Who stole the meat from the cooking pot?

Who stole the meat from the cooking pot?            

Mr. Nobody

Nobody wants to be wrong

Nobody wants to take responsibility for a mistake.

Nobody wants to take the blame.

Yet, one attribute that every true leader must possess is the ability to take responsibility for his or her mistakes.

 Back then in school, a friend of mine used to make this statement whenever she was cooking, ‘if this soup (or whatever she was cooking) is delicious, na me cook am but if it isn’t, na you cook am’’ jokingly. This is however a hilarious illustration of how easy it is to pass the buck.

 Have you ever wondered why it is so easy to take credit for a job well done than to own up to a mistake? In my opinion, it takes bravery to accept responsibility for one’s faults.

 We often hide our mistakes from other people because we worry they will think less of us once they’ve seen that we’ve messed up. But, frankly acknowledging your mistakes, apologizing for them, and then earnestly working to make things right almost always has the opposite effect – people respect you for it. There might still be consequences, of course, but people will appreciate your honesty. If they use your confession as a way to belittle and use you, those are probably not the kind of people you want to work/live with anyway. It’s actually when you hide your mistakes, and they’re found out  that people lose their respect and their trust in you. 
 You might be wondering why the title of this article is so long... Well, I had a hard time concluding on which of the two titles to use because when I thought of this topic, the first thing that came to my mind was one of the games we used to play back then in school where at least 8 – 10 of us formed a big circle {like your mother’s cooking pot}, numbered ourselves and sang the song #who stole the meat from the cooking pot? Number 1 stole the meat from the cooking pot…# and we went on passing the buck till someone got disqualified and  we had the last man standing. Hmmm.... did that strike a chord?... some of us still relish those jolly old times...*winks*

                Then I thought of the poem “Mr Nobody’’ too. The poem is a perfect description of the thoughts running through my head. The plates obviously didn’t grow legs all of a sudden and trip before they broke, and the meat didn’t grow wings and decide to fly away! there were unidentified persons responsible for them. So, I'll let you decide which of the titles fits best.

                The most important thing is that the point is driven home...
 Accepting that you’re wrong, whether subtly or openly, is an inevitable attribute for every leader. Don’t make another suffer for your wrong. After all, every true leader knows that mistakes are part of life and if you are afraid of making them, you won’t learn anything. Did I just hear you say "Well, I'm not a leader or a boss so..." sweetheart, this is not just about bosses and leaders, it applies to everyone who has a reason to work with people. Besides, being a leader is not just about occupying an executive position in an organization, we all have someone or a group of people looking up to us somewhere some how. It could be at home, in the place of worship or even at school. Mistakes are just reminders that you are human and are still fallible. So, don’t be afraid to make them and take responsibility. Howbeit, you become a failure when you don’t learn from your mistakes because falling down is how we learn, standing up is how we grow and staying down is how we die. 

 Coming soon...
 "The diary of a green horn"  stay tuned.

Self Motivation.

 "Motivation is a fire from within. If someone else tries to light that fire under

you, chances are it will burn very briefly."- Stephen R. Covey

The truth is, the inner motivation is what validates the outer one. So no matter how much motivation you get from the outside, if you’re not motivated from the inside, it won’t be long before you give up but if you are self-motivated, even if it seems like no one notices the good work you’re doing enough to give you thumbs-up, your inner drive is enough to keep you going.

So encourage yourself, don’t wait till someone says well-done or thank you before you do the right thing. Sometimes, you might even feel like you’re not getting all the incentives that should serve as motivation from the right quarters or worse still, someone takes all the credit for a task you put all your efforts into accomplishing. The truth is that life has a way of rewarding everyone for what they do or do not do. Your reward might not come now, it might not even happen the way you want or envisage but it will most assuredly come. Who knows, what  you’re going through now might even be preparing you for an opportunity that you are yet to discover.

The saying is true that “It is better to be prepared and not have opportunity than to have opportunity and not be prepared.”

You’d be doing yourself a whole lot of good by seeing your present experience as preparation for an opportunity that is yet to come. So, put all your best into work, do the right thing even when no one is watching, compare yourself with no one but yourself, and remember, what is right is right all the time and not just when it is convenient.

The personality behind the name...

This young little girl had just finished her Junior Secondary School, then came the time for her to take the first major step - Choosing a career. Was she to opt for Science, Commercial or Art? Well, for a naïve little girl who was yet to discover herself and had the erroneous belief that science class was for serious minded students who were bent on making it in life and that the other classes were for students who came to school to play… your guess is as good as mine.

Her love for calculations especially Mathematics, helped her to scale through but she soon discovered she had much more love for the English Language. Meanwhile, the light had still not shone because she thought it was just a shallow love for the Language so she proceeded to the University hoping to become a Microbiologist, little did she know that she was aboard the wrong plane…

After so much dilly-dallying, she found herself in the department of Fisheries (oops! You say...) but in the course of Fishing, her line caught a big Fish and Eureka! She discovered herself- she found out that she loved to read out loud in class, she easily fell in love with people who had good command of the Language and when the opportunity came to go for competitions, she took it with so much enthusiasm.

She then knew beyond all reasonable and unreasonable doubts, it was glaring to all who cared to notice that this girl is helplessly in love with Broadcasting.

Were there odds, obstacles, challenges? I’m sure you know the answer to that… “Wetin fisherwoman dey find for broadcasting”, “there’s no money in it” were some of the many comments she was getting but she wasn’t about to be discouraged, instead, she proceeded to FRCN training school to acquire more skills to give her a good competing edge.

I’m sure you know who I’m talking about by now. She’s just a passion-driven, go-getter!