The Migrants Attitude:

What makes the difference between two people who are equally skilled and talented? What would give the edge? The answer is attitude. Attitude can make or break you. As someone said, your yearning power is worth more than your earning power; your attitude would determine your altitude. The exciting thing is that attitudes can be learned and developed.

Walter Hailey, a very successful retired insurance executive in America, said that legal immigrants in America are four times as likely to become millionaires as those who are born in the US. This is true regardless of whether these immigrants are from the Orient, South America, Africa or Europe. The reason is simple. These immigrants give up, in most cases, a great deal to come to America. They face culture shock, language differences, climate changes and often leave friends and families behind. They do that because they have a dream and the dream has them. They succeed because they have great faith and their commitment is strong.

Continuing he said, they come to America with a lot of enthusiasm and determination, are truly grateful for the opportunity and are excited about a job that pays five or more dollars per hour, which is far more than they earned back home. They even accept a second job, live very frugally, take advantage of community college education, and by the time they realize there are some problems in our country, it’s too late. They’ve already made it. They look at the opportunities America offers and say, “Wow! What a deal!”

On the other side of the coin, many people born in America get up each morning and say, “Big deal!” with a heavy dose of sarcasm. To underscore what legal immigrants have done, the US former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General John M. Shalikashvili (Shalik) is from Poland; and at one time four of the ten most admired companies in America as recognized by Fortune Magazine were headed by legal immigrants.

Can you adopt the migrant’s attitude? Do you have a dream and more importantly, does your dream have you? When this happens your commitment would be strong in the midst of great faith. I have always said that the first question to ask is not first a question on ability (can I do this) nor a question on skill (how can this be done), neither a question of cost (can I pay for it?) but it is a question of importance – ought this be done?. Once this is answered then all the other questions take relevance.

I believe that the man in the market place or the man with a dream needs to be bent this way. It would unleash tremendous amounts of energy to get the dream or job going when you can answer the question of importance in the affirmative. It would unlock the fountains of inspiration and you would suddenly find out that the price which you had called a sacrifice was well within your reach to pay. Yes, you would find out that a sacrifice is merely the price for a higher profit.

I counsel you today, adopt the immigrant’s attitude and I will SEE YOU AT THE TOP!

1ST COMMANDMENT – “Thou shall value people, places & ideas and not money alone”

Life is a very funny place to be in. It is very interesting to those who understand the logic behind it. It is full of mysteries and those who can crack these mysteries and more of it, end up becoming masters in it. You are not a wealthy man yet until you have successfully cracked one or more of such mysteries. Some of such mysteries include:

• PEOPLE

Three things you must know about life are:

• Life is Unfair – Good things do not always happen to good people and bad things to bad people. This means that you should learn not to judge people by their present situation, because where they are presently may not be as a result of any offense or evil they might have committed in time past. It may just be as a result of the unfairness of life.
• Life cannot be cheated – As much as life is unfair, the good that a man does will always attract good things to him, as long as persistency is encouraged. One day, not too long from his last good deed (as usual) he will end up becoming fulfilled.
• Life never leaves a vacuum – since life is unfair, does not mean you should not do anything about it. It only means that there is an invisible hand that is coordinating all of its affairs whose position no other person can occupy. So do not fold your hands do something and better make it good.

I went through all those to let you know that not all who are struggling today will end up in the same position tomorrow. Life is dynamic, never look down at anybody treat everyone equally. You can never predict where your answers will come from. One of the unfairness about life is that it never gives you a finished good as an answered prayer it is always as a raw material. What that means is that you must know the process of getting anything you want to call your story behind the glory. You cannot cheat life and just stumble on wealth suddenly.

Life will always drill you so you can be confident about what you have gotten. Those who want to bend corners are just wasting time. They are like someone driving a car without batteries. To enjoy such a car you have to keep on moving, you must not switch off the engine. Once you do the car stops and never move till you get a battery for it. I can assure you that as far as this life is concerned you might never see that battery, and even if you do it may take a while.

