Lessons from the Acres of Diamonds

 “Acres of Diamonds” is a lecture by Russell H. Conwell, which he delivered no fewer than 6,000 times1. The theme of the lecture was that opportunity lurks in everyone’s backyard. Everyone, Conwell believed, can and ought to get rich and then use that money for the good of others. The lecture has been published as a book and is available on Project Gutenberg for free.

The Turning Point: How a Mother's Faith Changed the Course of History

 A true story of the power of belief

One day a mentally troubled child came home and gave a letter to his mother. 

He told her, 

“My teacher gave this letter to me and told me to only give it to my mother.”

Reading through the letter, the mother could not believe her eyes. 

Gradually her eyes filled with tears.

"Mum is there a problem?

Did I do something wrong in school" The boy asked.

Finding Happiness

A group of 50 people attended a seminar. Suddenly the speaker stopped and started giving each person a Balloon. Each one was asked to write his/her name on it using a marker.
Then all the Balloons were collected and put in another room. Now these Delegates were let into that room and asked to find the balloon which had their respective names written on within 5 minutes. Everyone was frantically searching for their names, pushing and colliding with each other, and there was utter Chaos. At the end of 5 minutes, No One could find their own Balloons.

Success and Commitment

Success is not for just the interested, but for the committed. The interested works only when the time is convenient, the committed makes all the time convenient. The interested accepts excuses, the committed accepts results.

You can't conquer in what you are not committed in. Commitment precedes success; even in the dictionary. Stay committed, even though it hurts. Success blesses those who pay attention to its move.

Father to Son lesson on Asset vs Liability

This conversation ensued between a dad and his son:

Son:  Dad, may I speak with you?
Dad: Go ahead.
Son: Among all my classmates, I am the only one without a car. It is embarrassing.
Dad: What do you want me to do?
Son: I need a car. I don't want to feel odd.
Dad: Do you have a particular car in mind?
Son: Yes dad (smiling)
Dad: How much?
Son:$2000
Dad: I will give you the money on one condition.
Son: What is the condition?
Dad: You will not use the money to buy a car but invest it. If you make enough profit from the investment, you can go ahead and buy the car.
Son: Deal.

36 WORDS OF ELDERS

1) "Never fight a man under GRACE, because the GRACE he carries will DISGRACE you!"

2) "No African girl will choose Six packs over six Cars.. So my sons stop the gym and work hard!"

 3) "Beware of the naked man who offers you clothes!"

 4) “The death of a lion cannot be announced by a goat”.

5) “When one’s goat get missing, the aroma of a neighbor’s soup get suspicious”.

WHAT IS SUCCESS?

At the age of 4 years ... Success is.....
That you do not urinate in your pants,

At the age of 8 years ... Success is.....
To know the way back home.

BEAUTIFUL TEN LINES TO START YOU THINKING

READ and TRY  to UNDERSTAND the DEEPER MEANING of THEM.

📎 1). PRAYER is not a "spare wheel" that YOU PULL OUT when IN trouble, but it is a "STEERING WHEEL" that DIRECT the RIGHT PATH THROUGHOUT LIFE.

📎2). Why is a CAR'S WINDSHIELD so LARGE & the REAR VIEW MIRROR so small? BECAUSE our PAST is NOT as IMPORTANT as OUR FUTURE. So, LOOK AHEAD and MOVE ON.

📎3). FRIENDSHIP is like a BOOK. It takes a FEW SECONDS to BURN, but it TAKES YEARS to WRITE.

MY OGA!

By Dike Chukwumerije

I am an elite. But not elitist. These are two different things. For, you see, my name is Dike Chukwumerije. And so long as I can remember every time I say this the likely response is, ‘Oh. Are you related to…?’ And depending on the person’s views on the Biafran War, June 12, and the politics of the 6th and 7th National Assembly, would thereafter become the instant recipient of respect or loathing.  But I have always been deeply aware of myself, and the fact that there are things I may inherit from my father, and things I may not. Do you understand?

Alibaba Founder (Jack Ma) Speech to his Employees in 1999

In 1999, Alibaba's CEO Told Employees 2 Things They Needed To Do To Be Successful: Beat Americans And Work Longer Hours

Alibaba went public on Friday. Its founder, Jack Ma, initially wanted to take the company public in 2002, but he knew the internet would burst. 

In 1999, he sat down with his team in his apartment and spoke about what the company would need to do in the next five to 10 years to become a massive business. 

