FINDING YOUR WAY TO HAPPINESS (Ebook) PDF

FINDING YOUR WAY TO HAPPINESS
“A handbook for mastering

Openness, Change, Criticism and
Motivation”
L. T MAGURANYE
Finding Your Way to Happiness Copyright © 2020 by L.T Maguranye. All Rights Reserved.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means
including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only
exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
Cover designed by Marktech Inc.
L.T Maguranye
Visit my website at www.thegrind.com
Printed in the Republic of Zimbabwe
First Printing: Aug 2020

Jesus Movement
The truth lasts throughout history; the truth
lasts the test of time. Lies and deceit fall away,
but the truth always remains. The truth is not
for everyone, but for those who seek it.
—L. T MAGURANYE
For mom and dad who taught me to be a
cultured young man.
CONTENTS
CONTENTS .................................................................... 5
INTRODUCTION ........................................................... 2
part one ......................................................................... 4
Chapter 1 – The Truth ................................................ 11
Chapter 2 – Friendship .............................................. 31
part two ....................................................................... 43
Chapter 3 – A Whole New Mind ............................... 48
Chapter 4 – Your Life Purpose and Work ............... 66
Chapter 5 – Why Mentorship? ................................. 77
part three .................................................................... 83
Chapter 6 – Friendly Criticism ................................ 88
Chapter 7 – Self Criticism ......................................... 98
part four .................................................................... 106
Chapter 8 – Confidence and Motivation ................. 111
EPILOGUE .................................................................. 119
L. T MAGURANYE
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this book is a very direct and simple
one: to help you find your way to happiness. It is to
describe and articulate some of the most important
keys to a happy life, that are ‘Openness, Change,
Criticism and Self-confidence’.
Who decides whether you shall be happy or
unhappy? The answer – you do. Happiness is
achievable and the process for obtaining it is not
complicated. Anyone who desires happiness and, who
learns and applies the right formula can be happy.
Most people manufacture their own unhappiness
instead of happiness. Life itself manufactures enough
problems to dilute our happiness, and it is foolish for
you and I to add to the problems by crafting
unhappiness with our own minds. We bring forth our
unhappiness by entertaining unhappy thoughts
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Perhaps you feel that other people are more

privileged that you. This conviction conceives anxiety,
envy and self-pity. It breeds the feeling of unhappiness
in you. How then, can we proceed to make for ourselves
not unhappiness but happiness? The answer is in this
book – mastering Openness, Change, Criticism and
Self-confidence.
As you read this book, believe what you read, because
it is true, then start working on the practical
suggestions in this book and you will have a life
changing experience that produces extraordinary
happiness. You will begin to create out of yourself not
unhappiness, but happiness of such quality and
character that you will wonder if you are living in the
same world. I urge you to read this book thoughtfully,
carefully absorbing its teachings, and if you will
sincerely and persistently practice the principles
herein, you can cultivate an amazing life filled with
happiness. Please find your way to happiness.
L.T Maguranye
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L. T MAGURANYE
PART ONE
The Mystery of Openness

Make your ego porous. Will is of little importance, complaining
is nothing, fame is nothing. Openness, patience, receptivity,
solitude is everything. | Maria Rickle
✽ ✽ ✽
I am a millennial and I was born in the late 90s. By

definition, the millennial generation starts in the
early 1980s and ends around the 2000s. The millennial
generation is also sometimes referred to as echo
boomers because they are the ‘echo’ of the baby
boomers by representing a second surge in population.
Another name for the millennial generation is the
boomerang generation because they have had a hard
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time growing up and navigating the rites of passage of

adulthood so they return home to their parents like
boomerangs.
There is a major problem in my generation. The
millennial generation seems to be having a difficult
time to live their lives to the fullest, to live a purpose
driven life and to break free out of the circles of anxiety
and mental poverty. They seem to struggle finding
their way to happiness. There is a myriad of problems
that this young generation is facing on a daily basis all
around the world in every nation and tribe. Almost
everyone has a dream or at least aspires to become
great and successful one day, but the sad thing is that
those dreams and aspirations do not come to fruition.
Just like what the proverb of king Solomon says, “Hope
deferred makes the heart sick….” The millennial
generation is full of psychologically sick people who
are living under pressure, depression and anxiety. They
are being sickened by the difficulty or failure to attain
their dreams. They are in a state of void.
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L. T MAGURANYE
A state of void inflicts a spirit of openness. Openness

