LESSONS DRAWN FROM PASTOR MRS. IBUKUN AWOSIKA’S LIFE WITH FIRST BANK OF NIGERIA PLC – THE EYE AND HEART ALIGNMENT

Getting to the top in life might look time consuming but it pays because it is time testing. I am an addicted reader of biography of men who are enlisted at the top and those who are on their way to the top. It has to sink into any man who wants to get to the top that “success is not a day’s job rather a daily job” as said by Pastor Sam Adeyemi, it should be settled in the heart of everyone that the greatness of today is the amassment of little achievements of yesterday, yester week, yester month, and yester years.

Names of people in business and career today that strikes your heart didn’t become some overnight, it was earned by their resilience steps taken on a daily basis. Behind every successful business, there is a successful minded person whose eyes and heart aligns to become successful.

Listening to Pastor Mrs. Ibukun Awosika severally about the story of her rising for about four to five times, a successful woman, wife and mother who pastors at Fountain of Life headed by Pastor Taiwo Odukoya is one of those multitudes who after their youth service were passionate about becoming successful. The celebration of her twenty five years in business made her launched Ignite Ideas contest in 2014, a platform for helping 100 Entrepreneurs with N100, 000, which Lagos State Government under the governance of Babatunde Raji Fashola complemented her N10, 000, 000 ten million naira with N100, 000, 000 one hundred million naira and many more of her outstanding achievements.

She started her working career with Akintola Williams & Co. as an Audit Trainee. Shortly thereafter, she moved to Alibert Nigeria Ltd, a furniture company, as Showroom Manager. It was from there she launched out to fulfill her entrepreneurial learning by establishing Quebees Ltd, a furniture company she started from her father’s backyard, from which The Chair Centre Ltd later evolved.

She was the Managing Director of The Chair Centre Ltd, a market leader in the office furniture and banking security systems industry, until recently when she was appointed the Chief Executive Officer of Sokoa Chair Centre Ltd, a joint-venture company of Sokoa S.A of France, Guaranty Trust Bank, The Chair Centre Ltd, and some other local investors.

She is the host of the popular TV programme, BUSINESS - HIS WAY, where she teaches the business community ethical business principles based on the Word of God.

She is the Founder of Christian Missionary Fund, a non-governmental body dedicated to raising support for Christian missionaries across the country.

She is also the Chairman, Board of Trustees of Women in Management and Business (WIMBIZ), as well as the Chairman of Intermac, the organisers of SmartCard Conference in Nigeria. (Source from her website) to complement her live speech.

Reading the goodnews about her becoming the Chairman of First Bank of Nigeria Plc, I checked into her profile to date and I could establish the fact that this woman’s eyes and heart were in alignment, she didn’t run the race like someone who beats the air.

She knew what she wanted and she pursued it with focus that cannot be diverted, she spoke about how she had to jump from one taxi to another when she started business even when she could afford to buy a car but because she need to defer her gratification.

There is need for you to see something with your inner eyes; you need to grab the power of imagination, start imagining those things in years to come for them to align with your vision. She knew she must not stay longer than six months in the furniture company, she saw her today from yesterday and her heart aligns with what she saw, which made her not to waiver even when everyone was discouraging her little beginning.

If your heart fails to align with what you are seeing, you will stagger when complains start coming in about what you see within you. The man Nehemiah saw it that the wall was rebuilt, though enemies of progress rose up but his heart had already align with what he saw; he staggered not at their comment and trick to stop the work until he finished it.

Greatness lies in the little in your hands, it is just for you to see the greatness in it and let your heart align with it. When your heart aligns with it, you will establish it with your positive words and songs. Where you are today is a product of what you have seen and your heart has aligned with it.

Don’t be held down in fear and uncertainties, you just need to gather momentum, see something, which your heart must align for you to reach stardom. May you not die as a dwarf, may you not trade your lineage into this glorified slavery.