There were two key takeaways:

1. Alibaba needed to beat Americans, in particularly Silicon Valley, and learn their hard work ethic.
2. Alibaba employees needed to out-innovate competitors and put in longer days than everyone else. Ma told his employees than an 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. day would not cut it.

Here's the full speech he gave in 1999,

The Africa-Bata Shoe Story

One of the most famous motivational stories on the entrepreneurial circuit is that of the shoe salesmen from competing companies who are sent to a Africa to assess the market for shoes. Read about it:

At the end of the nineteenth century, just as colonial Africa was opening up as a market, two competing shoe manufacturers in Victorian England sent their representatives to Africa to see if there might be an opportunity there for their wares.

Salesman One scouts around for a few days and then heads for the telegraph office to contact company headquarters.  He writes:  "Research complete.  Unmitigated disaster.  Nobody here wears shoes."

Amazing Lesson from the life of Colonel Sanders

At age five, his Father died

At age 16, he quit school

At age 17 he had already lost four jobs

Between 18 and 22, he was a railroad conductor and failed.

He joined the army and washed out there.

He applied for law school but was rejected.

He became an insurance sales man and failed again.

At age 19 he became a father

It All Depends on Whose Hands It's In

By Paul Ciniraj

A basketball in my hands is worth about $19.
A basketball in Michael Jordan's hands is worth about $33 million.
It depends on whose hands it's in...
 
A baseball in my hands is worth about $6.
A baseball in Mark McGuire's hands is worth $19 million.
It depends on whose hands it's in...

SHAKING OFF ADVERSITY

A parable is told of a farmer who owned an old mule. The mule fell into the farmer's well. The farmer heard the mule "braying" or whatever mules do when they fall into wells.

After carefully assessing the situation, the farmer sympathized with the mule, but decided that neither the mule nor the well was worth the trouble of saving. Instead, he called his neighbors together and told them what had happened... and enlisted them to help haul dirt to bury the old mule in the well and put him out of his misery.

Profound Statements that will Shape your thinking Aright

Compiled by Marc Chernoff


Our lives are shaped by what we think about in our quiet moments. According to the Bible, 

"Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report;if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. " Phil 4:8

 I wish to share with you some profound statements that will help you shape your thinking aright. 

Nigeria exports religion, India exports cars

BY AZUKA ONWUKA

The biggest country in Africa that the United Kingdom colonised is Nigeria. The biggest country that the United Kingdom colonised in Asia is India (which then comprised the present Pakistan and Bangladesh).

When the UK came into Nigeria and India, like all other countries they colonised, they brought along their technology, religion (Christianity), and culture: names, dressing, food, and language, among others. Try as hard as the British did, India rejected the British religion, names, dressing, food, and even language, but they did not reject the British technology. Today, 80.5 per cent of Indians are Hindus; 13.4 per cent Muslims; 2.3 per cent Christians; 1.9 per cent Sikhs; 0.8 per cent Buddhists, among others. Hindi is the official language of the government of India, but English is used extensively in business and administration and has the status of a “subsidiary official language.” Interestingly, it is rare to find an Indian with an English name or dressed in suit.

If Bill Gates Were Black...By John Hope Bryant

If Bill Gates were black, it would be less important that President Barack Obama is black. This is no slight to President Obama. It is an acknowledgment that while the route to success has changed, for too many in the black and minority community, their game plan has not.

For much of the past century, African Americans pursued social justice through government intervention, the ballot box, and ultimately elective office. While the number of black mayors and elected officials in this country is impressive, the number of black entrepreneurs is not. As a result, job creation in underserved communities, and among the black middle class, is stagnant.

Abraham Lincoln's Letter To His Son’s Teacher

“My son starts school today. It is all going to be strange and new to him for a while and I wish you would treat him gently. It is an adventure that might take him across continents. All adventures that probably include wars, tragedy and sorrow. To live this life will require faith, love and courage.

So dear Teacher, will you please take him by his hand and teach him things he will have to know, teaching him - but gently, if you can. Teach him that for every enemy, there is a friend. He will have to know that all men are not just, that all men are not true. But teach him also that for every scoundrel there is a hero, that for every crooked politician, there is a dedicated leader.

Teach him if you can that 10 cents earned is of far more value than a dollar found. In school, teacher, it is far more honorable to fail than to cheat. Teach him to learn how to gracefully lose, and enjoy winning when he does win.

