Pick up your shovel, hand-trowel, e.t.c...and let's build TOMORROW!!!

• The future is what you must build.
You must come to terms with the fact that the making of a successful future is not what you can take with levity and flippancy. Your future is what you must build because a structure would not just appear where it is not built, except by magic and talking about your future, there’s absolutely nothing magical about it.

Seeing the future only as a time you are going to meet would not make you enthusiastic about it but if you also see it as what you must build, it energizes you and sets you at work, keeps you in motion even when the going gets tough and rough because you want the best for yourself.

You might ask, ‘How then do I build my future’. The building of a successful future is briefly discussed under the following theories with straight-to-the-point illustrations.

The theory of planning and preparation
To build a house, it’s not a day’s job. A house is not something that can be erected in one day. It has procedures and for every of the procedures, proper planning is required.

The following processes are involved in erecting an edifice:
1. The plan of the house is drawn by the architect.
2. The foundation is laid.
3. The blocks are arranged on each other by a bricklayer with the aid of cement to help strengthen the house and when it gets to the desired height it is decked if it is a storey building and roofed if not.
4. The ceilings are installed.
5. The windows and doors are fixed.
6. The house gets plastered and painted.
7. Boreholes and soak away is made.
8. Interior decorations, furniture and whatsoever is needed in the house are fixed.
And after all these processes, the house is ready for the occupants to move in. So is the future. It doesn’t just start one day. For every of the above listed stages there is a need for proper preparation and planning. Planning involves the thinking through of an idea and drawing strategies to make the idea come alive into reality. For instance, someone has an idea to make his house more beautiful than other houses in the neighborhood so he starts thinking of the things that makes a house beautiful; he also considers the quality and quantity of these beautifying materials he would need. This is the beginning of the preparation stage.

A saying goes thus, “Success comes when opportunity meets with preparations.” If you don’t prepare, when opportunities come, you can’t be ready to explore them because you don’t know yet what it takes to make good use of opportunities. You might not even be able to recognize these opportunities because you have not gotten yourself prepared for them. Preparation teaches you what it takes to make good use of opportunities.

Proper planning and preparation takes advantage of opportunities whenever they come. So it is a necessity that you plan for that desired future of yours.

Sometimes ago, I had a short but impactful discussion with a guy I met at school and during our discussion on how to achieve a good success, he pointed out to me what he termed:

“THE SEVEN ‘P’S OF A SUCCESSFUL LIFE”
Proper
Planning &
Preparation
Prevents
Poor
Piss
Performances

When I took a closer look at these ‘P’ alliterate, I realized that it is pointing out to the fact that if I plan well, I can avoid poor performances and succeed in practically everything I do. It’s a food for thought. I thought about it and then came to the lifestyle of the ants.

The ants have a lot to teach us about the importance of preparation. Take a close look at them, they go out in groups and gather their food in the summer when there is no rain, preparing for the winter when rain would not give them the opportunity to go outside. So in the summer they go out and get enough food for their store so that when then rain comes they would not have to be killed in the rain searching for food. (Proverbs 6:6-11)

Preparation is a vital and basic tool for a successful future. Spend today preparing for tomorrow because there certainly is a tomorrow. He who fails to prepare before appearing would definitely disappear in the future.

Successful athletes make a great deal of preparations before appearing on the race track to beat down their opponents. Champions are not made in the ring; they are made in their daily preparations. The ring is just the place to show what they are made of, the best that their daily preparations have brought out in them.

Preparation is the necessary hard currency that you pay for success. Spend today preparing for your desired future because success certainly has a price and preparation is its cost.

Take a deep breath and a very short break before we continue on our trip and simply ask yourself if in any way you have been preparing for that great future that you so much desire.

Have you? Then let’s continue the trip.

WELCOME TO THE FUTURE!!!

Welcome to the Future! ! !

Is this astrology or what?
Nay!!! I’m not an astrologer and I’m not about to predict the future plus no one can predict the future except God. Just calm down and let’s take it piece by piece and bit by bit. By the time you are through reading this book, you will start seeing more meaning to your future.