God: Her pursuit about God cannot be denied, she still Pastor to date amidst her tight schedule. You will see her contagious grace spreading around all her team.

Vision: She is a visioner, Joel said it that young ones shall see vision; she got it when she was twenty five years. It is suicidal for a young man and woman, boy and girl like you to keep growing without having a vision.  

Dream: I heard her said it clearly that when she will be celebrating her fifty years in the industry, she will be willing to do more than what she is doing now at twenty five years anniversary. She still dares to dream. You addiction to your daily routine to amass wealth for your boss without having a dream is a catastrophe.

Passion: You can handle her passion when you either see or hear her. The blind cannot doubt her passion, the aura of her steps are catching.

Priority: She had her priority right when setting out as a young girl. When a man or woman misplaces his or her priorities, he or she is prepared to fail in life. She had the priority to build her business first, which built other things for her. Your travelling all over the world is in your building your business first, your building lies within you building your business first.

Discipline: A life committed to a cause is what I have termed as discipline. Pastor Mrs. Ibukun Awosika has traded a lot of ephemerals for this her stardom today. Bishop David Oyedepo said “Play boys of yesterday grow up to become play men”.

 

THE POWER OF VALUE

LIFE THAT KNOWS NOT HIS VALUE - PART TWO 

Knowing Your Values

HEARING

Knowing your value is critical to how then you can appreciate your value. A young man like Jabez wouldn’t have become somebody in life if not for God’s grace because he was born and breed up in a community where their value isn’t know. Jabez was born in a family where he and his siblings have been robbed of the original persons they are.

What you are privy to hear or listen to has a great deal as regards you knowing your value. Samuel was taken out of a polygamous home where he would have unfortunately grown up to all sorts of irrational living, diverse form of victimization, assorted dish of demoralization to a place where he was able to grab his value from young age. There he knew he was a priest, a chosen generation, he knew he was a leader.

The story of a young boy who has been termed failure changed when he met with a tutor who unveiled him to what he is capable of doing. He rose up out of his normal obscurity to stardom amongst his peers. It will be difficult for you to know your value where you are tolerated and not celebrated. Don’t tarry where you are tolerated but locate yourself where you can be celebrated.

For you to know you true value, you need to listen to the underlisted people: 

God through His Word: There is no other thing that shows you your true picture like the word of God. You need to keep hearing and listening to the word of God, which will reveal who you are to you. Peter and James couldn’t resist the invitation of Jesus after He has revealed who they really are to them, both of them knew they were different from the ordinary fishermen that they have been years past.

You need to go “Back to Bible” B2B, a new project we started in our parish this year for you to grab your originality in Him. You aren’t a failure but a success, you aren’t a victim but a victor, you aren’t a conquered but a conqueror, you aren’t a defeat but a winner, you aren’t a bench warmer but an actor, you aren’t a loser but a winner; you aren’t a tail but the head.

Vessels of God: Be an addicted listener to the word from the mouth of his seasoned vessels. There are men who are seasoned vessels of God through whom God unveils His deep secrets. There are men who aren’t too far from the heart of the Lord and whose ears aren’t too distance from God’s mouth, who are privy to hearing God’s words and strategically locate themselves at the centre of where God’s word hits, these men discharges God’s word without measure, get their materials for your personal development for you to know your real self. Ensure you are an addicted reader of this blogsite, make an order of any or all of my books as titled: Unlocking Your Potential To Profits, Uncommon Sense Guide To making Money, Woman! You Are a Blessing Not a Burden and Ladies of Dignity, which will inspire you to change levels.

Load yourself with CDs that are produced by seasoned men of God in our world of today both living and dead. Listen and keep listening wherever and whenever for you to get your real person in life.

Companies That Fear OF God: Psalm 119:63 spell out distinctively class of people who can help one to discover himself. There are some worthless class of people who will show you how devalued you can be without revealing to you the embedded value deposited into you by God.