Blacks are an Inferior Race - P.W. Botha

THE FOLLOWING is a speech made by former South African President P.W. Botha to his Cabinet. This reprint was written by David G. Mailu for the Sunday Times, a South African newspaper, dated August 18, 1985.  What do you think?

Meanwhile, this post is not to propagate racial hatred but to force every black man to think deeply and have a mind renewal (Mental Revolution)

The SPEECH

P. W. Botha

"Pretoria has been made by the White mind for the White man. We are not obliged even the least to try to prove to anybody and to the Blacks that we are superior people. We have demonstrated that to the Blacks in a thousand and one ways. The Republic of South Africa that we know of today has not been created by wishful thinking. We have created it at the expense of intelligence, sweat and blood. Were they Afrikaners who tried to eliminate the Australian Aborigines? Are they Afrikaners who discriminate against Blacks and call them Niggers in the States? Were they Afrikaners who started the slave trade? Where is the Black man appreciated? England discriminates against its Black and their "Sus" law is out to discipline the Blacks. Canada, France, Russia, and Japan all play their discrimination too. Why in the hell then is so much noise made about us? Why are they biased against us? I am simply trying to prove to you all that there is nothing unusual we are doing that the so called civilized worlds are not doing. We are simply an honest people who have come out aloud with a clear philosophy of how we want to live our own White life.

Oil Tanks Exhausted, Think Tanks Needed By Philip Emeagwali

I am particularly honored to share this topic with the World on Philip Emeagwali's 60th birthday today because I suggested this topic to him few years ago when he asked a question on Facebook. He acknowledged it here. So let's all join to celebrate one of our greatest scientist at 60 with this message he has for Nigeria.

Oil Tanks Exhausted, Think Tanks Needed

Emeagwali's photo taken in 1973 for
his passport to travel to the US for
the first time.He was only 19

 The man with wisdom is a shining torch that sheds light in our darkness and guides us out of our ignorance. I am often asked: "How do we build a stronger Nigeria through technological innovation?"

I came across the answer in 1963 sitting on the verandah of our house along Gbenoba Road, Agbor, Midwest Region. I was silently reciting a quotation on the masthead of the newspaper called the West African Pilot. It read:

“Show the light and the people will find the way.”

Because I was nine years old, I did not understand the deep meaning of those wise words. I now understand “the light” as a metaphor for knowledge, and “showing the light” to mean increasing the intellectual capital, the sum of human knowledge possessed by 6.6 billion men, women, and children. We find "the way" when we've brought to fruition our dream of eradicating poverty, discovering the cure for AIDS, and inventing the internet for email communication.

A long time ago, a man asked his children,

“If you had a choice between the clay of wisdom or a bag of gold, which would you choose?”

“The bag of gold, the bag of gold,” the naïve children cried, not realizing that wisdom had the potential to earn them many more bags of gold in the future. The wealth of the future will be derived from developing the intellectual capital—the clay of wisdom—and the innovations of the younger generation to make Nigeria stronger.

Should Nigeria migrate from oil to soil, as is often suggested. I think not. It should leapfrog into the Information Age. Nigeria cannot return to an agricultural age because the West is being urbanized, the East is being eroded, and the North is being desertified. A Nigeria without oil must make the transition to a knowledge-based economy.

Nollywood can redefine 21st century Africa as the continent of arts and innovation. If Nigerians have an average of three children per couple, it will become the world's third most populous nation in 50 years. It will lag behind China and India, but will have a greater population density. Where will we find farmland? My grandfather's farmland was located where Onitsha market now lies. For countless centuries, my Igbo ancestors were farmers. Sons walked in their father's footsteps, ploughing the same land. Their life expectancy was about 37 years.

Daughters married early, had as many children as they could, and became young widows. My mother married days after her 14th birthday and gave birth to me six days after her 15th birthday. She was born in colonial Africa, where she counted her age on her fingers and toes and by her age-grade affiliation.

Yet she had a son who could count the ages of humanity on his supercomputer, which occupies the space of four tennis courts. Her son's supercomputer computes and communicates as an internet and sends and receives answers via e-mails to and from 65,000 sub computers. My father and I, followed by my son, broke the tradition of walking in our ancestors' footsteps. My father was a nurse, and my son and I are computer scientists. All three of us abandoned the soil to work in knowledge-based industries.

Philip Emeagwali standing outside
the student union building showing
off the new trousers and shoes
 he had just purchased in
Monmouth to replace the cotton
 trousers and sandals he had
bought in the Onitsha market.