As much as I am usually shocked by the antics of Donald Trump on Twitter, I could not help but stand firmly on his side in an episode where the news media purposely quoted him as saying, “Immigrants are animals.” Of course, this quote was taken out of context and naturally, it created a great uproar. Upon considering his quote in the context of his talk, it was apparent that the news media were simply trying to generate controversy.

Here’s what really happened: Trump had been asked a question about a criminal gang made up of immigrants and a long list of truly abhorrent crimes that they had committed. In his response, Trump was visibly disgusted and expressed his exact emotions by calling the criminal group less than human.

Yet, all it took was to create a social media meltdown was to simply pick out a single quote out of context. And yet another reason why context is very crucial to understanding.

Another example that jumps into my mind occurred over 2000 years ago. A young Teacher in his early thirties admonished his large group of excited followers to either pluck out their right eye, or chop off their right hand if they were ever going to reap the benefits of being His followers. I’m fairly certain that more than few eyebrows were raised after the Teacher made that profound statement.

Of course, I wasn’t there. I only read an account of the story.

The first time I read that historically documented event, I made the same mistake that the news media made when covering Donald Trump’s talk. I took the Teacher’s instructions out of context and it was no surprise that I was offended by the statement. I remember my throat going dry that day. I had heard that the Teacher’s Way was hard, but this was like nothing I expected.

Then a couple of days ago, I reread history. And this time, I didn’t forget to put the whole story into context. That was when I realized that 2000 years ago, the Teacher was not encouraging His followers to indulge in self-mutilation. Rather, He was teaching them something deeper.

Consider these statements:

1) James is my right-hand man, and;
2) I want James to be my eyes in the field

We make statements like these everyday without considering the people in question to be extensions of our body parts. Contrary to that, when we make statements like those I shared in the example, the picture painted in our minds is one founded in a very strong relationship. By calling James my right-hand man, it simply implies that I have cultivated a strong relationship with him such that I can depend on him for support when I need it. By going further to refer to James as my eyes in the field, I am implying that I have spent the time to build a relationship of trust with him.

That was what the Teacher was talking about so many years ago. In context, He was simply saying that to crystallize every drop of potential embedded within and around you, you would need to take proactive (and many times, drastic) measures. There’s no relationship that is worth you missing out on the fulfilment. That was why the Teacher made the then radical statement of severing ties with toxic relationships that serve as a lid to your potentials. If your right-hand man is comfortable with hanging out in the valley of life, it is better to chop off that right-hand man and climb up to the mountaintop. And your right eye? If all your right eye is seeing is impossibilities and limitations, it would serve you better to arrive at destiny without that eye, than to remain trapped in the realm of mediocrity.

Toxic Relationships Decrease With Increasing Value

I remember my sophomore year as a college student. A dude looked at me with disgust written all over his face and told me point-blank: You have low self-esteem. I believed him. Moments later, he came to me and told me that he was joking. I didn’t believe him.

I didn’t know what I know now. Perhaps you are in the same shoes I found myself nearly 10 years ago. This is for you:

You are valuable and you have a great worth hidden with your very essence. There is a treasure hidden beneath your ordinary exterior appearance. The fact that you cannot see it does not make it less real. The key to placing a great value upon yourself is to have the knowledge of what you are carrying within you. As I have said time and time again, your behavior and character is determined greatly by your sense of identity. If you start seeing yourself as a person of value and worth, you would care about yourself, and you would pay attention to how you are treated in your relationships. You would be a man or woman on a mission. Your time would be more valuable to you and you would not waste it on things lacking in value. Your wisdom level will shoot up and you’d realize there is no virtue in regurgitating interactions with people who seek to undermine your true worth. You would actively seek out uplifting relationships where everyone is dominated by the doctrine of synergy. You would finally realize that nobody is created to be a floor mat to be trampled upon by others. No one was invited to lead a second-rate life. In addition, your sensitivity is heightened and you would be able to detct toxic relationships from a mile off. Because the estimation of your value is high, you are able to forgive yourself for putting yourself in a situation where you are abused emotionally (and even physically). You would also have the depth and capacity to be able to forgive your abuser(s). You would be able to eliminate resentment from your heart and rather spend time in having a clearer picture of your identity and worth.

