I wish I knew five years ago what I’ve come to know today. I’ve wasted a lot of years in plain stupidity. Meditating has opened my eyes to a lot of things. How come I never saw them before?

I was just thinking and it dawned on me that the basic ingredient we need to lead successful lives was taught us while we were still in the primary schools or basic schools as they call it today.

You will recall that we were told back then that the only universal language is mathematics. It just dawned on me that it is true. Do you remember those equations you will be asked to solve and the teacher will tell the class that to solve them you have to start from the known to the unknown? That is exactly the formula to leading a successful life. Start from the known to the unknown.

What amazed me even more was the realization that we practice this principle everyday in our little ways but most of us fail to apply it on the most important issues of life.

Let me give an illustration. Let’s say you are home at night enjoying that soap opera or watching football, whatever your predilection. Suddenly, the power company cuts off power supply. Everything is pitch dark. You can’t even see your hands if you placed them right before your face. What do you do?

Certainly, you are not going to start jumping around, will you? Even though this is your apartment, the moment your lost power, hence losing sight, disorientation sets in. So you remain where you are and think. The first question you ask yourself is “Where is my phone?” Then you remember you placed it some inches away from where you are seated at the sofa. The next thing is that you start to feel the sofa with your hands until your hands touch the phone.

Once you’ve found the phone, you press any of the keys on the phone and it lights up. There is no torch on the phone so you make do with the light from the screen which will go off in 5secs, but that is not a problem. All you have to do is to press any key again and it lights up. Only this time you’ve stood up from the chair and heading towards the candle stand or towards the gen house to switch on the gen. The rest becomes history.

What you just did was to start from the known, the phone, to the unknown, the candle stand, or the gen. It turns out that is exactly the same approach we are supposed to take as we go through life. Begin with the known and the unknown will open up to you.

Many of us want to see the whole journey before we even start. It does not work that way. Start with the known, trusting that as you go along, what you don’t know will open up. I remember an illustration used in The Secret by Rhonda Byrne. If you are driving at night your headlamps can only brighten up the next, say 150m. But you still get into your car and drive off because you are sure that as long as you can always see the next 150m ahead of you, you will make it to your destination. Can you imagine just refusing to get into the car because you cannot see the whole length of the journey from the beginning? That would be absurd, wouldn’t it?

Yet, that is the reason why many of us are afraid to take the necessary step we need to take. We want to be very sure we will make it to the very end. Sweetheart, it isn’t going to happen. Things unfold as you journey along.

As I write this note there is a group of people somewhere in cyberspace currently participating in my School for Personal Leadership.

A resident doctor in Abia.
A lawyer and writer in Edo.
A manager in an IT consulting firm in Lagos.
A software developer in Ghana.
An Admin/HR manager of a law firm in Abuja.
A Unit Head of Marketing in a microfinance bank in Lagos.
A project assistant in Port-Harcourt.
A geologist/student in Germany.

And several other professionals, all of whom, but three, I have never met before in my life. All of these professionals, without having seen me, or knowing where I live, or what I do, trusted me enough to pay a considerable sum of money to participate in my School for Personal Leadership.

Now, rewind, two years ago. Nothing in my wildest imagination told me I’d be doing this. All I knew back then was that I had a final destination, where I wanted to be at, and I would have to resign from my job back then to start the journey. The only skill I had then was designing of bookshelves. Nevertheless, I took the risk, resigned and started designing bookshelves on my laptop, take the designs to carpenters, sit with them in the workshop while they build the bookshelf, then deliver to my customer. Was it easy? Believe me, it was hard, but it was worth it.

Then, little by little, one step at a time, things began to unfold. Today, I still design bookshelves, but I also develop websites, write, and I am currently facilitating in the School for Personal Leadership. What if out of the fear of the unknown I decided not to start?

I am not asking you to resign your job. What I am saying is that for every challenge you face, start from the known part of the equation. The same way you did it back then in your primary school. And gradually, the unknown part will become known.

I hope this note is encouraging to you? Please if it is, why not let me know by dropping a word or two? Thanks.

Mute Efe,
+234-803-874-9796

Warning: All articles written and published by Mute Efe are the intellectual property of the writer, reproduction of the writer’s articles either in part or whole must be done with the prior consent of Mute Efe.

N*B
If you are interested in the School for Personal Leadership 2012, January session, an online school completely on facebook, please text
INTERESTED * FULL NAMES [Surname, middle name (if any), first name]* SEX * STATE OF RESIDENCE (If residing in Nigeria) * COUNTRY * EMAIL * PHONE NUMBER or 1 (If you're texting from your phone) to +234-803-874-9796. For example:
INTERESTED *AUDU EMEKA TUNDE * M * LAGOS * NIGERIA * auduemekatunde@yahoo.com * 1
The new session will begin January 2nd. Online classes hold every Mondays and Thursdays for the whole month.

Payment details will be sent to you within 24hrs. Fee is N5,050.

Hey,

I am relatively new here. Is there something I am supposed to say or do before people post their response to the note. Is there like a passcode or something? A little help will go a long way.

Thanks.

Thnks mr mute efe for this beautiful write up u just writen it is wonderful to knw that nairaland is also a educative place where pple cum 2 wen they down or lost thks again for the write up.have read some of ur write up frm here to there they are really wounderful more grace to ur work.thnks again.