Why Must You Read?

To understand the gravity of this question, let’s start with another question- Why must you eat? Though the answer may be obvious, but let’s dig deeper. You eat to get energy and nutrients. Energy and nutrients, for what? For work! Your body works day and night. It doesn’t stop working, even when you are sleeping. Every cell in your body is engaged in one metabolic activity or the other. So, this compels them to need energy. But, let’s go further. Why must your body work? To keep you alive. If your body doesn’t work, you won’t be alive. Okay, let’s go a little bit further. Why must you be alive? To add value to life; to be a blessing to the earth. Can we go further? Why must you be a blessing to the earth? To prevent the earth from deteriorating. To keep and protect it (as the first man, Adam was instructed). And to make the earth a lovely place. 

You originally came from heaven, and so you have all the traits of heaven. But when you came here on earth, you were brainwashed to believe that you are just as normal as other living creatures. Your contribution should just be normal - be for yourself, your family and your close friends. No reason to look at the world as a whole and see what value you can add to humanity or better still, deploy your gifts and manifest the reason why you were created. Back to our original question, Why must you read? I used food because it’s the closest illustration and allegory I could use. You read because you want to acquire knowledge. Many read because they want to acquire certificates. But that’s not enough. Such people have ridiculed the value of reading, wasting their time and energy. No wonder there are many graduates who are not educated, because they only acquire information to pass exams and not to become part of them that would allow them to add value to the world. 

When you read, you acquire knowledge, for what? Knowledge is food to your mind, just like normal food to your body. It provides your mind energy and nutrients. But make sure it’s good and relevant knowledge, otherwise it could be a poison to your mind, just like the way you eat wrong food, it becomes problem in your body. So, good knowledge supposed to nourish and energize your mind. And this is for what? For work! You’ve got to engage your mind and spirit to work. Many people think we only do physical work. They don’t know we also do mental and spiritual works. And as a matter of fact, both mental and spiritual works are more important by far than the physical work. The more mental and spiritual works you do, the less physical work you do. 

Let’s focus on mental work. Mental work is fully engaging your mind for maximum productivity. What do you do with your mind? To think or process thoughts. You essentially use your mind to think. What is thinking? Thinking is the process by which you put different data together in your mind to solve a problem. It is your ability to ask intelligent questions and find the right solutions. It is your ability to bring different thoughts in your mind together to form a wholesome truth, a workable idea or plan that engenders value or proffers solutions. When you do this, you do mental work. 

There are many problems in our world today that are waiting for solutions. Problems cannot be exhausted. As one is solved, another one is created. So, they don’t stop coming. And that’s good for our world. Because that’s what makes us valuable and useful on earth. Problems are burgers that intelligent minds feed on to make them shine. If you want to solve problem, you’ve got to engage your mind in thinking. You’ve got to take your time, do research for knowledge and energize your mind so that it can be strong enough to work. 

Lazy minds can’t do tough work because they lack knowledge. Needless to say, they are never productive and would never have result in life. Leaders are readers because they always want to expand their minds and do better in what they do. When you solve problems through mental work, you add value to the world. When you add value to the world, you bring heaven on earth, and fulfill your purpose and glorify your father in heaven. 

Just before I close, here’s another important thing that reading does to your mind. Reading enhances your creative imagination. When you read, you create pictures of what you read in your mind. That gradually exercise your brain muscle and you become more and more proficient with connecting and extrapolating information and facts, coupled with creating pictures and ideas in your mind. As time goes on, you become smarter and more intelligent and that would enhance your problem-solving skills and ideas-creating ability.

Why Agriculture?

Why Agriculture? What is the idea behind it? Does everyone need to practice it? First, let’s define what agriculture is. Agriculture is the science or practice of farming, including cultivation of the soil for the growing of crops and the rearing of animals for human or animal use. So, agriculture allows us to leverage on the law of nature. It allows us to multiply whatever we’ve farmed. 

Every one of us must cultivate the habit of practicing agriculture. Why? Because everyone of us eats. If you eat, you should know how what you eat is made. Agriculture gives you that opportunity. It was the first work that man started doing on earth after he was created. It was done by Cain and Abel. They practiced the two forms of agriculture- planting of crops and rearing of animals, respectively. 

Here are some benefits of practicing agriculture. First, there’s access to fresh, organic food. Second, there’s access to cheap food, because food is available and in abundance. Farming is not expensive, and it’s almost free because you leverage on the law of nature. You have the ability to control what you eat, when you eat and how you eat. That would also reduce the cost of buying food from the market, so the price would come down and more food would be available for few people who would want to buy from the market. 

