Category: Articles (Page 12 of 14)

If you are young, let me give you 7 cheat codes about life that I have been using to lead a smarter life.

• First is to learn on your own

The common theme is to encourage people to ask questions. But for me a lot of my deep learning have emerged because I refrain from asking questions.

Instead of asking a question, I go down the deep of finding answers from the Internet myself. While doing that, I read both relevant and irrelevant things.

Here’s what I learnt along the way…

The irrelevant things are only irrelevant to what my question was not to life or other ventures in life. Not asking people but the internet my questions has been nothing but an adventure I will take again and again.

Do I still ask people questions? Absolutely, yes. I like the feeling of having to refer to someone as being my answer provider. But beyond that, human brings a different flare to my question and take care of nuances that general online answers may not take of

In the end I combine my rabbit hole internet adventure with that of human answers that tend to take off nuances. That my friend is what gave birth to me.

• You have time to make mistakes. Make them. You have time to fail. Fail forward

Those two things will add up to become stories that society will pay you later on to hear you narrate it. 

• Don’t go asking for permission before you go on about your life and take your bets

All permissions are granted based on the authority that the person giving it has. Many times no one has the authority to give you a go ahead but you. If you fail, it’s a feature in life not a bug.

• Just learn as many things as you can. As in JUST LEARN

I often say “follow the impulses of your heart and if anything looks good to you, do it.” Never give up on learning. 

• Just be you and Do you

Please don’t copy anyone. Find your uniqueness and you will be rewarded abundantly for it. 

• Stop worrying about what someone or somebody is thinking about you

It won’t add to you or remove from you. That’s the truth. The “true you” can only be discovered once you break free of what others think of you. No matter what you do, they will always think something and that’s out of your control.

Why will you spend your whole life focusing on what you can’t control. Just pursue excellence in all that you do. That’s all you owe yourself and the world. 

• Please always think beyond today and more about tomorrow

Be a long term oriented individual who plays the infinite game and considers the second order effect of a lot of her/his decisions. 

I am young just as you and those are the 7 things I’ve been focusing on.

Originally published here

Being practical about money issue is a virtue I’ve so much learn from Morgan Housel.

So here’s another one point from experience, observation and study.

It is very difficult and constitute extra work to track all your day to day expenses.

A practical way to manage that is to save before spending.

Spend the remainder and only track the major things that you spent on.

Transport may be easy #500/day * 20 days. Now you know that.

One off purchase of another phone etc.

Here’s the novelty in my idea

It is easier to track every extra penny you spent above what you erstwhile earmark to be spent. So track all the extra.

Know the things you spend them on and determine if they are one off or recurring.

One off? Fine. Knowing is enough. 😂

Recurring? You need to make allowance for it in your next budget. Yes.

This is necessary because withdrawing from your savings/investment for monthly over is a bad habit to cultivate.

Another mistake that a lot of people make is bite what they can’t chew.

Saving/investing 70% of your income when you you have a parent to support and siblings to cater for.

PS: this is assuming 30% is not usually enough for your monthly expenses.

It is not a bad financial decision to support your family. Who thinks such to be bad!!!!

Well your expenses should be kept under not necessarily by tracking every penny but by following the model I put up there.

Cheers…
That’s practicable.

How Attending Deeper Life Campus Fellowship Changed The Trajectory Of My Life

God bless the day I picked up the first book to ever read. Whatever was in that book (which I can’t remember), and whatever spirit was behind that book, I must say that the fire it kindled from then has become a forest.

Yet, there is a part of this story that I tell less often. I believe my story will be absolutely incomplete without telling it.

It is what the place of faith and being a member of the Deeper Life Campus Fellowship (DLCF) Community has to do with that. Let me tell you a story you’ve not heard before.

When I resumed into the university in 2012 as a new student, I was utterly clueless about a lot of things. No dream (how could I even when I don’t what to dream about), no expectations (how could I have one when gaining admission alone seemed like a peak) but with the possibility of doing all things possible within my chosen boundary.

One thing was clear though, I was going to study Accounting.

Another thing was clear. Even though I may attend other christian denominations, DLCF was going to be the church I identify with. My parents attended it and I was brought up in the church.

