Here are some tips you should consider.

1. Collective and personal goal: No matter what your personal goals may be, ensure you are working towards the team’s goal which is the collective goal. Your personal goals should take its bearing from the team’s goal. Understand this; you can’t achieve anything without your team. Your team fails, you fail. So be committed to your team. Your personal success depends on your team’s success.

2. Take responsibility: If you want to be excellent player in any team, be prepared to take responsibilities.  In clearer words, you are responsible for writing your own story. After you must have done your own part of the task, be ready to cover up any lapses that may want to mar the success of your team. Give attention to little details because they have the power to enhance or mar the success of the whole project.

3. Know your strengths and weaknesses:  Being an excellent team player starts with you knowing yourself. How much do you know about yourself? You have to know your areas of strength and weakness. When you are aware of your strong points, it helps you select tasks in those areas. Wouldn’t it be unwise for me to operate in an area I have little or no skills? Knowing your weak points, helps you build yourself in those areas.

4. Stay enlightened:  To remain relevant to your team, you have to stay enlightened. You become irrelevant to your team at the point when someone on your team can perform ‘your own stunts’ better than you. Get my drift right; you need to continually stay in shape. Be the best at what you do. Bring something of value that nobody else brings to the table, and then you’ll be relevant and excellent. Research and discover new and better ways of achieving your personal goals and the team’s collective goals.

5. Have a work plan: To be excellent at what you do, work with an action plan that is time bound. It keeps you from being distracted. The truth that many people would have being more effective and productive if they had a plan of action. Ask yourself, ‘what sequence will the task take?’ Write it down! There is need for you to do the right thing at the right time. Your team should have a set time to achieve the common task. Don’t fix a time that is close to the team’s deadline; fix a time is quite behind to allow for evaluation and improvement.

6. Learn to communicate with other team players: It is so important that you communicate with other team players on how far you have performed your quota of the team’s project. Tell them about your successes and your challenges. Allow your team mates to input their suggestions on how the challenges can be surmounted (a man is never an island of knowledge.) Inform them about any adjustment or change in plan. Know that failure on your part to inform your team mates about a perceived loophole may mean failure of the team’s project.

7. Don’t procrastinate: Permit me to adopt the words of John C. Maxwell. He said, “Tomorrow will be a good tomorrow, if you do the right things today.” Don’t postpone what you ought to do today to a future day. Procrastination results stress. Plan your own part of the team task and act when you ought to. When you do, you save yourself from stress and likely embarrassment from disappointing people.

8. Get refreshed: Many people work tirelessly to achieve a goal, they often forget to rest. Nothing of great value can be achieved when you are tensed. Long hours of work take a great deal of energy. You have to take a break to get refreshed and to resume work with great enthusiasm. All work and no rest make you a dull, tensed and tired team player. Have a time to rest.

9. Appreciate yourself: When you achieve a task within the set time, don’t forget to appreciate yourself. Tell yourself wonderful things- well done, good job and so on. Better still; prepare a special meal for yourself.

10. Have an excellent mentality: Know that you are what you think you are. Your feelings and actions stems from your thoughts. When you are positive in your thinking, your feelings and your actions shows positivity. It has being well said that you can’t go beyond the level of your thinking. Enhance your thinking. Let thoughts of excellent standard spring out from you.

Hope this very post profit you? If yes, don’t hesitate to drop by next time. You can also leave your honest comment. Thanks.

How you perceive a thing determines how you react to it. It is true that your reaction at the beginning of a life process will have huge influence on the outcome of the process. Your emergence as a ‘victor’ in the face of challenges greatly depends on the way you see and react to your challenges. Running away from one’s challenges will not remove them but will only postpone your success. Challenges are necessities in the process of attaining greatness. For every success ‘panthers’, challenges are ‘must-haves’.

The place of greatness is never meant for those who hide in the face of challenges but for those who are ready to give what it takes to overcome those challenges. Challenges are to be overcome.  They are not meant to keep you down. The fact that you encounter an event of failure does not mean you are a failure. What you need do is to change your strategy. You might just not be doing something right. Try something new! The man in the parable of the sower sowed four different times before he got the real harvest of his dream. His challenge in his first three attempts was loss. Yet, he didn’t stop at the first unsuccessful attempt but continued with different approaches until he hit it well in his fourth trial.

In getting to your dream place, problems are in the way for you to solve. Challenges are ahead in the process of attaining your goal. Are those challenges going to get you discouraged or what? You don’t have to lose hope because of the unfavourable events of the past. Why don’t you get up and try again (strategically). It might just work well this time around. Oh, you say if otherwise! There you go again, you don’t have to allow that negative thought dominate your thought line. Get rid of it now and fill yourself with positive thoughts. You can make it and you will make it.

