You have seen different houses. Some commanded your attention, all eyes turn when they see them; the colors make them stand out. The painting was superb. The type of paint and the combination  of colours in the finishing of a house can either make a house stand out or make it look unappealing. Shabby painting make the house go unnoticed. Beautiful paint work inside and outside can make a house so pleasurable to dwell in. Painting is a finishing that can either bring out the beauty of the edifice or distort the opinion of the beholder due to the dullness of the paintwork. Same applies to life. What you paint is what you get. 

When you sit and wait for whatever comes, you are painting shabbily. When you don't have adequate information about your quest in life, you are painting shabbily. When you look around and think success comes cheap and you live accordingly, you are painting shabbily. When you forget life is a marathon with no end and you don't start running on time, you are painting shabbily. When you make mistakes others make, you are painting shabbily. When you cannot go before your creator in prayers and ask for help, you are painting shabbily. When you don't help others, you are painting shabbily. When you assume what you want will simply come on its own, you are painting shabbily. When you don't know that a finished house takes several layers of efforts and personal denials to build, you are painting shabbily. My reader, if you think this world as a system allows things to go well for those who do not decode the system and know how to find their way around it, you are painting shabbily. When you think the only battle there is is sword, arrows and guns; you are painting shabbily. When you think this world will let you succeed cheaply, you are painting shabbily. When you come across this kind of motivation and you just toss it (throw it aside), you are painting shabbily. 

Well, you will always get what you paint. Start painting well and end with a colourful life. First stroke of the brush; go through my works and pass to others. 

Copyright

Tosin Oke

https://apostletosinoke.blogspot.com

I don't know how to bake, but I enjoy pastries or whatever they are called. Cake is one of my "dig" (slang for what you like eating). Cake making culture keeps evolving. Check the one I recently ordered for my relaxation in my LESSON FROM CAKE post here. 

I like munching when studying or watching stuffs. I got thinking and came up with a few lessons we can learn from cake. 

• Cake is delicious, the taste lingers, accompanied with the right drinks, they can relax your mood, but it comes at a price. Several ingredients are combined to produce a delicious cake. If the ingredients are not complete, you won't get the kind of cake you want. Do you want to eat the cake of life ? I mean a good life without going the evil way, it is possible only if you can gather the proper ingredients and combine them in the right manner. These ingredients include : 

• Vision. Clarity of purpose 

• Wisdom. Assessing all the  knowledge you can about your desired goal. You must know what to do. Vision is the destination, Wisdom is the transportation. 

• Sacrifice. You must be ready to make the needed sacrifices to achieve your goal. The baker stays long in the kitchen. He is busy mixing flower, combining ingredients, sweating and working, etc, to produce a delicious cake. A person who will eat the cake of life must be ready to accept temporary discomfort and self denial for a future desire. There are two main sacrifices. The first one is your going through training and labour. The second that most ignore is as important, if not more important than the first one. You must be ready to go out of your way to help others, better still, deny yourself because of others. This sacrifice activates the law of harvest that eventually determines if all of your other efforts will yield for you or not. It is like this. All your ingredients are in place, they are properly mixed and ready, you put it in the oven and wait. At that point, you have no control over the outcome. A law goes into operation. The heat or fire does the rest. What you put into the oven is your efforts, it is not yet a cake. What will turn it to the cake you want is the heat that works on the ingredients to 'cook' them making them into the result you desired. You cannot do anything beyond putting them into the oven. You simply wait and let the heat do the rest. That is what sacrifice does (what you do for others). It works on your efforts and turns it into the cake you desire. If you fail in that area, the oven might not turn your ingredients into cake. This is why many labour and never get result. 

• Having done all the needful as outlined above, you must wait. A good cake will spend some time in the oven. You must wait. Patience is important. Allow your efforts plus sacrifice to yield result for you. Of course, waiting will be a waste if you have not taken the important steps. 

• When done and ready, enjoy your cake, but take note, only you cannot eat everything. If you eat too much of the cake; diabetes, constipation, etc, might also arise. Lesson from proper eating habits shows you must never take too much of sweet things at once lest it destroys your health. This is the Wisdom. What brought the success is sacrifice, sacrifice (don't stop helping others) will also help sustain the success. Never throw away the law of the oven. It combined it to give you the cake. One way we preserve food is to heat it up or store it in warmth for preservation. That preservation and warmth is sacrifice. 

If you eat your cake alone, you might eventually lose it. Guess our bakers have learnt something. Cheers 👩‍🍳

Explore more of my works here 

If you observe carefully, you will learn daily. I do always observe to learn. Let's motivate ourselves from this observation. We can learn a few things. This is not a discussion on banks, I am simply drawing lessons from one of their good practices I have noticed.  Years back when I opened my first bank account with a bank. One of the things that endeared me to that bank was the way I was received, though I had very little money to save. That bank back then had young staff that attend to you person to person, no matter who you are, to meet all your customer needs. I was attended to that way. The young man who attended to me was so warm and friendly that I felt completely at home with him. They take it further, even when we meet outside the banking hall on the streets, we relate like friends. Once you enter the bank, probably still trying to find your way looking confused, one of them will warmly walk up to you to enquire your needs and put you through. With your money in such friendly atmosphere, your heart will be at peace. Years have passed, the bank has since merged with another bank to become a bigger bank under a new name, yet ,till date, my account manager bank then and I still relate very well anywhere we meet. Of course, he has since left the banking industry into private business. 