Those two things that were clear from the beginning despite a lot of cluelessness is probably the best thing that happened to me in that period of my life.

Because I was clear about Accounting, I was ready to give my best to it. This is however not about my course of study so I will hold that for another day.

The decision to attend DLCF on the other hand turns out to be the beginning of a lot of things in growth and self discovery.✓

My 1st Semester in the university went as I liked and I got a result that I wasn’t proud of. However, towards the end of that semester, I decided to join the workforce of the church partly because that was what those I moved around with was doing that and partly because I knew I could do it after getting fired up by the newest commitment I made to Christ.

I called it newest because I could remember going for a crusade when I was much younger and when it was time to “give your life to Jesus”, I went out.

When I returned, my mum made a remark, “you have been giving your life to Christ all the time when there is an alter call…” (Thinking about it now, maybe because I like Jesus). Well the newest of this time was one of such again except with more understanding. Then I decided I should give Jesus more attention by giving him my time as a worker in the Deeper Life workforce. And the journey began.

Something required of every DLCF workforce (OAU) is commitment. You can’t toy with it. Commitment to church, to your academics and other things between those two.

And I was ready to be committed. Second semester came and I started the workforce training. I had no friend per se during the training of about 30 people or more, that’s a typical me. But I finished the training. One thing I noticed during the training though, facilitators often reference one book or another, someone’s biography or another, and like that.

It didn’t stop there, some even come to class with books packed together with their bible and notepad. If my memory serve me well, I think I almost thought it was the norm (to carry books with bible here and there) if you are a leader in the church.

Then, some facilitators will come and recommend one book or another. Books of William Booth , Watchman Nee and specific ones like Why Revival Tarries, The Holy Spirit by Smith Wigglesworth and so on.

Important from this part of the episode was the impression such display of command of knowledge of biblical history, church history and so on left me. I was in absolute awe.

How can I know all these was my next line of questioning. I must mention that prior to this I had taken History 101 class detailing Africa story from 1500 BC and I was absolutely fascinated by that class as well (I didn’t pass the course well, but I enjoyed the stories).

So even before we ended the workers training, I started buying books (my bad I can’t recollect the first I bought).

Well, training ended and I’m sure I would have bought about 4 books. Note though, bought is different from reading.✓

I mentioned earlier that a minimum requirement of commitment is expected of Deeper Life Campus Fellowship (DLCF) workforce. Such commitment for me now means I don’t have the time to do all I may want to do including adventuring as a student.

The 24 hours I have is now so well divided between my academics and church expectations. Church takes a lot of time (because I committed to a lot), the implication of that for my academics was limited time.

That air of limited time was what I need to turn my academics around that ended in a way I wasn’t so proud of in the first semester. Because I knew I only had limited time for academics, I utilized the little time I had efficiently. That semester was one of the best throughout my time at the university (4.2/5.0).

The commitment I gave to church pushed me to become more thirsty for such knowledge as I saw displayed during and after my training by the leadership of the church. So I started picking up Christian books to read.

Reading those books was really enjoyable and it enlightened me about what is expected of a Christian from the eyes of different authors. One I won’t forget was Normal Christian Life by Watchman Nee. Great book.

Then as we were getting towards the close of 200L first semester exam, we heard about an upcoming ASUU strike. Because I could tell that I will be having a lot of free time at home, I bought more books. Quite a number of them actually.

The strike I was preparing for lasted 6 months. That was 6 solid months of “free time”. Oh boy.

You don’t need anyone to tell you that I finished (if my memory serve me well) all the books I bought including God’s Generals (1 of the editions).

I learnt a couple of things about books, learning and inquisitiveness in that year (2013) that in retrospect became clear:

1. How to be focus on a book and get the maximum from it. That period set the foundation of independent learning for me.
2. That you don’t understand a book is not enough a reason to drop it.
3. That you don’t see a knowledge adding up is not enough a reason to discard such knowledge.
4. (This may be the most important) I learnt how to search the internet for specific information. Searching the internet became an imperative because I couldn’t be possibly reading books for the whole of 6 months.

Also, one of the things that we do as workers in DLCF was to play sermons on our phone and listen to it. Before the strike, I have collected as many as I could find as well. From all I collected, I became fascinated with the simplicity of Zac Poonen’s sermon (A Preacher from Bangalore, India). Sooner that expected, I finished listening to all the sermons I got from co-workers.

