Insights for Leading

During my undergraduate years, I had a humorous yet more realistic way of measuring a person’s financial worth. When you receive an amount of money (whether your wages or allowances), you tend to spend lavishly out of excitement until you reach a certain amount and become careful about your spending. That amount that gets you conscious and cautious is the real amount that you can manage and it defines your financial worth. No matter how much you earn or receive as a gift, you would always reduce it to the amount that you are worth. Although your bank account is infinitely elastic to accommodate any amount of money, the amount that you are worth is the only amount that can comfortably rest in your mind’s account. Based on this metric, my financial worth was usually around N 1,000 early in my school days. Now, I have grown. But ponder it a little and consider how much you are truly worth. Remember the story of my counselee’s dilemma in my poat last week? She was not

“ You seem downcast. What’s up? ” I asked her when I noticed some form of despair in her voice. “ At the moment, I am not financially buoyant. I need money to meet my needs and help my family and my salary has just not been enough, ” came the sincere response. “ Okay, I understand how overwhelmed you might feel about your present realities but do you have a long-term plan for changing the narrative? ” I asked again. Some silenced swept through our conversation. I could sense her ashamedness, but again she answered honestly “ Not really. I don’t have one .” “ Okay, how did you spend your last take-home pay? ” “ I bought an android phone, some pieces of jewellery, and a few other items. A part of it has catered for my transportation so far and I have just a little amount left. " “ Okay. I understand that you don’t have money at the moment and your salary has not been enough. But what if you had a house somewhere that you had built with the salary you have been receiving.

The same 24 hours is available to all each day but the quality of our dreams and visions separate us and your mind’s powers are limited by your thinking. Every time someone experienced a significant change in their life, it was preceded by a significant change in their thinking. At some point, they began to “think big” about themselves and the impact that they could have on their environment. By thinking big, Ben Carson went from being a dullard at school to becoming one of the world’s most celebrated neurosurgeons. By thinking big, J. K. Rowling went from being a struggling single mum to becoming the author of “Harry Potter” the world’s most popular fanfiction of all time and she has been among the world’s richest authors ever since. Not only individuals but also nations have experienced such significant shifts. By thinking big, Japan became a leader in technology and innovation and one of the world’s leading economies. By thinking big, UAE became the second-largest econ

Earlier this year, I was invited to deliver a keynote on UPGRADE to a group of young adults at an online leadership conference. Passionate about helping these budding leaders tap into their deepest potentials, I targeted making a shift in they think about themselves as I have always believed that like the strength of a bow determines the power and speed of its arrow, so does our mindset determine the impact we make through our skillset as well as the overall progress of our lives. One of the crucial shifts I urged the participants to make by all means while they are still young is the shift from “I CAN’T” to “I CAN.” It is the shift from self-doubt to self-belief, from impossibility to possibility. This shift is so crucial that our lives – and the success of many others – depends on it. Unfortunately, not many people make this shift in their lifetime; hence, most do not even scratch the surface of the goldmine in them. Part of the problem is that we grow up in a so