To start with, if every living being (human) on earth is asked to say at least one thing that they understand by what the future means, there would be uncountable opinions; one person might even have more than one opinion.

Statements that include the use of the word ‘future’ are made from time to time. Statements like, “Oh! My future is bright,” “Let’s wait and see what the future brings,” etc.

The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary defines the future as something that is to be or become or a time to come (future years). However, the future means different things to different people at different times. What it means to you might be totally different from what it means to me but we all know one thing: All roads lead to a future.

Now, with an open mind and focused attention, let’s see together some basic facts about the future.

• The future is YOU.
“What! How can the future be me?”

Did you just ask? C’mon, don’t look puzzled. Truly, the future is you.
Many people see the future only as a place they are going or a time they are going to meet. That’s true but seeing the future only as that is not good enough to disclose some hidden but indispensable facts about it. Some people, because they see the future only as a time to come do not know what they really want from it, they just hope and expect that one day when they get to that so-called future, everything would be alright.

My observation from the many success stories that I have read in the past is that the future might truly be a time to come but the fact is that your future, whether it is going to be great or small is as a result of what you make of your present life, the choices you make now and what you invest your life in. That is the basic truth of the fact that the untold future is YOU.

As you live and grow everyday of your life, you gradually approach your future. You don’t wait for a tomorrow to come, a tomorrow awaits you to come. Now, please consider this question, “What future is your present life portraying?” Is it portraying a bright, shinny and beautiful future or a hazy, uncertain and dull future?

Take time to think about that.

TOMORROW! Where does it all start?

It all starts in the mind.
Your mind is the most powerful and most productive factory in the world. It receives and files thoughts from both physical and spiritual sources. The mind is always at work. It serves as a connecting link between man and the forces of Infinite Intelligence. It should always be kept open and ready to receive visions. It cannot be physically seen or touched. It is, so to speak the computer program written on the inside of man. It acts on what is fed on it (whether it is positive or negative is immaterial). It just acts on what is fed on it.

The things you feed your mind with determine what visions your mind conceives. The mind as the most powerful and most productive factory in the world must be put to good use so as to receive and process wonderful visions.

Whatever success you achieve in real life must have happened first in your mind.

A football team lifting the trophy of the Champions League must have first pictured themselves lifting the trophy before it now happens in real life. Your mind has the ability to draw pictures of what is likely to happen in a later time. For instance, you are reading this book right now because I once pictured you in my mind reading it. You might say, “But you don’t know me in person.” That’s true but if I never pictured you in my mind reading this book, you probably might not be reading it now because I might not have written it at all.

Visions generate from the mind and when a man catches these visions, prepares himself and set to work, he can definitely transform whatever his vision is into its physical equivalent.

However, so many people who think they have a vision only make the mistake of calling a mere wish ‘vision’. Vision in any way does not look like wish. “If only I could” is an example of a wishful statement. Believe me, if wishes were horses, beggars would definitely ride. As we continue, we’d see some facts about visions which distinguish it from a mere wish.

Walt Disney caught the vision to build a place where on weekends, vacations and/or special occasions, parents would take their kids and spend time together. Once he caught the vision, he took into consideration the problems that are likely to bump into his way. He also considered what the merits and advantages are then he set to work, making necessary preparations.

Despite the circumstances that surrounded the birth of Disneyland, it became a success and the problems became history. Walt Disney’s name still remains unforgotten even after he is long gone. Even people who didn’t want to relate with you when you were trying to ensure the survival and realization of your vision would want to be associated with you when your visions become reality. They forget the problems you faced and celebrate your success with you.

Three important lessons in Disney’s story:

1. It started in his mind. He caught the vision and pictured the possibility; what it would be like and how children would love to come and watch Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. He thought of the pressure that children would put on their parents so as to come and have fun and watch their favorite cartoon stars.

He must have imagined a child saying to his parents, “Mom! Dad! I want to go and see Mickey and Donald at Disneyland,” and the father replying, “Of course, but you must come home with very good grades first and I promise you we’ll all go to Disneyland this vacation and on your next birthday and any other time you want to.”

