really wondered what marriage is all about? I mean a great marriage. Have you ever wondered if it was all about beauty, money, fame, muscles and all? If yes, then why do you think marriages, especially celebrity marriages fail? Or don’t you think most of their spouses are cute, sexy, beautiful and all that? Why do you think marriages fail?

If you ask me, I would say marriages fail for so many reasons; both general reasons and specific reasons ‘tailor made’ for people in certain situations. Here are some foundational reasons why marriages fail:

Individuals involved focus solely on physical matters
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not bad to know what you want physically and go for it; not bad at all: but it shouldn’t be all there is about your choice. When a guy comes to ask you out, his physical attributes and overall bank account should never be the sole reason you consider him, even though to certain extent- it matters. It should be more of what the guy has to offer you deep down. Things like: his IQ, his ability to handle crisis. How angry does he get? How giving and sacrificial can he be? What are his beliefs about women? Are they ‘species’ of the human race that stay only in the kitchen and use all their life and time to give birth and raise babies all they can? What does he think about a woman having a thriving career? What are his goals, passion and dreams in life, and how do you fit in? How well does he fit into yours too? These and many more are factors to consider before saying yes.

INTERVIEW WITH GODWIN BENSON, FOUNDER OF TUTERIA

  Godwin Benson is a first class graduate of Systems Engineering from the University of Lagos. He is the Founder of Tuteria, a Nigerian-based online platform that connects individuals seeking to learn with those who can teach the subject or skill in their neighbourhood.

Godwin was one of the top five winners of Microsoft’s Passion to Empire Campaign, held in April this year at InterContinental Hotel, in Lagos-Nigeria.



We’re so excited to have you on Under35CEO today. Could you please introduce yourself to the Under35CEO community?

Sure! I am Godwin Benson, a graduate of Systems Engineering from the University of Lagos, Akoka and also the founder of Tuteria. I’m from Akwa-Ibom, though I grew up in Lagos.

Tekno sets Aside N5m to help Small Businesses & Students

Made Men Music Group frontline act Tekno has set aside N5 million to support small businesses and students on social media. The singer took to his Twitter page today to announce that he is prepared to help small businesses as well as students struggling to pay their fees, as long as they send proof.

The “Pana” crooner then went ahead to select those with genuine requests and assisted them by sending them the amount they needed. He also promised to continue Saturday, stating that he’ll give 5 people N100k each.

He also  donated 200k to help a cancer patient with his treatment.

See tweets below:

Cracking the Glass Ceiling Inhibiting Women

  Solomon Elusoji writes about gender inequality and what young women can do to change the narrative

Minutes before the start of a European Union-organised women conference held recently in Lagos, a group of women had a roundtable discussion about the gender related challenges they face in their workplaces. Ojuolape Arojo, a vivacious young lady who founded and runs a delivery service start-up, said she gets surprise reactions from people when they realise she works in logistics. “They can’t believe a woman is in this industry,” she said.

But that ‘surprise’, according to Sangoleye Oluwaseun, the Chief Executive Officer of a company that deals in baby products, also comes with certain ‘privileges’ when it comes from a man. “I think it stems from the chivalrous nature of men; I have had many instances where just being a woman paved ways for me to access some privileges I had no rights to.”
When the question of whether women were disadvantaged, in terms of economic opportunities, was raised, Onyeka Ezeamama, who works at a real-estate company, answered in the negative. “This idea that women are ‘disadvantaged’ is a social construct that binds women to not think too high,” she said. “As far as I am concerned, it’s a level playing field out there.”

This 12-Year-Old created an App & Graduated with 16 Merit Awards!

  Author and public speaker, Yinka Ogunnubi‘s daughter graduated today from Vivian Fowler Memorial College with 16 merit awards, including the best graduating student.

The 12-year-old also created an app called My Locator, a security app which includes an alert system integrated to the Lagos State Emergency Service Number.

Her proud dad shared her achievements on his social media pages and various people shared their congratulatory messages.



It’s important to encourage our children to shine as bright as they can. Well done, girl!

WELCOME TO JULY, OUR MONTH OF GRACE

  WELCOME TO JULY, OUR MONTH OF GRACE (GEN 6:8)

“…But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.” (Gen 6:8).

Grace is unmerited or special favour.  As you enter this month which is the beginning of the second half of this year:

Ø  You will experience God’s favour.

Ø  In your ministry.

Ø  In your business.

Ø  In your career.

Ø  In your studies.

Ø  At your workplace.