Toxic Relationships Exert Power Over You

For whatever reason that you are in the habit of cultivating toxic relationships, they are capable of influencing your life and altering the course of your destiny in the long run. This influence is not merely limited to the fulfilment of purpose. I’ve come across numerous research works that reported that toxic relationships are associated with high stress levels, high blood pressure, and even early mortality – yes, death! In another post, I talked about the Matthew Effect and how it helps the rich get richer, and the poor poorer. The interesting thing is that the Matthew Effect also applies to toxic relationships. People who are in the habit of forming healthy relationships and nipping toxic relationships in the bud are going to increase their chances of leading healthier and happier lives and vice versa. It’s nothing personal. It’s just one of the principles that governs how the world works.

The good news is that it is possible to reduce the influence of toxic relationships in your life. You know what these relationships are, and you know where they coming from. Your job now is to limit their access to you. The truth is that you do not need to give access to every Tom, Dick and Harry that comes along your path. This does not mean that you are arrogant or snobbish. Rather, it simply means that you know your value and your worth and you would not allow yourself to be commonized by toxic relationship. The value of gold and other precious minerals is found in their scarcity. Make yourself scarce to toxic people and you’d find toxic relationships dying a natural death.

Toxic Relationships Demand Uncomfortable Conversations

As I mentioned in this post, the quality of your life is dependent on the amount of uncomfortable conversations you are willing to have. We are all humans – flawed and imperfect. As a result of our differences in values and expectations, there is bound to be conflict in the course of our interactions with each other. Because of human’s natural affinity for self-preservation, when faced with conflict, our default tendency is avoidance. However, when conflict eventually arises in toxic relationships, it is a grave mistake to elect avoidance as a coping strategy. As an adult, it is responsible to engage in uncomfortable conversations and confront the status quo in whatever toxic relationships that you may find yourself. By taking responsibility and engaging in uncomfortable conversations, you would be able to know whether your next course of action is choosing the path towards conflict resolutions and subsequent reconciliation; or whether enough is enough, and it is time to limit the access of the sources of toxic relationships to you. By engaging in these uncomfortable conversations, you would gain more clarity on what your own values are and as a result, become stronger as an individual fully rooted in your identity.

Some days ago, I noticed that there was a lot of commotion on the Twitterverse. Apparently, a Nigerian-American novelist, Tomi Adeyemi had accused the prolific, serial best-selling author, Nora Roberts, of plagiarizing the title of her debut novel. They had both written a novel that had the words “Blood and Bones” in the title.

The social media storm on Twitter obviously increased the number of people interested in Tomi and her book. For instance, I know who Nora Roberts is, but I had no idea of who Tomi Adeyemi was before the controversy. As Robert Greene’s wrote in his book, The 48 Laws of Power, “Everything is judged by its appearance; what is unseen counts for nothing. Never let yourself get lost in the crowd, then, or buried in oblivion. Stand out. Be conspicuous, at all cost. Make yourself a magnet of attention by appearing larger, more colorful, more mysterious than the bland and timid masses”

However, the more I looked, the less likely it seemed that Tomi Adeyemi was merely trying to garner cheap attention. As fans of the two authors went back and forth on Twitter, I could not help but take a closer look at the 25-year-old Tomi Adeleye and her book.

I was mindblown by what I saw.

On Amazon, Tomi’s book had over 1500 mostly positive reviews, while on Goodreads, it had well over 10,000 mostly positive reviews. That’s absurd when you consider the fact that not everyone that buys a book leaves a review. It’s simply impossible to have so many positive reviews if the book itself is crappy.

Also, months before the controversy, a reputable company had paid Tomi Adeyemi seven figures to publish her novel, while another reputable company acquired the movie rights for the same book, reportedly paying her another seven figures!