My fascination with Zac Poonen means I had to search for many more of his sermons. So I began searching. And I learned along the way. That time, I discovered Sermonindex and then Zac’s main website. From there I was able to download his books as well.

Downloading his book formally introduced me to reading soft copy books.

And I never stopped afterwards.

At a point, I got way too much of Christian materials and when I returned back to school, I started experimenting with motivational books. Those books were 100% needed at the time. It shaped my thinking about many things. Call those books whatever name you will (I kinda do too now), but I can not deny their effect in my development.

I told you I had no dream when I started university, right? Those books were the beginning of dreams for me. “Think And Grow Rich”, “Rich Dad Poor Dad”, “All You Can Do Is All You Can Do…” & more. I read all voraciously. Picking up another after one until I got to where I am today.

But all these, I mean all my adventures would’ve been absolutely either different or damning if Deeper Life hasn’t come into the equation. The environment set the fire ablaze. The expectations kindled a fire that wouldn’t have been otherwise possible. And today, I am who I am where I am because DLCF OAU was part of my story. Not despite the system in this regard but because of the system.

And even though today Deeper Life isn’t the church I frequent again, I am grateful for her influence in my journey.

Every young mind needs an example, exposure and a hero to shape their mind. That was what DLCF was to me unconsciously. First, was a standard to live up to, then a fascination to emulate and as in any mind ready to dream, a dream emerged.

In the absence of what the mind needs, life of such may end up being useless and waisted. What I got from DLCF others got from their parents, uncle/aunt, superhero in a movie or book and many more. I am glad my siblings are getting theirs from me. Wherever you get yours from, it’s okay.

All life is existing to answer a question even when such is not obvious. Some of us will choose the question to answer, some of us will stumble on it and some will never know or care to know.

Tell me what question?

A long time ago when I had zero clues about life and her nuances, I lived life as one who was trying to help another individual answer questions in their life. Simply, I don’t think for myself or contemplate.

I was told what to do and I did it. Little did I know that what I was told to do was trying to help another (my parent) answer the question of their own life – it’s not a bad thing as you would see.

But as I journeyed green planet earth, my path collided with the path of wisdom and I followed hard after it with little hesitation.

When we set out in life, as a growing child we have no idea about the nuances of life and the best we could do is to help our parents (most importantly) to answer the questions they are trying to answer: raising good children, intelligent child, godly one, and on. For parents, that is probably the most important question to them once we are given birth to and my mother was king of this. She spent her all and gave her all to see these questions answered.

It’s a loop and soon it will be your turn. Note though that parents have other questions to answer beyond their children’s well being, yes, they do.

As time matures and we begin to see the justices and injustices that inundate our community we begin to shape from the inside and subconsciously, we begin to develop the capacity to contemplate nuances. I like the way Solomon makes case for this nuances and the way he spelt it out in Ecclesiastes 8.14 stood out:

“Here’s something that happens all the time and makes no sense at all: Good people get what’s coming to the wicked, and bad people get what’s coming to the good. I tell you, this makes no sense. It’s smoke.”

Share

As this capacity develop from the inside we begin to ask ourselves questions. Questions not erstwhile considered. This questioning period is where we tend to find ourselves and shape for ourselves “the question we are trying to answer”.

What I’ve learned though is that the way we discover this question is not a given. Some of us stumble on it, some deliberately work into it and others don’t even know it at all till death.

But things add up. All life in the end still answers a unique question: a profound reality.

Moses & Pharaoh, Jesus & Judas, Mohammad, Martin Luther King,… All life answers a question including the life of Olu that you may never know.

What question are you trying to answer?

Many months ago, a variation of this question struck me and in an attempt to answer it, I came up with a line which I’ve shared once with friends at work…

I answered and said “I’ve defined a creed for my life and that is to be the definition of what is possible when one is given to the pursuit of knowledge”. That is the question I was trying to answer “what is the limit of knowledge in the life of someone given to it” and in this case, I am the experiment.

That question, I stumbled on. I said it before some of us stumble on it and thereafter appropriate it.

Ever since it became apparent to me what kind of question I wanted to answer, I have been optimizing religiously and obsessively for it.

