THE 5 UNDENIABLE STEPS TO STARDOM.
How beautiful those twinkling
little lights which spread across the skies when the dark clouds gather. It
draws my mind back to seasons in my life when we all stood or sat reciting
those wonderful lines repeatedly. I must admit that those rhymes are timeless
lessons, evergreen classics and indeed maxims which in some profound way speak
to us today. We usually chanted thus:
Twinkle,
Twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are
Up
above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky…….
Wonderful lines? Truly. However
I’ll like you to know that stars are not little, the scientists say that the
largest star would easily engulf the earth, mars, Jupiter and Saturn. The
smallest dwarf stars are about the size of the earth. Therefore, though the
stars are different yet they are not small.
Hidden in every being is a desire
to shine; a voice to be heard, a feat to be accomplished. In you lies the
capacity to dominate. In fact, stardom speaks of stars having dominion,
exercising their God-given authority. There is a mass of greatness in you.
Thomas Edison once said if we did all the things we are capable of doing we
would literally astonish ourselves. There is a Star in you that longs to show
forth its glory.
No one aiming to look at a star
looks into a building or a start digging into the ground, the gaze is directed
towards the skies. The problem with the present generation is that we have more
of spectators and analyst and less people who are willing, like Mahatma Gandhi
said to be the change we needs to see in the world. It’s not about talking the
talk but rather about walking the walk. It pays to be a partaker than to be an
On-looker (God forbid that I watch things happen). It’s usually said that there
are those who watch things happen, there are some who wonder how things happen
and finally there are also who make things happen. What category to you belong
to? The word of the Bishop ever lives with me: You are not created to make a
living but to make an Impact.
I’ll
have you to know this for a fact that every created being was not made to
create or formulate a purpose. Rather we’ve been called to find and fulfil
purpose. Mark Twain once said there are two important days in life, the day we
were born and the day we discover why. A purpose driven life is that which adds
salt to the earth and Light where darkness dominates.
A Chinese proverb says that the
journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step. Get ready to explore
the steps to stardom. God is forever committed to making you into who he has in
mind. One principle I learnt is this: if you do what other successful people
do, nothing can stop you from eventually getting the same results they
do---Brian Tracy.
HERE
WE GO……
·
RECOGNISE
THAT YOU ARE A STAR :
The heart has its tender way of
giving back what you invest into it. As a man thinketh in his heart so is he.
Remember the word ‘AS’, this means the pattern, paradigm the kind of mindset a
man has goes a long way in determining the kind of life a man lives. Get Infected with the fact that
you are a star. Your life is a product of your heart. You become what you
repeatedly think about. No man became or ever becomes what he never thought
about. That’s why the scriptures were given so that we could be re-programmed
into the mind of God. I usually say this to myself: I am not a burden but a
Blessing. You might have been born poor, but that does not mean you should have
a mind of a poor man. You are responsible for what you think and that would go
a long way in determining who you become. I love the words of Jesse Jackson he
said, though he was born in the slums, the slums were not borne in him. Being a
star is not pop-psychology, a quick-fix mental exercise. Jesus is the Bright
and morning Star and you must know that we are made in His very own image and
as He is so are we in this world. We have His likeness and we reflect his glory
hence the fact that you are a star is indisputable, because God only reproduces
after His kind. It is a knowing: Accept it, Believe it and then Become it.
Knowing yourself is the first step towards becoming who you want to be.
·
RECOGNISE
YOUR WEAKNESSES:
I strongly believe that the next
fundamental step towards your stardom is the recognition of your weakness: the
areas of life where there ought to be improvement. The journey to perfection is
actually undertaken by the weak ones and not the strong. In the Beginning
despite the fact that God created the heaven and the earth, in the very next
verse he admits to us that the earth was without form and void and he proceeded
to re-creating it. We drop our weakness
and those weights as we progress along the path of destiny. Mahatma Gandhi was
once asked to train a young lad to stop taking sugar, Gandhi surprisingly
replied the mother to give him a couple of days to stop taking sugar himself so
as to be a proper example to the young lad. This is the dilemma and
contradiction we face in our nation, where leaders refuse to accept their
weakness and inability to manage the affairs of governance. Where are the likes
of leaders who resign their appointment no matter the luxury attached because
they recognise their incompetence? The picture in Africa which we see is that
of leaders perpetuating themselves in power. In my honest opinion a failed
state is not one with an unstable government but one who cannot produce quality
leadership.