Farming could be a good source of income if you have enough to sell. It would also allow you to stay healthy and live longer because you would bypass the process of transport and post-harvest storage that could have spoilt or contaminated the food. It would also encourage you to be more hard working and utilize the natural resources available such as sunlight and rainfall for your benefits. 

Next, farming offers you a good way to recycle all your food wastes and conserve your resources. For instance, food remnants and spoilt food can be taken by your poultry birds or other animals that you rear. Animals like cattle, sheep and goats can help you take care of the plants and weeds in your surroundings. Fish in your fish ponds can help you take care of fish gills and intestines that you remove from the fish that you grow or bought. Also, bio-fuel can be generated from woods and plants. Farming has a way of helping you to exercise and move your body. 

Plants and trees in your surroundings are good source of fresh air and healthy environment. They also prevent hazards caused by whirlwinds and tornadoes. There’s also less greenhouse effect and maintenance of good temperature within our earth. Juices, leaves, spices and herbs from plants and different parts of animals are a good source of medicine. You have access to health-promoting substances because of agriculture. There’s also less corruption and social menace in the society because more people would have access to food and feel less hungry and angry. That could also stabilize people’s emotions and foster more love among individuals. 

As the world population increases, we know one thing is certain- demand for food would also increase. And what would that mean? It would mean that we have to increase our food production. And that would be through farming. Right now, there’s increase in hunger level in some countries around the world and a lagging gap between what is produced and what is consumed. So, we must all rise to this challenge and fill-in the gap. Since we know food is what we will always need, we must find a way to continuously make it available without making it a burden for anyone. Everyone must be responsible for their own food. 

There are many things you are responsible for; not only your life, but also what keeps you alive -such as your health, what you eat, what you drink, what you breathe, what you know, where you belong, where you live, how you live and so on. The moment you take your responsibility from what the government should do for you, to what you should do for yourself, that’s when you begin to set yourself free from being disappointed, dependent and despondent. 

It’s not enough to find a white-collar job; you must also get a good farming to do. If you can’t do it where you live, you can find somewhere to do it. You can also hire people if distance is a barrier. And for those who don’t have land, they can lease it from individuals or government. Lands are available everywhere. And once your good intentions are known, you should be able to have access to good land to practice your agriculture. My regards

Are You Ready To Work?

Read this only if you are ready to work. Work is not a job, but you can make a job your work. Work is not what you do to keep yourself busy, but you can be busy with your work. Let me tell you what work does- Work adds value. Everything that you can see around you right now is a product of work. Let’s start from the clothes that you wear. Some people worked to produce those clothes. What about your gadgets, furniture, plastics, kitchen utensils, house, cars, and all of the things that you use? They are all products of work. If work wasn’t done, none of those things would have been produced. And those things add value to you. You use them, you work with them and they make your life better and easier. Imagine if there’s no work, then there won’t be anything that worths value. So, work allows us to add and create value. 

Whatever you do today that can add value to the environment- either people or things, can be termed as work. If you are good at talking and you can express yourself, turn it to work. If you can sing, dance, play instruments, write, cook, draw (do artistic works), care, act and all of the things that you can do, you can turn them to work by making them add value to humanity. And what do you get in return when you do these things? Value! You get value back in return when you add value. Most times, it comes in pecuniary form. 

If you go to the market to get any of those products I mentioned before, do you get them for free? No! You pay for them. Why? Because those things are value and you must give value (money) back in return. That's the law of exchange and that’s the whole concept about how to make money. You simply exchange value. So, when you turn whatever you do to work, it adds value. When it adds value, you make money. It can be immediate or later. But it’s certain that you’ll get your returns. It’s a law. When you give out something, you must take something back in return. Many times we don’t pay attention to it, but that’s the way life works. 

For you to work, you need two things; time and energy. Every work that you see came from those two things. Let’s talk about time. Time is what you have when you are alive. You do nothing without time, because everything works under the jurisdiction of time. This piece you read now, you use your time. So, time is what you have. How about energy? Energy is what gives you the ability to do work. Energy is what makes you appreciate time. Time creates the platform, energy creates the ability. The two must be present to do work. 

For instance, you may have time to do something, but so tired to do it. At that moment, you have time, but no energy. In another occasion, you may have so much energy to do something, but realize that you are short of time. So, to produce work, there must be investment of both time and energy. If you are ready to work, begin to invest your time and energy into things that you love and add value. If you want to change anything or have some desires or goals, there must be some works that have to be done. Find out those works and begin to implement them. You can start small. You can start now. And make sure you keep going. Greatness is yours.