2. He considered the problems. He knew definitely that there would be challenges along the line. He even got discouraged by his brother but he realized that all these problems and challenges were too small to kill his dream, too small to kill his vision, so he ignored them all.

3. He prepared and then he set to work on his dream Disneyworld. Disneyworld which was later renamed Disneyland became a success. The Disneyland he pictured in his mind became reality and still exists even long after his demise.

You see, your mind has a lot of work to do in capturing visions but what you feed your mind determines the visions and how efficiently and effectively your mind would sort them out.

If you feed your mind with junks, those junks are most likely to corrupt your visions just like virus corrupts files on the computer. But put your mind to good use and it will act well on your visions and push you to realizing them.

THE VISION OF TOMORROW...musn't let go

- They let go of it.
The second category of people who live life without a vision are those who initially catch visions but let go of those visions as soon as they are conceived in their mind. As soon as they catch visions, they evaluate them and see huge disadvantages or better still huge, giant-sized and ugly faced problems posing on the way of actualizing the vision and because of the fear of taking risks, they decide to play it safe by letting go of the vision and they live without a vision. Life without vision is life without direction.

If at one time or another, you have let go of your visions, Here are few methods with which you can hold firmly to your visions and never let them go until they are actualized and achieved.

1. Be a friend of your vision and lay out plans on how you want to achieve it. Don’t be afraid to start.

2. Don’t focus on problems, focus on possible solutions. Even if it is obvious that there are problems and challenges (of course the road to success is full of gallops called challenges), disregard them. Don’t let their giant-size scare you, pretend as is you don’t see them and take one step at a time. It might be necessary to list down the possible problems that you are likely to encounter and then lay out plans on how to conquer them all, one by one.
There is no limitation to what the mind can achieve; the only limitations are the ones we acknowledge.

3. I can’t stress enough the need for a positive mindset and a positive thinking pattern. You need to be positive; make your mind believe in possibilities and never make impossibilities a part of your thoughts.

A vision, an idea found in a dirty mind which believes so much in impossibilities is like a crop planted in an unweeded farmland. The death of such vision or idea is untimely.

4. Lastly and most importantly, never give up on your visions. Don’t let go of them. Believe you can transform and make them real. Don’t see giving up as an option. What the mind can conceive and believe; it can achieve.

• They follow the crowd.
There was a certain kid who one day sat on a swing in the neighborhood having a nice time watching the trees move to the rhythm of the wind and the birds swaying in the sky humming and whistling wonderful melodies. The sight was very pleasant. All of a sudden, he heard some noise coming from the direction of two other kids and when he looked, he saw them running.

Seeing them running thrilled him so he jumped off the swing and joined them running. He just ran with them without a purpose but the other two boys ran with a purpose; they had a vision. They were running after something. They wanted to catch a butterfly.
The three boys ran for a long time and at last, the two boys caught the butterfly. They were very happy and they jubilated for their success but the boy who ran after them vainly had nothing to jubilate, he just felt odd among them. He had only followed the crowd.

On my way home one afternoon, I overheard the conversation that ensued among some pupils of the same school (the eldest among them would be about 14). They were very audible discussing future ambitions, departments in school and all that. What I actually pinpointed in their discussing was one of them saying, “I chose to go to the Science class because all of my elder siblings are in the Science class.”

If you study closely the statement above and investigate the interest of that school girl, although her interest might be in Sciences but there is a high probability that her interest based on vision is not in Sciences but for the fact that her elder siblings are doing Sciences, she might feel it’s not a bad idea to follow them.

As a matter of fact, many students also join one department or the other, or apply for a course in Colleges and other Higher Institutions just because a friend also chose to study that course or join that department and because they want to be in the same class with their friends, they go with them.

Following the crowd renders your mind idle therefore causing you to live visionless. Moreover, those who follow the crowd usually get lost in the crowd and end up living life without vision. You should be aware of the fact that your mind must be put to work to catch visions and to draw pictures of the life you want. What others want should not necessarily be your choice. You should not be unnecessarily influenced by other people’s decision.

