Category: BEST ARTICLES

In the beginning, all that existed was God – the peerless Personification of perfection, pulchritude and perception. At the appointed kairos time, God acted out the model for moving to a desired state of being from an undesired one. With the Logos, He pried out specific order out of multiple alternative histories combating for preeminence in a soup of potentialities. We call these multiple alternative histories chaos. Then, God looked at the order He had created and said it was good.

At all levels of existence – individual, familial, societal – people desire to be in a state of being that is an improvement on their current states, whatever that might be. For many people, however, this state remains in the realm of uncrystallized potential. Why? People have learned to tolerate the status quo and shy away from whatever better state there might be.

The wisest one in the room is the person who can move from an undesired current state to a more desired one. They follow God’s model by stepping into a situation, taming chaos, and extracting order from it. The wisest ones are those who can crystallize gestalts of meaning from the fogs of potential. This is not necessarily easy, as life’s complicated and there are billions of ways that issues and events can be arranged in your mind to make sense of them. Many of these arrangements will not make your life’s experiences any better, and some might even make matters worse – just ask the nihilists and rationalists! That said, there are also specific attitudes of perception that will put you in the right frame to dissolve chaos, while bringing you closer to that state God has prepared for you. Three of them are discussed in this article.

1. Be Humble Enough to Understand that Your Map is Not the Territory

Your worldview is built on certain assumptions that may be very different from reality. For instance, sentences in English and many similar languages are in the form of actor-action. The unspoken assumption of such languages is that an act can never occur in the absence of an actor. Hence, we have sentences like “The rain is falling”, where the rain is an actor carrying out the action of falling. Contrast that with the Hopi language, where an action can occur without an actor acting anything out. When the Hopi speaker describes the phenomenon of rainfall, he simply says “Raining”. He is not concerned with what caused the rain to fall. Unlike his English-speaking counterpart, the underlying assumption of the Hopi speaker makes him focus on the meaning of an event, rather than on its cause!

Which language do you think has the upper hand in describing reality? The honest answer is that we do not know. English and Hopi are both valid languages that describe aspects of reality. None is better than the other. English prevents you from seeing the significance of a phenomenon, and Hopi may kill your curiosity about causal factors at the roots of that phenomenon. Yet, reality has both causes and meanings that extend beyond our perceptions. The wisest one in the room is humble enough to acknowledge that he may hold assumptions blinding him to certain aspects of reality.

When making a physical map, cartographers assume that critters, trees, rocks, electric poles and grasses are a constant occurrence wherever you go. As a result, these details are never depicted, despite being present in the territory that is being mapped. In the same way, as you navigate through life, your maps about the operations of the world are riddled with assumptions that pervert your perceptions from seeing reality.

Note that assumptions are not always all bad or useless. The world we live in is complex and events do not fall into neat categories. Hence, assumptions can be useful in helping the mind act more efficiently. The brain does this by lumping things that are similar into the same categories. This enables us to focus our attention and resources on the information that matters: threats and opportunities. Without assumptions, we’d all be in a state of action paralysis, as we’d have to expend mental effort determining whether every information is a threat or an opportunity – regardless of whether they are familiar or not.

In what Thomas Nagel, an American philosopher, called the View from Nowhere, there is an objective reality that describes the inherent nature of things. I prefer to call this the “View from God’s Perspective”. On its own, no human mind will ever see this objective View from Nowhere. This is because we all approach reality through our maps which have been shaped by our experiences in our pasts. The consequence is that when your girlfriend says, “Let’s be objective”, what she’s really seeking out is consensus by agreement, not objectivity! The same thing plays out in every kind of human interaction.

Understanding that the Map is not the Territory is a superpower that accomplishes two things: First, it makes you more humble. Solomon, the original philosopher-king, wrote, “Surely He [God] scorns the scornful, but gives grace to the humble”. Humility is coming to the realization that you really do not know everything, and all you know has been shaped by your own map. Those who choose to be the know-it-alls and sophisticates will inevitably encounter the humbling curveballs that life throws at them. The humble, on the other hand, “will inherit the earth”. As it were, the survival of the fittest is in reality the survival of the most humble. Secondly, when you recognize that the Map is not the Territory, you become more open-minded and understanding of others. You start to see that others do not know everything too. You begin to understand that their motivations and perceptions are only shaped by the maps with which they see the world.

Today, there are not many people who are willing to accept that the maps with which they see the world can be outdated or wrong. Such people are married to their maps and have formed an emotional bond with it. They will defend the rightness of their maps with every fiber of their being. On the other hand, those who will thrive in uncertain or novel terrains share one characteristic: They are all individuals who are humble enough and willing to accept that their maps may be wrong. As a result, they are better able to learn and adapt to new terrains and survive.

