I am sure that
before now many of us have made up our minds on who and what we want to be in
life – Doctors, Lawyers, Engineers, Businessmen and Women; Preachers, Teachers,
Farmers, Artisans, etcetera. Amongst us are people who want to become civil or
public servants and self-employed (entrepreneurs). Whatever happens, we have
our choices.
It is
interesting to know that many of us do not know what they want to do in life. One
thing I must advise is – do not allow anyone to choose a career for you. You should
be the one to make the choice because it is your life. At best, you can seek a
professional counsel from people you respect.
WHAT IS CAREER?
By simple definition, Career is Occupation or Profession.
Sometimes we confuse Job with Career. There is tiny
difference between the two. Wikipedia says that while:
“Job is
something you do simply to earn money, a Career is a series of
connected employment opportunities. A Job has
minimal impact on your future work life, while a Career provides
experience and learning to fuel your future. A job offers few
networking opportunities, but a career is loaded with them.
The question I ask you today is, “What would want your life to be? Are you an 8:00AM – 5:00PM person or are
like a wind – someone who would not want to be tracked down? Would you want to
live a confined life (living a cyclical life of moving from house to office) or
you want to be your own compass?
CAREER PATHS AND BIBLICAL CHARACTERS
Two families
that we read of in the Bible presents to us interesting expose on career. The
first family is the family of Adam and Eve whose sons, Cain and Abel chose
different career paths: while Cain was a crop farmer, Abel was a livestock
farmer (Genesis 4:1-5).
Another family
was that of Isaac and Rebecca. Their twin boys, Esau and Jacob had different
career paths. At Genesis 25: 27 tells us that as:
The boys grew up, and
Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the open country, while Jacob
was content to stay at home among the tents.
It would be a
challenging situation for a “Person of
the open country” (an outgoing and adventurous character to be confined to
the life of a person who “Stays at home
among the tents” (an inventive and innovative character) and vice-versa. This
is akin to saying that an employment-oriented person should live the life of an
entrepreneur or for an entrepreneur to be confined to the lifestyle of an
employment-oriented person. This is why most people in life are not satisfied
with their jobs or careers. It is important that you know who you are and what
you are best suited for.
SALARY OR INCOME: SUBSISTENCE LIFE OR WEALTH - WHICH?
What kind of
life do you want to live? Are you satisfied with monthly pay cheque or do you
want to be the person to determine your own pay cheque (income)? Think of the
limitations of salary and opportunities inherent in self-employment.
When you walk
down your street or major roads, do take cognizance of imposing edifices and
glimmering automobiles that are driven past by you and ask yourself, “Who own these - Salary earners or Income earners?”
Even though, I
do not denigrate salary neither do I venerate income, I want to say that salary
is not the only approach to life and survival. Anyone who lives by banking on
salary may die without earning any. We need to reconfigure our minds from
earning salary to developing skills. Developing our individual capacities and
becoming self-employed is the way to go not only in modern day Nigeria, but
globally as well.
God has
endowed each of us with certain potentials, which are yearning to be harnessed.
To harness these is not a tea-party affair. It takes determination, focus and
hard work to achieve this, but the rewards are worth their weights in gold.
You cannot
become wealthy by serving others. I encourage us to see what God has deposited inside
us to become what He has created us to be. One way to do this is to make the
needed sacrifice:
1. See
into the future and make the needed present sacrifices (Genesis 49:14-15).
2. Leave
the Big League to play in the local league (What you are looking for in Sokoto
are already in your Shokoto). For sure, there is a future is shoe cobbling.
Everyone wants to start and hit it “Big.” Ask yourself, “How did Gucci, Dolce
and Gabana, etcetera start?”
POLITICS AND GET-RICH QUICK SYNDROME ARE NOT CAREERS
Technically
speaking, Politics is not a career.
Politics is struggle for power. Therefore, do not make politics your career.
Get-Rich
Syndromes such as engaging in Yahoo! Or YahooPlus! Kidnapping and the like are
not careers. These are activities stewed in illegalities and criminalities. There
is no way that you cannot build a sustainable future on faulty foundations. I
like to share with us few Scripture passages that should discourage us from
engaging in illegalities and criminalities:
Proverbs 20:17: “Bread obtained by falsehood is sweet to a man, but afterward
his
mouth will be filled with gravel.”
Proverbs
13:11: “Wealth obtained by fraud dwindles,
but the one who gathers by
labor
increases it.” Wealth
obtained through fraudulent means
will
suffer Economic law of “Diminishing returns.”
Zechariah 5:1-5: When
you bring into your home anything obtained through
thievery and lies, you are bringing curses
upon your family.
