MORE LESSONS: SUCCESS IS PERSPECTIVE

Hello and welcome, my prayer is that this post meets you well. 

A lot has happened all around the world since the last post, and we are more and more aware that the life we have today is a privilege and should be treated as such.

On the last post, I talked about leveraging your past successes for your future endeavours.  Today, I will want us to take a look at what success means to us individually.  I can appreciate that to a great number of people, success has somehow become synonymous with financial empowerment.  While, I agree that financial abundance is an aspect of success, there are still a lot of people out there who have so much money yet don’t have peace and when you get to talk to them, you discover that what they will deem as success is if they can find peace in their lives.

My point is that success is both objective and relative. What one man may term as success often times differs from the other.  This therefore becomes a perspective issue; it becomes more about what is important to you than what is universally acceptable.

Leading up to the ROTH conference, we had a lot of people ask us questions mostly on what we wanted to achieve with ROTH, and what the picture of success looks like to us.  From the very first edition of ROTH it had been clear that the conference wasn’t about making financial gain, it was about giving of ourselves to others.

ROTH therefore, is that time set aside to bring people together to allow them see what living a dream can be like and give them hope that if we have been able to come this far, then they definitely will be able to go as far as they dream.

Why it has been easy for us these past years not to have made it about money, was and still is the conviction that if we can act as a channel or conduit pipe, we will be able to find others who believe in our vision and are willing to partner with us to make the event happen.  And we want to say thank you to all who partnered with us this year.  God bless you!

Now to your dream, how will this apply?  Simple; do not let others dictate for you what success should look like.  Let your idea of success be derived from what your core value is.  If what your dream is about is about making some major financial break and you are convinced that is the way your dream should go, then by all means work towards that.  If it is not about money, don’t be afraid to say so and stand by what you say.

The truth is you will not be able to satisfy anyone as per whether they think you have succeeded with living your dream or not, because they are bound to see it from the angle of their core values.

Success is simply PERSPECTIVE, what is success to one is not what the other thinks is success and that doesn’t make anyone opinion wrong, just different.

So, if you ask again, was ROTH a success?  Our answer will be a resounding YES!  If you ask us did we make money?  We will say No, but it is all good, because we didn’t set out to make money in the first place, we set out to add value because that is the core of what we believe.

So let me ask you; Are you successful?

Sistar B

LESSONS FROM ROTH: Leverage.

 “Give me a lever long enough and strong enough and I can move the earth.”

Archimedes

Hello people, trust your weekend went well. Thanks for all the responses we have received on this page. God bless you immensely.

We are still looking at lessons from ROTH as they relate to living our dreams. Let's look at the word Leverage.  I find that we all usually have different facets of one dream that keeps birthing new branches as long as we continue to work the dream.  Usually the first step in working a dream, even though successful, is not what translates to the fame and fortune and in our case the impact that we crave and desire. 

Every dream has a foundational or launch pad facet. The way to go is to find that which comes easiest to you, costs less (sometimes) and you are able to do excellently well. In our case, Effectual Magazine was the leveraging tool. It was because we were able to churn out edition after edition of great content and layout in the magazine enough to dredge up a followership that ROTH was a success. 

People will be influenced by you and will stop to listen if you have some track record to show what you are able to deliver. 

That Coach Anna came for ROTH was God ordained yes, but if I had nothing to prove my credibility she probably would not have considered coming. And as brilliant as my Coach is, it was her discipline in writing the book Woman Act Now, that acted as leverage for us to connect, which made ROTH 2011 a success!

Every one of us has a dream and we will have to work this dream more behind the scenes in the beginning, but if you will diligently ensure that you continue to push this stage with excellence, it will be the leverage you require to move to the next phase of success.

One of the dictionary definitions of leverage is "the use of credit to enhance one's speculative capacity." Those who came for ROTH either came on the credit bill of Effectual or Woman Act Now, the book.

For your dream to graduate to the stage of making a difference to more people, you will first require the credit or leverage of past success. In other words, show what you have done so we will buy into your dream!

I know you will make it! Begin now because all you will do behind the scenes, where no one sees you, will count for your next phase. Leverage is a great key!

You will make it NeverTheLess; I promise.

Hugs

Sistar B 

Lessons from ROTH: We all are and need Midwives

                                           

Welcome to Nevertheless, where we keep hope and faith that as long as we have a dream we will make it, if we continue to forge ahead irrespective of the peculiarity of our situations.  I am still posting on lessons from ROTH 2011.