2. Know the Boundaries of your Circle of Competence. If you don’t have any, find one

As a human being, you neither have the luxury of time nor resources to be the master of all domains. However, because people have different histories and past experiences, there are fields of endeavor where they can choose and learn to thrive in their element. The reason is fairly straightforward. People who are in their circle of competence have often already devoted sufficient time and effort in their pasts to be proficient in their domains. Problems arise for the individual that tries to compete in a domain where he has zero competence. Such persons end up being crushed into oblivion. It’s nothing personal, it’s just the way the world works. Therefore, a major task in your life is to identify that domain where your history and past experiences can give you a comparative advantage. It’s your responsibility to “[b]e fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion…” in your domain of competence.

If you have not identified your domain of competence, here are a few useful recommendations:

First, you can hone into a specific fragment of a broad field and/or dig deep into the foundations upon which that fragment is built. Most people do not have the patience, resources, discipline, or time to commit to such depths. However, by applying yourself to this method, you can have a relatively easy path to creating your circle of competence. In the broad automobile industry, companies such as Lamborghini or Rolls Royce are not just in the business of manufacturing cars. Rather, they remain profitable by staying focused on a specific slice of the automobile market – those interested in luxury cars. Such is the impact of finding and sticking to your domain of competence.

Alternatively, you can explore the overlaps that exist between unrelated domains of endeavor. One of the reasons why life can be complicated is that events are more interconnected than humans acknowledge. These overlaps have been criminally under-investigated and there is a big demand for people who are willing to devote the time, resources and mental effort to identify associations between fields that appear to be unrelated. As an example, Norbert Wiener investigated the overlaps between mathematics, physiology, engineering and psychology to develop a whole new field of cybernetics and control theory.

Furthermore, you can create your circle of competence by reproducing ideas that are geographically or chronologically separated from you. For instance, there are certain commonplace ideas, goods and services in 3rd-world countries that are highly desirable in developed countries, and vice versa. The same thing plays out when you consider the differences between rural and urban areas. Another area that is commonly overlooked is the past. A common assumption among people living in an epoch is that their generation has an overall better quality of life than previous generations. This is not necessarily the case. In fact, it can be argued that there are areas of contemporary life that are worse than that of previous generations. Nonetheless, this kind of ‘chronological superiority’ makes people in a generation disregard beneficial ideas and innovations from the past. As in other cases, you can create your circle of competence by visiting the past and extracting ideas that can be of service to your generation. Stoicism is an idea from Ancient Greece that has received a new lease of life in the past 5 years. There are tons of similar ideas that are waiting to be unearthed.

The wisest one in the room is the individual who has identified his circle of competence. Whenever he’s faced with problems that fall within his domain, he rises up to the challenge and solves them. And when the problem is outside his reach, he is not afraid to defer them to others better suited to solve them. That probably explains the following tongue-in-cheek remark from the wisest king who ever lived: “Even a fool is counted wise when he holds his peace; When he shuts his lips, he is considered perceptive”. 

3. Learn the Power of First-Principles Thinking

The complications that often arise in life are usually because our unknown unknowns exceed our known unknowns. In other words, the things we do not know we are ignorant of are more than the things we know we are ignorant of. To untangle these complications, we have to identify the assumptions upon which these issues are built. Some of the assumptions mapped onto an issue are a function of the individual’s personal history and experiences. Nevertheless, there are other assumptions that can remain central and true to an issue, regardless of the individual’s past experiences, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status or religion. These central assumptions are referred to as axioms. The more common name is “first principles”.

In a conversation with His disciples about the greatest in the kingdom of God, Jesus said, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven…” In other words, access to certain aspects of reality will be obscured from you until you are possessed with the spirit of a child. Consider, as an example, the curiosity of a child. Due to their inquisitive nature, children question answers till they arrive at a point where they are satisfied. When you give a child a meaningful answer, you’d better be prepared to go on a journey that’s at least 4 – 5 layers deep to satisfy them. This is because each of your answers will be met with the response, ‘Why?’. As children grow up, however, they learn to conflate childishness with childlikeness in the name of appearing mature. They stop asking ‘Why?’ A natural consequence of this is the propagation of dangerous narratives, ideas and ideologies as people no longer have a willingness to question anything. First-principles thinking is a return to this childlikeness.

Broadly speaking, the ability to engage in first principles thinking is useful in at least two ways.

First, it can be useful in helping you untangle complicated problems. A classic example of how first principles are used to resolve complicated issues can be found in the way the Allied forces handled the 1945 Nuremberg trials.

Prior to the end of World War 2, the extent of human rights violations perpetrated by Nazi Germans on Jews were not known. With victory secured for the Allied Forces (Britain, Soviet Russia, France, China and the US) after the surrender of the Nazi leaders in 1945, the horrors of life at the Nazi concentration camps became widely published. However, a complication came up. There were no international guidelines for trying war crimes on the scale of those perpetuated by Nazi Germany. Although everyone knew the Nazi leaders had sanctioned orders that left carnage and destruction in its wake, there were no laws that classified such actions as crimes. As a result, the Nazi leaders could defend their actions by claiming “…where no law is, there is no trangression”. Furthermore, trying the German war criminals according to Soviet laws could potentially raise issues with the US or Britain. Trials based on US or British laws could also raise the same concerns among other members of the Allied Forces. 