Zechariah 5:1-5 says:
Then I lifted up my eyes again and looked, and behold, there was a flying scroll. And he said to me, “What do you see?” And I
answered, “I see a flying scroll; its length is twenty cubits and its
width ten cubits.” Then he said to me, “This is
the curse that is going forth over the face of the whole and; surely everyone
who steals will be purged away according to the writing on one side, and
everyone who swears will be purged away according to the writing on the
other side. 4 I
will make it go forth,” declares the Lord of
hosts, “and it will enter the house of the thief and the house of the
one who swears falsely by My name; and it will spend the night within that
house and consume it with its timber and stones.”
Luke 16:10-12:
The way you handle what belongs to
others are what determines
your levels of blessings and Divine
settlement:
“He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also
in much; and he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous also
in much. Therefore
if you have not been faithful in the use of unrighteous wealth, who will entrust the
true riches to you? And
if you have not been faithful in the
use of that which is another’s, who will give you that which is
your own?
STEPS TO DEVELOPING A CAREER PATH
Define Your Capital?
What is your
capital? Your capital is not money, but the value you bring with you – your
skills. What can you say you are good at? Your capital is your meal ticket that
will open doors of opportunities before anyone, anywhere in the world. Your
capital is your capacity.
You have capacity.
Everyone does. The problem is that most people think that they do not have
capacities while in reality they do. God does not create a nobody. Anybody He
created is created to be somebody. When God created coconut, He imbued it with
water.
Sometimes, the temptation is to doubt certain abilities that
we are endowed with. The only way to overcome this is to keep doing what we are
doing until we perfect the art. You must learn to have faith in your faith and
to doubt your doubts. Israelmore Ayivor
wrote:
“Those
who mistrust their own abilities are being too wicked to themselves,
discouraging themselves from doing what they should have been excelling in. If
you are good at discouraging yourself, you can't be a good leader because
leadership is built on inspiring others to face challenges.”
“I
am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And
because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I
can do.”
“Believe
in your infinite potential. Your only limitations are those you set upon
yourself. Believe in yourself, your abilities and your own potential.
Never let self-doubt hold you captive. You are worthy of all that you dream of
and hope for.”
Search Yourself To Know What You Are Good At
The journey
into career development begins with self-evaluation. This journey is half
completed when you know who you are and what you can accomplish. It becomes
challenging when you do not have any idea of what you have been wired with.
Speaking to youths on an AIT Programme, TEEN
TIME on Saturday, March 17, 2018, Isaac Success counseled:
“Find your place and everything
will fall into place. When you do, you will become the master of that place.”
Volunteer To Work Under A Master of Your Art.
For
every Moses there was a Joshua; for every Elijah there was Elisha and for every
Paul, there were Timothy and Titus. What did all these people have in common? Mentors
and Mentees; Masters and Disciples!
In
their book, Start-Up Nation: The Story of
Israel’s Economic Miracle, Dan Senor and Saul Singer (2011) say that “Israelis do not go to work to earn, they go
to work to learn.” When you are schooled under a Master of your art, you
will in turn become the Master of your art. Saul, who became Apostle Paul was
schooled by a Master, Gamaliel (Acts 22:3) and he became a master himself (Acts
26:24).
Employ Your Capital
To employ your
capital is to commercialize it. In his book, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind: Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth,
T. Harv Eker (2005:10) wrote,
One of my favourite authors,
Stuart Wilde, puts it this way, “The key to success is to raise your own
energy; when you do, people will naturally be attracted to you. And when they
show up, bill ‘em!”
Advertise Yourself and Launch Out
You are not in
the world to be pitied and served. Your voice is your address. If you do not
say, “Here am I” nobody will know where you are and what you can do.
The world is a
noisy market place which requires that you go to the rooftop of your environment
and shout your way to people’s attention and interests.
Advertising
yourself and your art are critical to career development. Do not sit at home waiting for people to come
to you. Go where the people are and let them know what you can do. This is the thrust
of what we read of at John 7:1-4:
After these things Jesus was walking in Galilee, for He
was unwilling to walk in Judea because the Jews were seeking to kill
Him. Now
the feast of the Jews, the Feast of Booths, was near. Therefore His brothers said to Him,
“Leave here and go into Judea, so that Your disciples also may see Your
works which You are doing. For no one does
anything in secret when he himself seeks to be known publicly. If You do these things, show Yourself to
the world.”
CONCLUSION
Do not just go to school, study, graduate
and return to wait for non-existing employment. Truth is, there is no work. For
this reason, you must take your destiny in your own hands by acquiring a
skillset, develop and employ it to work.
Why be an angel when you can become god?
HILARY
JOHNSON CHUKWUMA CHUKWURAH
Grand-Heritage
Global Communications
Phone:
0803
959 6919. E-mail:
hilaryjohnsonc@gmail.com.
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