Why You Can't Afford to Die Small

“Now to him that is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.” (Ephesians 3:20)

There’s nothing God is going to do for you outside what He has put in you. You are already blessed; you only need to activate the blessing by maximizing your giftings. The verse above, God can do even more than we fantasize, but He’s only going to do that according to his power that is at work within us. That power within talks about your talent.

Let’s analyze Ephesians 3:20.

    Talents Produce Unquantifiable Success

Based on the power within, God can do immeasurably more than we ask or imagine. What talent can produce is immeasurable. There are many super-rich athletes, inventors, musicians, artists, and so on.

Tiger Woods is said to be worth over $600 million, Michael Jordan; over $1 billion, Paul McCartney; $1.2 billion, and many more. These are people like every other. Anyone who would put his or her potential to work could achieve even more.   

    God cannot build a life for you outside what He’s put in you

Many people pray for blessing and breakthrough, but it doesn’t seem forthcoming. Many expect God to pour money down from heaven. Everything required for you to be successful is already within you. You can accomplish mind-blowing, record setting and outstanding feats with your talents.  God is not going to build a life for you except you maximize the potentials He’s placed in you. You can achieve through your potentials what you may never achieve through your bloodline.

    You Must Put the Power to Work

The latter part of our text says “…according to his power that is at work within us.” The power has to be at work. It mustn’t remain dormant. You need to deploy your giftings before you can see any results. This talks about training. It is the gift you train that will make you reign in life.

In physics, power is related to work. In fact, power is the rate at which work is done. The Bible refers to your gifting as ‘power’; therefore, you must put it to work. Slothfulness births poverty. (Proverbs 10:4).

It’s Open Doors Galore

“A man’s gift maketh room for him and bringeth him before great men.” (Proverbs 18:16)

Some preachers use this verse out of context. A man’s gift refers to his talent; -it’s not talking about offering, as erroneously taught. It talks about your potential. It makes room for you once utilized.

Doors give you access to rooms. Similarly, a man’s gift maketh room for him. That also means your talents will open doors for you. They put you side by side with great mean. They usher you into places where blessings await. You can find yourself before presidents, and kings; and top leaders just by maximizing your potentials. Talents pitch you with important people.

Another version says “a man’s gift works wonders.” In the third chapter, I talked about an artist that sold two of his paintings for $200 million; and that’s not even the most expensive. Gifts work wonders!  

Talents, when utilized, create connections. Stop looking for connections elsewhere, work on your potentials; they’ll create the connections. One time, a king named Saul was under the torture of evil spirits. One day he gave permission to his servants to go get him a man who is “a cunning player of the harp,” who is also filled with the Spirit of God. Then they found David, who had both the skill required and the spirit of the Lord; and he was taken from the bush to the palace (1 Samuel 16:14-23).

Proverbs 17:8 says: “A Gift is as a precious stone in the eyes of him that hath it: withersoever it turneth, it prospereth.” Talents are more valuable than precious stones. You can re-write history making the most of them. The gifts of God cannot be purchased with money, but they can produce money (Acts 8:20). Great men don’t give you talents; rather, talents bring you before great men.

According to Proverbs 22:29, if you are diligent in your business, you will stand before kings and not mean men. You’ve got to be committed. Maximized talents put you before people that matter.

Many young Africans have the “get rich quick syndrome.” A lot of people invest very little or no time at all in training themselves let alone developing skills. Lack of commitment produces negligence. Negligence leads to failure. Failure generates annoyance. Annoyance generates frustration. Frustration leads to hatred –of self and others. So, get committed!

Why You Must Be Tenacious

Many years ago, Joyce Meyer –a renowned preacher and public speaker was asked at a meeting “what is the secret of your success?” Her response; “I just refused to give up!” What a blunt answer.

Joyce had a difficult childhood. She suffered sexual abuse and neglect at some point growing up. She should have been held bound in emotional trauma –like many people today. But she just refused to give up! That’s tenaciousness –refusing to give up.

I hate to say this, but from my observation, life doesn’t give too many chances to weak people these days. Life has no room for slack and passive people. When you stop pressing you stop possessing. Only those who persist make undeniable progress. Stop dwelling on past misfortunes, failures and unfortunate eventualities your life. Rip them off your mind.

Your mind is your life’s battlefield. You can’t afford to sleep in a war front. Similarly, you can’t afford not to have a tenacious and never-giving-up mentality. Ben Carson never gave up, nor did Jim Carrey who was once homeless. They and many others like them eventually became unbelievable stars in their fields.

You're Too Loaded to still be Where You Are!!!

There’s more than a world of difference between where you are and where you should be. Life is actually not fair on everyone as erroneously thought in many quarters. Most times, people have to forcefully break away from their low estates to become global household names.

By God’s special design, you are loaded with so much stuff that you can’t afford to hide in that unknown corner all your life. You are too gifted to remain under the bushel. You are meant for the mountain top. You are meant to be seen. The spotlight should be on you.

You are actually designed to make global impact; don’t die in your village. Your voice has to be heard; no one should talk you down. You are too loaded to be intimidated; don’t remain a mediocre. The world has to feel you. God created you to impose positive impact; therefore you must unleash yourself.

