Take A Cue From The Animals

In 364 BC, the great Greek philosopher Aristotle said: In all respects, man is the best of all animals; when he deviates from order he is the worst.

After studying 2 million ants in 2005, the John Hopkins Research Institute came to a conclusion that, if ants were humans in their organised state, they will conquer the world in a very clean strike.

The research revealed that while performing their tasks each ant moves 0.25mm per sec leaving almost equal space between one ant and the other. All these communicates selflessness, obedience to rules and communal passion.

But the case is different for human beings. Think about the way people (hefty men, pregnant women, nursing mothers with their babies and different kinds of people) rush and fall to enter buses in Lagos, Nigeria; the congestion situation in Bombay, India; Manila, the Philippines; Cairo, Egypt; Seoul, South Korea; Dhaka, Bangladesh; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Jakarta, Indonesia. Even ants queue up in an orderly manner in their movement, leaving space for each other. Human beings organised are not so.

Animals engage is survival habits while human beings engage in suicidal habits. Aside extreme acts such as electrocution, suffocation, hypothermia and poisoning, the FRSC in Nigeria recently released a report that the following four acts are responsible for over 7.5% of deaths in Nigeria. (1) riding on a bike without using helmet (2) driving without using seat belts (3) crossing the expressway despite the availability of a pedestrian bridge (4) abrupt interception on BRT lanes. On the contrary, animals are orderly. We say they dont have language but they communicate. They obey instructions and act solely for communal survival - the noble responsibility of providing food and security for the community.

As I am talking to you, over 10 million people are held in traffic in different parts of the world for no just reason but because one or more human beings decided to disobey traffic order. We have no respect for traffic lights. We do things anyhow. Are we organised?

The Lagos State Government of Nigeria has encouraged us to the extent of using renowned Nigerian Artistes like famous Funke Akindele (Jennifa), Segun Arinze, Kate Henshaw and Stella Damascus to tell us the essence of tax payment but we refuse to comply. While some have been compliant up to date, many are still evading and/or avoiding tax.

As King Fahd of Egypt said in 1515; I will rather justify my supremacy over the animal kingdom by orderliness in my kingdom not by the intelligence of my people.

I have never seen a case where lions, the king of the jungle, unleash nuclear weapons on other animals killing millions of people. Death rate from nuclear weapon is 120% more than death from cancer. (Nukefix, 2010). Reliable data from a National Crime Information Centre revealed that every 40 secs, at least one child is declared missing in the US which translates to 2,000 per day and 800,000 per year. Animals don’t kidnap other animals to demand millions of naira as ransom. Please tell me if you have seen tiger suicide bombers, animals don’t murder each other because of envy or jealousy; they don’t give death penalty by electric chair.

We steal, kill, lie, cheat, hit, abuse, discriminate & enslave others because of the color of their skin, age, sex, education, tribe or tongue but animals don’t do so.  We sell poison to others so that we can profit. Even our leaders engage in manipulation and corruption, favouritism and nepotism, ethnocentrism and tribalism, greed and irresponsibility.

If I will describe the animals in one phrase, I will say they are selfless creatures who work together for the utmost good of their communities. Let us take a cue from them.

The Three Mental Barriers to Time Power

If everyone agrees that excellent time management is a desirable skill, why is it that so few people can be described as “well organized, effective, and efficient?” Over the years, I have found that many people have ideas about time management that are simply not true. But if you believe something to be true, it becomes true for you.


Your beliefs cause you to see yourself and the world, and your relationship to time management, in a particular way. If you have negative beliefs in any area, these beliefs will affect your thinking and actions, and will eventually become your reality. You are not what you think you are, but what you think, you are.


Barrier 1: Worries About Organization

The first myth of negative belief, of time management is that if you are too well organized, you become cold, calculating, and unemotional. Some people feel that they will lose their spontaneity and freedom if they are extremely effective and efficient.


Many people hide behind this false idea and use it as an excuse for not disciplining themselves the way they know they should. The fact is that people who are disorganized are not spontaneous; they are merely confused, and often frantic. The key is structuring and organizing everything that you possibly can: Thinking ahead; planning for contingencies; preparing thoroughly and focusing on specific results. Only then can you be completely relaxed and spontaneous when the situation changes.