Challenges like ladder steps must be climbed to reach your goal. Thanks for your attention. God bless you. Share this with a friend.

I was just wondering if David was the only skilful harp player in his region then! And this is certainly impossible; he couldn’t have been the only one who’s got great prowess in this aspect. There could have been people who could play better than he does, and yet he was chosen. Why? Well, I’m of the position that the David’s selection was enhanced by the testimony of Saul’s servant. The king wouldn’t have had knowledge of David less employing him if this servant had kept quiet. This testimony was of great importance to David’s coming to the palace.

You never can imagine how far people’s testimony can take you. This servant was able to introduce David to the king because he knew him (I Samuel 16: 18). If I may ask you, what do people know you for? Is it not surprising that you’ll find in a gathering of people who’ve being together for quite a long period of time fellows who don’t know each other’s line of business? What is your work? Do you seek to be great at it? People have to know about it; they have to be aware. If that servant wasn’t aware of David’s skills, he wouldn’t have spoken to the king about it. Let people be aware of your skills, if you intend to make something great out of it.

Again, if you’ll share the same belief with me that David and this servant must have had at least an encounter in past. As the case may be, I want to believe this encounter which probably culminated into a relationship was properly nurtured. May I ask you- how do you treat the people you encounter? You treat them like somebody or nobody? You never can tell who will help you to your well desired great height. Treat everyone well not because you have something to gain.

What if David had misused the relationship? After a first encounter, would people want to ever meet you again- would they want to have anything to do with you again? In business, great profits are made as a result of repeated purchases. Would customers want to ever patronize you again based on the quality of service you offer? Have you got any desirable character that would make people want to call back for you? Can you be recommended for a greater task after the first on the basis of your character? Are people not afraid to trust you with their resources? Do you ever leave a good impression in the mind of people? This servant couldn’t have recommend David if David was sick character-wise.

Your skills/abilities would bring you into the corridor of greatness but what would keep you there is your character. Your character has the ability to make or mar you. Someone once said, ‘No amount of riches can atone for poverty of character.’ You’ve got to possess a worthwhile, strong, desirable and enviable character if you desire to reach great height and stay there for long. Like someone said that greatness begins with a single step in the right direction. Today, I enjoin you to desire and decide to invest greatly in your bank of character. Fill your jar of character with goodness so that when people drink from your jar, they’d find it irresistible.

Thanks for reading. You are the next person whose skills/abilities will bring to great height and whose character will keep there. Stay in touch.

No one under the heaven is without ability. The fact that you don’t know it doesn’t mean it’s not there, present in you. It is given different names, varying from skills to talents. Whatever the name you want to give it, it is your responsibility to discover your ability. I want to believe you know yourself, so you should know the answers to these questions. What have you discovered that you could do without much struggle? What can you do beyond the ordinary?

After discovering your abilities, it is also your duty to take the pain of improving them. You’ve discovered that you have a voice for singing. Good! But may I inform you that your voice is not going to get better until you involve yourself in exercises that will help improve it. You have to develop your abilities, they don’t develop themselves. Many fail to sharpen their abilities and as a result these abilities have gone under. If only you have the minutest idea of what your abilities could earn you, you would take time to build or sharpen them. David, for the first time, was needed in the palace because of his skill.

Your ability becomes a skill when you are able to use beyond the ordinary. Not until your ability is well-developed and ready to effectively meet a need is it fit to be called a skill. David could not have been the only one who knew how to play a harp in that milieu, how come he was the one chosen. Well, I’d say that save for the testimony of the palace messenger; he was a skilful harp player. And I want to believe he didn’t arrive at this level all of a sudden; he must have paid the price of lengthy hours of rehearsals. The difference between those who reached stardom and those who didn’t lies in the development of abilities.

Your ability is meant to fill a need. Though David could have been enjoying himself when playing and this probably, satisfying his own personal need for fun and happiness but yet there was a greater need in the palace. Here is the troubled Saul and David, a skilful harp player playing to bring relief to Saul. That ability of yours should not be kept to yourself; there is someone who needs you in your environment. It is not what you don’t have that limits you but what you have and don’t know how to use. Use your abilities to better a life. Martina Navratilova once said, ‘Disability is a matter of perception. If you can do just one thing well, you’re needed by someone.’

