I can tell you without any doubt that one of the enemies of innovative thinking is experience. Don’t get me wrong. Experience is very good. Sometimes we put people in certain roles because of their experience. Organizations will not typically risk putting a rookie in some sensitive and delicate roles because they lack the experience. However, experience tends to get in the way of creativity and innovation. This is because we get so used to the normal way of getting things done, such that we do not think outside the box. Anytime you hear a well-experienced and professionally respected person say, “that won’t work”, know that they are talking from experience and not from creative or innovative thinking.

When you were a little child, you believed many things were possible. You probably believed your dad could buy you a small hot air balloon that would take you to the moon. You believed that because you were not familiar with the facts of life and the experience that would make you think otherwise. Here is the problem. As we grow up and gather experience, we lose our imaginative ability, the mindset of believing that everything is possible. I discussed that extensively in my book “Pursuit of Personal Leadership”. Unless someone continues to develop their imaginative ability and engage constantly in creative thinking, they will let their experience get in the way. That is why you find a lot of people in corporate places without the ability to think for change and channel an innovative course for the future. They tell you, “That doesn’t work”.
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One of my philosophies is that you shouldn’t say something will not work until you have tried it and tried it in different ways. People say something is impossible because of parochialism. We need to get our mindset tuned to exploring possibilities, even when we know too much about the process. In your personal and professional life, stop saying and believing that “it won’t work”. Start accepting that incredible things are possible.

We face different situations in life. Some are pleasant while others are not. Sometimes the road on which we travel may be smooth while at other times we travel through rough patches. One of the situations that have become most-damaging to people is experiencing rejection, rubbishing, or reproach. This is simply because of the effect on one’s psyche. Anything that affects one’s mental health is a serious matter. No one enjoys being vilified and criticized. I am not talking about the soft, positive criticism. I am referring to damaging acts from others that want to just make us feel bad, disapproved, or unworthy. I wonder why anyone would like to do that anyway.

Meanwhile, there is no guarantee that you and I will not experience this negative criticism or disparage. Since some people have determined that it is their job to make others feel bad, then we need to find the right countermeasure to this unacceptable act. Unfortunately, it may not also be within our capacity to control or correct anyone. Therefore, our defense mechanism will include becoming thick-skinned, an attitude of those who are not bothered by the negativity and rejection from others. We must become stronger versions of ourselves and develop a stable mental attitude in the face of circumstances that will normally lead to negative emotions. Sometimes we may even need to just remove ourselves from the negative environment.
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Don’t let anyone or anything pull you down or get under your skin. Determine to believe in yourself, your own self-worth and sense of value. After all, no one can make you feel bad without your consent. Decide that you will keep standing despite the opinions of others about you. No one has the power to control your thought unless you allow them. Become thick-skinned, unperturbed no matter what.

What came to your mind when you first saw the title of this message? I also wonder. Let us be truthful. The extreme of being realistic is actually a form of pessimism. What do I mean by that? Think about it this way: how many times have you heard people say, “I am just being realistic,” while what they mean is “I don’t believe it is possible”? If you have a very high and steep mountain in front of you, it will be a realistic thing to say that you cannot climb the mountain. That is what most of us do. We magnify our challenges in the name of facing reality and then we wonder why we are not achieving much or changing anything. We give power to our problems and then complain that the problem is not going away.

While the facts of life cannot be denied – positive and negative things happen, we simply cannot focus on the facts alone without exercising our authority to change things and improve our situations. Whatever you call things is what they will be and remain. Whatever you believe as your fact and reality will become and remain your experience. This is not a superstitious stuff. When you hear someone say there is nothing more they can do, just know that they have stopped thinking. There is always something more that anyone can do. You cannot afford to let your current situation, facts of life, and challenges define your future. In the face of the facts, you must be ready to believe that something better and greater can happen.
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Here is how it works. The moment you convince yourself that things can be different despite your current situation, experience, or problem – the facts, your mind will start seeing possible solutions. You will see how things can change and what you can do to change them. Stop being realistic and start saying and acting the way you want things to go.

The reason some people advise against having expectations is to avoid disappointments. Well, I will rather learn to manage disappointments while maintaining a great expectation in my heart. Don’t let anyone talk you out of having expectations. Why would anyone go through life without expecting great things to happen. Here is why you must have great expectations. Expecting something big reflects the condition of your mind. Those whose minds are full of positive thoughts, whose mental faculties are dominated by success, are the ones that have great expectations.

Many of us throw away our confidence and avoid thinking about the dreams we once had because of disappointments. I get it. However, without nurturing our dreams and believing them, we would not learn to take the necessary actions toward fulfilling them. Do not let anyone or anything pull you back. You are closer to actualizing your dreams than you think. Every day presents a new opportunity to shape our dreams, act in faith and take steps forward. If you do not believe in, and nurture, your own dreams, no one else will do it for you. You must expect that your dreams will come true. You can demonstrate that by taking positive actions towards your dreams because you believe in them.

