The Power of No

Written by Uyoyou Christiana Charles-Iyoha

The word NO is one of the most empowering words that you need to use sometimes if not most times. Saying NO may not make you a people person but the truth is that you were not divinely designed to be a people person and people pleaser. God designed you to please Him so that in pleasing Him, you become a blessing to the people He designed you to bless other people. 

Saying NO TO WHAT IS NOT PRIORITY, does not have eternal value empowers you to focus on what is priority and focusing on what is priority empowers you to accomplish God’s divine objectives for you. It also empowers you to quit the vicious circular dance referred to as busyness or what I dare to call the rat race of life which keeps you eternally engaged in fruitless and unprofitable activities that lead you nowhere. Apart from the fact that such activities are fruitless and unprofitable, they drain you spiritually, physically, mentally, financially; and sometimes impact your most prized relationships such as the relationships between you and God; you and your family negatively. Scrutinize such activities thoroughly to determine whether they are divinely ordained for you otherwise you delegate them to someone else who is divinely assigned to carry them out, that is if they have eternal values. But for those activities which are bereft of eternal values and tantamount to fruitless and unprofitable activities, a sheer waste of God’s rich deposit of time and talents as well as expertise in your life, beloved, the sensible thing to do is to thrash them in the bin where they belong. This frees up quality time for you to focus on what is priority so that you can allocate prime time, attention and resources to what is priority. 

Saying No to what is not priority also gives you speed. This is because as you focus on what is priority and give priority prime attention, your efforts translate into accomplishments. 

Saying No to what is not priority also gives you favor before God and humans. Why and how? You are focused on divine tasks and focus on divine tasks gives favor before God Who assigned you the tasks and Who will also instruct your fellow human beings to favor you. Esther focused on the divine task of representing the Jews before King Ahasuerus. God gave her favor before the King and the Jews were spared annihilation. Please read the book of Esther for details. Joseph enjoyed uncommon favor from Potiphar, the Keeper of the prison, Pharaoh and his court because he focused on divine tasks. When he was focusing on non divine tasks in his homeland, he attracted envy and hatred which fortunately took him to the place of divine tasks, albeit in what you may refer to as negative circumstances. But the positive outcome of those supposedly negative circumstances was great. Please read Genesis Chapters 40 to 41.

Invest in People

Written by Uyoyou Christiana Charles-Iyoha

The strength of a family, a Church, institutions, communities and nations are the people numbered with and committed to the family, Church, institutions, communities or nations. While brick and mortar as well as other resources matter, what really holds families,, institutions and nations together are the people. Therefore, primary investment should be in the people. Families, institutions and nations, who know and apply this supposedly secret; which indeed is an open secret are in the forefront of development and prosperity globally.  

The late Sam Walton invested in people thereby birthing the ever faithful missionary customers of Walmart, the dedicated staff of Walmart as well as the suppliers of commodities. Sam loved people and made it a point to always invest in people. The result was that people shopped at Walmart; the staff of Walmart enjoy working at Walmart and giving customers the most unique but satisfying customer experience. Suppliers also enjoy supplying or distributing their goods to Walmart. Why? They loved and appreciated Sam’s concern and love for people. Sam enjoyed making people happy and it is no surprise that people made him happy and are still making him happy several years after his exit from planet earth.

People matter to God and anyone who puts people ahead of personal desires and profits is a friend of god. God demonstrated His love for people by sacrificing His only Son for the salvation and redemption of humanity, so that humanity can be free of satanic slavery and entrapments. God’s love for humanity governed the decision to give Christ for the world. Please see John Chapter 3 verse 16. In like manner, a person’s love for people and the desire to add value to the lives of people; to give people a better and richer experience on planet earth should greatly inform the quality of services rendered to humanity; the quality of products produced for people in addition to the way we handle the earth and the resources God blessed the earth with.

Push the Boundaries of Excellence 2

Written by Uyoyou Christiana Charles-Iyoha

I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, [which] shall never hold their peace day nor night: ye that make mention of the LORD, keep not silence,  And give him no rest, till he establish, and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth.Isaiah Chapter 62 verses 6 to 7.

You can be a praise in the earth. Therefore, do not give God rest; do not give yourself rest until you become a praise in the earth by the Spirit of God and the doing of the Lord. You can do this through the prayer of importunity as instructed by Jesus Christ in Luke Chapter 18 verses to 8, 1st Thessalonians Chapter 5 verse 17, Romans Chapter 12 verse 12. As you do so, God in His infinite mercy will give you the knowledge, understanding and wisdom that you require to always push the boundaries of excellence.

The multitudes sought and followed Jesus of their own volition. No one was compelled or coerced to do so. Please see Luke Chapters 8 verse 4, 9 verses 10 to 11. The question to ask is why did the people come from their cities, towns, villages and houses to seek Jesus even when Jesus severally sought anonymity and privacy by taking off to deserted places? The simple answer is that a city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Jesus had something of great value to offer them therefore like a city set on a hill, He could not be hidden regardless of where He was. The people took time and trouble to seek Him in order to be blessed by Him. 

Are you a city set on a hill? If yes, what blessings are you offering to people? Do your products and services bless humanity? Do you give counsel that brings about transformation in the lives of people? Do you speak words of wisdom or you consistently utter folly, wickedness, bitterness and resentment? Do your words and actions bring healing and health, encouragement, life, transformation and even inspire faith to people so that when people spend time with you and leave you; they are happy and fulfilled? Do your words and actions help people find their bearing in life so that when people spend time with you, they can take quality decisions which put them on the right track in life? The Bible records that the tongue of the wise promotes health (Proverbs Chapter 12 verse 18); uses knowledge rightly and the lips of the wise disperse knowledge (Proverbs Chapter 15 verses 2, 7) which explains why the Bible records that a wholesome tongue is a tree of life. 