• PLACES

The places you go to really matter. You should have an expectation from a place you are going to no matter how small the issue may be. Do not just go anywhere, you were not born by accident your parents may be the ones that made the accident but you are not an accident. So do not treat the resources of life (air, time, water, food, blood, e.t.c) with levity.

Someone who keeps going to the galleria to see the line up of films will one day watch a film there even when he does not have the money. So also if you keep going to the airport purposefully one day you will fly in the planes to a place of destiny. All it will take is just time. The reason I said so is because when you go to such places, the memory of such a place sticks to your mind, and consciously or unconsciously your mind acts on such information and begins to negotiate a place for you in that place. Depending of the force in your mind, and you ability to be sensitive to the kind of people and information that comes around you and how you handle them – the reality will come your way. Being rich is all about the mind not the pocket. The pocket should strengthen the mind for continuity, but inevitable the mind will fill up the pockets (Check out Bill Gates). Feed your memories with thoughts of places that will help you, your billion dollar idea may just be in your visits to one of these places.

The best part of it is that you are in the best place to rise to the top. Value it well.

• IDEAS

Ideas rule the world. An idea as brought anything of value into existence. Take it from me, those who pioneered these ideas where people who delighted in moving around visiting place. Scrutinizing the needs in these areas and capitalizing on such opportunity. In Nigeria, those who had the idea to bring in mobile phones imagine if they did not execute the idea in their minds? The only person or people that will lose out are those who did not act. As I said earlier life never leaves a vacuum. Today telecommunication is robbing shoulder with oil companies in Nigeria. An idea is all you need to leave your present level to the next.
In summary, let me say that

“a billionaire is one who valued people and took advantage of the positions and situations they were and earned the right idea which they acted upon that transformed their life and family’s forever”.

Think about it! And stop complaining about your place of birth.

Be true to self

“See you later dear” she smiles as she leaves her companion behind to go to her Nissan Sunny Jeep. She is dressed to the nines, is tall slim elegant and clad in a chic suit with matching bag and shoes. She is breathtakingly beautiful and looks properly kept. Her life looks perfect or so you think.

This woman looks perfect and all that, but her boyfriend or fiancé physically assaults her regularly and she excuses him not once but all the time; our society calls this love but is it really? Statistics show that one out of every three women will go through some form of abuse whether physical, domestic or sexual or verbal abuse in their lifetime. It is so difficult to imagine our siblings, friends or colleagues are going through, have been through or will go through such ugly violence. Our African culture tries everyday to mold us into a mindset that these occurrences are acceptable and that we are helpless to do anything about it. This is not true, I have this mindset that there is always a way out, you will just have to figure it out. Like the latest trend where the guy gets to test run the chic for a while in a different culture from ours before finally deciding to do a traditional wedding in absentia. These are funny trends that are totally unacceptable.

I personally do not believe that anyone, male or female should have to endure abusive situations, whatever the form of abuse. Every human being has value and deserves respect. They deserve to be values even if it is from siblings, family or God. Many women live through such abusive situations and put a good face on it. Some even die enduring abusive situations that no one should have to live through. No woman should endure beatings from a man to whom she is not legally tied to since there is no agreement between them. It is inhumane and detrimental to physical, emotional and social well-being.

It’s time women of our generation become diligent and hardworking enough to make their money to ensure a measure of financially and not have to depend on a man for emotional and financial approval. A man I respect so much once said “it is better to stay without a man than endure severe unprovoked beatings or disrespect and unappreciative attitudes”. I believe there is beauty and value in every woman but we need to learn that to be valued by others you must first value and respect yourself enough to make the right decisions and right choices and you must realize you have a choice in the direction your life is headed. Love yourself enough to choose right because every human being not just every woman deserves respect and has the responsibility to ensuring they are respected and their mindsets are not based on tradition but on what’s right and doing right.

From the eight-year old to the eighty-eight-year old society, tradition and the world will try to dictate to you who you are and their expectations may place on you restrictions and protocols on how you can behave and act. You must decide for yourself the standards for which you will live: your values, principles and how much accomplishments you will