To resolve this, members of the Nuremberg tribunal had to think in terms of first principles. They identified and agreed upon the fundamental assumptions a person must hold before he could sanction the execution of war crimes on a population group. Once this was settled, prosecuting the Nazi German leaders became more straightforward.

The second way that first-principles thinking can be useful is when you are interested in testing whether the maps with which you navigate through life are obsolete or incomplete. As we’ve already established, many people’s outlook on life is informed by the stories and narratives that have been passed on to them from other people in their lives. Because stories are very compelling, few people take the time to question the assumptions that power such narratives. Like a child clutching on to his toy, people learn to see the narratives as their own – refusing to part ways with them. In this state, anyone who doesn’t share the same narrative is seen as the enemy. It’s no wonder that we live in interesting times where people are divided along ideological lines. This is a dangerous place to be in. When one learns how to engage in first principles thinking, it becomes easy to identify and avoid narratives that are built on wrong foundations. Here’s the bitter truth: Unless people take the time to ask themselves the uncomfortable questions about the assumptions powering their ideologies or worldviews, we can expect a future of friction and division.

The wisest ones in the room are those are refuse to be distracted by irrelevancies obscuring the first-principles upon which an issue rests. They are the ones who are comfortable with asking ‘Why?’ until it hurts, and then some. These ones embrace their childlike curiosity and inquisitiveness for the purpose of getting to the roots of an issue. Because of their willingness to do this, they are rewarded with the lucidity that eludes the yes-men and echo chambers. They access raw wisdom and enter the kingdom of heaven – starting from here on earth!

According to the economic theories of choice, man is a rational being who makes choices based on an order of preference.

So, as an example, let’s assume you had the option of choosing between chicken and fish. As a rational being, the economic theories predict that you would choose chicken if you prefer it to fish.

Now, what if the options were expanded to include beef?

The theories predict that if you prefer chicken to fish, you only have two choices. Either you select chicken, or, you select beef – if you prefer it to chicken.

Let’s go a step further.

What if after the options were expanded, you decided to pick fish, despite your initial preference of chicken? Well, according to the economic theories of choice, you just acted irrationally!

Truth be told, a lot of us are living irrationally.

If you conduct a simple social experiment asking random people whether they are satisfied with their current status in life, you can be sure that 8 out of 10 will express dissatisfaction. As it were, the reality is that a lot of people are stuck in the valleys of life – doing jobs they hate and running helter-skelter just to make ends meet.

Given the opportunity to choose between their current lives and a much better one, a lot of people will say that they prefer a better life.

However, if you take a moment to observe what people do in their day-to-day activities, you’d find a great deal of irrationality.

The result? The crowded valley remains full while there’s ample space at the top.

Do you desire to climb out of the valley?

Do you desire to take rational steps that would increase your chances of remarkable success?

If that’s you, keep reading to learn practical paradigm-shifting ideas that will uproot you from the pit and lift you to the mountaintop…

1. Understanding Where Your Responsibility Lies

You know, it’s funny that many people in the valley are quick to let others take responsibility for the position they find themselves in.

They are a number of favorable parties they love to pass the blame to.

It’s because of their family.

It’s because of their genes

It’s because of their color.

It’s because of their degree.

It’s because of the government and politicians.

It’s because of this, or that.

Naturally, the blame game works and many people end up postponing the time when they finally take responsibility for the direction their lives are headed. And in my opinion, this is one of the biggest reasons why the valley is crowded.

One of my role models, Andrew Wommack says it best:

“Until you’re sick and tired of being sick and tired, you will continue to endure the same results you have now”

If you don’t like the results your seeing in your life, take stock and reflect on the choices you’ve made in the past and maybe…just maybe, the answers you’re seeking have been hidden in plain sight and you didn’t know all along.

2. You Always Have a Choice

As I’ve hammered time and time again, the valley is crowded because many people are irresponsible with their thoughts. They are not deliberate with their thoughts and their lack of thought discipline allows weeds to grow in their minds. A person who is disciplined in his thoughts would have a cultivated mind that yields desirable actions and desirable results.

Understand: The first step to thought discipline is having a deliberate perception and awareness of your thoughts.

When you deliberately choose to elevate your perceptions, you’re also deliberately elevating your life.

Moving even deeper, there’s a perception that separates the Rich from the middle-class and poor. The valley is crowded and will continue to be so because a lot of people take this kind of perception for granted.

If you can handle it, here’s the mystery:

The poor and middle class avoid thinking about worst-case scenarios, while the rich deliberately think about worst-case scenarios.

I know that would rub many of you the wrong way, so let me explain!

In The Aggregation of Marginal Gains, I share the story of how I quit my job and jumped headlong into a business.

I did not have any safety nets. Neither did I have any extra funds to see me through the first rough months of my business.

Instead of factoring worst-case scenarios, I was busy visualizing success and how I was going to rake in millions of naira from people who bought my products.

That’s why this quote by Carl Jung resonates deeply with me:
“Until you make the unknown known, it would dictate your life and you’d call it fate”

Success is predictable because it is built on a foundation of principles. The valley is crowded because many people are oblivious to these principles.

