This morning I was sitting in a Matatu (local commuter bus) seething, raging, crying. I’m frustrated and weary. See, everyone who reads this blog knows I have very lofty dreams, ridiculous dreams some of them.

But, Life!

It’s just kicking me in the nuts all the time! No breaks, no helping hands, no retreat, no surrender! I like to say I’m a billionaire in training but right now, I can’t even muster a dollar. Yes, I mean 1$. Talk about hopeless disparity between my reality and my dreams.

So anyways, I’m sitting in this matatu raging at God, the Universe, myself, the high school crush who never gave me time of day, President Obama, the birds, the bees and everything in between, when the oddest thought popped into my head.

A single thought so ridiculous in the context, I almost laughed out loud. Fortunately, my public sensibilities kicked in and I restrained myself from asking the lady seated next to me if she’d heard what I did.

It went something like this.

Me: “I’m so tired. Why can’t you give me a break, what more do you want from me? haven’t I given my best? When will my dreams come true, huh? Why are others less…(insert whatever you want here)…than me succeeding and I’m just so bloody stuck?”
Me: “I’M SO F*&#-ING PISSED”
The Voice: “Don’t get Mad, Get even!”
Me: “Ha ha ha ha ha heee he he heh uh huh….”
Me: “Wait a minute…Huh? That doesn’t even make sense. Get even with what? With Life?”
The Voice: “YES!”

Got me thinking. Get even with Life. Hit back. Prove Life wrong. Show it that I’m worthy, I’m capable, I’m tough as nails. I’m Jack Bauer, Chuck Norris and Golola Moses put together with a topping of Bruce Lee!

Yes. Overcome my fears and limiting beliefs.
Yes. Become an innovative, dynamic and highly respected billionaire entrepreneur before I’m 40.
Yes. Cultivate and enjoy an outrageous loving, romantic and nurturing relationship with my awesome wife and be worlds best dad to my kids.
Yes. Contribute and positively influence thousands of men to achieve greatness.
Yes, pay off all my debt and be absolutely financially free all the days of my life.
Yes. Drive that ridiculously expensive yet capable Range Rover Sport.
Yes. Get even and then some!

Getting even sounds like much more fun than being pissed off and miserable. Yeah, I’m definitely doing that. I’m going to work harder, better, longer until my goals and dreams are achieved and life begs for mercy. Then the next time I find myself pissed, seething and raging, it will be because all this time, life was a much weaker foe than I thought!

So tell me, are you going to get mad with your life or will you just get even?

Shalom

I once watched a movie called “Baby Geniuses” which insinuated that children up till they reach the age of 2years are proverbial geniuses! The father of one of children in the story is obsessed with getting his daughter to tell him the secret of the universe before she turns two and becomes dumb!

But, I digress. My point is that you can learn a lot from children. I am constantly amazed just watching my daughter grow up. Over the past week, I’ve seen my daughter come from crawling around the house to walking with all the Swag of a fierce-some but drunk pirate(Jack Sparrow anyone?!) I feel so proud and blessed to see her developing so well.

Anyways, still more digressing. The point I’m trying to make is that I’ve learned some important truths about growing and succeeding in life from watching my daughter over the past few months and I’d like to share my thoughts with you.

1. Don’t be afraid of falling

My daughter falls on average a hundred times a day. For real. Whether its walking, playing on the bed or sofa, whatever it is she’s doing, you can be sure she’s going to fall a gazillion times in a day. In fact, i think she finds it extremely strange that we her parents don’t seem to fall, ever. Ha! If she only knew! The amazing thing is though, it doesn’t stop her. No matter how many times she falls, she’ll pick herself up again and again and again. And then again. I gave up trying to pick her up. Too exhausting.

Life lesson: No matter how many times you fail in life, pick yourself up and keep going. Again and again and then again. Falling is just part of growing.You can’t learn to walk without falling a few hundred times so why should succeeding at a relationship, a career, a journey be without its falls? Pick yourself up.

2. Be annoyingly persistent when you want something

On my bed side is a little cupboard where i keep whatever books, wallets, phone and other nick nacks nearby. Before my daughter could even crawl properly, she took note of this little treasure chest of mine. She determined that she needed to have whatever I keep in there. I marveled watching her learn to lean precariously over the side of the bed to pull open the drawer and reach beyond her little arms could possibly do so to pull out a book – ripping several of them in the process or worse, my wallet. What was amazing was seeing the daily persistence and how she kept adapting till she could finally open it and get whatever she wanted from the drawer. You should see the look of satisfaction on her face whenever she’d succeed. Priceless.

Life lesson: Be annoyingly persistent in going after what you want and keep adapting till you finally attain your goal. Life isn’t going to just give you what you want. There are so many obstacles to overcome but keeping trying different things till you succeed.