It's time to take care of, and protect, your dreams, ambitions, or aspirations. It is time to nurture those dreams to grow into something meaningful. What dream are you nurturing? What have you envisioned for yourself? Where do you see yourself next? What edifice are you constructing in your mind? You will need to continue to think about them, nurture them expectantly, until they sink into your subconscious mind (your heart). Then you will see positive circumstances aligning with your actions and vice versa, until your dreams become actualized.

We sometimes don’t appreciate the value of the people around us until we do not have them again. As humankind, we are naturally inclined to needing relationships. Did I hear someone ask if they necessarily need anyone at all? Well, you may need to wait until you do. Everyone needs a hand to hold. That does not mean that you cannot be happy by yourself, but it means that you can share happiness with others. You can rub your life on others and let them also rub theirs on you.

Those who surround themselves with great, kind, compassionate, and positive thinking people have created an environment for themselves that is conducive for success, health, and other good things of life. Meanwhile, forming great relationships or connecting with great people is not by happenstance. Everyone one of us would attract the kind of persons that we are. Anyone who needs a friend must themselves be friendly. It starts with us working on ourselves to be the great persons toward whom others can gravitate. After all, a great relationship is not all about finding the right person but about being the right person. Before you start looking for all the right people out there, ask yourself if you are the right person for someone else.

Anyone that wants to get surround with great people must put in the work. Like begets like. You have probably heard that the outcomes that you produce in your life would most likely be an average of the outcomes of the lives of five persons closest to you. Who are the people closest to you? Do you want the same outcomes you see in their lives? It is time for each one of us to become deliberate on our choices of association, but it starts with us first – with us becoming better versions of ourselves. When we become better, great people will drift toward our side. That’s how to surround yourself with the best people.

We encounter many different situations in life. Some are easy while others are difficult. When things are easy, we feel normal about everything. There is no pressure in a time of ease. We feel like we are in charge. However, when things become difficult or challenging, we feel like we have lost control. We lose our grips, and we get disturbed at times. As it turns out, life is a succession of ups and downs. It is like going on a rollercoaster. As you reach the crests so do you plummet to the base. In difficult times do we not feel crestfallen? So, what should we do when times are rough?

Anyone who just sits, who entertains their negative feelings and wallows in their despondency during a difficult time will not change anything. Burying one’s head under the waves will not lead to swimming to shore. Sometimes we just need to brave the situation, become determined to overcome and get up on our feet when things are difficult. It sounds so easy, right? It may not be as easy as it sounds but we must face the fact – there are no other options. It is either we overcome, or we become inundated by the challenges. We must be ready to take the bull by the horns.
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In what situation are you now? Are you ready to confront your situations? In everyone’s journey to success, there will be challenges on the way, but we must be ready to confront and overcome them. In most cases, we must do what we must do. Sometimes we need to sacrifice much in order to gain much. At other times we need to take risks, and endure something unpleasant. Whatever is the case, we be determined to rise above the challenges. Be ready to take the bull by the horns.

Do you think that you have the moral power to decide other people’s cases? No, you don’t. But that is what most of us attempt to do on daily basis. We are sometimes hasty in concluding who people are, their intentions, their motives and their dispositions. We size people up, put them on our own personal scales and determine their abilities, skills and potentials. We measure people using our own yardsticks and then decide who they are, in our own minds. This attitude has been the basis of our relationships with other people – we conclude too soon. We become the judge of other people’s character, the character we ourselves cannot even measure up to. What a hypocrisy!

Meanwhile, our real assignment is to become an advocate – a person who supports, defends and promotes the interests of others. We are to stand in the gap for the people around us and become the voice for those who do not have voices. If all of us are judges, then who will plead the course of another? We don’t need judges as much as we need advocates. Imagine what the whole world would look like if we all advocate for one another. Imagine that other people are supporting and arguing your cause as you do the same for others.
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This week, I challenge you to be the advocate. There are people who need you to support them, hold their hands, plead on their behalf, speak for them, fight for them, and become a bridge for them. One’s fulfilment in life comes, not from deciding other people’s cases, but through the positive impact we make on other people. The reason some people are unhappy and unfulfilled is because they took the wrong job – a judge, instead of an advocate. Let us all resign from being the judge and accept our new roles as advocates for others.

People eventually produce what once existed in their thoughts, especially in the subconscious of their minds. People become actors in the movies once written and played in their minds.

We may say that our thoughts create our world. Everything you see today was once in someone’s thought, whether good or bad. All creations were once imaginations in the inventive minds of people. That includes both tangible and intangible things, material or immaterial things. For example, doing good for others, working for the good of the society, solving problems, creating products, etc., all originate first in the mind. Likewise, hatred, theft, killing, racism, and the likes also originate from the mind. We create the future by what and how we think.

