WHAT IS SUCCESS?

Here is a definition by Richard Branson:





"Success is neither money nor celebrity. Success for me is whether you have created something that you can be really proud of. Whether you die with a billion dollars in your bank account or $20 under your pillow is actually not interesting. That's not what you've achieved in life. What matters is whether you've created something special- and whether you've made a real difference to other people's lives."

7 Ways Of Making Money

1.Earning: Employees fall under this category. The Boss gives them a pay cheque at the end of the month.


2.Selling: Aliko Dangote, Mark Zuckerberg, Richard Branson and even Bright Okpocha (aka Basket Mouth) are sellers. Hitherto, they are selling their goods and services to the burgeoning population.


3.Investing: A good example of an investor is Bill Gates. In Guide to Investing, Robert Kiyosaki wrote, “Bill Gates did not invent the operating system that made him the richest man in the world. He simply bought the system from the computer programmers who did invent it and then licensed their product to IBM. The rest is history.”


4.Gift: This can come in the form of benevolence or inheritance. A rich person could donate some cool cash to you. You could also inherit your dad’s estate.


5.Cheating/Illicit trade: Have you been involved in deceit, fraud, embezzlement or drug peddling? Please turn a new leaf! Again don’t make cheats your hero. Don’t envy or celebrate them. Cheating is a wrong way of making money.


6.Gambling: You can make a fortune from gambling. But in the long run you stand to lose everything. The odds are always against a gambler. Please don’t base your destiny on fortuitous circumstances.


7.Begging: Is it proper to beg? The streets are filled with able-bodied and physically challenged beggars. Mind you, Cobhams Asuquo is blind and he doesn’t beg. Jessica Cox was born armless. But she moved against the odds to achieve greatness. She is the world’s first licensed armless pilot. Jessica is also a certified SCUBA diver.

HOW TO SELL YOURSELF

If a likely employer, client or spouse says you can’t deliver, how will you respond? How will you convince the person to think otherwise?

It’s simple. Just SELL yourself. Mention your past victories or better still state what you can accomplish if given the opportunity to perform.

David sold himself to King Saul and he was given the opportunity to kill Goliath.

(1 Samuel 17:32-37):

David said to Saul, “Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him.”

Saul replied, “You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a young man, and he has been a warrior from his youth.”

But David said to Saul, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it.

Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God.

The LORD who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine.”

Saul said to David, “Go, and the LORD be with you.”

SUCCESS SECRETS REVEALED

1. JESUS CHRIST: “Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” (Matthew 6:25 & 33).

2. Philip Emeagwali: “The secret to my success is that I am constantly striving for continuous improvements in my life and that I am never satisfied with my achievements.”

3. Robert Kiyosaki: “If you want to get richer faster, simply look for ideas that are better than the ones you are using today. That is why to this day, I read biographies of rich entrepreneurs, listen to audiotapes of their lives, and listen to their ideas.”

4. Steve Jobs: He once said, “People with passion can change the world for better.” Asked about the advice he would offer would-be entrepreneurs, he said, “I’d get a job as a busboy or something until I figured out what I was really passionate about.” Passion is everything.

5. Mark Zuckerberg: “It’s being young and technical. Young people are just smarter.”

6. Michael Dell: He says. “You’ve got to be passionate about it.” Dell also added: “I think people that look for great ideas to make money aren’t nearly as successful as those who say, ‘Okay, what do I really love to do? What am I excited about?’’’

7. Catherine Cook: Her advice, “Stop just thinking about it, and make it happen.”

8. Sean Belnick: “It is never too early to start. I started when I was 14. There was a lot of great information on the Internet. Just do the research and find a way to do what you want to do.”

9. Juliette Brindak: “Find a solid support team who believe in your idea. If someone starts to doubt your company and what you’re doing, you need to get rid of them.”

10. Matt Mickiewicz: “People who say it takes money to make money are using the worst excuse ever. Create massive value for others by providing a solution where no other exists.”

Read Biographies

By CHARLES OKOH

There are loads of lessons you can learn from reading biographies. The one lesson I have learned is that successful people fail far more often than unsuccessful people. Successful people stick to their goals painstakingly. Unsuccessful people try a few things; fail somewhere along the line and more often than not quit.

Once upon a time, there lived a great inventor called Thomas Edison. He was a tenacious man.He performed over 10,000 experiments before he discovered the electric bulb. How many of you, including me the writer, would be patient enough to try a particular task a thousand times- let alone ten thousand? But Edison did! He was a possibility thinker. A reporter once inquired of him how he felt to have failed 10,000 times in his present venture. His response was “I have successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work.”

Biographies are very educative. Read the biography of the rich. Read the biography of the famous and not too famous. Find out how they became successful or how they got trapped by failure. Then program your life to achieve greatness- bearing in mind that each breaking day comes with obstacles as well as new opportunities. When you study those who have succeeded where you intend to succeed, you will know what to do and what not to do. Admiral Hyman Rickover said, “Learn from the mistakes of others; you will never live long enough to make them all yourself.”

