Another way through which we look up to others is through reading about them or watching their biographies or autobiographies in films. In other words, what we read and watch on TV have a great impact on our mind and eventually translate to our actions. 
What kind of books do you read? Are they books that edify you, increase your knowledge and understanding, make you more intelligent? What kind of programs do you watch on the TV? Where do children learn some strange dance steps? Mostly from what they see their friends doing and what they see on TV. Just as you censor what your children watch or read, you must censor what you watch or read too. 
Whether you accept it or not, you are directly and indirectly influenced by what you read or watch. Take care to censor what you read or watch, if you truly desire to be great. 
God bless us all. 
Good morning! 

Everybody is a reflection of some others. Most of our thought patterns, habits and actions are picked from someone or some people who we look up to. We are both directly and indirectly influenced by the behaviour of people around us and even sometimes those far from us, but who we deeply respect. We are also influenced by what we read or see, but we will stay on who we look up to today. 
It is thus important to check those who are influencing you directly and indirectly. Are they influencing you positively or otherwise? If you are struggling with some negative habits, you may need to first check for direct and indirect reinforcements of such habits. It may be something you have seen in a close friend or even your parents or siblings. Until you deal with the influencer, you may not be able to change that habit. 
If you want to build good habits and drop bad ones, surround yourself with those who have those good habits and distance yourself from those with the bad habits. If those with the bad habits are unavoidable, then you have to take on the challenge of helping them to change. 
The people you look up to can determine who you become, you therefore need to see that you are looking up to the right people. 
God bless us all. 
Good morning! 
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Have you registered for the ‘Step Out of the Confines of Comfort’ seminar? It is guaranteed to be a life changing experience. There will also be opportunity to have one on one session. Don’t miss it. 

Are you feeling like you have been kept in the cooler? Feeling like you are missing in action? Every good football player always wants to be fielded in every match, barring injury or booking suspension. 

There are times the coach will keep a fit player on the bench. Coaches do this for so many reasons. Sometimes they could be keeping the player for a particular match or towards the end of the game in a match, especially when such players are game changers. Other times, it could be punishment for a misbehaviour, or to avoid exposing the player to injuries while playing. 

Likewise, life sometimes keeps us on the bench and we become angry and frustrated. For similar reasons, you may be kept on the bench of life for a particular purpose and season. Do not despair. You may have sustained some serious injuries too,  unknowing to you and if you continue, you will just crash. Sometimes it is as a result of our mistakes. 
Whichever one is the situation, the bench is not a permanent position, you will soon resume back to actions. While you are on the bench, keep learning, keep equipping yourself and stay prepared. You may be called to action anytime. Don’t fret, it is just a phase. 

God bless us all. 

Good morning! 

Permit me to borrow the title of the prison notes of Professor Wole Soyinka published in 1971. He expressed his fears during his twenty two months incarceration for supporting the Ibo. He concluded that man doesn’t have to accept failure as his lot, but can rise above failure with the help of others. 
Borrowing from Prof. Wole Soyinka, the man in you dies when you keep quiet in the face of injustice. 
The man in you dies when you pretend like it doesn’t concern you when the man in uniform is unjustly harassing the man in mufti on the road. 
The man in you dies when you refuse to speak against wrong policies of the government that have direct negative  impact on you and your children, both living and yet unborn. 
The man in you dies when you support tyrannical leaders because of the loots you share with them. 
The man in you dies when you misplaced justice as a judge or magistrate because you have been settled. 
The man in you dies when all you do is pray for your leaders but refuse to speak when they are going wrong. 
The man in you dies when you cede your mind and reasoning to your spiritual leaders and fail to weigh their counsel upon the scale of truth and free conscience. 
The man in you dies when you allow the pursuit of survival to drown out the voice of purpose crying for fulfilment in you.  
How many times has the man in you died? Is there still a man in you? 
God bless us all. 
Good morning! 
Notice

If you want to bring the man in you back to life, let us meet on 22nd October at the ‘Step Out of the Confines of Comfort’ seminar. 

For further details, click on https://adewumioni.wordpress.com/2016/09/24/step-out-of-the-confines-of-comfort/?preview=true

As we wrap up this series today, we will be closing with the Poverty Mentality. This is the mentality that has crippled the African race and kept us behind all other races. It is the mentality ruling most of our leaders. It is the mentality that has ravaged our land and is still enslaving our children in droves just like a vortex sucks in water. It is arguably the worst of all, in terms of its capacity to destroy both present and future potentials.  
What is poverty mentality? It is a mental block that makes someone sees himself as been poor and pushes one to steal, loot, usurp, waste and kill, with a view to amass enough wealth to guarantee that one would never be poor again. It is the mentality that makes people believe that every opportunity to hold a position,  either in private or public offices, is an opportunity to enrich themselves rather than serving the good of all. It is also the reason why we sell our goods and services at abnormal margins because we think we may never sell again. Smart people leverage on turnover, poor people leverage on margins. It only takes time before the foolishness of abnormal margins is revealed. 

Poverty mentality is the black race worst nightmare! This was why some of our forefathers colluded with the white man to sell fellow blacks into slavery. Oh, how better we would be, if we deal a death blow to Poverty Mentality. 
It is borne out of insecurity and apprehension of the future. We don’t trust ourselves or our leaders to do the right things to ensure a good future, so we help ourselves by defrauding, embezzling, looting, stealing and killing. All ritualists, kidnappers, looters of treasuries, armed robbers, prostitutes and practitioners of other money-induced vices are victims of Poverty Mentality. 
In that you have written yourself off from making it, and have settled for taking what belongs to others, you are poor even though you have the best mansions or possessions. If you follow the principles of success, you will make it, no matter how long it takes. Stop allowing Poverty Mentality to rule you, it not only destroys you, it destroys others as well. 
God bless us all. 
Good morning! 