She had also appeared many highly viewed shows such as The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Good Morning America, BBC What’s New, ABC 7 Chicago, amongst many others.

The more I researched her story, the more I realized that Tomi Adeyemi is a superstar in her niche and her remarkable journey to superstardom can be attributed to a principle called the Matthew Principle. In this post, I would be shedding more light on the Matthew Principle, as well as how you can make it work for you, rather than against you.

Understanding the Matthew Principle

After telling the story of how the servant with the least talent lost his single talent to the servant with ten talents, Jesus made a remarkable statement that is both scary and profound in equal proportions.

Matthew 25:29 says,

“For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.”

In other words, those who already have enough would be given even more, while those who do not have enough would end up losing the little that they have. This is the essence of the Matthew Principle!

Take a look at the way the world we live in works and you’d see the Matthew Principle all around you.

The richest 85 people in the world have as much money as the poorest three and a half billion people in the world! Yet even more and more money continues to pour into the coffers of these privileged few.

In the United States alone, nearly a million and a half books are sold. Only 500 of these books will sell more than a hundred thousand copies. Furthermore, a good number of these books are written by people who have other books under their belts.

Let’s take the Matthew Principle even further:

The well-to-do typically have preferential access to the best kinds of food. They live in the best kinds of houses located in the best parts of the city. They have more people at their beck and call, looking for ways to earn their favors. They are more likely to meet and network with other successful people who would increase their chances for more success. As a result, they are calm and are capable of delaying present gratification because they have a confident expectation of abundance in the future. The odds are in their favor, and it will continue to be in their favor until something really dramatic happens.

On the other hand, those with low statuses endure poor living conditions. They are often hungry, and in the few instances where they have access to food, the food is usually of poor quality. Due to the fact that they eat unhealthy foods, they are in dire physical and mental conditions which makes them liable to age quickly and die early. Even though they need as much help as they can get, they are not likely to meet successful people. In fact, they are more likely to meet and network with other people with similar experiences as them. As a result, they are impulsive and jump at any opportunity for pleasure without any consideration for how disgraceful, illegal, or sub-par it might be. Again, the odds are stacked against them, and it will continue to be against them unless something dramatic happens.

Apparently, over time, both success and failure compound upon themselves.

The more successful you are, the more likely you are going to embrace opportunities that would make you even more successful. Conversely too, the more unsuccessful you are, the more likely you are to find a way to jeopardize your chances for success.

Does this mean that the Matthew Principle has permanently condemned you to whatever rung in the social ladder that you find yourself? No, of course not. As it stands, from my research and observations, there are two ways you might be able to make the Matthew Principle work in your favor.

Reciprocal Determinism and the Matthew Principle

Some time ago, I was finding it incredibly difficult to make the time to go down to the gym and work out as frequently as I wanted to. So, I bought myself a treadmill, positioned it in my room in such a way that it was the first thing I saw when I woke up in the morning. As a result, it became much easier to simply get up from my bed, take a few steps to my treadmill and work out.

This is a classic case of reciprocal determinism where my immediate environment can influence my behavior, while I can also manipulate my immediate environment to help me change my behavior.

To take this concept closer to improving your life, the easiest way you can manipulate your immediate environment is by investing in more books. Someone once said that a mind that has been stretched can never return to its original dimensions. As exercise and food are to the physical body, so is continuous self-improvement to the mind. You need to broaden your outlook on life by exposing your mind to other perspectives other than yours. This is why it is expedient for you to invest in books. Read wide on a broad variety of topics. Read deep on the topics that intrigue you. Read biographies. Read classics. Read business books. Read. Read. Read.

With time, you would find yourself developing an ever-expanding knowledge base that would be crucial in helping you identify associations and patterns that are oblivious to the remaining 90% of the population that do not read. Eventually, the Matthew Principle starts working in your favor, and you will start seeing the effects of your compounding knowledge in the quality of your thoughts, choices, decisions, relationships, and life in general. Who knows, you might even be the catalyst for change in your immediate social networks and physical environment if you keep going along this path.

