Tuesday 28 June 2011

Do not break your bridges

I was listening to motivational program on radio, the speaker was talking about the value of building bridges, I did not understand what the speaker is calling bridge in his message, but he was making a statement “build your bridges”.
After the program I was able to get the speaker number from the presenter of the program, because I wanted to call the motivational speaker and ask what the meaning of building bridge in his message is.

Some minutes after the program, I call the motivational speaker and ask “hello sir, please I am ardent listener of your program. What is the meaning of building bridges in your message today on the radio”? The speaker replied by saying “ sir, the meaning of building bridge in today’s message is your relationships with other people, for more information  you can visit my blog to read, my articles”, that is the end of our conversation.
After that conversation, I start to ponder on what the speaker said, from that moment, I come to understand how valuable is the relationship with other people in our lives is, many of us had been playing negligent to building our relationship to other people.

Everyone is in a relationship with other people directly or indirectly, from an employer to his employee, from business to its customers, from us to our neighbours, colleagues, families and friends, but did we add value into these relationships? We can not live in this world and have nothing to do with people, dealing with people that was what relationships is all about.
According to that motivational speaker that says “ bridge means relationships  with other people” that means if we have not cultivate good relationships  with the other people we have been breaking bridges all this while, how do we break bridges?

Breaking bridges (relationships with other people) is simply doing any action that goes against building bridges (relationships with other people). If you are a negative thinker you are a bridges breaker, positive thinker are bridges builder. Our thought tells us if we are bridges builders or breakers, for this reason please try to avoid negative thinking because it done a lot of damages in building bridges (relationship with other people).

Having understood what bridges are all about, in that case let talk about building bridges. To build your bridge you must forgive everyone in your life, from your parents to friends and families, those that has offended you and forgive your own self, this is very important if you want to build your bridges, I read a quote that says “those that did not have forgiveness in their hearts, has broken the bridges they pass through in life”. The forgiveness am talking about should be total forgiveness and including forgiving your own self this may amazed but do you know that  by not forgetting you past failure you still have not forgive yourself, forgive everything and move on with your life.
Learn to accept people for who they are, we are not created equally, differences exist in our thinking, our belief, our value, our religion and so many other things however this does not make us not to live together in peace and harmony. If we can learn to accept people for who they are there will be no need for war or violence. To accept people for whom they are learn to do these following things:

Show interest in people

Compliment and appreciate people

Listen and motivate people

Praise and reward people

Have positive views about people

Do not discriminate people

Respect their views, and dignity

Always put yourself in their shoe

This could be a little advice on building your bridges, but before I stop hitting the keyboard I want us to ask ourselves. Is there a self made person in this world? You see people claiming to be self made this or that, think about their achievement it is not self made. For instance a successful business person will say am “self made millionaire”. Self-made indeed, he has forgotten the society that makes him to succeed, his dedicated employees and his customers all these people are the one that makes his successful without them he is nothing, the path to success cannot be walked alone.

I will like to drop a quote “we love people not for what they can do for us, but for what we can do for them”----Tolstoy.

In this week if you are going to learn a new thing, learn how to build bridges and do not break them, guess what you will be glad you did.
Till we meet again do not break you bridges.

Wednesday 15 June 2011

Imagination is not enough

Imagination is the workshop of the mind, according to Napoleon Hill the author of “Think And Grows Rich” the timeless book on motivation.
The question is what is imagination? Imagination is the ability to form a mental image of something that is not perceived through the senses, it is simply the ability of the mind to build mental scene.
There are two types of imagination synthetic and creative imagination, however in motivation and inspiration techniques emphasis is been placed on creative imagination.

There is no successful person on the earth that will not have imagination because it makes it possible to experience the whole world inside your mind. It is an act of exploring our mental capability imagination is one important tool to live a successful and fulfilling lifestyle; it gives us the ability to look at any situation from different point of view.

I could go on talking about the importance and value of imagination, but “imagination is not enough”, someone says “what is wrong with this guy” wait before you send me to the domain of criticism, listen to what I have to says, imagination manifest in various ways, however daydreaming is the common type and daydreaming in excess is not acceptable ,some of the  people that claimed to have imagination  are just daydreamers, because imagination gives birth to idea and idea is what make the world go round. Daydreamer could have one thousand and one ideas but there will never do something about it, then we should ask ourselves that what is the value of an idea is when it could not be implemented?

I want us to look at it from the angle of a quote that says “knowledge is power”. Knowledge is power, but I want to know that knowledge is not power unless it is applied because you can have the knowledge of Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Bill Gates, Abraham Lincoln combined together if you did not apply that knowledge it is not useful, that simply means that it is only Applied knowledge that becomes power, to rephrase that quote I will say “Applied Knowledge Is Power”.

Back to imagination what am try to explain in the above paragraph is that if you have imagination and you did not do something about it you are a daydreamer, to complete your imagination you must TAKE ACTION!!!
Taking action is very important, your imagination give birth to idea and idea like knowledge needs to be applied into reality, before it could ascertain to be complete idea (imagination).

So, folks all what I said so far are the reason that makes me to say that “imagination is not enough”. Understand how to use your imagination correctly (back it with Action). Imagination will put you on the path of success, satisfaction and happiness.

I will leave you with the words of Joseph Conrad”only in men’s imagination does every truth find an effective and undeniable existence. Imagination not Invention is the supreme master of life”.

Till I come back again stay cool and keep your imagination spirit alive.

Tuesday 14 June 2011