How I Started My Food Business

From the beginning, doing business wasn’t my thing because I can’t just imagine myself doing business. Where would I start. What do I know about business. And besides, from the default knowledge I have about business, I know people who run business are strict people who don’t joke with their money or business and I know my nature is not like that. I can’t be strict on people or always being too formal or business-minded. I just knew in my mind that it wasn’t my thing. I believed if I started a business, I would give away my products or goods when people are in need and wouldn’t care about the money. I know I’m a generous and loving person who wouldn’t afford to lose care for people over business. 

All of these were my thoughts and mindsets, not until I had a great breakthrough with my ideologies. For the first time, I understood that business is not about my personality or nature, it is a principle. It has no respect for persons or place. Wherever you are, whoever you are, business is the same all over the world. And it also doesn’t matter who is doing it. If you know how to run a business, you can be successful at it, even more than the people who are teaching it. The principle of business first of all is the principle of give and take; the principle of transaction. If nothing is given, nothing is taken. They say nothing ventured, nothing gained. Baggage in, baggage out. When you put in something, you will get out something. 

The principle of transaction in business allows value to be traded or exchanged in the bid to make profit. The profit can be in different forms. It can be pecuniary; in terms of monetary gains and it can be intangible in terms of support, social value and human capital. But there’s always a final goal with every business. No business is established just for the sake of doing a business, but to engage in productive transactions. So, how exactly did I start my business? And how did I overcome those limiting beliefs? There was a day I woke up in the middle of the night and started meditating. I do this most of the time, even sometimes during the day when I need to fix some things. While I was meditating in the midnight, I asked a question within me that “What exactly can I do to make money?” 

That time was a difficult time for me because my mom was the only one sponsoring me and she also has my siblings to cater for. So, that time, things were difficult that she couldn’t send me any money and I was without food for many days. One of my friends who observed that I didn’t have money bought me some food items and asked me why I didn’t tell him what was going on. I always don’t like putting my own burden on other people and I believed that whoever would help would help without me asking for it. Though, this might not be applicable for everyone and not in all circumstances. But that time, that was my belief. So, I told him I wouldn’t want to bother him with what is going on with me. Though, I knew he wasn’t happy about it. I appreciate the love and support but I just prefer to be myself and learn whatever I’ve got to learn in that situation. 

So, while I was meditating and asking that question, an answer came almost immediately -“go start a food business”. I was like – how would I start? I know a lot of my friends have commended my food before and told me that I know how to cook, but I had always reject that in my mind – thinking it’s because they are my friends and the food that I cook should not be sold or no one would buy it. When there are people who are professionals at cooking, what am I doing there? All of these were self-limiting beliefs I had created in my mind to fight against that idea coupled with my wrong mindset about business. 

Eventually, I had to surmount courage to start anyhow. I started with beans. I knew there were many people who wanted to eat beans but couldn’t afford the stress of cooking it for long hours and have the exact taste they wanted. So, I got little money and went to go and buy pressure cooker which can make the cooking faster and easier. When I got the pressure cooker, I cooked my first beans. The beans burnt very well. I didn’t know the technique on how to use it. I washed the pot and cooked another beans the following day, the result was much better, I didn’t allow it to burn as was before. I made sure I lowered the heat well and allowed the pressure within the pot to cook the beans. This was how I started gradually and began to introduce the beans to people. 

I would prepare it and put it in small plates as samples that I would give people for testing. And a lot of people liked it. I was surprise at those comments because I would wonder what’s the big deal out of what I’ve done? There are even some of my buyers who have become so addicted to the beans that they can’t do without it in a week. So, gradually I was reaching out to more and more people and I also printed my business card which I was giving to everyone I saw. But after I gave out the sample of my food and my business card and a lot of people told me they liked the beans, something interesting happened that taught me a big lesson in my business. After I got all the nice comments and gave people my business card so that they can call me anytime they want food or even at least for my support on anything about food, I didn’t get any response. No one called me. I waited and waited. What’s going on? I asked myself. Was it that these people were just deceiving me when they told me the food was nice or they just wanted me to feel happy to appreciate my effort of trying to make a living or do a business? Different questions flooded my mind. I said –anyways, I’ve got to find out what is really happening. 

So, I decided to go out and meet a lot of them. Many of them were students and they live in the hostel. So, I went to one of the hostels where there were most of the students. When I got there, I started going from room to room and meeting with the students. I was shocked at the result that I got. I realized that many of these students had been waiting for me to bring food to them. I was like- but I gave them my contact, why didn’t they call me? If you understand human nature that people don’t remember you until you remember them and people won’t come to you if you don’t first go to them. 

