Steering success: Chapbook has over 2 million likes by facebook

"Momentum is one of the key principles of success

Discipline

Focus

Drive

Hunger will carry you to your infinite self.

momentum "

ELEVATION

FORCE OF NATURE

PERSISTENT

What dreams may come

When selves collide

The evening star

The mornings pride

And as the clock

sways stretched out limb

I prepare the day

past dawn the climb

Otatade Iseghohi Okojie

Copyright © All Rights Reserved

STEERING SUCCESS

Real strength takes time to develop. It’s not about the lone figure posing against the darkness, or the person with the biggest mouth chanting about their successes in an attempt to alienate your accomplishments. Real strength is a private thing, a private experience. It’s about building core self belief no matter how traumatic the episode. Its tough watching parts of your identity disappear into quick sand. It’s certainly not easy for the ones that love you.

Furthermore it’s a nightmare for you, standing around waiting for an old reflection. Self esteem, and strength is a ladder you climb, one step at a time. People may not feel the change; they may not get the courage it takes for you to stand there with even a half smile in your pocket. Some may be annoyed and convinced you’re dragging your feet. You know you’re fighting even if the world can’t see. It’s like challenging someone invisible to a dual, and the stakes are incredibly high... The stakes are you. I always found it hard when I’d work and work at building myself up, an old vulnerability would rear its head and the people around me would fixate on that. Convinced I was making no progress at all. Progress doesn’t come over night, vulnerability is not a weakness, it’s a challenge, it’s an opportunity to be a testament. Words can be thick and slow, the action disappearing under a veil of illusion. Here’s the thing though. When it’s hard to be strong for yourself, it’s hard to put the performance on for everybody else in your life. To convince them that you’re still the same person they liked, the same character they joked with, played gin rummy with, went sailing or even played football with. Healing no matter the situation is like a scar. Sometimes it appears long gone. Then you trip in some way or you bump into something, the wound is raw and begins to bleed.

Some people pick at their scars eager to know what lies underneath. Beneath the porse and blood. When your soul is damaged, or you’ve experienced some sort of life jolt, people usually tell you things like love yourself, or snap out of it, even stop being a victim. We all want to be strong. The gloss in the magazine, true life story turned action hero. Here’s the reality, were not always going to get it spot on. Those who are watching, you’re not always going to look at your family member/ friend/ work colleague and ‘say Jesus dude I respect the way your crumbling man. All this crying and stuff, your an icon.’ As hard as it is to do. Celebrate their baby steps; eat up their word to action. It should be ice cream to you, or a snack that gives you that sense of contentment. They’re on their way. The end of the road starts with one step, a journey, a process. It could take a few weeks, a month, and a year. Nobody’s asking you to worship their self pity. Just understand that different people feel pain in different ways. Pain itself is a composition of layers. What someone is hurting with, weeping over can seem absolutely miniscule to you, but it could be the incident that made the wire snap. This person could have experienced a history of discontent, rejection, loss? Maybe they had failed at numerous things in the past. Here’s the thing, nobody’s asking you to be a saviour. It’s impossible to deny how taxing someone’s melt down moments are, the spin it puts on a potentially blissful situation. Adventures that end with tissues, and the repetitive intense cross analysing. Sing about the moments they do achieve something that can get them back to state. A glow in the dark, a snapshot and a reminder. “This is you, you’ve been a little lost amigo, but you’re on your way back. “ The hope will set the wheels into motion. A little hope, a little light.

Where do I start? Start with this. Success is a process. Instant gratification 99 percent of the time is a fiction. The easy answer is passion, determination, faith, belief. Success takes action and completion. There should be no dream without the hunger to activate it. Talk isn’t cheap. It’s expensive. Many people, and I’ve definitely been one of them, rant about a vision that will change their lives in the near future. Something that will translate them from a base level dreamer, to someone the world looks up to. When I first ventured into writing I would talk for hours about the books I would finish, the story line, the characters, all the intricacies of a Hollywood movie plot. Time and again, there would be blank pages, novels gone uncompleted, long winded excuses. Until one day I’d lost so much self confidence in myself, I was terrified to even pick up a pen. Nervous to bring up any ambitions I had, for fear that even dreaming them could bring failure. After writing I felt I needed to make money and boost my self esteem, so I went into photography. “Photography will be a challenge, I’ll make a fortune and I’ll have fun.” INCORRECT. I managed to accomplish finding a potential investor for my business, a partner to provide me with free vintage clothing wear for upcoming photo shoots, a marketing campaign which acquired the customer details of over 300 potential clients. Have you heard the statement if you fail to plan you plan to fail. I had not completed my business plan outline; I had no official website, no administration team, and no regular studio. I had lost more money than I could have dreamed of. After two years of struggling with an up and down business. I finally decided to return to my passion, writing. After years of procrastination, I achieved a feat so incredible even I was dumbfounded. With focus and motivation, I completed my first fiction novel in four weeks. That pride gave me the confidence to start editing, and begin outline sketches for the rest of my stories. Ideas are fantastical things. Where would we be if Alexander Bell, Martin Luther King, and Anthony Robbins all the great leaders of our time simply had an ‘idea’ to become. We’d be living in a world full of holes and half finished jigsaws.