·
DEVELOP THE
CHARACTER OF THE PERSON YOU INTEND TO BECOME:
I read John
Maxwell’s blog recently and he made a statement which struck a chord in my
heart. He said if you want to be a successful leader, learn to lead before you
have a Leadership position. Character development is a rigorous process; it is
not something we are born with, it is something that is acquired through
experience in life. Our character is shaped by the several occurrences of our
lives from childhood. Good character is a proceed of good seeds sown and
vice-versa. You never become a star in a marathon by just registering and
running in one, neither can you be called a boxer because you love to watch and
talk about the sport. There place of training is imperative. Many great leaders
of old and present evolved a noble character through sufferings. The likes of
Yinka Obalade who said Poverty condemned him to success, Steve Harris who went from
being a college drop-out to a corporate sell-out. Jesse Jackson, one of
America’s finest politicians in a speech once said: suffering breeds character,
character breeds faith and at the end faith would not disappoint. When we
mention names like Fela Durotoye what comes to mind are thoughts like impact, Leadership,
Influence and Relevance. Character cannot be bought off the supermarket. A
Yoruba saying goes thus ‘iwalewa’ meaning character is the definition of
beauty, character is precious and highly valued. Let your sufferings, pain and
past produce in you a passion to save others who might be going through such
situations. That’s what stars do. Kanu Nwankwo had a heart condition, later on
he went ahead to establish Kanu Heart Foundation to help those have the same
problems. It is sufferings that produce character and successful life stories
have a way of healing the heart, giving hope to the hopeless, strength to the
weak. I won’t forget Jesus, scripture says ‘for it became him, for whom are all
things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the
captain of their salvation perfect through SUFFERINGS’. Though he was God he
wouldn’t have been effective in his calling if he hadn’t gone through the
sufferings. Now he can heal the broken hearted, help those who are tempted.
Your character is of inestimable value, don’t trade it for anything. Remember
suffering breeds experience (maturity of character), and experience hope and
hope will not disappoint.
·
POSITION
YOURSELF PROPERLY:
The
profound words of Sir Isaac Newton still resonates in my heart at this moment,
he once mentioned this: if I see farther it is because I stood on the shoulders
of giants. His discoveries are still relevant in the field of science today.
Proper positioning is fundamental to your stardom. There is a popular saying
that experience is the best teacher. This is true to some extent. But a wise
man once remarked that though experience is the best teacher it is better if it
is not your own experience. This is his message: There are certain mistakes you
make in life that may put you in a shape where it is impossible to pick any
lessons from them. In other words, the experience of another person is your best
teacher! Pure wisdom. From the foregoing we can conclude proper positioning in
life guarantees that you will not make certain mistakes others who have gone
ahead of you made. Biographies, autobiographies of great men intrigue me. Find
out the rough paths which the great ones today took and you’ll discover a great
deal of resources which would be useful for your journey. You know in the game
of football and basketball your chances of goal scoring depends on how properly
positioned you are. Get a Mentor, Discipler, Teacher to take you through the
School Of Destiny. Every great leader today was once a follower of another
leader. I discovered that every Leader must be led. The likes of Kenneth
Copeland, Pastor Adeboye, Bishop Oyedepo and others all tapped from the unction
that flowed from Kenneth Hagin. Karl Marx followed the teachings of George
Frederick Hegel and Feubarch closely though he deviated yet the writings of
these persons served as the foundation for his historical and dialectical
materialism. Be extremely careful as regard whom you follow because who you
follow determines to a large extent who you will become.
·
FIND YOUR
TEAM:
We currently
live in an inter-connected reality, countries are forming pacts and alliances
just to be able to create a better life for its people. The word team means
Together Each Achieves More. No one ever achieved greatness without the help of
others, though w celebrate Henry Ford today for his innovation as regards
automobile engineering, but obviously we know that he couldn’t have been the
one assembly the cars at the assembly line, he only gave the idea and others
worked together to see that the goal is accomplished. With the use of the
internet connectivity just became more inevitable. This lends credence to the
work of Stephen Covey in the 7 habits of highly effective people, where he
wrote that Interdependence is a higher value than dependence. You can never
succeed alone, you need others. In the skies what makes the stars so attractive
are the different clusters making it more beautiful a sight to behold. Being
the Light of the World is not by Confession but by Proper Positioning. The joy
of being a star really is worth the while when there are others to celebrate it
with you. Our Lord Jesus has ascended up on high to prepare a place for us so
we could come to reign with Him forever. Find your team, the quality and
quantity of your achievements is dependent on it.
Bottom
Line: You Need People.