In my book “Uncommon Sense Guide To Making Money”, I unveiled the Value Added People (VAP) and Value Subtractive People (VSP), there are a few set of people that will always add value to you when you come across them and they are men and women who fear God. Your degree, certificate, qualification, connection notwithstanding, if you fail to fear God, your real value will be hidden.

What will be the value of the President of a nation who is found womanizing all over the countries, what is the value placed on a Manager who is fond of gossiping and backbiting? His or her value will be downtrodden by all and sundry. “Company of those that fear God is a company of those that add value to life”.

READING

A Masters Degree holder will earn more than a SSCE holder in any part of the world if both of them are on a staff payroll in a normal circumstance all because of what the length of their study. “Reading is a lasting solution to an epidemic called ignorance and average especially if applied”. See a man who takes no interest in reading, he will have to learn by his personal experience.

Your thirst to become an addicted reader is the jackpot out of stagnancy. Dr. Sunny, the publisher of complete football in Nigeria revived his ailing company in 80s when he laid hold on a book in a bookstore and he read it. The solution to your problem has been written in a book form or any readable form, search for it and don’t be too lazy to read through.

God’s Word: Revelation 1:6 can hit any slave to know who he really his in Christ and loads of many places in the scriptures, which are potent never to leave you the same way it met you or you came across it.

When the bible records it that God’s word is spirit and life, therefore, for any man to have access to spirit and life, he needs to have access to the word of God. Don’t joke with God’s word, embrace it at all times, you need it for your growth as the suckling babe needs it for his growth.

Spiritual Books: Don’t wave spiritual books, feed on as many as possible that you have access to; they can change your life. God have graced me to author and I have authored four different books to date, which results are phenomenon across the world titled: Unlocking Your Potentials To Profits, Uncommon Sense Guide To Making Profit, Woman! You Are A Blessing Not A Burden and Ladies of Dignity with many yet to be published but written.

Have a scheduled plan of spiritual books to read, watch the sporadic changes that will emanate from your life after constant reading. Stop the act of spending and saving your money only, imbibe the act of investing your money more than spending and saving.

Academic/Career Books: There are some courses or subjects that are key to your academic and career success in life, you need to embrace them, no matter your person and career, and you need to read wider than your scope, you need to know something about everything. Don’t limit yourself by reading only books that focuses on your special area of your academics and career.

MTN in Nigeria has pioneered “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire” for more than ten years; it is an avenue of wider knowledge, only one person has won N10million all because the questions asked are not restrained to an academic or career are.

BELIEVING

For you to know your real value, you need to believe whatsoever you have heard and read. Faith doesn’t come by hearing once, it comes by constant hearing so that such person can believe and once he can believe, he walks in that believe.

I believed that I am on a mission with a vision, it doesn’t matter how many speakers we have, it doesn’t matter how many authors we have, I believe through what I have heard and read that I can also spring forth. There is no doubt in me that I am going to wonderful places; I strongly believe that I am crossing the hurdles. I started from my first book, today, I have rolled out the fourth book by the grace of God and my first CD will be out with dazing testimonies accompanying.

Your believe makes you see a new you within you, your believe delights you that weeping may endure for a night but joy come in the morning. Your believe propels you to commence see the person within you and how it will translate to the physical.

ACTING

No Result, No Respect. People are always tired of hearing fables; people are willing to hear testimonies more than theories. My life is a living testimony today, my value today is worth when I started with no proofs but today, the story is changing drastically.

Your believe propels you to act. Reading my blog today is a result of my believe, which lured me into acting. I believe I have got what people want and I know that the proofs that have accompanied some people will also trail after you as you become an addicted read and will reference more people here.

The part one and two of these articles are just chapter one of my coming book titled "THE POWER OF VALUE", which is still in the kitchen and will be out soonest.

Dapo Olaleye is a dynamic man with multiple graces to author, publish, speak on business, relationship, leadership and life and do business. He is the President of Business Xploit Group with many arms of operations through which lives are blessed across the globe.