Am I saying positive confessions and visualizing stuff is stupid? Of course not! I still do it to this day, however, I’m learning how to do realistic thinking by factoring worst-case scenarios!

And that’s how the wealthy’s perception elevates them to the point of wealth.

At this point, it’s also appropriate to mention that merely thinking worst-case scenarios is not enough.

The truth is that in the few times that poor people think of worst-case scenarios, they do it so that they can worry about it, or use it to create excuses.

For the Rich, it’s different. And here’s where choice perceptions and thought discipline comes into play.

Rather than worrying about worst-case scenarios, the Rich analyze them using these 3 measurements:

• They clearly identify the worst-case scenarios of their choices. Doing this prevents them from living in their heads. In fact, if you notice, thoughts are scarier in our heads than on paper. When written down, even the scariest thing can be solved with a logical plan.
• They think of the likely results that can arise from that worst-case scenario. For instance, if you want to ask your boss for a raise, what’s the worst thing that can happen? Your boss would fire you, right? The poor stop here and starts worrying. The Rich don’t stop here… They go on to think about how likely it is for the boss to fire them. They look at his personality, mood, likes and dislikes, desires for company, etc and see how they can use that information to reduce the odds of the worst-case scenario.
• Finally, they check whether the outcomes of the worst-case scenarios are worth the risk. If yes, they go ahead with their plan. If no, they make safety nets to catch them in the event that the worst-case scenario comes to pass. As the adage says, “to fail to peruse prepare is to prepare to fail’ If you’re building a skyscraper, you don’t buy harnesses when you’re on the 30th floor. Rather, you do that before you even lay the first brick. You might eventually not need the harness, but it’s better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it

3. Ignore Process at Your Own Peril

We live in interesting times where we are so event-focused. 

Someone posts her marriage pictures on Instagram? Event.

Someone launches his book? Event.

Someone earns $1m per month? Event.

Someone graduates from the University? Event.

Unfortunately, our focus on events leaves us overwhelmed because we’re comparing the struggles of our day-to-day lives with the climatic events of other people’s lives.

What you don’t see on social media is this…

The number of heartbreaks the married girl suffered before she met her prince in shining armor. Process

The seasons of writer’s block that nearly drove the celebrated author to depression. Process

The loan that the business dude needed to Kickstart his business and is still paying back in installments. Process

The student who burnt the midnight oil for 5 years. Process

On social media, the more you look, the less you see. The valley is crowded because they do not realize that a picture on Instagram is only telling a part of the story.

The truth is simple: You only know yourself.

Stop comparing yourself with others because you don’t know what they are doing behind the scenes.

4. Begin With the End in Mind

There’s power in vision. There’s power in being able to get a peek into what God has ordained you to accomplish with your life. When you’re able to catch a glimpse of the magnitude of your destiny, you can’t help but be very deliberate with whatever you do with your time. Once you have a glimpse of your destination, you can’t help but be focused.

Sadly, the valley is crowded because the vast majority of people have the eyes of their hearts blinded.

As I mentioned in my book “The Aggregation of Marginal Gains“, journaling is one powerful tool that can help in keeping your vision/destination consistently at the back of your mind.

The perks of engaging in this habit – particularly at the beginning of your day – are very rewarding.

You are able to start your day with remarkable energy because you have something to live for.

You are motivated because you have something to look forward to.

And if you keep at this, it’s only a matter of time before you start achieving phenomenal results!

5. Something More Important Than Money

In my book, You Too Can Be Free, I emphasized on the fact that after the sin issue had been settled, the root of all our problems is knowledge.

You don’t have a money problem, you have a knowledge problem, and your knowledge problem is reflecting in your mental models and mindsets pertaining to every aspect of your life. This is the story for the vast majority. And this is yet another reason why the valley is crowded.

If a computer hard drive is virus-infected, and you keep on changing the monitor, the performance of the computer will still be poor. In the same way, if you take stock of your life to this point and you don’t like what you’re seeing, maybe it’s time to admit that what you’ve been doing isn’t working so you can try something else.

That’s why Paul of Tarsus advises us to engage in an exercise he called “renewing your mind”. You need to deliberately change the way you think in order to attain the results that God has ordained you to have from the foundations of the world.

God has done His part. Would you take responsibility and do yours?

6. Delayed Discounting is Your Biggest Downfall

“If you cannot immunize yourself from the temptations instant gratification, you will be hard-pressed to find success in health or wealth. Both demand a lifestyle shift from short-term thinking to long-term thinking. This is the only defense to lifestyle servitude… When instant gratification entices you to bite the bait…you become a causality…” – MJ DeMarco

At the beginning of 2019, I shared a short course where I mentioned that the year will yield phenomenal results for high-status individuals. I also explained the tool that can enable you to attain that level is increased willpower.

If you’ve read my book, The Aggregation of Marginal Gains, one thing I hammer on, again and again, is how easy it is to stand out today because of the sheer amount of people leading mediocre lives.

The valley is crowded and there’s ample space at the top.