However, if you grab the bull by the horns, there’s a more powerful way to take advantage of the Matthew Principle.

Your Location, Your Allocation and the Matthew Principle

Going back to Tomi Adeyemi’s story, I discovered that there are times you need to do more than manipulate your immediate environment. Sometimes you need to physically change your environment by moving entirely different location.

And this is one thing that I noticed from Tomi Adeyemi’s story.

By making the decision to migrate from Nigeria to the US in the early 1990s, Tomi’s parents had dramatically improved the odds of Tomi becoming successful. In case you are unaware, the difference between living in a developed country and living in an underdeveloped country is like playing with two different slot machines. One of the slot machines is filled to the brim with $100 notes, while the other is filled with 25 cents. While it is possible to hit the jackpot and win all the coins in the 25 cents machine, the total winnings cannot be comparable to the winnings from a $100 machine. If you’re presented with the chance, it is a no-brainer to move from the 25 cents machine to the machine filled with $100 notes. And that’s exactly what happened with Tomi Adeyemi’s family.

Of course, the fact that Tomi Adeyemi was born in the United States does not mean that she just folded her arms and waited for the US system to bring all the good things to her. She had to develop herself and work hard. Eventually, the hard work paid off and she was admitted to Harvard University – one of the top five schools in the world. The last time I checked, the acceptance rate for Harvard was 6%. You can look at it this way: If 100 people applied for admission into Harvard, only 6 people would be accepted into the school! By implication, this means that only the best of the best can get into Harvard. So, when Tomi Adeyemi got into Harvard, her colleagues were the best students from high schools all over the US. In addition, because she was in Harvard, she got the best training from some of the best professors in the world. Imagine how Tomi Adeyemi’s physical and social environment influenced her thoughts and mentality for the 4 – 5 years she spent at Harvard. Imagine the opportunities she was exposed to, as well as the caliber of people she forged relationships with. It was only a matter of time before all the benefits of the Matthew Principle in her life led up to her writing a best-selling novel and getting a movie deal for the same book – all by the age of 25!

The truth is that your location will play a crucial role in determining your allocation from life. While you might not be able to migrate to a developed country like Tomi’s parents or get admitted into an Ivy League school like Tomi, you might be able to relocate to a bigger town or city. There are numerous benefits that living in a big city has over living in a smaller city. Seminars and other networking events are more likely to occur in a large city than in a remote village in the middle of nowhere. If you join the right groups and organizations, you are more likely to come in contact with life-changing information or industry secrets that would have never gotten to you if you embraced routine in your small town of 1000 people. Even if you are not able to change your physical environment, you can still change your social environment. In this day and age of social media, there are thousands and thousands of forums and groups on the internet that you can join to keep yourself in the loop where it counts.

Whichever method you decide to adopt, just ensure that you position yourself to get the best from the Matthew Principle.

Growing up, I remember my mom getting up very early to boil water for my younger brother and I to take our baths. At some point in high school, I stopped doing warm baths. Looking back, it was probably because I was lazy since I would have needed to get up earlier to boil the water myself.

For all my bravado regarding using cold water, it’s funny how I was never tempted to use it during the cold harmattan season. Motivating myself to take my bath…to use warm water was a big challenge back then. Numerous times, I considered just snuggling on my bed and not bathing altogether.

Okay. At times, maybe I actually didn’t bath.

So, you can imagine my surprise when, in my sophomore year, a colleague recommended taking cold showers to shake off the morning harmattan cold.

Boy, did it work!

Since then, (with a few exceptions, like the week when I moved into my new apartment and used scalding hot water to shower because I didn’t know better!), I have been taking my bath with cold water and it has been working wonders. In fact, I have been able to pick out a couple of lessons that I gleaned from my cold shower sessions.

Let’s dive in.

Cold Showers Cause Good Discomfort 

If you are serious about learning and growing to be a better person, you have to be willing to put yourself in uncomfortable situations. A lot of people hear this and the next thing they think about is quitting their jobs or taking one big risk!