Pick your team wisely. Many people have heard me discuss this, or found the symbolic representations of it in my poetry. Picking your friends and the people you want as part of your life is pivotal in your climb to success. Someone who is negative, controlling, manipulative should not be a regular in your life sitcom. Supportive, ambitious, confident positive, and informative. Insecure, controlling friends who crave attention should not be a topic. It’s nice when you’re out with a confident friend/ associate and you think, hey I’ve got some brochures and some flyers about my business or my book this is a great location for networking. A positive friend will say “well, it’ll be nice to meet some new faces, show me how it’s done maybe I can learn from you.” A negative friend will huff and puff making the whole experience uncomfortable, hurried, and painful. I’ve been both in different circumstances. Another friend to avoid are the ones that kill your dreams or ideas at seed, as in literally suck the excitement out of a dream. An example of a good friend is someone who makes it a point to be happy for you and celebrate your steps towards success. It is a definitive strength of character. My sister is a great example of this. Whatever the pitfall or problem she’s experiencing in her life, she makes it a point to express her pride of the people around her. She’s one of those blessed people. They are always the one’s to hear good news because when something great happens to you, she’s the first person you want to call. My younger brother is valued for his protective, creative and honest opinions. It is important to have people that offer a balance. He’s neither a yes person, or a nay sayer, he simply says ‘honestly’ wether an idea, a business scheme or a project makes sense to him. As a member of the public, or a potential customer. He’s a why person. People who give you fruitful explanations without tiptoeing or walking on thread. My older brother is aggressively encouraging and stubbornly ambitious. He’s ruthlessly driven, and his hunger for success and a brighter future rub off on the people around him. My parents are the foundation. My mother is an action person, a fierce go getter, who soldiers through any attempts at sabotage with both nonchalance and fearlessness and my father is a visionary. Astute in his knowledge.

There are many more people that make up my circle of success. People i’ve learned from awed at, been both impressed and at times intimidated by. Who are the people you respect? It can be a celebrity whose life story engaged you, someone whose passion enthralled you, and maybe has chased your dream and succeeded. Knowledge is wisdom, wisdom is strength.

Invest in your time and building your strength. Things we learn in life are priceless, whether you learn things the hard way or the easy way...it’s up to you. Your choice shouldn’t just be in people, time management, education, investigation. Life is discovery.

How do you want to be remembered? If this was your last day on Earth, how would you live it? How would you communicate with the world, share your knowledge, your experiences, celebrate your growth.

Do as you dare. If you’re scared to be criticised your scared to live. The world is watching? The world is always watching. What do you want them to see? Acknowledge, respect. Guess what? It’s not up to you. People will see what they want to see. It’s like going shopping; we all pick what we like best. The good and the bad, they choose what they judge you by; you choose what you live by.

You have a voice. You may be at your lowest ebb. Crawling through a trench of old memories, Desperate and hungry to be fixed. What a broken clock you are. Where is the watchmaker's son to mend you? To redefine the boundaries of your life, master the formula and produce the equation. Solution is choice. Choose your solution, a day by day plan, to nourish a starving goal. Take the fear from your pocket and bury it as far as you can. Fear is a delicious dessert; too many people are comfortable with the shadow of a risk. Risk takes disappointment, questioning our selves, interviewing our abilities. The commentators in our lives, and their nightingale song, choir the composers in the dark recesses of our mind. Risk is separation. Risk is walking on air and not knowing where to place your footing. Someone told you they failed, “I was a mess,” they dramatise. Even better they always know someone else who failed, “he wanted to be an astronaut and now he’s a postman” “Yeah he was a billionaire, now he sells fried chicken in a stall”. Myths to make a movie by and the stories as farfetched as they seem pour in like sludge. Chinese whispers about classroom geniuses that wriggle in mental institutions. People, who the world respected, made redundant in the blink of an eye. ‘Happy’ at public gatherings, despondent in life. Nobody on Earth can tell you how to live your life, who to become. You can by as many self help books as you want, become a sheep, herded and shoved by the masses. If you recall, you have a voice. Your voice is different. Your voice is powerful.

Failure is a given. It’s the lesson, helps with the evolution of the soul, fuels growth, eternally. If you didn’t fail, you wouldn’t be so ravenous to succeed. I’ve failed at many things in my life. Businesses, ideas that just sat on pages like slobs. I’ve failed at friendships, family ties, job opportunities yet in my lifetime I’ve succeeded at many other things, and began polishing the categories I’d failed at. I’ve learned the importance of Creating opportunities for myself, managing to inspire not always the many, but infinitely the few.

Society is scared of failure, because it’s scared of judgement. What we easily forget? Those people who judge us so brutally have failed too. The history, the pain of the experience is branded so deep in their souls. It’s like a sword in the stone. Only in the animations the sword in the stone empowered king Arthur, for many of us...it traps us. We don’t want to be left behind, don’t want to be compared, laughed at. Others have built a fortress of superiority around them, so high. With no windows and no doors, they can’t even see their next door neighbours. It took years to build, a labyrinth they can’t bear to see demolished