Today I want to look at the fact that no destiny or dream can happen alone, there are usually a lot of people and situations who will help us into our place of assignment and keep us there.

In the weeks that led up to the event, I know for sure that somehow, even though it was one of the bravest things I had done in my entire life, I can also tell that somehow, I knew that it was all going to come to pass according to plan, not because of the muscle I had but because of the people who surrounded me this time.

Beginning from my husband Mark, who could have told me my dream was beyond reach but didn’t; instead he stood with me and kept me going by the sacrifices he had to make and most especially his ability to keep praying even when I couldn’t pray anymore.

To my sistas, Audrey, Enife, Ini, Nneka and Inyang, who all took up arms and stood watch with me.  For over a week the event became some of these special ladies’ Blackberry Messenger Display Photo, and they kept praying even when I couldn’t pray.  They kept calling to check on me and even gave of their substance.  But most importantly, they were only a telephone call away… some even had to move into the Conference venue to ensure that everything went smoothly.

Then of course to the best staff in the whole wide world.  They had never been through this event with me before, but they pulled their weight.  Everything that should be done in and around the office leading to the event was done and I didn’t have to scurry at the last minute.  Every thing was thought of and dealt with.  Numa, the peacemaker, Remi, my backbone, Charles always gets it done, Enyiekan, intentionally loyal, Blessing, not afraid to stretch and Beatrice who heard about a dream and enlisted.  Every one of these wonderful people held their own, and was not afraid to contribute their quota.

How can these all come together if I don’t speak about the two Kemis (who made themselves available beyond words) and Ebi who got on a plane to come and be a blessing?  Thank you ladies; you are midwives indeed.

Even though I stepped out, all these people had to have put their hands to the plow for ROTH to be a success.  They heard, observed and took action. They were diligent to set the time aside and simply take the time to move as we moved.  And the most fulfilling part is that they are all different in every regard yet they all bring something to the table!

In all these I realized that lofty, though my dreams are, I am nothing and can do nothing in birthing them, except I find someone willing to join forces with me.  And you know what; it is the same for you.  Whatever you will need to birth, though you are really so gifted, you cannot pull it off alone, it is just not given by God for us to achieve alone.

And that is why I round off this post by saying I am so sure you will make it, NeverTheLess.  Because no matter what you have to accomplish God will surround you with those who will midwife your dreams, and in that day, they will converge even as they did for me at ROTH.

You will make it NeverTheLess.

Hugs

Sistar B

LESSONS FROM ROTH: Dreams do come true!

Hello!  I took last week off blogging to try and catch my breath, because I really needed to.  I am back now and hopefully will not have any more breaks in transmission for a while. 

I wanted to take time to post some of the lessons I had learnt leading up to and during the Return of the Helper Conference.  This is in the hope that some of you out there will find something useful in these posts that will help you keep your dreams alive irrespective of your situation or circumstances.

My first lesson is that dreams do come true!  Now, please note that I said dreams do come true, not wishes.  During the conference, someone had given me a t-shirt to give to Coach Anna as a gift and the shirt had the inscription; “Dreams only become reality when awake!”  As the conference kept coming together and things continued to happen to further enhance it’s importance, I realized that the only reason why all of this happened was because one day, a dream formed in my heart, and despite all the limitations around me, I chose to stay awake and keep my dreams alive.

I had a great number of reasons why my dream should have died, there were circumstances that screamed give up!  And to tell you the truth I came close to giving up most of the time, but there was a picture inside my heart and today I recognize it as what success can look like, and that was the reason I kept going.

To tell you another truth, money was a major challenge, and if you are working and walking a dream, this will resonate with you.  But I found that the best of business people and dreamers are those who are willing to take risks and who are creative in solving the challenges that they face.  You will be amazed how creative you can get if you allow your dream to keep living inside of your heart!

So I got creative and today, even though the challenges have metamorphosed into another phase, even the creativity has evolved too. 

The point of today’s post is that as long as you keep at your dreams, no matter how hard and unachievable they may seem, God is a rewarder and he will ensure that you do not labour in vain.  The first edition of ROTH was a great success by the standard of 2008, and the fourth edition was a major success again by the standard of 2011. 

The life of your dream will evolve if you stay at it and recognize that with each step you take, you are an inch closer to the reality of your dreams.

Keep dreaming.

Sistar B