Ø  In all your life’s endeavours.

Ø  God’s favour will protect you from dangers.

Ø  God’s grace will increase your spiritual capacity.

Ø  God’s grace will grant you ability to do exploit beyond your human ability.

I Must ENTER Europe!!!

  A 22-year-old Nigerian woman was left stranded in the Sahara desert while trying to enter Europe through the harsh desert. Her traffickers abandoned her in the arid zone for ten days.



She was given the nickname Adaora; according to the International Organisation for Migration, she was the only female among the survivors rescued on Sunday, May 28.


“She left Nigeria in early April hoping for a better future in Europe. “There were 50 migrants on the pick-up truck when it left Agadez for Libya, but only six are still alive today,” Niger Chief of Mission for IOM, Giuseppe Loprete, had said.


The lucky victim was lucky to have been given the chance to tell her story. “We were in the desert for 10 days. After five days, the driver abandoned us. “He left with all of our belongings, saying he was going to pick us up in a couple of hours, but he never did,” she recalled. Within two days, about forty four migrants had died. This made the others start walking in order to find help.

Inspired! The Glory Comes After the Grind

  Hi guys!

For every effect, there is a cause (or a combination of causes), and success, greatness and all the good things of life you want to enjoy are no different.

If you want to shine, you must work. For the spotlight to be focused on you, you must have demonstrated an ability (over a period of time), to make the audience’s view worth their while.

That ability is developed through work – which involves practice, performance and most times failure.

Don’t give up. Continue working; the glory comes after the grind.

Even if you are shining now, keep working; there is no limit to how bright you can shine.

Cheers!

Your Happiness is Important

  Your happiness is important and without it, you can’t achieve much.

At all times, strive to be happy and centred. Although you may experience worry or pain on certain occasions, you have a duty to ensure you stay happy and positive about yourself and life.

Many high achievers are those who are happy with what they do or do what they are happy about.

Over 25 & Still Live at Home? Here Are 9 Struggles You Can Relate With

  The whole idea of being an adult is that you are independent and you fend for yourself. Based on this idea, the general expectation is that by the adult age of 25 you have completed your education, gotten a job and moved out of your parent’s home. Unfortunately, the economy and a dreary labour market have created a boomerang effect, which now compels young adults to move back into their parents, or never even leave at all upon completing their education or finding a job.

Sure, it would seem that living with one’s parents would provide the perfect succor: a free room, free and regular home-cooked meal, the warmth and company of loved ones, and perhaps even free transportation; but those who actually live this reality would beg to differ.

You Do Not Have to Stay Friends With an Ex

  What’s the angle when exes decide to bestie up?

Maturity has been trashed and misinterpreted in several ways, which I myself cannot comprehend. It’s kind of funny that when I decide that the best way to move out of a bad situation and regain my sanity, is always classified as immaturity.

One very unfortunate thing about feelings is that it is quite hard to kill it. Even the so-called maturity can never kill it. But you know what can try? Distance! And a lot of it.

When the reason for separation is on mutual grounds, it is okay to decide to stay friends. Maybe ‘hello’ and ‘how are you?’ But when it goes beyond that, it becomes a problem; you get stuck. You get hurt.

When it gets bad, you run.

Social media is so easy, but as humans we always choose to walk on the path of complication. Instead of rubbing the good life in each other’s faces, use the block button! If seeing stuff, gets your day cranked up, if it makes you feel bad and spend hours on a page with a rush of rage, use the block button!

Nigerian Writer Jowhor Ile Emerges Winner of 2016 Etisalat Prize for Literature

  Nigerian writer, Jowhor Ile has been announced the winner of the 2016 Etisalat Prize for Literature at the Grand Finale in Lagos, which took place almost two months behind schedule.

His book ‘And after many days’ was the pick of the panel of judges, over Jacqui L’Ange (South Africa) The Seed Thief and another Nigerian Juliet Iromuanya’s Mr and Mrs Doctor.

Ile’s book was published in Nigeria by Kachifo Limited.

As the winner, Ile will receive £15,000, an engraved Montblanc Meisterstück pen, an Etisalat sponsored book tour to three African countries. He will also have an Etisalat-sponsored fellowship at the University of East Anglia, mentored by Professor Giles Foden, author of The Last King of Scotland.