However, to climb out of the valley, you need to be able to harness your willpower to escape the mediocrity that instant gratification brings.

You need to set your face like a flint and make a commitment to place more value on the potential that God had placed within you, as well as the destinies attached to you.

You owe it to them to be the best version of yourself possible. 

And how are you going to do that? By the proper use of willpower to escape the temptations of instant gratification

7. Be Ruthless With Your Biggest Asset

When your outlook on life is from an abundance perspective, you’d realize that we’d never arrive at a point where we’d exhaust money. The worst that could happen would be that the Central Bank would print more cash.

When all is said and done, the true equalizer of life is time. The valley is crowded because the vast majority of people fail to recognize that time, not money, is your biggest asset!

It doesn’t matter whether you’re Black or White, Christian or Atheist…

You’ve only got 24 hours in a day.

That’s why the wealthy are very aggressive with their time.

It’s not pride.

It’s not personal.

It’s just an elevated awareness of the abundance of money and the scarcity of time

How have you been disrespecting time while hoping to make money?

Take stock of your life and make the necessary arrangements.

8. Clarity of Perception Isn’t Far From Perspective

We live in interesting times where more and more people are trapped within the quagmire of consumerism. For many people, as soon as their monthly salary/ weekly wages come in, they embark on a mindless shopping spree for either thing they cannot afford or things they don’t need. Needless to say, this contributes greatly to why the valley is crowded.

Interestingly, the wealthy understand that the very things that make you rich are not things. Rather, wealth comes when your perspective is first of all elevated from that of the common man. With this perspective, you realize that in the gold rush, your best bet is not to join the masses digging for gold in the valley…but to sell shovels.

Remember, you don’t have any other problem but that of organized knowledge. Little wonder Jesus said, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free”

9. Appreciate the Power of Systemic Thinking

If there is any story that emphasizes why the valley is crowded, it would be the mythological story of the Pharaoh and his two nephews.

So, once upon a time, two nephews were commissioned by their Pharaoh uncle to build two mighty pyramids. As a reward for completing the task, there would be riches and luxury until the rest of their lives.

The first nephew started hauling large stones to his building site. The people of the city hail him as a great hard worker. At the of the first year, the first nephew had completed the base of the pyramid while the second nephew is yet to lift a stone. 

By the second year, the first nephew realized that he needed more strength to lift rocks to the next level, so he employed the services of the strongest man in the city to assist in lifting the rocks. On the other hand, the second nephew had not even started clearing his land.

Then, at the beginning of the third year, the second nephew arrived at his plot of land with a powerful machine that is capable of lifting heavy rocks with minimal effort. By the end of the week, the second cousin had finished the foundation of his pyramid – the same foundation that took the first cousin nearly a year to build. Then by the end of the 40 days, the second cousin as arrived at the same level as the first cousin who simply worked hard.

Needless to say, the second cousin finished his pyramid in record time – while also having spare time to engage in scholarly works and other creative inventions. The first cousin, on the other hand, never finished his pyramid because he died from a heart attack as he continued to toil lifting heavy stones.

So, which are you? The first cousin who spends his time toiling on a system that doesn’t work… Or the second cousin who spends his time building an efficient system that allows him to achieve more in less time?

10. Ignore the Law of Effection to Your Peril

There’s a concept referred to as The Law of Effection, which states,

‘The more lives you affect in an entity you control, in scale and/or magnitude, the richer you will become. Affect millions and make millions. The amount of money you have (or don’t have) is a direct reflection on the amount of value you’ve provided (or not provided)’

I think that’s self-explanatory: The more value you create, the more money flows towards you.

The valley is crowded because everyone is consumed by self-interest. No one wants to bring value to the table. Rather, everyone is a default money-chaser.

When you have a money-first paradigm, money seems to run away from you. As Napoleon Hill said in Think and Grow Rich, money has to be wooed like a beautiful damsel.

People don’t walk into the street and ask the first person they see to marry them. Rather, they become acquaintances, then friends, then they become romantically involved, then they court, get engaged, and then married. It’s a value ladder where every step makes the next step easier.

In the same way, if you want to woo money, you have to learn how to be a value dispenser everywhere you go.

Check the Bible, check the history books, carry out your research on the internet, you’d find an unmistakable pattern – money flows towards incessant value.

It’s not personal. It’s just the law of Effection at work.

So, how can you get the Law of Effection to work on your behalf as you gradually inch your way out of the valley?

It’s simple.

You see, many times we take our differences for granted. We’re so familiar with our uniqueness that we forget how they make us stand out.

Something that is second nature to you is the answer to another person’s prayers.

Stop waiting for an audible voice from the skies to strike you with innovative insights.

God has commanded you to dress and keep your Eden.

Why? Because that’s where your food will come from!

Go out there and be a solution provider in your environment.

Are you already thinking about how you can partner with this law? My book, “The Aggregation of Marginal Gains” is an important tool that will provide you 5 key areas where you can start dispensing immense value.

11. There’s Something Bigger Than Ideas⁩

The valley is crowded because people naturally have a tendency to be loss averse. That means if there’s any chance of them losing time, money, effort or resources in any activity, they would run away from it. There is security in being loss averse.