But that is not the end. You will agree with me that it is not possible that one will only have one question to answer. We have a number of it to answer and circumstances dictates that. However, you must know the variations of question you are trying to answer and optimize for religiously and obsessively.

Variations of Question

At a point in time your you might be trying to answer the question “what can I graduate college with if I devote myself to studying?” At another, you are trying to answer some question about your business, career, family or all together at a time.

Also, at one point the variation of the question may be “if I give my best to this what could come out of it?” At another time it will be “what minimum amount of effort can I give to this to get that?”

By the nature of the swings and fluidity, you will agree with me that nothing is static, the question our life tries to answer changes with time and our value system. Your value system determines what you devote your time to and more often than not, the question you are trying to answer is what gets your time (at least expectedly).

Since that is the case, then you are allowed to change your question per time, in fact, it can be said that the evidence that you are growing is a the rate at which you change or add to the questions you are trying to answer. No scolding, embrace your life in all ramifications.

Why it matters that you know what questions you are trying to answer?

In Derek Sivers article No “yes.” Either “HELL YEAH!” or “no he made a point that “when deciding whether to do something, if you feel anything less than “Wow! That would be amazing! Absolutely! Hell yeah!” — then say “no.”” But how would you know what to say Hell Yeah to consistently? A quick win is to ask yourself if it aligns with any of the questions you are trying to answer at that time. If it doesn’t, it should most likely get a “no” answer.

As Derek continued in his article, “when you say no to most things, you leave room in your life to really throw yourself completely into that rare thing that makes you say “HELL YEAH!”” But the starting point is to know what you should even say “HELL YEAH” too. And that my friend is one of the compelling reasons to know what question exactly you are trying to answer.

Since I concluded within me that I needed to know the answer to the question below (tweet) while I serve as the experiment at the same time, I have set my priorities right and that my friend has tremendously helped me a lot. Now I say HELL YEAH to anything that will foster that and NO to anything that leaves that endeavour the same.

Another reason why it matters bothers on what I wrote on this thread:

Knowing the question you are trying to answer informs your optimization strategy. You set out daily optimizing the right things that matters to you not just anything that is available.

Post inspired by Efosa Ojomo’s tweet:

How not having enough option can be leveraged for your advantage.

Being without option

I like having options and I believe I have benefited immensely from having different options. However, not having an option or having a finite and near-zero option has also been a great blessing to me.

Being without option might seem terrifying but it breeds innovation, creativity and open-mindedness if you so allow it to do so. Your other option aside these 3 things is to be fixated on your lack of option and therefore refuse to act.

The options I have heard or have, I created them in my time of lack of options. I was creative, innovative and open-minded. These days, I still leverage on those options. And you can guess, I have struggled lately to accelerate the number of options opened to me. Yes, being with option can also now demotivate you from creating more options.

Looking within and experimenting is my best approach to increasing option. I usually tell a friend of mine any time I see her to double up on the number of experiments she does per time.

Experimenting tends to give you more option. This is so because experimenting involves risk-taking. It takes you out of your comfort zone, and place you on a pedestal of possibilities.

One of the options crucial to me is my network. And constantly, I seek to improve the quality of that by adding one more person to it, adding value to existing ones, or finding a synergistic opportunity within my network. Now, I being from a typical “no one knows your father’s name” syndrome, doing that at scale with value may be tough. But I experiment with it a lot.

Such an experiment have added people from all works of life to that network and it is still adding. Today, depending on my need, some C Suits are just an email or a call away. Or some peers who have incredible market in-demand skills or juniors who have skills I can make use of depending on need.

It should be reiterated again that the process of multiplying my option all started when I had a zero or near-zero option. Creativity, innovation and open-mindedness are what not having enough option supposed to birth in you.

Experimenting gives this. But experimenting at scale means you must be ready to fail at scale as well. And yes, I did fail in a lot of my attempts.

These days though, I have learned and minimized greatly my downside risk with potential compounding effect on my upside risk.

You must have the mind to fail. And mind to fail is such that will seek forgiveness above permission. Permission limits the number of experiment you can carry out. Forgiveness unleashes you to an unbounded world.