Push the Boundaries of Excellence

 Written by Uyoyou Christiana Charles-Iyoha

God rewards excellent work that is done diligently with the help of the Holy Spirit. This is to say that excellent work is a function of working closely with the Holy Spirit as some Biblical examples like Joseph, Daniel, Nehemiah, Bezalel and Oholiab as well as many others testify. 

Excellence is a culture of consistent quality that is devoid of haste whether in thought, speech and actions. People who operate under a culture of excellence are not hasty. They are diligent, thorough, knowledgeable, analytical, careful, patient, dependent on God and strive above everything else to please God and not anyone. Please see Ephesians Chapter 6 verses 5 to 9.

The boundaries of excellence are elastic. They can be stretched to as far as God wants them stretched. That is to say that they have the capacity to bring God’s best out of you, unleash your potentials, latent and active to the best use they can be put to. That is why an excellent minded person continuously stretches the borders of excellence; always improving on what has been done, continuously evolving. The late Sam Walton was always coming up with new and great ideas about making Walmart great. 

Excellence speaks loudly through the quality of the finish, the quality of materials used, the close attention paid to details, the cut and design, and what have you. Excellence does not do things just for the sake of doing things; does not render service for the sake of rendering service but to bring out improvements, enhance the quality of lives of people, build to improve on what had been done before on products and services. 

Birth the Divine Ideas

Written by Uyoyou Christiana Charles-Iyoha

Divine ideas are ideas given to you by God to bless humanity with; either as products or services which add value to the lives of people in order to enhance the quality of lives that they lead and live. Additionally divine ideas help you to excel above your peers, propel you into relevance, wealth and honor but that really is not the primary objective of divine ideas. The primary objective of divine ideas is to enhance the quality of lives of peoples and the nations; to bring about positive transformation. Joseph for instance was blessed with the divine of providing the solution to mitigating the impending famine which threatened not only Egypt but the nations around Egypt. Joseph’s divine idea staved off the famine and many lives were saved. That same idea birthed the culture of saving from surplus harvests, building up storage facilities to house the surplus harvest as well as developing techniques to preserve the surplus produce from rot. Additionally, the divine idea of Joseph also created employment opportunities for many people such as the people who built and maintained the storage facilities; people who transported the harvested produce from the farms to the storage facilities, people who treated the harvested produce for preservation, people who sold and managed the books as well as other jobs that were created.

A single divine idea from Joseph, a former slave and prisoner transformed the economy of Egypt; ensured food security globally so to speak and gave Joseph honor, power and affluence. A single divine idea gave rise to economic boom in Egypt and Egypt became the food basket of the world, earning income from several nations who bought food from Egypt. This means that an idea can be turned into a big business, a business that transcends you to create jobs and wealth for many people. Beloved, what is or are your divine ideas? What has been deposited in your heart to transform the peoples and nations of the world that you are unable to unearth; or possibly cannot unearth because your mental processes are cluttered with what should not be there. All that clutter is crowding out, obscuring real wealth and blessings to humanity. Have you ever taken off time to identify them and process them so that you can be a blessing to humanity and in the process attract wealth, fame and honor to yourself?

You are endowed and blessed with great ideas that will richly bless and transform humanity. In addition the ideas are divinely designed to propel you to the realm of limitless overflowing abundance. However, you need the Holy Spirit to help you unlock and implement the ideas. How willing are you o spend quality time with the Holy Spirit so you can hear Him clearly, ask the pertinent questions like Mary the mother of Jesus Christ did, get the  right understanding and divine partners to work with so that you can hit the ground running? Is the Holy Spirit dear to you and is His presence more important to you than all the voices and seeming attractions beckoning to you? Is the Holy Spirit your final authority? Then create room and time for the Holy Spirit. Do not crowd Him out of your thoughts, emotions, time, relationships and activities.

Reorganize Your way to Wealth

 Written by Uyoyou Christiana Charles-Iyoha

Reorganize your schedules – schedule times for quality fellowship with God, daily prayers, Bible reading and study, fasting, praise and worship. Also create time for additional study on your industry to broaden your knowledge base as well as access network and collaboration opportunities. Also, schedule quality time in enabling business environments to meet with business associates to network, exchange ideas and even take decisions to partner with them. These are not things you jump out of bed to do. You organize your schedule such activities so that your schedule is not haphazard but proactive, meetings with people and activities are scheduled to achieve divine purposes because they are planned and therefore outcomes are expected.

Value and Respect Time

What you do with the time allocated to you on a daily basis, whether by investing it or frittering it speaks volumes. Time invested translates to success, wealth, fame, honor, accomplishment of divine purpose while time frittered unfortunately leads to poverty, shame, dishonor and humiliation. The sad story of the young man devoid of understanding Proverbs Chapter 24 is more than enough instruction in the wise management of time. Blessed with a beautiful vineyard to manage, the young man opted to fritter time and left the vineyard to decay. If he had any value of time and respected time, he would have known that time lost is hardly ever recouped and significantly the consequences are dire. If you respect time, and invest time like the Biblical Joseph and the many historical and contemporary success stories the world parades, your name will also make that list. Significantly, you will become a positive reference point to many generations simply because you valued time, respected time and invested time. May God in His infinite wisdom give you the grace to value and respect time. Ironically, time is freely given by God to everyone and significantly in equal amounts. So it is what you do with your own share of time that makes the difference.

Reorganize Your Wardrobe

Clothes either open or close doors. Your appearance should therefore open the right doors for you; that is grant you unrestricted access to the right business partners, business organizations and relationships. The onus then is on you to decide whether your wardrobe will open the right doors for you or not. Take time to observe and note the dress code and ethic for your industry and constituency before investing in a wardrobe that will open the right doors for you.