The successful on the other hand are freaks of nature. They are not loss averse because of one important factor.

They see failure as feedback!

That’s why the wealthy are almost paranoid about execution.

They understand that there’s a learning curve in everything new, so they want to fail as fast as possible. They want to make the mistakes as soon as possible. By doing this, they are able to separate the gold from the dross and home in on the variables that work.

The poor on the other hand are there, folding their arms in the valley, waiting for the planets to align before they get their hands dirty.

Then when they eventually someone else executing their ideas, they complain to all who care to listen, “Ah! They stole my idea again”

Don’t be this person!

So, how can you be the person that is ready to get your hands dirty as quickly as you can?

Break the ginormous task down into smaller baby steps.

The valley is crowded because many people have a syndrome I call Difficulty Intolerance where they are extremely sensitive to the slightest difficulty.

As I shared in The Aggregation of Marginal Gains, the ability to fall in love with learning difficult things quickly is a superpower that would put you head and shoulders above the rest.

The poor and unsuccessful don’t know this. That’s why they are stressed and overwhelmed by difficult things. That’s why the valley is crowded and will continue to be.

People in the valley prefer to hang out on social media and continue scrolling down their news feed to infinity.

That’s the easy path of least resistance.

The Rich and successful think differently. They are not overwhelmed by difficulty. Rather, they think and act strategically by breaking down ginormous tasks to actionable chunks.

You too can do the same.

In high school math, we were taught that a number series could be expressed in two forms. These forms are Arithmetic Progression and Geometric Progression.

In an arithmetic progression, the difference between any two consecutive numbers in the sequence is constant. For instance, in the number series 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24…, the next number in the series is gotten by adding 3 to the previous number.

On the other hand in a geometric progression, the numbers follow a pattern such that the next term is found by multiplying by a constant called the common ratio. For instance, in the number series 3, 9, 27, 81, 243, 729, 2187, 6561…, the next number in the series is gotten by multiplying the previous number by 3.

‘Great example’, you might think, ‘but how does this relate to growth?’

It’s simple. Some people are going through life in an arithmetic progression where there is no difference between where they were 8 years ago, and where they are right now. On the other hand, there are people whose lives are marching forward in a geometric progression. The fruits their lives are able to produce in just one year trumps what their peers are able to achieve in 10 years. As it were, the only constant in these people’s lives is predictable progress.

Do you feel like you are trudging through life in an arithmetic progression Well, the good news is that you are not condemned to a lifetime of mediocrity. I will be sharing with you some lessons I got from American bestselling author, speaker, and coach, John Maxwell, in his bestselling book: The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth: Live Them and Reach Your Potential

Growth is Impossible Without Deliberate Intention

‘To reach your potential, you must grow. And to grow, you must be highly intentional about it’ – John Maxwell

I’ve come to understand that we don’t have a potential problem. In fact, once you have a glimpse of the potential you have bubbling within and around you right now, you will never think of yourself as a small person anymore.

Unfortunately, for all the potential we have within and around us, many people will lead mediocre lives.

Why? They lack intentionality.

It’s just like the person who is extremely hungry, but goes to a buffet with a table spoon and a saucer, while others are piling up food on large plates and even going for second and third servings.

In my analogy, the problem is not the availability of food. The problem is the lack of intentionality on the part of the hungry man. There’s nothing or nobody stopping him from picking up his larger plate and stockpiling it with assorted cuisines. He exercised his own power of choice to play a smaller game.

Similarly, unless you’re intentional, you would appear very busy and hardworking with very little to show for it. Why? Because you’re showing up to God’s abundance party called life with nothing more than a thimble to pick your blessings.

You need to be intentional!

You Have to Commit to Growth Now

“The greatest danger you face in this moment is the idea that you’ll make intentional growth a priority later” – John Maxwell

A quote I’ve come across countless times in the past weeks is this: ‘The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The next best time to plant a tree is now’

Stop waiting for all the planets to align before you take a first step. Take intentional steps towards your growth right now. Your goal is not perfection in the beginning.

You will fail. Yes, you will fall. But you will also find out what does not work in the process, even as you home in on the processes and systems that work.

Remember, the successful don’t think in terms of failure. They only see feedback, make iterations with the feedback and then they act again.

That’s why John Maxwell said, “One of the greatest obstacles to curiosity and learning is the reluctance to look foolish in the eyes of other people. There are two easy ways to tell if this is a problem in your life: The first is being afraid to fail. The second is taking yourself too seriously. The cure is to take what I call “learning risks.” Sign up to do or learn something that takes you completely out of your comfort zone…”

The comfort zone is a safe zone. No stress. No stretching. No challenges. Just the same old limited life day after day.

If you want to stand out, you need to be confident enough to introduce new dimensions to your daily experiences.

An example of how you can do that?

Talk to that stranger in the taxi. Who knows, the life-changing information you need might sprout out of that conversation.