Due to the fact I had a hitch free experience with the bank, though i stopped banking for some years, the moment I resumed banking, one of the banks I went for was the new bank their merger produced with a new name. My past experience with them was one of the reasons that led me to that new bank. The new bank also had good customer relations when I started banking with them. They passed it on. My account opening was with ease in spite of the little money I had. The young customer relations man was too good, one of the best. I even sent a compliment about him to the management in a survey they once conducted. He had very good manners, etc. When I was confused about pin issues, he collected my phone and put everything in place for me on my phone. One of the things that impressed me most was their calling you personally on phone concerning any complaint you lodge, even by mail. I never expected it. The young lady who called was so warm and friendly and wanted to be sure I was satisfied. That was the practice. All your mails receive instant acknowledgement with reference numbers. They promptly act on your complaints and get back to you as promised. I never had to visit to resolve any complaint. With your money in such hands, you sleep like a baby. You hardly memorise your balance, no need to, you trust them. 

I also chose another bank because of the name and good reputation they had. The customer care too was good, though not like the one above. I think that is because their customer base is huge, personal attention won't be easy. They were good too. Years back, when my ATM card got 'eaten' up by the machine, a staff promptly went out to retrieve it, while I already concluded my transaction via alternative means they instantly provided. I also never had to go to the bank to resolve any complaint. I simply send mail and they bombard me with near instant responses. The mails keep coming until I tell them I am satisfied. I have been with those banks for years and never saw any need to move to other banks, never crossed my mind. Why ? Good customer relations. 

This is a major law for all who will rise and maintain their success in life; your customer relations must be good. This does not only apply to banks and financial institutions, it applies to all areas of life. Let me summarise. Your general disposition to people must be attractive to goodwill. When businesses begin to fail in customer care, their crash is only a matter of time. Customers are the heart of the business, goodwill is a key to your success. 

To balance this, I recently noticed a change in their customer relations, expecially as the last elections approached and new and old currency issues arose. Probably too many complaints to cope with and so much to do at once. Mails not replied, etc. I have been under strong temptation and flood of thoughts to walk into the banks and close my account due to several issues : default in interest payment, transfer still hanging with my money missing in transit (debited but receiver not credited) yet no response to mail and enquiries, seeing deduction I do not understand, yet no response to mails. The only succour is the memory I still have of our past relations and the mails of technical problems they are resolving they keep sending to me, nothing about my complaints, unlike before. My point here is not to complain, but to bring out vital lessons. It is obvious from all indications (I think), they have internal issues they are trying to settle (I wish them the best), causing the problems. I know they will soon fix all issues. This is where the power of customer relations failed. Customer relations ought to have been fully deployed at this moment to help calm our mind, nothing of such was done. One or two phone calls would have done the trick. Visit to their websites yielded no result, direct contact on their website failed. Mails are no more acknowledged. Guess technical hitches. I understand, i use systems too. Technology is not perfect. We will surely get over it and all money remitted. 

I sat down in my house and wondered why I never over the years thought of other banks until now. I have already opened account with another bank while others keep flooding me with texts on a daily basis to come over, especially online banks. The answer is this, the customer relations failed to retain me and others are wooing me, in spite of my living by faith income. My thoughts and observations is what produced this short motivation. I know the bank will soon come through for me. No problem. 

LESSON

Take good care of your customer relations if the competition won't hedge you out. In your life as a person, spot those who are good to you and important in your life; those your business is meant for, your customer base including those you run with in life and business and maintain good relations with them. Be good to them. Respond promptly to them. Care for them. Visit them and be closer to them than the competition. Many reasons crash business, one of which is poor customer relations. In life, if you lack that, as many do, you will find it difficult to rise. If after rising, you lose it, trust me, you will in time, crash. Ensure whoever meet you always want to come back. Always be warm and friendly, it is good customer relations. When you ignore people, you drive them away. When you instantly and promptly attend to them, they stick to you. Short motivation from personal observation. 

Tosin Oke

Global Motivation Speed

By income bracket, i mean, your financial level determined by your regular income. The amount of money available to you for your day to day expenses. This will determine how you live. It determines the kind of environment you live in, the kind of food you eat, the kind of clothes you wear, the kind of comfort you are exposed to and the quality of life you live. If you cannot afford it, you cannot have it. Not everybody live the same quality of life because not all are in the same income bracket. When you go shopping, you see some things you like and want, but look away because you cannot afford it, while others have such things in their store they have used and discarded. You get my point. I go out and see the way people spend, some don't look at the price of products, they pick what they want, no matter how expensive, present their debit cards to the cashier, pay and walk out, not in the least bothered by how much they spent. Others dare not do same. They are limited financially. 