The story of renowned neurosurgeon, Ben Carson is an inspiring one. It urges young people to read in order to achieve greatness. Carson was born into relative lack. But he moved against the odds from the streets of Detroit and rose to national and international prominence in modern medicine.

Let’s glance through one more story. It is a biography on the life of Sir Isaac Newton. It was created by Melissa Kelly of About.com using the educational biographical framework.


Sir Isaac Newton - English Mathematician and Physicist
By Melissa Kelly, About.com Guide

Birth:
25th December 1642, Woolsthorpe, near Grantham in Lincolnshire

Death:
20th March 1727, Kensington, London - buried in Westminster Abbey

Early Influences:
• Father was a farmer who died before his birth
• Mother recognized his talents and encouraged him to get educated
• Uncle recommended that he should be sent to Trinity College, Cambridge

Education:
• Educated at Grantham
• Attended Cambridge University, 1661
• Elected a Fellow of Trinity College, 1667
• Became Lucasian Professor of Mathematics

Major Accomplishments:
• Devised many solutions to contemporary problems in analytical geometry
• Invented Calculus
• Wrote the Principia which outlined the Newtonian Laws of Motion
• Elected Member of Parliament for the University of Cambridge to the

Convention Parliament of 1689
• Wrote Opticks in 1692
• Became Mater of the Royal Mint in 1699
• Became President of the Royal Society of London in 1703 and remained President until his death
• Knighted in 1705

Significance:
• Regarded for almost 300 years as the founder of modern physical science
• Responsible for completing the scientific revolution
• His Laws of Motion and works in mechanics are seen as among humanities greatest achievements in abstract thought
• His Principia is regarded as the greatest scientific book ever written

Contemporaries:
• Edmond Halley - English Astronomer
• Robert Hooke - English Experimental Scientist
• Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz - German Mathematician

Health and Fitness

TIPS ON HEALTHY LIFE STYLES

1.Drink plenty of water at breakfast.

2.Eat breakfast like a queen, lunch like a prince & dinner like a beggar.

3.Eat more foods that grow on trees & plants and less food that is manufactured in plants.

4.Live with 3E’s- Energy, Enthusiasm & Empathy.

5.Make time to practice meditation, yoga & prayer. Play more games.

6.Read more books than you did the previous year.

7.Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day.

8.Sleep for seven hours.

9.Take a 10- 30 minutes walk every day. And while you walk, smile.





Source: Akin Osibogun.
The Chief Medical Director
Lagos State University Teaching Hospital
Idi- Araba, Lagos.
Published in THE PUNCH Newspaper of 28th January, 2009.

Benefits of Reading

With the popularity of computers and video games in recent times, the habit of reading has taken a backseat. Most parents and children are occupied with movies, television and computer games that they find little or no time for reading. However, those who have taken reading as a hobby are aware of the countless advantages associated with it. Reading broadens the thinking horizon of a person, improves vocabulary and cultivates sensitivity towards people of different cultures.

Benefits associated with reading:

1.Exercises your mind
Reading bends, loosens and supple the mind. It helps in keeping the muscles of the brain in good shape.

2.Gives satisfaction
Reading gives immense satisfaction to a person. Nothing can be more satisfying than to sit with your child and read him a story book or see him grow with the fairy tales.

3.Expands the imagination
Reading expands the imagination of a person. One becomes more confident, self assured of his ability to understand and appreciate the various aspects of life. The mind is channeled to think about the different aspects and then questions and derives conclusion about them.

4.Enhances the ability to focus
The mind of a reader is more concentrated and focused about various aspects of life. When the mind is focused it has the capability to be more attentive in practical situations of life. As a result the body and mind of such people remain calm; they look at the problem objectively and are better decision makers.

5.Improves knowledge
Reading improves a person’s knowledge about various fields of life. This knowledge base helps a person to make correct decisions in different situations of life.

6.Helps to achieve goals in life
People who develop the habit of reading from childhood are better able to decide their goals in life. Reading also helps them in achieving these goals because once a person gets in love with books it is easier for him to just switch over from general reading to their course books.

7.Produces efficient orators
Only those who know something of quality can speak and gain respect and recognition from people. People with scarce knowledge about a subject cannot be good orators.

8.Teaches the art of living
Reading biographies of legendary individuals help the reader to learn the art of living.

9.Helps to accept other cultures and religions
Just having information about other cultures might create misconceptions about their traditions and mythologies. A thorough reading gives clarity about the fundamentals of other religions. This helps the person to accept them in a better and overwhelming manner.

So instead of killing long hours watching television and playing games on the computer, spend some time in reading so that you not only refresh your mind but also develop a good hobby which you will later transfer to your children.

Culled from: http://benefitof.net/benefits-of-reading/