Ask questions. More often than not, wisdom is unleashed when questions are asked. And besides, if you don’t ask the stupid questions, you will never get round to asking the questions that matter.

That’s why one quote that I’ve repeated again and again is this,

“The quality of your life is governed by the amount of uncomfortable conversations you’re willing to have”

Form the habit of having uncomfortable conversations. Yes, it’s outside your comfort zone. Yes, the vast majority of people will rather keep mute and fuddle with their phones. But those kinds of conversations are exactly what you need to grow and become that 1% of the population that the Aggregation of Marginal Gains work for, instead of against.

Growth is Impossible Without Direction

“You have to know who you are to grow your potential. But you have to grow in order to know who you are. So what’s the solution? Explore yourself as you explore growth” – John Maxwell

There’s a reason why I have a passion for helping people crystallize the potentials trapped within and around them.

Many people cannot grow because they are totally oblivious to who they are capable of becoming.

Their minds are constantly fixated on the mistakes they made in the past, or their fears and concerns for the future.

True growth begins with identity. 

Your identity doesn’t stop with who you think you are right now. Neither does it end with your nationality, tribe, biases and prejudices. Rather, your identity extends to the desirable future ‘you’ that you’re capable of becoming.

The more you are aware of this future ‘you’, the easier it would be to grow into that identity. I talk about the exact steps you can use in changing your identity here: Identity-Based Motivation: The Problem Isn’t Habit, It’s Identity!

You Don’t Have a Growth Problem, You Have an Identity Problem

Zig Ziglar once said, “It’s impossible to consistently behave in a manner inconsistent with how we see ourselves. We can do very few things in a positive way if we feel negative about ourselves”

If there’s anything I’ve hammered on again and again, it’s this: You don’t have a faith, or power, or purpose problem, you have an identity problem.

Character and behavior arises from your most dominant identity.

That’s why the Chinese will continue to be excellent in math.

It’s the same reason Indians will continue to be drawn towards computer science, engineering and technology.

That’s why the Igbos would continue to be successful in commerce.

These identities resonate with these groups of people and you eventually find their behaviors and career choices being influenced.

To change your behavior in pursuit of growth, you need to change your most dominant identity. I discuss how to go about that here

Growth is Incomplete Without Reflection

John Maxwell said, ‘If we pause to allow growth to catch up with us, it makes our lives better, because we not only better understand the significance of what we’ve experienced, but we can implement changes and course corrections as a result’

There’s so much information in the environment that is constantly bombarding our consciousness. 

Without deliberate reflection, we miss out on the variables that influence our actions, behaviors and results. Consequently, we’re trapped by the same faulty mental models and we make the same mistakes again and again.

Spending time on reflection is an action that is important, but not urgent. And as result, it gets overlooked every time by the vast majority.

If you want uncommon results, you must engage in uncommon actions. 

“It does little good to see something new without taking the time to think about it. It does no good to hear something new without applying it. I’ve find that the best way to learn something new is to take time at the end of the day to ask yourself questions that prompt you to think about what you learned… Remember, experience is not the best teacher, evaluated experience is” – John Maxwell

A lot of people are stuck in their current phase because they have not learnt the lessons attached to that circumstance. As a result, that keep on repeating the same ‘class’ year after year. Unfortunately, you cannot learn if you don’t reflect. And you cannot reflect if you’re not deliberate with making out time to do it.

That’s why you’d see the average person leading a mediocre life. They have formed a faulty hypothesis about life, and in spite of all the feedback, they do not take the time to reflect and make iterations.

Understand: Reflection is a lost art in this generation. If you want to grow, reflection needs to be a vital part of your life. Do this consistently and you’d be pleasantly surprised with the results

Growth Will Have Boring and Mundane Stages

“The successful person has the habit of doing the things that failures don’t like to do. The successful person doesn’t like them either, but his dislike is subordinated to the strength of his purpose” – John Maxwell

One myth of success that is peddled by the gurus is following your passion.

The problem is that even when you follow your passion, you won’t feel goosebumps and butterflies in your stomach every minute you’re at it. Yet, the gurus don’t sell that part of the story to their followers.

Following your passion involves doing what you hate. For instance, everyone wants to write a book, but not everyone enjoys the pain and bleeding of writing. There’s a price to pay for every prize. There’s a painful process behind every successful event.

In addition, following your passion involves taking the lonely path of mundane routines. The successful understand this and they follow through with their course until they attain their objectives. The unsuccessful, on the other hand, are easily bored by routine and end up on Facebook for their next dose of dopamine-fueled entertainment.

Understand: the path to your desired results would be boring and lonely. When that happens, stick with it because your destination is now closer than before

That’s why John Maxwell went on to make the following remark: ‘If you do the things you need to do when you need to do them, then someday you can do the things you want to do when you want to do them‘

Sometimes ago, two people in my circle of influence told me that they are disillusioned with their jobs and were considering quitting.

And one of the guys had a wife and two kids!

Naturally, I advised the two guys to stay put in their jobs until their “dreams” or “passions” can become a stable source of income. Anything other thing is simply irresponsible.

