By Okechukwu Onwuka
How often have people, including friends and family members discouraged you from achieving your goals in
business, career or social life? Have you ever had to deal with being evaluated as incompetent or incapable of one goal or another? If your answer is yes, I can assure you that you are not alone nor is your experience peculiar.

At one time or the other in our lives we face situations that can be very daunting. Because uncertainty regarding the future is what everyone has to deal with, it is inevitable that our own hearts can sometimes tell us that the challenge before us is beyond our ability. When you add this self doubt to the criticism of the public, the difficulty multiplies.

If close relatives and friends join the doubting or critical group, our morale can take a serious beating! In business, your competitors may not even take notice of you or bother to take any steps to manage your presence in the market place. Whatever the situation, in business or personal life, critics take their position on your objective because of one major reason: their assessment of your capabilities in relation to the task or objective. Usually, the task is deemed to be way higher than your known or demonstrated abilities, knowledge or expertise can handle. 20 years ago, if Barrack Obama told his friends he’ll become the president of the United States of America someday, many of them will be convinced he said it under the influence of hard drugs.

It doesn’t matter what your position is on such matters, the simple truth is that men will always judge others based on known history or performance. In other words, if you do not have an impressive history or background to back up or match your ambition or goals, do not expect people to support your project or ambition easily. You will take exactly the same position when evaluating others. If you want to prove your critics wrong, you must have a secret weapon.

There must be something you know that they do not know. And it is not important that you convince people verbally to buy into your goal or project. As long as you and your team are convinced, stop wasting time trying to convince others. Set about your task with all you have. Always remember action speaks louder than words.

If your history is poor and all you have as weapon regarding your goal is hope and positive confessions, you are heading for repeated failure. Real weapons for proving critics wrong are those strengths, experiences and skills you have developed and tested successfully in previous battles that the critics or competition are not aware of. Before David asked to be given the opportunity to face Goliath, (the Philistine giant), he had already killed a Lion and a Bear; a rare feat for a youth.

David, after these significant victories knew that in battles and attack, he had supernatural support which he has seen a number of times in action but King Saul and others did not know this. If as an athlete, you have recorded a time of 9seconds or less repeatedly in private training sessions and your goal is to beat Usain Bolt (current 100m world record holder on 9.58 seconds), even though many will laugh at your ambition, you are more likely to silence your critics when the opportunity comes.

In Nigeria, we appear to have more of positive confessions and vain hope without matching competitive knowledge, ability, expertise and will. This piece continues next week.

The Paradox of Gold and the illusions of success (3)
Last week we should have concluded this piece which started two weeks ago but I paid the price for submitting my article late. Serves me right though. We conclude with further practical illustrations.

Misconception on Talent. It is not uncommon to hear people say that are not talented. Or that their talents are not the great ones. The reality is that we are all born with one gift or another. If you think your talent is small or tiny, consider that the amount of gold in gold ore is very tiny and insignificant. But through steady refinement, treatment and polishing, it becomes the king of metals

In the same way, despise not your talents or abilities. Allow yourself to go through the rigors of development and you’ll be amazed at what your ‘small’ talent will do for you. Some years back, football talent in Nigeria was considered a waste.

Today, footballers are multimillionaires. If you despise your talent, no one else will appreciate or nurture it for you. In the early years, try your hands on as many things as you can. You never know what you are good at until you tried it out. Over time, you start to recognize your golden touch.

Pursue further development with a vision to being the best. The higher your goal, the more refinement you’ll submit to. I have no business encouraging people to be average because shooting for average has a high risk of resulting in failure. Shooting for the very best increases your chances of true success. You may not become 24 Karat Gold, but 18 Karat gold is better than rusted iron.

Realilty Check. Opportunities and luck are the same. They do not often appear like opportunities. They easily come disguised as hardship, struggle, challenge, difficulty and may sometimes be hidden in tragedies.

The ability to recognize them this way may never be common knowledge. Many who pay millions for refined gold will throw away a field of gold deposits because of lack of knowledge. The few who know will continue to apply the wisdom and sell their finished products or services at the high price that the impatient are willing to pay.