3. You gotta let things go!

One of the hardest things I have to do is to punish my dearest Princess from time to time. It’s incredibly hard to spank her. Sometimes I wonder if she even understands why I do it. Often I have to remove something from her grasp for her own safety or restrict her from going somewhere. Now this vexes her to no end, evidenced by her banshee screams and crocodile tears. It breaks my heart to cause her to cry. But every time I do so, every time, in a matter of minutes she’ll have forgotten and flashed me her polar cap melting smile or come to me for a hug. Sometimes immediately after I’ve spanked her she’ll come to me for comfort! You see, she’s very forgiving. She doesn’t hold a grudge and seek revenge on me and all my descendants. She doesn’t crawl into a corner and seethe and play the victim. She’s gets hurt, she cries, she moves on. Period

Life Lesson: Let things go. Forgive people. Forgive yourself. You’ll move a lot faster and higher in life when you don’t let things stick to you. They only weigh you down. And you’ll be a lot happier too.

4. Be curious about everything

Albert Einstein once said “Never lose a holy curiosity”. My daughter is the poster child for curiosity. Everything is unique, special and wonderful to her. It doesn’t matter if its the television flashing all these tiny people at her or a freshly filled diaper that could make the dead wrinkle their noses. She’s curious about everything, turning them every which way, banging them, shaking them, tasting them(its horrifying to see her try to taste the garbage!) She doesn’t take anything for granted or simply at face value. She must explore everything. No matter how many times she sees something, there’s always room for exploration. Soon, I’ll have the nightmare of actually having to answer her billions of incessant questions about everything. Bracing myself.

Life Lesson: Don’t take life for granted. Don’t assume you know everything there is to know. Be curious about everything. Question yourself, your beliefs, your results. Smell every flower, taste every meal, try every adventure. It’s through curiosity that life’s greatest inventions, breakthroughs and adventures have come.

5. Don’t take no for an answer

“Kemi No. NO. NOOOOOOOO! Don’t touch that. Leave that alone. Stay away”. This is now what you hear all day long in my house. I often wonder if we’re not permanently damaging her spirit by constantly saying no to everything she wants to touch or do. Here’s the funny thing though. She doesn’t listen. For the most part anyway. She’ll keep on doing what your telling her not to. Now as you can imagine, that’s pretty frustrating. But there’s an upside to this. If she constantly acquiesced every time I said don’t do this, don’t do that, she’d never learn to walk, to develop her motor skills, learn from her painful experiences and grow. Huh! Who’d a thunk it?

Life Lesson: In life, there will always be naysayers. People who tell you NO. You can’t do that. You can’t be a success. You can’t achieve your dreams. You gotta learn to ignore them and keep on anyway. Life will never make things easy for you(and neither will most people, or the government) but you gotta keep pressing on. Be annoyingly persistent. Life will relent eventually.

So as you can see, children are brilliantly fascinating. I read once that as much as we think we are our children’s teachers, it’s actually they who teach us. I agree. I’m pretty sure I still have a lot to learn from my guru daughter and to be honest, I’m terrified but equally excited.

I’ll keep you posted with more insights as she decides to reveal them to my less than genius self. And for the rest of you who are also in the school of toddlers, what insights have you learned? I’d love to hear them.

Shalom

Some wise sayings;

“You can learn many things from children.  How much patience you have, for instance.”  ~Franklin P. Jones

“A child can ask questions that a wise man cannot answer.”  ~Author Unknown

“While we try to teach our children all about life,Our children teach us what life is all about.”
~Angela Schwindt

“Children find everything in nothing; men find nothing in everything. “~Giacomo Leopardi, Zibaldone Scelto

“There’s nothing that can help you understand your beliefs more than trying to explain them to an inquisitive child.  ~Frank A. Clark“

“There are no seven wonders of the world in the eyes of a child.  There are seven million.” ~Walt Streightiff

So I hate to admit it but i’m not rich. Phew, there, I’m out of the closet. Apparently tho, If you took the time to really sIt down and study rich people closely, you would come to the other shocking revelation of the day.