It doesn’t work that way.

You have to get accustomed to accumulating smaller victories before going all out to catch the big fishes.

And do you know one way you can start doing that?

That’s right, by taking cold showers.

You see, by taking your bath with cold water, you are conditioning yourself to have patience and endurance. You are learning how to get out of your comfort zone, albeit in a small way.

Let me be clear here: Cold showers are not part of the formula needed to fulfill the purpose and destiny that God has assigned to you. Rather, you will need to stretch outside your comfort zone. And to do this effectively, you will need to patiently endure the discomfort that comes with stretching.

Taking cold showers in the morning is one of the best and safest ways you can be accustomed to the discomfort that accompanies stretching to new terrains.

What’s The Worst Thing That Can Happen When You take Cold Showers?

I can assure you that in a typical day, there’s nothing that would be worse than taking a cold shower every morning…especially when the weather is cold!

So, why would I recommend it?

Simple. Because it is the worst thing that would happen to you that day!

When you take a cold shower in the morning, your body doesn’t like it. In fact, every cell in your body would cringe in revolt like water on a hot pan of oil. In the first few seconds, your skin will be like that of gooseflesh with bumps covering every square inch. You would probably yell like a soprano singing off-key.

Your body cells do not like the feeling of a cold shower and at that moment you are bathing, your brain sets this experience as the baseline for the worst feeling you would ever experience that day. This is why if you are faced with a tough assignment on the day you take a cold shower, your brain would ask, ‘Is this as bad as taking a cold shower?’. Nine times out of ten, the answer will be ‘No!’ and you will be able to summon up the willpower and motivation needed to go far with the task at hand.

Cold Showers Can Rewire You For Crushing Limitations

Since I take cold showers, I brag about it a lot. I know it’s not a virtuous behavior, but which hunter kills an elephant and carries it home through the back door?

Anyways, when the topic comes up, a number of my acquaintances tell me that they CAN’T take cold showers. Not WON’T (i.e., not willing to) but CAN’T (not able to)! When I hear this, I start wondering: Do these people have a medical condition preventing them from touching cold water?

The excuse that is often given for not taking cold showers is the idea that they will make you fall ill. Actually, cold showers will make you less likely to fall ill. The only things that can make you fall ill are disease-causing organisms called pathogens. Cold showers reduce uric acid levels while boosting glutathione levels in your blood. The overall effect? Less stress and a general feeling of well-being.

Elementary science stuff.

Here’s the thing: When you take cold showers, you begin the process of conditioning yourself to have a limitation-challenging mindset. As I’ve said before, the body hates cold showers and if you try to rationalize with it, you will get myriads of reasons why you shouldn’t take cold showers. However, you need to realize that you are not under the control of your body. Rather, your body is under your control! You are its boss and you need to stand your ground and tell it what to do.

Developing this habit is crucial because once you are able to rise above the limitations that your own body is suggesting to you, every other kind of limitation is reduced to dust.

Cold Showers Can Aid Proper Breathing

Despite the fact that I am already a pro at cold showers, this is a part that I still struggle with a bit.

The truth is that a lot of us have forgotten how to breathe properly. Take a look at the way a baby breathes when it’s asleep. Notice how they breathe deeply and contentedly.

Sadly, as we grow older, we grow accustomed to taking short and shallow breaths.

When you take short and shallow breaths, your body starts anticipating stress and as a result, there is a spike in your cortisol levels. On the other hand, when you breathe like a baby, your body tells itself that everything will be alright and you are able to relax.

When I take cold showers, I normally gasp at the first impact of cold water on my skin. However, with each passing moment, I spend under the cold water, I am able to convert the gasping into deliberate deep breathing. As a result, when I am done showering I feel relaxed and cheerful.

The benefit of this? By practicing how to deep breathe during cold showers, you will be able to teach yourself to calm down deliberately, especially during stressful moments that you may encounter during the course of your day.