is a way of thinking. In 1954, Albert Einstein
pessimistically predicted that, “the unleashed power of
the atom has changed everything save our mode of
thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled
catastrophe.” In retrospect, his prediction has been
only partially correct. Over the past 40 years, the
millennial generation has gone through a lot of crises,
yet it survived. Why? Because each time, there was a
change in the way people think. Albert Einstein had not
predicted that the way we think might change as a
result of external circumstances and that we are always
able to detect opportunities, even in a crisis-stricken
world. This gives us the capacity to keep moving
forward as a people.
Openness is the basis for our survival as human
beings. If we do not put our ego aside and open up to
get the help that we need, in the end we will only
perish. To be open, one must grow his or her core
capabilities and strengthen their partnership with
others. He or she must not stray from this course,
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because openness is one of the major keys to unlock the

door to happiness.
An American botanist by the name Daniel Chamovitz
in his book ‘What a Plant Knows’ said: “People have to
realize that plants are complex organisms that live a
rich and sensual life. But if we realize that all of plant
biology arises from the evolutionary constriction of
‘rootedness’ that keep plants immobile, then we can
start to appreciate the very sophisticated biology going
on in the leaves and flowers. If you think about it,
rootedness is a huge evolutionary constraint. It means
that plants can’t escape a bad environment, can’t
migrate in the search for food or a mate. So, plants had
to develop incredibly sensitive and complex sensory
mechanisms that would let them survive in ever
changing environments”. The same applies to us, we
live in an ever changing world that requires us to adopt
certain ways of life that will help us find our way to
happiness despite the state of the environment. This is
a perfect explanation why you as an individual have to
be open. You and I have to survive amid inherent
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constraints and the ever changing environment that

surrounds us.
You have to embrace openness and avoid the narrow
mindset of protectionism. Therefore, you have to
create an open culture, through cultivating friendships.
I know some of you have been betrayed many times, by
people whom you thought were your true friends.
Don’t worry, I’ve got you. I will safely walk you
through the process of openness until you understand
this mystery. Only by tossing away your narrow
mindset and corrupt sense of pride, can you become a
true professional, successful and mature person, thus
leading a happy life. You will find a good reason why
you are alive. You will discover your true purpose in
life.
For you not to be labeled as a ‘mysterious Black
Widow’ or ‘a Brash Gladiator’, you need to stay open
across all aspects of your dealings. If you work with
others, you can’t act like a Black Widow. A Black Widow
is a type of spider found in Latin America. After mating,
the female spider eats its male partner in order to
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provide nutrition for its offspring. Isn’t this selfishness

in disguise? That’s a savage move!
This perfectly paints a picture of the kind of people
that we have in this generation. There are people who
make friends with the intention to leave them as soon
as they get what they want. They don’t want no one to
know much about them, not even the people that they
call their friends. They hide their true selves by not
being open to their peers. Some of them even hide their
pain, which as a consequence eat them to the bone until
they are broken into pieces. Their lives ride in the
chariots of pain and misery. You are right! I am talking
about you. You must be open, modest and look a deep
look at the problems that you are facing on a daily
basis, problems that are hindering you from being
happy and successful. As a people, we mustn’t be
narrow minded, focusing on petty victories, lest we
become a bunch of fear mongers. We need to find a
more effective model of collaboration to ensure mutual
success and happiness.
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L. T MAGURANYE
How can you embrace openness and live a successful

life that is filled with peace and happiness? I promise
you this one thing; we will walk together through all
the details that I think you need to know. Brace yourself
and get ready to change your life.
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CHAPTER 1 – THE
TRUTH
“And ye shall know the truth, and truth shall make you free” -
John 8:32 (KJV)
T he truth lasts throughout history; the truth lasts

the test of time. Lies and deceit fall away, but the
truth always remains. The truth is not for everyone, but
for those who seek it.
In this journey of life, if you want to be successful
and happy, you have to seek the truth, no matter what
stands in your way. Seek the truth, not your version of
the truth, but the truth. Be a person who is in a position
to accept the truth or correction, and act upon it in a
more positive way that will make you a better person.
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L. T MAGURANYE
Before you can get the truth from anywhere else, the
first source of truth is yourself. Be true to yourself. Ask
yourself all the difficult questions about yourself. Why
am I broken? Why am I always failing? Why did I lose
my last job? Why is it that my business is failing to
breakeven? What am I passionate about? Be open to
yourself and ask yourself questions about your own
life.
Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it. | Mark
Twain
If someone is able to show me that what I think or