Learn to capture the vision for your desired future. When you have a vision; even if the crowd is going your way or heading your direction, your vision distinguishes and sets you apart from the crowd.

THE VISION OF 2MORROW...How does it concern me?

Analysis of about 60% of the world’s population live life without a vision. A vision is a thing, idea perceived vividly in the faculty of man’s imagination. It is a desire, dream, aspiration created in the mind of man. Vision is practically what every man must have.

Infinite Intelligence has a way of dropping visions into the mind of man. A vision often comes in the form of an idea. It all begins in the mind. When the mind receives a vision, it is meant to work on it, bring it into practical and transform it into its physical equivalent. The essence of having a vision is that it might be fulfilled to the glory of God who has dropped it in the mind.

A Vision in the mind is like data sent into the computer (where the data is the vision and the computer is the mind). The computer is to work on it, process it until it becomes meaningful information.

When data is sent through the keyboard, it appears on the screen of the monitor; the computer has unseen forces working on the data as they come into it and after every data has been processed, it is then printed out and it gives information. This information, when interpreted into human life is the manifestations of the visions that are punched into your mind from the source of Infinite Intelligence.

Imagine how happy you would feel after typing documents for some time and finally you are able to print and hold in your hands what you have typed. God is always happy when you transform your visions into reality and when you fulfill the purpose for which they were given to you.

Analysis of the several thousands of people who live their lives without a vision live their lives that way not because God had not given them one but could be as a result of the following reasons.

• They could not recognize them.
I have many times inserted a USB device into a computer and an icon pops up saying, “USB not recognized.” That is how it is with many people who live life without a vision.

When the vision for their future, life is dropped in their mind, they fail to recognize them and they live all their lives without a vision. They lack the ability to dream beyond the present so they just struggle all their life.

Failing to recognize one’s visions could be as a result of focusing on less important or irrelevant things and pursuing meaningless goals.

A farmer had a dog that used to sit by the roadside waiting for vehicles to come around. As soon as one came, he would run down the road, barking and trying to overtake it.

One day, a neighbor asked the farmer, “Do you think your dog is ever going to catch a car?”
The farmer replied, “That’s not what bothers me. What bothers me is what he would do with it even if he catches up with it.”

Many people are like that dog pursuing meaningless goals. A dog that is supposed to be a watchdog over his farmer boss’ properties that left to pursue vehicles. Wouldn’t you ask what his business is with vehicles?

Let’s assume that in its course of pursuing vehicles, thief creeps into the farm and steals unnoticed, the dog has actually failed. He has failed to see the vision for which he was on the farm because he was busy pursuing a meaningless goal. People like this get too busy with irrelevant things. There is a very big difference between ‘busyness’ and ‘business.’ Busyness is when you truly are doing something but what you are doing is irrelevant or unnecessary at the time while business is doing what you ought to do when you ought to do them.

Not recognizing one’s visions could also be as a result of breeding a negative mindset and leaving one’s life to chance. When people with negative mindset get visions, they don’t recognize it. They only think it’s one of those crazy thoughts again.

Life without vision could be so meaningless. Do you think you never had a vision? Or at one time or another you have failed to recognize them? Here are few ways with which you can start recognizing them.

1. Sit down and have a rethink about your life. There are three major divisional use of man’s time:
i. The time used for work
ii. The leisure time, and
iii. The time used to think.

The most productive of this major time division is the time used to think. So think about your life and identify what you want out of life. Always open up your mind to receive visions and get ideas. Develop a relationship with your maker and focus on the important things.

2. Have a positive mindset. Think positive always, even when everything seems or looks negative, always think positive. And remember to keep your mind open to ideas. In whatever you do, just maintain a positive mindset. (More of this would be discussed in subsequent chapters).

3. Don’t leave your life to chance. Ask the creator of all to control, guide and direct your life in accordance to His will; not luck, not chance. Consecrate yourself to God and ask for the visions of your expected end.

Stand firm on your feet and declare that you have the ability to control your life on the principles of the Supreme God for effective results. Jack Welch discovered, “If you don’t control your destiny, someone else will.”