No doubt, there is a star in everyone; and I believe you’ve heard that countless times. Don’t paralyze your destiny with doubts about yourself. This star must however be unleashed if you want to enjoy life. You don’t arrive at a destination you haven’t consciously driven yourself toward.

Creating an inner drive for success has never been easy for most people. But as uneasy as it may be, that’s what it takes to fulfill your God-given potentials. Many people, though talented, have not really hit the big deal because they lack the required confidence to unleash themselves.

The world needs you! You don’t have the luxury to remain in that comfort zone –where your voice is not being heard at all. You need to generate enough motivation to create global impact.

Too many vacuums will be left unfilled unless you fulfill your destiny. You were not created for the world; the world was created for you. Therefore, you must explore what’s been given to you on this earth to the fullest. Changes don’t just happen, people make them happen. Events don’t just come by; they are championed by individuals. What events are going to happen because of you? What changes? What impact are you going to make before you return to dust?

According to the Stanford Brain Institute the average person uses only 2% of his potential. Can you imagine that? This means that the quality of life we have today is a result of these 2%. And the rest is just wasted.

Frankly, that doesn’t come as a surprise to me when I see the daily routines of an average individual– getting up in the morning, brushing your teeth, going to work (usually to a job you don’t like), coming back, watching TV, eating junk food in front of it, staying in front of the computer after that and back to bed.

Friend, there’s a lot more to be done if truly the world must feel your impact. You can’t achieve anything noteworthy following that routine all your life. There’s more to life than being alive. It takes the extra to become extra-ordinary.

What to do When You're Tired of Being Broke!!!

Nobody wants to die broke, just that many don't know what to do to escape being broke. Here are things to do

• stop wasting time: do you spend too much time on facebook, surfing the net, watching TV? Consider going on a fast from those things or giving yourself a hard limit of 30-60 minutes a day. 

• ask for any money that is owed to you: do you have friends or clients who owe you money? This is a good time to follow up on that.

• get a part time job: for some reason, this feels like failure to a lot of people. But it’s not. Sometimes you just need to get a job to tide yourself over. And sometimes people realize that being an entrepreneur isn’t for them. Which is a huge relief. I’ve seen a number of clients let go of their ideas about being self employed, go back to a job and watched them experience an immediate increase in happiness, financial stability and overall well being. Getting a job when you need it isn’t failure, it’s self care. And sometimes it’s just a matter of timing and you need to get a job and slowly build your business on the side until it’s at a point you can invest more. 

• get out of any commitments you can to free up time: this is also huge. Are you on a board or committee that isn’t 100% filling you up? Are you volunteering somewhere? Look at where you’re spending your time and eliminate anything you possibly can that isn’t a 100% ‘yes’ to you. 

• set a goal and create a plan to make money (and start with the low hanging fruit): sit down with a pen and paper and give yourself an hour or two to really get clear on what your goal is around money and how you can best achieve it. Is it to get a job? Do a major promotion of some product or service? If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

• set aside chunks of each day where all you focus on is making money and growing your business: it’s easy to make a plan and then not do the plan. Set aside time (one hour a day, four hours a day or one day a week) where all you’re focused on is making your plan happening. Allow zero distractions during that time – cell phone off. Social media off. Lock the door. Focus. Most people are blown away with how productive they are when they do this.

• get support: this is so huge. Maybe you need to hire a coach. Maybe you need to get a friend of colleague who you can chat with once a week to stay accountable. Maybe you need to get some kind of to do list manager. Maybe you need to read a marketing book. Maybe you need to trade with a friend for web design. Whatever support you need, it’s time to get honest with yourself about that and get it. And you might want to consider therapy around money too. If this has been a lifelong struggle, there’s a good chance there are some deeper issues worth facing. Dealing with money issues might just be the most powerful personal development work you ever do. 

• brainstorm on how to cut expenses: can you move to a cheaper place? eat in more? ride your bike vs. driving your car? Where can you trim expenses in your life? Most people would be shocked at how much they can save with a little thought and creativity. 

• stop working on creating more free content: unless they are a direct lead into your products or services. It’s easy to want to keep creating more free content (like me here on this blog when I should be working on my Niching for Hippies program (#doasisaynotasido)). 

• focus: speaking of niching – pick one and focus on it. When you’re in a crunch is not the time to try and ‘reach everyone’. You absolutely need to focus on something in particular that you’re offering to a particular crowd of people. And it’s a good idea to focus on just a few marketing approaches and really work them. Maybe all you do is public speaking. Maybe it’s all virtual presentations and webinars. Maybe it’s networking events or hosting events. Whatever it is, I wouldn’t have more than three marketing tactics you’re using. When you’re in a crisis, you need to focus. 

• create a higher end product: My colleague George Huang created a six figure income in 72 days using five simple steps to fill up his high end coaching program. You can read about them here.

• connect with hubs: And how do you promote and get clients for your programs and products? You need a way to not only identify but then keep track of potential partners and hubs you come across. Unless you want to be stuck at the ‘cold’ level of marketing you must start thinking about your hubs. And then I recommend connecting with one hub a day getting to know them, what they do, how you can help them and how they might be able to help you. Just ask them out for coffee or to skype to chat and ask their advice on how you should grow your business. 
• this is just a tip of the iceberg. get my free e-resource on "what to do when youre tired of being broke" here.... https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/694231 its totally free and just a few kilobites.