Everyone is a product of their own imagination. If you imagine something negative happening, and you dwell on that thought until it sinks into your subconscious mind, you will soon attract what you envisioned. The converse is also true. If you allow the thoughts of good things to dominate your imagination, you will attract good things.

We may liken the human mind to a machine that has the capacity to both transmit and receive signals at different frequencies. It does that through the vibration of thoughts. Everything in life operates at their own frequencies, and each one of us can tune our minds to whatever frequency we allow. The results that we produce in our lives are physical equivalents of the thoughts that we transmit and receive. It is like tuning a radio to a particular channel. What frequency is your mind tuned to?
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Everyone’s future starts from what and how they think. It is your responsibility to get the vibration of your thoughts into the frequency of wholesomeness, achievement, abundance, and every good thing of life. That channel is transmitting. Just tune in.

I tend to be very careful when people tell me that they are just being realistic. Sometimes those claiming to be realistic are actually being pessimistic but may not want to admit so. I am not saying there is no such thing as being realistic, but in most cases we fall into two categories: those who are realist-optimists or those who are realist-pessimists. Which one are you?

Are you inclined to thinking more about the worst-case scenarios, preoccupying your mind with the 1000 ways something may not work? You have probably been in planning meetings where someone quickly expresses serious concerns about a plan and tells you how the plan wouldn’t work but without any suggestion on how it may work. I hope that is not you. While the reality is obvious, great achievers do not focus on reality. They focus on possibilities instead. If you want to see how everything will play out perfectly before you start, you may as well stop trying.

What we all need is the big picture; the mental image of the best-case scenario that we are aiming for. Although we face the facts of life and the challenges (the realities) on the way to success, we do not allow them to distract us from the end-in-view. Those who focus on the worst-case scenario, who, in the name of being realistic, dwell on the negatives, will always be defeated. Success is a mindset. Whatever anyone becomes or whatever becomes the outcomes of one’s endeavour, the individual chooses them based on their state of mind.
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Anyone desiring great achievements in life must continually think positively about great things. You cannot create a future for yourself that you have never imagined. Get rid of the negative thoughts. The worst-case scenario is not your scenario. Think possibilities. Think big. Achieve big.

We go through different moments in life. We have the highs and the lows of life, and many stages in-between. When we are having the mountaintop experience, it is typical to see many people around us, who help to share the joy. Human beings are naturally inclined to sharing good times with you. When you are successful and have a lot to give, you will enjoy the patronage of most people.

However, only a few people will stay with you when the water gets troubled. The best time to know who your true friends are is a time of need, lack or trouble. Those who truly love you will stay with you and provide you their shoulders to lean on. Those who were there just for the abundantly lavish moment will vanish into thin air. They will either turn their back on you or just become passive.

Where am I going with this? It is one of my life philosophies that “you are mostly useful if you are available when you are mostly needed”. Look around you and within your circle. Are there people that you have forgotten or have withdrawn from at their times of need? The way to prove your friendship or whatsoever connection you have with others is to show up when they need you. That is when it matters the most.
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If you always show up only when things are good, rosy, and beautiful, what benefit would that be? If you give your friend a shoe when they already have five shoes, that is okay. But remember to show up with a can of milk when they do not have any. Do not turn your back on, or withdraw from, the people you have shared good times with, especially when their situation changes. Let us look for those in our lives and in our community whose hands we can hold. Show up when it matters the most.

You probably know that this is the time of the year when those who didn’t set their goals before the end of last year work hard at it. Some are still setting goals while others are already accomplishing them. It doesn’t matter where you are at. What matters is that that you set goals and then achieve them. Without goals, targets, aims, or ambitions, there will be no success.

Meanwhile, we don’t just set goals for goal-setting’s sake. When you are setting your goals, you need to ask yourself why you want what you want. Why did you set that goal? What is your overarching purpose for the goals your are setting? If your goal is to conquer Mount Everest this year, you may need to ask yourself why you would do that. If you are targeting a net-worth of $25 million, what would be the purpose?

It is no news that many people fall by the wayside on their journey to achieving their goals. Among many possible factors, lack of enthusiasm or loss of passion is a reason people drop out. And, you know what? People lose passion when they engage in activities that do not align with a compelling vision / dream. Someone would generally develop enthusiasm when their goals are positioned within something bigger and more meaningful.
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That makes me think that each one of us need a GPS – Goal Positioning System. The GPS is your ultimate life’s purpose or life’s dream upon which your life goals are based. When you have a compelling reason for your goals, you will develop the passion to achieve them. Update your GPS, set your goals, develop a plan, and get to work.

Until another time,
Dele Ola, Award-Winning Author of Be A Change Agent
Click HERE to learn about and get copies of Dele’s Books