The better organized you are in the factors that are under your control, the greater freedom and flexibility you have to quickly make changes whenever they are necessary.



Barrier 2: Negative Mental Programming

The second mental barrier to developing excellent time management skills is negative programming, which is often picked up from your parents, but also from other influential people as you are growing up.


If your parents or others told you that were a messy person, or that you were always late, or that you never finished anything you started, chances are that as an adult, you may still be operating unconsciously to obey these earlier commands.


Time management and personal efficiency skills are disciplines that we learn and develop with practice and repetition. If we have developed bad time management habits, we can unlearn them. We can replace them with good habits over time.


Barrier 3: Self-Limiting Beliefs

The third mental barrier to good time management skills is a negative self-concept, or what are called “self-limiting beliefs.” Many people believe that they don't have the ability to be good at time management. They often believe that it is an inborn part of their background or heritage. But there is no gene or chromosome for poor time management, or good time management, for that matter. Your personal behaviors are very much under your own control.


Action Exercise

Imagine that someone were to offer you a million dollars to manage your time superbly for the next thirty days. Imagine that an efficiency expert was going to follow you around with a clipboard and a video camera for one month. After thirty days if you had used your time efficiently and well, working on your highest priorities all day, every day, you will receive a prize of one million dollars. How efficient would you be over the next thirty days?

Communication Nuggets

Three Skills to Improve Conversation

Research shows that 80% of success in family, marriage, business and the workplace is attributed to emphathic communication. If you are passionate enough to dream and you are willing to pursue it to success; then you should have the desire to develop your conversational skills.



The Benefits of Pausing

One key to becoming a great conversationalist is to pause before replying. A short pause, of three to five seconds, is a very classy thing to do in a conversation. When you pause, you accomplish three goals simultaneously.



First, you avoid running the risk of interrupting if the other person is just catching his or her breath before continuing. Second, you show the other person that you are giving careful consideration to his or her words by not jumping in with your own comments at the earliest opportunity. The third benefit of pausing is that you will actually hear the other person better. His or her words will soak into a deeper level of your mind and you will understand what he or she is saying with greater clarity. By pausing, you mark yourself as a brilliant conversationalist.



Ask Questions

Another way to become a great conversationalist is to question for clarification. Never assume that you understand what the person is saying or trying to say. Instead, ask, "How do you mean, exactly?" This is the most powerful question I've ever learned for controlling a conversation. It is almost impossible not to answer. When you ask, "How do you mean?" the other person cannot stop himself or herself from answering more extensively. You can then follow up with other open-ended questions and keep the conversation rolling along.


Paraphrase the Speaker's Words

The third way to become a great conversationalist is to paraphrase the speaker's words in your own words. After you've nodded and smiled, you can then say, "Let me see if I've got this right. What you're saying is . . ."  By paraphrasing the speaker's words, you demonstrate in no uncertain terms that you are genuinely paying attention and making every effort to understand his or her thoughts or feelings. And the wonderful thing is, when you practice effective listening, other people will begin to find you fascinating. They will want to be around you. They will feel relaxed and happy in your presence.



Action Exercises

Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.



First, make a habit of pausing before replying in any conversation or discussion. You will be amazed at how powerful this technique really is.



Second, continually ask, "How do you mean?" in response to anything that is not perfectly clear. This gives you even more time to listen well.

Re-energizing Your Value System

Decide What You Stand For

What are your values? What do you stand for? What are the organizing principles of your life? What are your core beliefs? What virtues do you aspire to, and hold in high regard when you see them demonstrated by others? What will you not stand for? What would you sacrifice for, suffer for, and even die for? These are extremely important questions that are only asked by about three percent of the population, and that small minority tends to be the movers and shakers in every society. What are your values? What do you stand for? What are the organizing principles of your life? What are your core beliefs? What virtues do you aspire to, and hold in high regard when you see them demonstrated by others? What will you not stand for? What would you sacrifice for, suffer for, and even die for? These are extremely important questions that are only asked by about three percent of the population, and that small minority tends to be the movers and shakers in every society.