Your ability is like the gift which the bible talks about that a man’s gift makes room for him. Your skill has the capability of taking you to great height, if well-directed and well-utilized. The great and popularly known talented individuals wouldn’t have being if they had failed to discover, develop and use their abilities/skills to provide solutions to problems. Discover it, stir it up and direct it to solving problems around you. It is in filling other people’s needs that you’ll find greatness.

Thanks for your time and I’m sure you’ve picked one or two lessons. See you next time!

Early Beginning: Setting out early on your journey matters a lot. It determines when you will get to your destination. Can you compare someone who set out early in the morning on a journey to Lagos with another who set out at noon? Of course not, the former would get to the destination before the latter, assuming they are going to the same destination. So in like manner is the case of A & B who are in the same line of business. ‘A’ started the business in his teens and ‘B’ in his thirties. All things being equal, who between the two would be better in terms of experience, knowledge, customers and so on? Starting something early (an idea, a concept, product line, etc.) gives you an edge over those who did not.

Larry McMurtry said, ‘if you wait, all that happens is you get older’. Getting older without having achieved things that should have achieved? No! That unique business idea you have, start it now. Don’t wait until you increase in age or stature. Now is the time, don’t procrastinate.

You might not know the value of starting early until you miss the opportunity. Don’t lose any minute of your life. Someone once wrote about the value of time and it goes thus:

To realize the value of one year: – Ask a student who has failed a final exam.

To realize the value of one month: – Ask a mother who has given birth to a premature baby.

To realize the value of one week: – Ask an editor of a weekly newspaper

To realize the value of one hour: – Ask the lovers who are waiting to meet.

To realize the value of one minute: – Ask a person who has missed the train, bus or plane.

To realize the value of one second: – Ask a person who has survived an accident.

To realize the value of one millisecond: – Ask the person who has won a silver medal in the Olympics.

Since you know your destination, start something (if it’s drawing a plan, getting knowledge or whatever that will help) along that line- not tomorrow but today (now). The time is now. You can decide to use it or lose it. Like it’s usually said, time waits for no man; it’s like a snowflake, which disappears while we’re trying to decide what to do with it. Save yourself the cry of tomorrow by taking the pain today. It is not the thing you do; it is the thing you leave undone that later gives you a cause for alarm.

Don’t forget that the earlier you begin to take conscious steps to attain greatness the earlier you reach your great destination. Thank you for your time. I want to believe you’ll take the right step today. You are on your way to the top.

Have you ever thought that the number of people at the top do not make up one-tenth of those who desired they were? This is quite alarming! Anyway, let me give you a clue. Together, we shall examine the life of a biblical character- David McJesse. I hope it is not expensive to assume we all know him- his beginning and his ending. Before I proceed in this writing, I must say that this topic can’t be exhausted just in one post and this is why it’s going to come in series. You want to know the road that leads to greatness? Then, follow me as I look closely at the life of David.

1. Little Beginning: Great things don’t start big but little. I’m quite sure that you’ve at a time or other seen a skyscraper; probably in real life or in a movie.  It didn’t grow out of the ground just of a sudden, but, it started with a block in its foundation. Greatness is not an event but rather a result of a conscious and progressive effort on the path of an individual. It is the aftermath of a process. You can’t become great in a twinkle of an eye. You have to go through a process.  No one is born ‘Bill Gates’ or ‘Mr. President’, you have to become it.

David was never born the King of Israel. In fact, he was from a poor background. He never had the opportunity to choose his background but he was able to choose his future-his landing. And this did not happen to him by chance or by some kind of magic, but, it took a conscious and purposeful effort on his path. He started out with his father’s sheep-by taking the responsibility of keeping them. This, he did well. If someone asks me how he was able to protect his nation? I’d say that he’d done it before; when he was with the sheep. He was able to protect the sheep from the attacks of lion and bear, how much more will he not do for his people whose lives meant much more than the lives of the animals.

You can also start by taking responsibility for those little tasks. Start doing the little, for in it, abounds greatness. Little drops they say make an ocean. Are you not gambling with your own little drops? If you desire to be great, you wouldn’t despise the days of your little beginning. If you’ve started something, don’t stop. It’s an edifice of hope. Seek to be the best at it. Have you for once received any commendation for that little thing you’re doing? If you are not good at little tasks you do, how then will you handle great tasks when they surface? You are not able to control your siblings and you say you want to govern your state or nation. How is that possible? Dear, you’ve got to be good at that little/small job first. Give it all it takes in order to ensure success- be it diligence, persistence, knowledge and whatever it takes.  Get busy with the little, for therein is greatness. Not until you are great at the little are you fit for the great.