People ask me a lot of questions that by its tone, I could tell that they are trying to increase their options through experimentation but they are seeking permission on this process.

Permission is not the way to go about life if you want to leapfrog and multiply your options. Forgiveness is.

Forgiveness has a foundation to it that is wired in the human nature; survival of the fittest. Our pre-community era shows this more.

In a brutish, nasty and short paradigm as theorised by Thomas Hobbes, you don’t go around seeking permission, you wouldn’t survive such environment, because you will always be dealt with cards that are not in your favour.

Now that we live in a society that has transcended what Hobbs described, should we still live with the same mentality of Forgiveness above Permission? That’s not the question. The question is what mentality still drives our conduct in society? You are right, it is still survival of the fittest in a more modern way; capitalism.

Increasing your option is crucial but not being without one is not a curse. It’s a blessing in disguise.

Not having option forces you to be creative, innovative and open-minded if you are serious about your pursuit.

The way to multiply your option is to experiment at scale. Experimenting at scale requires that you look beyond permission and seek for forgiveness (if need be).

Experimenting is tough and gruelling that’s why people seek for permission. A way of validation to affirm that the process is worth it. If you are being sorted for permission grant it.

I understand the limitations inherent in this though. One can only grant permission to the extent of the authority confined on such.

That’s why even though you may have to sort permission on some fronts, be the type that favours forgiveness above permission.

Over the period in the history of humankind and its development, the desire to be outstanding in terms of achievement, success and discovery has haunted men like a hunter hunts its prey. Yet, standing out remains a puzzle to a lot, a puzzle that is difficult to solve. This puzzle and the desire to provide an answer to it has been responsible for masterpieces like the book Outliers, the Innovator’s Dilemma, and Think and Grow Rich, to name a few. But what seats at the centre of outstanding?

The principle of a personal moat

Moat is generally a concept used in describing a company’s competitive advantage. A company with a moat is one with an advantage over competitors for an extended period, e.g. having a patent, having a cost advantage, customer loyalty etc.

Applying this principle on a personal level is an idea popularized by Eric Torenberg in a now well-referenced Twitter thread. Eric defines personal moat as a unique, accumulating competitive advantage that compounds over time. To be outstanding, therefore, you need a personal moat. You need to do those unique things that accumulate over the period with a tendency to compound.

Standing out – doing unique things that accumulate

It is not enough to have activities going on in your life, those activities must be such that accumulate. Accumulation means add up. Things you do must always add up with things you’ve done and things you will do. You must pursue your goals holistically. Your goals and desire to stand out must be at the centre of your activities, and all must add up. Attending a meetup in a community of people whom you might need a few years from now is a good add up, sleeping 8 hours a day is compelling add up, adding a new skill in a new but related domain to your current domain is a great add up. These things accumulate and come to pay in a matter of years.

Standing out – doing things that compound

It is not enough for things that you do to accumulate, they must compound. How do things like personal moat compound? Let me use the examples from above.

1. Attending meetup

You meet one more person that may go on being a great influence in helping you get a competitive advantage and hence standing out. Do this for an extended period and you have a powerful network of friends. Friends whom themselves go on to become great in their respective endeavours. The result is compounding and you will see that when you need to call on them.

1. Sleeping 8 hours a day.

Counterintuitive right? Well, you need health to get wealth, if you are not healthy, a great ceiling is placed on what you can do. Mathew Walker said in his TED Talk….

“Sleep, unfortunately, is not an optional lifestyle luxury. Sleep is a non-negotiable biological necessity. It is your life-support system, and it is mother nature’s best effort yet at immortality”.

It looks like the most unproductive thing to do especially if you’ve heard about how some people work 16 – 18 hours before they became outstanding. But for health sake and immortality sake, taking enough rest compounds.

1. Adding new skills.

If you add more and more new skills enough, you will find intersections of these skills and you might end up innovating the erstwhile unimagined. Adding new skills also enables you to be able to think from first principle.

What it takes to stand out is a lot, and there is no one-way road to follow. The path is rough, but those who have gone through it left traces. One of the traces left has been conceptualized on the principle of a personal moat which I have tried to distill. Personal moats are those unique things that accumulate and compound overtime for you. They set you out and place you on a pedestal of outstanding if you carefully cultivate them.