‘All the money you see me spend today, I worked for yesterday, investment is still very important but when done intentionally’ Chinweike Okwuduche 2022.
There is never such thing as an overnight success as many wrongly believe. What we have is the manifestation of yesterday’s work in today’s reality. I became a chartered accountant for example by spending countless hours learning accounting 101 before I then moved into more advanced concepts.
I worked for all the money you see me collect today yesterday was my response to a teenager who approached me for tips on how to make quick money as an accountant.
You will by now be wondering why I started this post with a quote that many may consider cryptic especially coming from a reserved accountant like me. In this article, I will be sharing the facts of the conversation I had with this young teenager recently (true identity withheld).
The main purpose of this short article is to provide some sort of motivation and guidance to the teeming number of youths that are crazily buying into the idea that money can be made overnight by simply slipping a magic wand.
For the purpose of putting a name to this teenager, lets just call him ‘Seeker’. I took a break from my regular 9-5 job and was spending some quality time off with my family on a private beach in Elegushi area of Lagos when this young man (who we will call seeker in this post) approached me a politely asked to speak with me in private.
He said that he has been observing me for the past 4 days how I bring my family to the beach to have some moments of relaxation and he couldn’t help but wonder how I managed to accumulate enough to lavish on the private beach (not that I am super rich but I packaged myself well).
I immediately seized the opportunity to do what I do best – save a soul. Below are Six (6) headings that carefully summarizes all that I discussed with him. I hope you enjoy reading it as your bet time reading.
Seven life changing motivational nuggets for the youths
- Motivational nugget One (1) – Hard word still pays: it appears that the younger generation popularly referred to as the generation y now believe that hard work doesn’t pay anymore. Seeker, in our conversation believed that all that he needed was a single stroke of luck. He said that ‘if hard work is truly the key to success, why then do we have poor menial job workers all over town?’ I managed to convince him into once again believing that hard work truly pays. That he just needed to make sure that he is not misdirecting his energy. No offence to the menial workers all over the world, but many people in this category are people who misused their opportunity to better life and then ended up accepting whatever life throws at them. I agreed to be Seekers’ business coach for the next 2 years.
- Motivational nugget Two (2) – Delayed gratification yields better lasting dividends than instant gratification: irrespective of whatever any instant gratification campaigner is telling you, delayed gratification was and is still the best policy. A lot of what I called ‘the future inventions’ have been truncated short at the altar of immediate or instant gratification. How many more Seekers do we still have out there that are busy wasting their lives in pursuit of immediate results?
- Motivational nugget Three (3) – Results accumulates first before manifesting: myself and Seeker managed to come a conclusion that ‘result is cumulative’. Little wins today act as a building block for bigger wins tomorrow. Just keep on accumulating the simple wins for greater manifestations.
- Motivational nugget Four (4) – Building wealth is something more than a marathon: lasting wealth creation activities are something more than marathon race. It is more than a marathon simply because it does not end. We keep laying the building blocks one at a time. The good thing about wealth creation exercise being more than a marathon is the fact that it does not make one get exhausted, you do it at your pace without competing with anyone. Just remember that you are only in competition with yourself.
- Motivational nugget Five (5) – Education comes in different forms: learning opportunities are not exclusively reserved for schools as many would wrongly think. Education comes in different shapes and forms. Make sure are taking opportunity of the endless medium of learning that we now have at our disposal.
- Motivational nugget Six (6) – Every little investment is like a seed planted on a fertile land: one good thing about investment is that when done correctly promises to grow into something big. The problem is that very many people do all sorts of things all in the name of making investment. Start taking those baby steps investment for a bountiful future.
- Motivational nugget Seven (7)- It’s not always as simple as it appears: there is an African proverb that says ‘someone that struggles to jump a fence always claim to have done so without touching it’. The wisdom in this proverb is that we should not always take things that people say verbatim. People being people will always sugarcoat their journey to success.
Please kindly share this with your youthful audience as you never can tell how many young minds you will be helping to mold by so doing.
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