Now, this happens in different ways, but the principle is the same. For you to be known in your business, you must first let people know you. You must bring yourself to the mind of people all the time. Let them have your image in their minds all the time, so that they would remember you more and contact you. But if you expect that they should remember after just one contact would mean close-to-zero probability. People know you after you’ve known them. And people value what you give to them after you have valued what they give to you. 

So, the action or process starts from you. If you don’t do anything, nothing remains undone. I learned this very well in my business and since that time, I had never wait on people anymore to do anything, I would just go ahead to meet them. Imagine how much opportunities we miss when we don’t reach out to people. When we expect them to come to us while they are there waiting for us. We need to be proactive and make the move towards everything that concerns our progress and success. This is one of the key principle in business that I learned in the early days of my business. I know there are still many more things to share, but this is just the idea/highlight of how I started my food business.

My First Cooking Experience

As far as I can remember, my mom used to cook for us, and I sometimes used to help her with few things in the kitchen. Later my sisters joined her in the cooking. But she’s the type that doesn’t force children to learn how to cook. Though it’s important but she just believed we would learn as she does most of the things for us and also invite us to the kitchen every time she’s cooking. I remember one of those days, she would tell us some nice stories and how she used to cook when she was young. She was the first born of her parents, so she learned most of the things when she was very young. She also told us how she used to go to their farm to fetch some fresh vegetables and prepare them for the family. These and many more were the interesting stories she told us then. We were always anticipating to hear some of those stories. And while in the kitchen, the aroma of the food that she’s preparing are also fizzling into our nostrils. So we can’t just but be with her in the kitchen and enjoy the nice stories she shares with us. It was always a good time in the kitchen. All along, I was passively learning how she does most of the cooking but wasn’t paying so much attention into it. This continued until the very first day I had to cook by myself. I was going to prepare rice and beans concoction because I love rice and beans when I was young. I still love it now but not as then. I could eat it every day all day. It was my number one favourite. And my mom knew this. So, anytime she really wants to please me, she would just prepare it or ask my sisters to do. They also liked it as well. So, on this faithful day when I needed to cook, many questions came to my mind including how I would not screw things up and waste the food I was going to prepare. This happened when I’ve already gained admission to a higher institution. I can’t remember anytime I did a complete cooking when I was still at home. I helped my mom with most of the things in the kitchen like manual grinding of pepper, cutting of onions, peppers and vegetables, and pounding of yam and other items, but not to do the whole cooking all by myself. So, I was always helping her with one or two things in the kitchen. While I was doing my first cooking, I was really anticipating how the result would be and gist my mom how my first cooking experience was. Eventually, I surmounted courage to start and put water inside the pot and put it on fire. When the water has come to boil, I put the beans I’ve washed inside it and I was trying to remember how my mom and sisters used to prepare it then. You know that moment when you have no clue what to do next but just trying to remember how things should be done, but you know you won’t get the result you want if you don’t follow the right order. I was there expecting good outcome from my first cooking. Some minutes after, I added parboiled rice that I had rinsed inside water. Then I mixed the rice with the beans that’s already partially cooked. I wouldn’t have time to prepare stew, and didn’t have enough ingredients, so I decided to do concoction where I would add everything together in one pot. I waited and allowed the mixture to boil. I was constantly checking to see if I would need to add more water and I did couple of times. I remember my mom used to allow the food to boil and allow enough heat to cook the food before she checked, so I did likewise. When I noticed that the rice and beans are about to be finally done, I added pepper and oil, with all the seasonings and salt to taste. Then I eventually closed it to allow final cooking. Lo and behold, my rice and beans is finally done. All the time I spent was approximately 55 minutes. I tasted it and loved it. I was like wow! I finally did it. Even though in my mind, it was as if I’ve cooked it before. But I know that it was the first time I was cooking all by myself without support from anyone. The fact that I thought I had cooked before in my mind was an evidence that all the cooking that I had seen my mom and sisters did had been registered in my mind subconsciously and I knew I could do it by myself also. There are many things like that that we thought we don’t know how to do or have not really learn how to do but in a way, by watching other people did it, the process has been registered in our minds and we could go to replicate that process. Our brain doesn’t deceive us on what we can do and what we cannot do. If we have seen something done over and over again, it would be registered in our mind and we would be able to replicate it. So, that was how my first cooking experience was and when I told my mom she was happy. Later on, she told me few things I need to work on next time to have a better result. I ate and enjoyed my rice and beans concoction that I cooked for the first time.