Thanks for staying with me this far. Catch you in my next post. Bye.

If it’s not something that happens all the time but I’m quite sure that at one time or the other in your life, you’ve received a package containing a gift item. Let’s get this straight; a gift package would be made-up of the gift and its wrapper or container. Let’s take for an example a nokia E61 enclosed inside a small box- this is a package as far as I’m concerned. The nokia phone is the gift while the small box is the container. Now, permit me to say that whether the phone is enclosed inside a box or not, the name, colour, function and size of the phone is not affected. No matter the size and the degree of fineness of the box which encloses the phone, the quality of the phone does not change. Conclusively, no matter how good looking you are on the outside, your inner make-up -core values, principles, thoughts, knowledge and so on- remains unaffected.

Your true value lies on your inside. The outward happenings are not meant to and should not dictate what happens on your inside [in your mind] but reverse is the case. Many people make their life decisions based on the ‘outwards’, which should not be. Even in relationships, a lot of decisions are made on the basis of the things that are outside. Incredible, you say. Ok, no argument. Just ask the person close to you why he or she got into relationship with that lady or guy. Oh! He or She’s not saying the truth. Then, ask yourself the same question. You see that we are not far from the answer, which is because he or she is good to behold; forgetting the core values, principles and mindset. Like the true value of a package does not lie in the wrapper but the gift itself, so also the true value of a man lies in the mind and not in the physique of the man.

Am I saying you should not take care of your looks? No, I’m not saying you should not be neatly dressed and be good looking. One thing a wrapper or a container will do is to make the gift presentable. Yes, of course, what men first see is your outward appearance. In fact, regardless of your content, your physical appearance may be the first tool men will use in evaluating you. Before you open your mouth to speak, you’d have being assessed based on your physical looks/appearance. Did I hear you say, “Why?” Well, I don’t know for now but somehow you also do it so don’t blame anybody.

Your physical appearance is important- it’s a door opener. How do you want me to know that you are the wisest person on earth when you are dressed like a mad man for an interview? How do you want me to know that you have something to offer when you are like someone who needs offering? How would I know you are a solution provider when you appear as if all the problems of Africa are on you? No CEO will open the door to his/her office for you to enter when you look like somebody who is out of sort, even the man at the gate wouldn’t do that. My honest advice is that you make moderation your watchword. Look good and dress well for the occasion. Your dressing speaks a lot about you- (your inner make-up).

Your physical appearance may bring you into that office just because someone is attracted to your physical composition, but what will keep you there is your content. What are your inner make-ups-principles, beliefs, thoughts, and so on? What do you have to offer? What are your skills? How good are you in your field? This is challenge to you to have right beliefs, uphold a good value system, be right thinking and seek more knowledge. Rather invest your time in improving your content, your gift and your skills than adding to the container. You see if you begin to add more beauty and good-looks on the outside and you are not growing your knowledge, skills, and capabilities base, in the end you would be the loser. Problem will ensue when your boss, your CEO or people begin to find out that you are just beautiful on the outside but you do not have anything inside. What is the use of a big head without an equivalent brain [to think]?

You are more than your outward appearance. You are more than what men see you as because men look on the outward appearance and the scripture confirms it that God looks on the heart. It is not that God does not see your outward appearance. He sees it but he looks beyond it, to assess your heart-value, principles and mindset. Why? Because your outward appearance alone cannot get you to your destination. You’ve got to be skilful, determined, bold, courageous, diligent, reliable, responsible, accountable and others and all these are of the mind.

As it is important for you to have good content, so is the wrapper. Both must complement one another. None of the two should be missing from your package. More importantly, invest more on the inside.

Patience means ‘to stay put and stand fast when you’d like to run away.’ – Warren Wiersbe.

At one time or the other, we have had reasons to wait for someone or something. I want to believe that those periods of waiting were quite easy and interesting. Uh-uh, not at all, you say. At this junction, I must attest to the fact that it’s not an easy task to wait. You would see others progressing through various alternative means but you are there, waiting. So you ask yourself, can’t I just be like these people? Why take the seemingly long and stressful road when there are shortcuts?

Patience is the art of concealing your impatience. – Franklin P. Jones.

Like people would continue to say that there are various means to an end; the authentic and the alternative means. One should actually use the authentic but when all hopes have seemingly faded away; then, the alternative means – shortcuts – begin to stare one in the face. What a very bad situation! The fact that I need fund badly or that my colleagues are doing it does not mean I should ‘pen’ rob. For the Ikoko man and his wife, the authentic plan was the promise of a notable child which was intercepted by the wife’s alternative plan. If only she had waited a little while, their record would have being stainless.