Your income bracket can either be a prison or an extravagant hotel filled with all the luxury of life. You want to wear it, but you can't afford it, you want to go there, but you can't afford it, you want to eat it, but you can't afford, you want it, but can't have it. That is a prison or how else do you define imprisonment ? To want it and be able to acquire it without feeling the pinch is a life of freedom. Many, out of desperation for this kind of life do many bad things to have it. I do not advocate this. The end of such is always bitter. 

Without treading the evil path, simply obeying certain rules can give you this life of freedom. The truth is, if your regular income as a family man or woman in this present world is not in the 6 or 7 figures, especially in my country Nigeria and others, life will be hard for you. This is why many live from one month to another month on debts. Start with the cost of feeding, add the cost of car maintenance, water and basic daily house necessities, TV and phone subscriptions monthly, power supply, children and families upkeep (if you have old parents and other dependants), clothing, school fees and other children education needs, recreation, etc. No need to waste time supplying you with cost statistics. We all live in this world and are familiar with what I am writing of. To do all these to your taste and not to feel the pinch, to be free to live to your satisfaction and still have excess; if your regular income is not in the 6 or 7 figure, you cannot have it. Many have accepted their fate and keep away from the good life they wish. Others live it just like breathing. Just visit some homes and see how comfortable they are. Go to restaurants and see some spend the equivalent of someone's one month salary on food. 

THE WAY OUT

I have short motivations that can help you move to the income bracket you desire. Access my short motivations page and go through them all. I should be adding more motivations to the page from time to time, just as I also add more to this blog page. Keep checking the two pages and others. Now go and read them all. Feel free to leave your comments below. 

Only children recently born into a world of rechargeable light, solar and modern power supply options whose parents are rich enough to afford them might not be familiar with the candle. The candle is a stick of wax with a wick in the middle. The wax is made of certain substances that can burn, as it burns, it melts until it can no longer maintain the flame and the fire dies. The candle gives light, but only for a limited period of time. It has its lifespan. The candle is given the chance to burn and make use of the opportunity while it lasts, but the fact that a time will come when the chance will be gone and the fire will go out. Assuming you own the candle and you know this; If you are wise, you will do all you need to do (cooking, eating, cleaning, fixing things, etc,) while the candle is burning before the fire goes out, because once the light goes out, you will be left with only what you achieved while the light was on. 

The same applies to life. You have only one lifetime; not two, not three, not four, etc. Once you leave this world, you are never coming back, unless you are a spirit that can appear and dissappear. The race starts from birth and ends in death, which can be anytime, hope you live long. Your childhood is dependent on others, they raise and determine the direction you should go. 16 years already gone from your candlelight. From 16years old, you are given the chance to start thinking on your own and start running the race of life. You must fix many things in your life before the candle burns out and you can't run anymore. If you maximise the time you have and make the most of it, you might never notice your candle burning out due to your achievements. If your food is ready and eaten, you are already done and ready to sleep, to hell with the candle burning out. You are already satisfied. The period you were given to run in life before the light goes out, is enough for you to achieve all you can, all things being equal. What do I mean ? If things are allowed to run their normal course without any unwanted interruptions, most people would have achieved all they wanted by 40 years old. Unfortunately, these unwanted and unplanned for interruptions have slowed many down, or even ensure they never achieve. When I planned my life years back, I had great expectations, but unforeseen circumstances changed all that. If that has not been, you won't just be hearing of me. I am yet to taste a great part of my desires. Fortunately, my candle is still on and I am still running, i still have some years left. 

Yes, I understand unforeseen circumstances you have no control over can slow you down, I speak from experience. At times, when I look back and at myself now, I say sadly "this is not the way I planned it, nevertheless, I will keep running". This is not peculiar to me, many have far worse stories to tell, yet today they are celebrated. 

The rule is this, NEVER STOP RUNNING ! Let the light be inside you and not outside you. All you need is the understanding of how to beat the opposition, for you will have them in abundance. This world is not a football field, but a wrestling contest where real blows and punches are landed, a survival of only the strong and the wise. 

GET UP AND FIGHT ! 

Do all you can do, in a good way, to achieve your goals while the light is on. Give it all it takes. I had read loads of books on various subjects and researched several subjects even before I graduated from the university in the 90s. Many of the things I write or speak about today, I learnt over 30 years ago. Many books people celebrate today, were books I read in the 90s. When things became rough, the knowledge I already have came to my rescue, even in spiritual issues. 

THE RULE IS THIS, YOU MUST KNOW WHAT TO DO BEFORE THE CANDLE BURNS OUT. 

This is one major reason for motivation. Knowledge serve several purposes, one of which is to help you navigate troubled waters and not drown. My reader, the candle will burn out for you one day, the clock is ticking, let's talk. 

Tosin Oke

Global Motivation Speed