Rich people aren’t really any better than you! Yes, they aren’t smarter, more beautiful or even as fun as you. So why are they rich and your not? Well according to T. Harv Eker, bestselling author of “The Secrets of the Millionaire Mind“, there are 17 distinct differences between you and the rich, which are:

1. Rich people believe: “I create my life.” Poor people believe: “Life happens to me.”
2. Rich people play the money game to win. Poor people play the money game to not lose.
3. Rich people are committed to being rich. Poor people want to be rich.
4. Rich people think big. Poor people think small.
5. Rich people focus on opportunities. Poor people focus on obstacles.
6. Rich people admire other rich and successful people. Poor people resent rich and successful people.
7. Rich people associate with positive, successful people. Poor people associate with negative or unsuccessful people.
8. Rich people are willing to promote themselves and their value. Poor people think negatively about selling and promotion.
9. Rich people are bigger than their problems. Poor people are smaller than their problems.
10. Rich people are excellent receivers. Poor people are poor receivers.
11. Rich people choose to get paid based on results. Poor people choose to get paid based on time.
12. Rich people think “both.” Poor people think “either/or.”
13. Rich people focus on their net worth. Poor people focus on their working income.
14. Rich people manage their money well. Poor people mismanage their money well.
15. Rich people have their money work hard for them. Poor people work hard for their money.
16. Rich people act in spite of fear. Poor people let fear stop them.
17. Rich people constantly learn and grow. Poor people think they already know.

So, I’m taking a bit of time, well plenty of time to dwell on these and compare with the rest of my life to identify why i’m not rich yet. I hope this helps you because I want everyone of you to succeed.

Shalom

By Michael Dalton Johnson

Our lives are often swept along by the duties and responsibilities we have assumed. We don’t have time to reflect on the course of our lives. If your obligations and commitments seem to control your life, you’ll find these observations useful.

You are great. You are far greater than you imagine. You are a unique entity given the power to create your own life. When you look outside yourself for self-definition you are giving your power away. However, when you understand and accept that you alone possess the power to define yourself and your life, there are dramatic changes. You will find new clarity, focus and confidence. You’ll also find that using this incredible gift is both exhilarating and challenging.

You are in charge. Think of your life as a movie. You are the writer, director, producer and star. You choose your co-stars and extras. Whether the movie is a smash or a flop is in your hands.

Your thoughts determine your outcomes. This is one of the great mysteries. There are a lot of theories about this phenomenon but no one really knows how it works. However, it does work and reveals the astonishing power of your thoughts. If you think you are average, you are. If you think you can’t win, you won’t. Conversely, if you see yourself succeeding, you will. If you expect great things to come to your life, they’re on their way.

You bring others with you. Your courage and confidence to examine your life and make changes will have a profound effect on those around you. When you lift yourself up, others are lifted up too.

Your life. Your responsibility. The first and most important rule is to take responsibility for everything that happens in your life. Following this rule puts you in command. Winston Churchill said, “The price of greatness is responsibility.” While I’m certain he was talking about fighting wars and leading nations, his statement applies to your life as well.

You have the power. Life will inevitably send you your share of setbacks, problems, disappointments and losses. These things are beyond your control. How you react to them is not. Listen to the voice within you and realize you have a choice. You have the greatness to persevere, to forgive, to smile, to lift yourself and others up and to move on.

Seeds of Greatness

You can be a total winner, even if you’re a beginner
If you think you can you can, if you think you can you can
You can wear the gold medallion, you can ride your own black stallion
If you think you can you can, if you think you can you can

It’s not your talent or the gifted birth
It’s not your bank book that determines worth
It isn’t in your gender or the color of your skin
It’s your attitude that lets you win

It doesn’t matter what you’ve done before
It makes no difference what the halftime score
It’s never over ‘til the final gun
So keep on trying and you’ll find you’ve won

Just grab your dream and then believe it
Go out and work, and you’ll achieve it
If you think you can, you can
If you think you can, you can

By Denis Waitley

To laugh is to risk appearing the fool.
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.
To reach out is to risk involvement,
To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self.
To place your ideas and
dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss.
To love is to risk not being loved in return,
To live is to risk dying,
To hope is to risk despair,
To try is to risk failure.
But risks must be taken because
the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.
The person who risks nothing, does nothing,
has nothing, is nothing.

– William Arthur Ward (1921-1994)

The other day I was speaking to my cousin who is one of the closest people to me and he shared a very interesting revelation. You see he has a dream to own an Audi S8 which costs over 120,000$ and thats before the local revenue boys even ask for your shipping documents. Not to mention he wants to have a net worth of about 5million dollars in the next 5years. Now thats a BHAG!

Now, he realised that to actually achieve these dreams, he needs to have a much larger Mindspace than what he currently has. What is Mindspace you ask? Well some call it mind set but i say it’s the capacity or scale of the positive and empowering thoughts and beliefs you have.

Basically as long as your thoughts and beliefs are congruent with your dreams, you will achieve them. In my cousins case, if his thoughts and beliefs allow him to comprehend flying to Germany to customize the machine he wants, wire the money to Audi, put it on a plane to deliver it, give URA another cheque of UGX 100Million, then reach into his wallet and pull out another UGX 250,000 to fill up the gas tank, well lets just say it will probably happen very quickly. His Mindspace tells him that this is as normal as putting on clothes.

However, if his Mindspace is too small, well lets just say the closest he’ll ever get to that machine is pictures and videos on the internet.