The key to everything is patience. You get the chicken by hatching the egg, not by smashing it. – Arnold Glasow.

Your waiting period is not time to discard your beliefs, moral standards, dignity… but a time to hold on to them. It is not a time to flush your opulent load of values-integrity, discipline, hard work, respect, selflessness into the ditch of corruption, selfishness, idleness, lasciviousness, dishonesty and lawlessness; but a time to guard and keep them diligently. It is not impossible that you think it’s not paying off, but wait, the dark days will soon be over.

Patience and perseverance overcome mountains. – Mahatma Gandhi.

Hellen Keller once said ‘optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope or confidence.’ Hope is like the sun, which, as we journey toward it, casts the shadow of our burden behind us. It is not a time to lose hope but a time to encourage yourself; speak to your soul (confessing the positive). Before long, your words will start to take form. Be optimistic about the future.

The calmer we are the better for us, and the more amount of work we can do. When we let loose our feelings, we waste so much energy, shatter our nerves, disturb our minds and accomplish very little work. – Vivekananda.

It is a time to examine yourself. There is a need to evaluate your thought lines, your actions and your feelings because these three constitute what is called ‘YOU’. Right thinking will lead to right action which will in turn influence how you feel- good or bad. It is a time to get busy. Don’t just be a spectator rather be a participator. Opportunity is something very difficult to recognize; it usually comes disguised as hard work. Look out for opportunity in every difficulty. Don’t be weary in well doing for in due season you will reap your fruits, if you don’t faint.

…though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.

On getting to the church, I was ushered in by some beautifully and wonderfully dressed persons. I pitched my tent beside a nursing mother who appeared to have so many issues on her mind. Resultantly, there was a plunging effect on her countenance. On the contrary, as you know that babies would always be vivacious, so was her baby not minding the fact that the mother was so moody. Anyway, that’s not where I’m going. Progressively in the service, the time was come for the ‘word’. In the course of the word, a story came back to mind and I have the burden to share this same story with you and also to deduce some salient points from it.

The story goes thus; a certain man once lived with his beautiful, understanding and shrewd wife in the village of Ikoko. Neither this man nor his prudent wife had a reason to make a single expense as regard any child. They had no need to wake up in the morning to bath for their son or daughter, take them to their various schools and think about how to bring them back home. This was not because they had someone paying the bills or taking care of the chores but because they had no issue. After waiting long for the realization of the promise of an illustrious child, it seemingly appeared as if God was not looking at their side. Hmm! An imbroglio, you would call it.

Oh no, all of my friends already had their children above secondary school level; ha, age is no more a friend among others were the thoughts running through the mind of the wife. Why not allow my husband go into my handmaid, probably I’m not meant to partake in the actualization of the great promise- this was the meditation of her heart. She convinced her loving husband who finally gave in to his wife’s option. Within the period of approximately one year, the handmaid conceived and put to bed. As the saying goes ‘life begets life…’ not long after, the wife took in. Did I hear someone say she should have waited a little bit more before allowing her husband to share the stuff? Hmm, wait! That’s the word. Sit back with me as I bring out some key and salient points which are of paramount importance to any life with the desire to have a complete and stainless record.

Many people try to bring into view some factors-which should not be the main focus. They tend to make these factors the main determinants for their next line of action which shouldn’t be. For instance, oh! I’m in my 30s and I don’t have a car yet. What is the next line of action? I start to look for shortcuts-how to rob Peter to pay Paul. No, this is not right. Have we forgotten that ‘to everything there is a season and a time…?’ A farmer would not plant a seed today and be expecting to reap the harvest the next day. Guess what! There is always a period of waiting-the interval between ‘sow’ time and ‘reap’ time. This period may be long or short for different individuals as the case may be. A just conceived woman would wait for some months before she delivers. The waiting period is the period between the conception of that plan, dream, idea, vision of yours and actualization of it.

It may seem long, but wait, weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in morning. It may appear that you are despised at present, but wait, behind the thick dark cloud, there is a ray of light. Your colleagues may be cutting corners, they won’t last, but wait, your season is near.

Your comments are highly welcome.

Before I go, I must say that this nation ‘Nigeria’ needs YOU and I. Together, let’s make Nigeria a place to be- a glorious nation. Till we meet again, don’t stop contributing your quota to make Nigeria a great nation. Nigeria is what we make her-let’s make her a great nation once again. Shun all evils.