In every sincere success story – whether in the Bible, or in the history books – you’d find that there’s a period of boring routine.

For instance, between the ages of 12 – 30, there’s nothing written about Jesus, even though His Destiny was to be the Savior of the world.

For the 13 years that Joseph was in prison, there was nothing written about him, except for the dreams he interpreted. Yet, his destiny was to become the prime minister of Egypt.

Before Michael Jordan won his first of 6 NBA championships in 1991, he had been a routine loser for the nearly 7 years leading to his first title.

What’s my point in all of these? 

Behind every success event, there’s usually a boring process that is in no way glamorous. If you feel that your job is getting in the way of your purpose, how about waking up an extra hour everyday to work on your purpose? If it’s as important as you say, then you should be able to make out the extra time for it!

Growth is Stimulated by the Right Variables

‘Do not wait for a change of environment before you act. Cause a change of environment through action‘ – John Maxwell

There are variables that determine the results you get out of life. And when the variables are obscured, you’re liable to continue getting the same poor results out of life.

However, irrespective of how aware of the variables you are, there’s always one constant that you have control of.

That constant is You!

You might be born into lack. You don’t have any control over that. However, you can choose to learn how to get out of lack and follow through with action.

You always have a choice. And when you are deliberate with your choices, with time those choices compound and you’d find yourself translated to more optimal environments!

“Most people allow their lives to simply happen to them. They float along. They wait. They react. And by the time a large portion of their life is behind them, they realize they should have been more proactive and strategic” – John Maxwell

If there’s anything I drummed on again and again in my book, The Aggregation of Marginal Gains, it’s how easy it is to stand out from the crowd, because the crowd has made the standards very low. All you need to do is a little more than the average person and you’d see phenomenal results.

One area where you can do this is strategic, proactive planning. In your regular day, there are factors that you can control, and yes, there are factors that are out of your control. Focus on those that are in your control and follow strategic planning with ruthless action.

Do this over the course of a month, and you’d be pleasantly surprised with your results.

Growth Maintains the Right Perspective for Life Experiences

‘No one likes it when they’re in the middle of a bad experience. It’s usually just painful. But if they manage the experience well, then they enjoy talking about it afterwards. It becomes a great war story’ – John Maxwell

If you study the annals of history, you’d find that there’s always a period of pain and intense hardship at the cusps of breakthrough.

In instances when you’re passing through bitter times, you can always decide to be as bitter as your circumstances, or make the decision to come out of the other side better. Everything ultimately comes down to perspective. Would you keep your gaze on the inevitable light at the end of the tunnel? Or would you throw in the towel at the slightest inkling of pain.

Remember, when all is said and done, tough times really don’t last at all – for both tough people and soft people. What differentiates the two categories of people is their perspective.

John Maxwell shares an insightful story that buttresses this point:

“There’s a story about a chicken farmer whose land was flooded every spring. He didn’t want to give up his farm and move, but when the water backed up onto his land and flooded his chicken coops, it was always a struggle to get his chickens to higher ground. Some years he couldn’t move fast enough and hundreds of his chickens drowned

“After the worst spring he’d ever experienced and losing his entire flock, he came to the farmhouse and told his wife, “I’ve had it. I can’t afford to buy another place. I can’t sell this one. I don’t know what to do”

“His wife replied, “Buy ducks“”

Everything ultimately comes to perspective. If you train yourself to identify pain and failure as feedback, you would be able to make course-corrections as you progress in this journey called life. And as I mentioned earlier, your ability to interpret failure and pain as feedback puts you in an elite category of individuals who will escape the gravitational pull of mediocrity. 

Understand: Sometimes your success is hidden behind your areas of pain and failure. Stay sensitive. Listen to feedback. Make course-corrections. And it’s only a matter of time before you lay hands on the prize.

Growth is a Process, Not an Event

US politician Dan Coats is reported to have once said, “Character cannot be summoned at the moment if crises if it has been squandered by years of compromise and rationalization. The only testing ground for the heroic is the mundane. The only preparation for that one profound decision which can change a life, or even a nation is those hundreds of half-conscious, self-defining, seemingly insignificant decisions made in private. Habit is the daily battleground of character”

Here’s another example of process vs event.

Everybody loves celebrating the big win. The fireworks and sound effects that accompany success.

But when you peel back the layers, there’s nothing more than the boring, mundane process of showing up everyday.

Consistency is boring. But when it compounds over time, it’s really attractive.

So, this is 2019 and I’m currently following the build up to the US Presidential elections. This is the period where people who intend to run are making their intentions clear.

One of the presidential hopefuls is Bernie Sanders. And while I don’t agree with everything he’s saying, he earned my respect, and that of millions of people because of the consistency of his stand on issues.

Here’s an example:

Recently, a 20-year-old video clip of Bernie Sanders made the rounds on the internet. And guess what? The only difference between him back then and him now was that he had more hair on his head back then!

The man showed that he’s consistent because his stand on his values are largely unchanged and that is winning him a lot of fans at the moment!

Understand: There’s power in consistency. It would always compound and you can determine whether it becomes a liability or an asset in the future