Napoloen Hill says “What ever the mind of a man can concieve and believe, he will achieve” and the Master Himself says “As a man thinketh, so is he”. The point I’m trying to make is that our mindspace dictates directly the kind of results we have in life whether they be successes or failures.

My cousin rightly realised that inorder to achieve his dreams, he absolutely needs to increase his mindspace. Further more, his mindspace has to grow so that he can also accommodate the changes necessary to actually own such a car. The house where he will park that car, the maintenance costs to run it, the amount of money he’ll need to carry in his wallet daily, the friends he’ll have(and enemies), the standing in society that he’ll project, the level of business transactions he’ll be executing.

A great Mindspace is essential for a great life!

So if you have a dream, you will have to enlarge(or shrink) your mindset to accommodate that dream and everything that goes with it. Basically wealthy, successful and happy people have very large and positive mindspaces while poor, unhappy failures have tiny dark mindspaces.

So i ask again, how’s your mindspace?

It’s almost an obsession of mine to understand how to be a super achiever in my own life and this blog is dedicated to sharing with you what I learn. Brian Tracy is one of the foremost success gurus out there and a personal favorite of mine. He says success comes when you have these seven C’s in firmly in place. Here are Tracy’s 7C’s for your success.

After having studied top achievers and peak performers over the past 25 years, I’ve concluded that these unique men and women, have in most cases, mastered what I call the Seven C’s of Success.

1. Clarity—Eighty percent of success comes from being clear on who you are, what you believe in and what you want.

2. Competence—You can’t climb to the next rung on the ladder until you are excellent at what you do now.

3. Constraints—Eighty percent of all obstacles to success come from within. Find out what is constraining, in you or your company, and deal with it.

4. Concentration—The ability to focus on one thing single-mindedly and see it through until it’s done takes more character than anything else

5. Creativity—Flood your life with ideas from many sources. Creativity needs to be exercised like a muscle; if you don’t use it you’ll lose it.

6. Courage —Most in demand and least in supply, courage is the willingness to do the things you know are right.

7. Continuous learning—Read, at the very least, one book a week on business to keep you miles ahead of the competition. And just as you eat and bathe, organize your time so you spend 30 minutes a day exploring e-mail, sending messages, going through Web sites, because like exercise, it’s the only way you can keep on top of technology. If you get away from it, you’ll lose your edge.

This is the Family mans Creed. It goes out to all the men out there, married or single, we are still charged to live to these standards.

With Gods help I will do my best to:

Praise and Honor God daily in my thoughts, my words and my deeds thus establishing the foundation for my success as a true family man.

Honor and Respect my Wife, loving her as Christ loves the church and faithfully demonstrating my life long commitment to providing for her needs.

Spiritually protect my Family, by consistently interceeding in prayer for their needs, establishing the Word of God as our homes final authority. Boldly declaring “As for me and my house, we shall serve the Lord”

Emotionally protect my Family, by speaking words of blessings and encouragement, spending lots of time together and remembering to be slow to anger and quick to extend mercy.

Physically protect my family, through hardwork, preparedness and diligence, understanding that my call as a family man requires daily sacrifice.

Be faithful to my Family by ensuring regular weekly church attendance and faithful giving of my time and resources in addition to maintaining relationships with other Christian men for accountability and edification.

Ask the Lord daily for Wisdom and His empowerment that I may walk in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness and self-control

Allow no other activities to distract me from my number one priority which is to be assured that my family proclaims Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior

Shalom

A series of events over the past few days have left me feeling low spirited, frustrated and defeated. I feel like a fraud and a failure. I’m not the person living the life I know I should be.I’m not achieving my goals or following my dreams. To encourage myself I decided to rewrite one of my favorite poems by Marriane Williamson, “Our Greatest Fear” that I came across in my usual morning readings.

What is My Greatest Fear

My Greatest Fear Is n­ot that I am Inadequate,
My Greatest Fear Is That I am Powerful Beyond Measure,
That I can do and achieve beyond my wildest dreams
It is my Light, ­not my Darkness That Frightens Me,

I Ask Myself, who am I to be Brilliant and Wise?
Who am I to be Wealthy and Respected?
Who am I to be Handsome and Loved?
Who am I to be Talented and Fabulous?

But the real question is, Who Am I not To Be?
I am a Child Of God, a Prince in His Kingdom.
My playing small does ­not serve the World.

There is ­nothing enlightened about shrinking
So that others won’t feel insecure around Me.
I was born to manifest the Glory Of God within me.
It is n­ot just in some people out there; it is in Me too.

And, as I let my own Light shine,
I am consciously giving you permission to do the same.
As I am liberated from my own fear,
My presence automatically liberates You.

~The Apprentice~