Write Out Your Key Values

When I first began this values clarification exercise some years ago, I wrote out a list of 163 qualities that I aspired to. I think I eventually came up with every virtue, value or positive descriptive adjective that referred to personality and character in the dictionary. And I agreed with all of them. I felt that they were all important and I wanted to incorporate every single one of them into my character.


Focus on Very Few Core Beliefs

But then reality sets in. I realized that it is very hard to learn even one new quality, or to change even one thing about myself, let alone dozens of things. So I scaled down my ambitions and began narrowing the values down to a small number that I could manage and work with. Once I had settled on about five core beliefs, I was then able to get to work on myself and start making some progress in character development.


Select Your Five Key Values

You should do the same. You should write down the five values that you feel are the most important for you to live by. Once you have those five values, you then organize them in order of priority. Which is the most important value in your hierarchy of values? Which would be second? Which would be third, and so on?


Learn to Make Better Decisions

Every choice or decision you make is based on your values. Whenever you decide between alternatives, you invariably choose the alternative that you value the most. Because you can only do one thing at a time, everything you do is a demonstration of what you consider to be the most important at that moment. Therefore, organizing your values in an order of priority is the starting point of personal strategic planning. It is only when you are clear about what you value, and in what order, that you are capable of planning and organizing the other activities of your life.


Action Exercises

Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action:
First, clarify your core beliefs and your unifying principles. Write them down and compare your life today with the values that are really important to you. How are you doing?

Second, organize your values in order of their importance to you. Which of your values is most important? Which is second? And so on. Do your current choices reflect this order of values?

Thanks for sharing my blog but much more; join me to re-energize our value system.

Be All You Can Be

Your Ideal Self and Life
Your self-concept is made up of three parts, each of which affects each of the others. Understanding these three parts enables you to put your hands on the keyboard of your own mental computer. When you learn to take charge of the development of a new and positive self-concept of selling, you can then control your sales destiny for the rest of your career.

Determine Your Direction
The first part of the self-concept is the "self-ideal." Your self-ideal largely determines the direction in which you are going with your life. It guides the growth and evolution of your character and personality. Your self-ideal is a combination of all of the qualities and attributes of other people that you most admire. Your self-ideal is a description of the person you would very much like to be if you could embody the qualities that you most aspire to.

Strive Toward Excellence
Throughout your life, you have seen and read about the qualities of courage, confidence, compassion, love, fortitude, perseverance, patience, forgiveness and integrity. Over time, these qualities have instilled in you an ideal to which you aspire. You might not always live up to the very best that you know, but you are constantly striving to be a better person in light of those qualities that you value so highly. In fact, everything that you do on a day-to-day basis is affected by your comparing your activities with these ideal qualities and your striving to behave consistently with them.

Clarity is Essential
Successful people have very clear ideals for themselves and their careers. Unsuccessful people have fuzzy ideals. Successful people are very clear about being excellent in every part of their work and their personal lives. Unsuccessful people don't give the subject very much thought. One of the primary characteristics of successful men and women in every walk of life is that they have very clearly defined ideals and they are very aware of whether or not their current behaviors are consistent with their idealized behaviors.

Set Challenging Goals
Part of your ideals are your goals. As you set higher and more challenging goals, your self-ideal improves and crystallizes. When you set goals for the kind of person you want to be and the kind of life you want to live, your self-ideal rises and becomes a greater guiding and motivating force in your life.

Your Future is Unlimited
Perhaps the most important thing for you to realize is that whatever anyone else has done or become, you can do or become as well. Improvements in your self-ideal begin in your imagination, and in your imagination, there are no limits except the ones that you accept.


What is your ideal vision of the very best person you could possibly become? How would you behave each day if you were already that person? Asking yourself these questions and then living your life consistent with the answers is the first step to creating yourself in your ideal image.

Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, dream big dreams. Set big, exciting, challenging goals and ideals for yourself in every part of your life. Allow yourself to imagine a wonderful life ahead.

Second, think about how you would act if you were an outstanding person in every way. Then, practice being this person, as though you were acting a role in a play. You'll immediately notice a difference in your behavior.