Are you afraid of making that next career move? 
Are you wondering if what you have achieved is the best you can achieve? 
Or you have become so used to your current job or vocation and it no longer excites you? 
Or you just desire a CHANGE? 
If you answered YES to any of these questions, this seminar is for you.
Hurry now to book a seat. 
It is guaranteed to rock your world! 
See details below. 

We have looked at three mentalities thus far namely :

The Average Mentality 

The Defeatist Mentality 

The Vendetta Mentality 
Today, we will be discussing the Victim Mentality. This is a mental block that makes one sees himself as a victim of life, circumstances, other people’s actions, and which consequently make the person give up control over his or her live. It is a mentality that assumes a situation of having no control over one’s life, thereby assuming there is no need to put up a fight. It usually makes the victim to throw pity party. Such people are fond of saying, ‘if only I was born by so and so’, or ‘if only my father didn’t die’, and so many ‘ifs’.
When someone is operating under this mentality, he avoids blame and doesn’t take responsibility for his situation. As a matter of fact, everybody else is responsible for his situation, except himself. And because he doesn’t take responsibility, he can’t make any meaningful progress in life. People generally avoid such people and they bypass them,  even when opportunities that could benefit them arise. 
To change this mentality, you must first know that you are the primary driver of your life. Two, people, situations and circumstances can only shape your life to the extent to which you permit. Three, you have to take responsibility for all that happens in and to you. The moment you start taking responsibility for your life, you have taken charge of the vehicle of your life. As long as you keep refusing to be responsible for your life, anyone and anything can drive you anywhere. 
The choice is really yours. You can choose to take charge and tame life, or continue to mope in self pity and remain a victim. 
God bless us all. 
Good morning! 

Another dangerous and life wrecking mentality is the vendetta mentality. It is a mental block borne out of deep seated, anger, resentment and urge to revenge. It blinds the mind and eyes of its victims from doing the right things. It is sometimes fuelled by the injustice in the world system. 
When you are operating with the vendetta mentality, you will make serial errors and ignore the path of sensible reasoning. Your focus will be shifted from goals that will benefit the greater people to fulfilling your vengeance mission. You will mismanage your resources and public resources. 
One of the reasons why most of our leaders in political positions don’t succeed is because they have a Vendetta Mentality. They are after their political enemies and opponents. They will deny the constituencies of their opponents of infrastructural amenities because of their quest to hit out on their opponents. The cycle is repeated when the opposition gains power and the public suffers for the Vendetta Cycle. 
When you set out on a vendetta mission, whether in your personal life, business or politics, you will not only fail but also affect other lives negatively. This mentality will warp your sense of reasoning and make you do things that you would not have done naturally. 
If you have been operating with this mentality, it is time to let go. Vengeance belongs to God, the true and righteous Judge. 
God bless us all. 
Good morning! 

We started this series yesterday with the Average Mentality, and concluded that it is the worst mentality anyone can have. Nobody who operates with such mentality achieves anything remarkable. 
Today we are looking at the Defeatist Mentality. It is a mental block that allows one to expect and accept defeat without putting up a fight. It is borne out of a negative mindset, which could be experiential, circumstantial or psychological. 
To avoid being a victim of Defeatist Mentality, you must do the following :

Separate events from personalities: The fact that you  fail in a task doesn’t make you a failure. Anything could have led to the failure. 

Always believe nothing is impossible: Even if you have not succeeded in achieving that goal, it does not mean it is impossible, it only means you have not found the possible way. 

Believe in yourself: The main problem behind the Defeatist Mentality is lack of self confidence or low self esteem. You must stop belittling yourself and start visualise yourself achieving great things. Stop expecting failure and start expecting success. 

Start with small tasks: As you achieve those small tasks and have a record of successes, you will begin to silence the defeatist inner voice, and your confidence level will grow. 
Don’t allow defeatist mentality anymore. Get into the winning mode. You can make it. Yes, you can. 
God bless us all. 
Good morning! 

Have you wondered why people you spent your childhood with end up either very successful or pitiably unsuccessful? Or why you seem to be either lagging behind or miles ahead of your schoolmates, classmates or age mates? I am sure we have all asked ourselves these questions. 
In this series, we will discuss some of the reasons, which are actually called ‘mental blocks’  or ‘mentalities’, responsible for where you  are today. These mental blocks reduce the chances of reaching full potential or even stop potentials. My hope is that, at the end of the series, you would have identified your own mental block(s). Or if you don’t have any, you would have learnt how to avoid these mentalities. 
The first mentality is the Average Mentality. Average is perhaps the worst word ever invented. It depicts a ‘slightly  better than poor’ position. Portia de Rossi puts it succinctly, “Average. It was the worst, most disgusting word in the English language. Nothing meaningful or worthwhile ever came from that word.” 

An average mentality makes one to accept to just be slightly better than the worst. It is a mentality that never strives for the best. Such a person always put in minimal effort to escape being the worst or least person. You cannot amount to anything worthwhile with the average mentality. 

It is average mentality that makes students to read to pass, rather than to understand and excel. It is this same mentality that makes an employee aims only to finish his task while being less concerned about time spent and quality of work. Same mentality is responsible for people settling for less than the best in life. It is a destroyer of destiny. 

You must hate this mentality, fight it off and replace it with the Winning Mentality, if you are to make any mark in life. You always have a choice to either settle for average or aim for the best. 

God bless us all. 

Good morning!