Private jets and Africa’s habits of underdevelopment

  Over the weekend, former military dictator, General Ibrahim Babangida (retd.) gave out his daughter in marriage and the media could not seem to get over the spectacle of the number of private jets that landed in Minna, Niger State. The wedding was not the first instance of a crass exhibition of private jets by the Nigerian political class. In 2013, during the 50th celebration of Kenya’s independence, its Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary, Amina Mohammed, mentioned that Nigeria wowed them with the array of private jets that brought former President Goodluck Jonathan and his associates to their country. Kenyans, unfortunately, should not have been dazzled. They should have been scornful of the country that cannot provide electricity but manages to fly its President and his attendants in a multitude of private jets.

Private jets, viewed against the backdrop of the grinding poverty and gross underdevelopment that plagues Africa, is obnoxious. Countries like the United States have more than half of all private jets in the world, but in their cultural context, their class ostentation makes far more sense than Africa where the majority live below poverty line. The sight of private jets in Africa is usually a testimony to the oppression of the masses by the rapacious ruling class and our habit of underdevelopment.

All the Drama that Goes on at the Passport Office in Lagos

  I was told I would need passport photographs, copies of my birth certificate and my certificate of origin to apply for an international passport. No one mentioned the N1,000 and N500 tips here and there.

I met a crowd under a canopy who came for the same purpose when I arrived the passport office in Ikeja. My contact gave me a form to fill and told me to join them. After waiting for more than three hours, I was told my file won’t be processed until I had a guarantor, a challenge that took me two weeks to fix.

When I returned two weeks later for what they call ‘capturing’, I met an even larger crowd triggered by the shortage of passport booklets. Among the crowd were returnees who were there to renew their passport. You know the usual IJGB signs – tattoos, bling-blings, jerry curl hair, weird haircuts, wanna ganna accent, singlets and shorts with winter boots etc.

The Omnipotence of Social Media

   Social media has collected for itself, over time, a power that rivals any other. It has moved man to an epoch that we can properly tag the “age of hashtags”. It has redefined its own definitions and broken the bounds of its own boundaries. Social media has gone beyond social, it is now a market place, a political platform, a book-shop, a religious pulpit, an immoral cesspit: it has become, arguably, a little bit of everything, if not more. In this age, to live outside hashtags is not to trend, not to trend is to lack notability. To not be notable is, in extreme circumstances, not to exist, in cyberspaces at least – thank God!

It has become almost axiomatic in our own times to say that lives are lived on social media. Reputations have been made and lost on twitter, Facebook, Instagram. There, the cords of friendship and filial relationships have been made and bust too. This ‘break and make’ feature is due solely to the fact that social media has become un-dissociable from reality. Therefore, whatever one tweets or posts on social media platforms are used, always, as an indicator of reality – that is, of who one really is.

Obasanjo: God, Baptist training made me what I am today

  Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has attributed his achievements in life to God and the training he received from the Baptist denomination and schools.

He said this in an appreciation and acceptance speech he delivered at the ongoing annual session of the Nigerian Baptist Convention on Wednesday in Abuja.

NAN reports that the former president was honoured for his contributions to Nigeria and world’s peace.

“Permit me to confess publicly, as I did at the programme put together by the three Lagos Baptist Conferences, that whatever I am today have been by the grace of God and the Baptist training that I was privileged to have received early in life through the sunbeam, the Royal Ambassador, Baptist Boys High School Abeokuta, Sunday School and Church Training’,” he said.

Ayo Al: What is the Guarantee of Good Pay?

  So I was at a conference where a speaker had come to talk to youths about the increasing rate of unemployment rate. He discussed issues like interviews, appearance, code of conduct and the likes. His audience was fascinated. They were stuck on his words. Yes! He was that good an orator. They wanted more.

I looked around and saw people jotting furiously. I am sure a lot of them wondered if they had been refused that job because at the interview, they had smiled too much or did not shake hands the proper way.

And then, I heard him say “When you go for interviews and you are asked how much you think you deserve to be paid, do not start with a high figure. First, tell them that any amount the organization allots you will be fine.”

Four Nigerian Students awarded Merit Scholarships in Turkey

L-R: Ayo, Solomon, Kendra and Maxwell

  Four exceptional Nigerian students have been awarded merit scholarships in Turkey by the Middle East Technical University, Ankara. They were awarded for their excellence in Aerospace Engineering, having attained excellent CPGAs.

The students; Ayo Bankole had 4.7, Solomon Tawari had 4.78, Kendra Chioma had 4.98 and Maxwell Adoyele had 4.7 out of 5. They were all awarded with an amount of 10,000 Turkish lira, which is equivalent to $3,000, for 5 months.

Congratulations to them!