do is not right, I will happily change, for I seek the
truth, by which no one was ever truly harmed. It’s the
person who continues in his or her self-deception and
ignorance who is harmed.
Political correctness tells us that nothing is more
important than the way people feel. If something
offends us, if it hurts our feelings, if it makes us feel
that we have been treated unfairly, it is to be shunned
and snuffed out from the public discourse. We believe
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this because we are trying to love one another. We want

to create an artificial world around us, that will shield
us from these negative and necessary parts of life, but
in doing so, we leave ourselves trapped in lies and
unprepared for the realities of the world. The truth is
the vitality for change in human life. You need it.
“Buy the truth, and sell it not; also, wisdom, and instruction, and
understanding” - Proverbs 23:23 (KJV)
The objective of ‘truth’ is not to be on the side of the

majority, but to escape finding yourself in the ranks of
the insane. You can only escape the ranks of the insane
by seeking the truth about yourself. Be true to yourself.
What are your weaknesses? What are your strengths?
What is stopping you from pursuing your dreams? The
truth and only the truth can set you free.
“The lip of truth shall be established for ever: but a lying tongue is but for a
moment” - Proverbs 12:19 (KJV)
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Do not be a double minded person, know what you

want and pledge to seek the truth to achieve that which
your heart desires. You cannot run away from seeking
the truth about yourself by posing a fake character
which says, “I’m fine, don’t worry about me”.
Character is like a coin, if the value of one side of the
coin is different from the value of the other, everyone
would be confused. No matter how you package
yourself, true positive character comes from your
desire and love to seek the truth. If you embrace to seek
the truth about who you are, your problems, what you
want, and what you can and cannot do, you will never
live a life full of confusion. People will feel happy to
welcome you into their lives and help you pave your
way to a successful life. Your ability to be true to
yourself gives them the confidence that they can trust
you and help you to succeed.
When you deny your deep truth to please people,
everyone will feel your lack of authenticity. They will
sense that your false smile hides an inner division.
Your friends, family, workmates or business colleagues
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may love you, but they won’t trust you, since you don’t
trust yourself. More importantly, your own sense of the
lack of authenticity will burden your capacity to act
with clarity. You will spend most of your energy trying
to keep up with the lie that is leading your life, and
believe me, the race of trying to keep up with lies is a
painful one. Your actions won’t jibe with your core
being. However, what does it really mean to be true to
yourself?
Being True to Yourself

A lot of conflict you have in your life exists simply because
you’re not living in alignment; you’re not being true to
yourself | Steve Maraboli
✽ ✽ ✽
To be true to yourself means to act in accordance

with who you are and what you believe. If you know
and love yourself, you will find it effortless to be true
to yourself. Just as you cannot love anyone else until
you love yourself, you cannot be true to anyone else
until you are true to yourself.
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L. T MAGURANYE
Begin by not being afraid to be who you are. As

difficult as it may seem at first, have the courage to
accept yourself as you really are, not as someone else
thinks you should be. Do not take action or pretend to
be someone else for the sake of gaining acceptance. A
lot of young people believe that when they do stupid
things to please their peers, such as drink alcohol when
they shouldn’t, or behave and party in inappropriate
ways, they will be popular and liked. They go against
the advice of their parents or their own common sense
only to find themselves in trouble and not
accomplishing what they set out to do.
When you do things that are not genuine or a
reflection of the real you, you will not be happy with
yourself and will end up confused. You will be confused
because you won’t know who to please, or how. Self-
respect comes from being true to who you really are
and from acting in accordance with your fundamental
nature. When you respect yourself, others will respect
you. They will sense that you are strong and capable of
standing up for yourself and your beliefs.
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Be true to the very best that is in you and live your

life consistent with your highest values and
aspirations. Those who are most successful in life have
dared to creatively express themselves and in turn,
broaden the experiences and perspectives of everyone
else.
Pretending to be someone you’re not is one of the
most disturbing experiences in the world. And realizing
that you’ve pretended to be someone else is arguably
even more distressing. But what do you do once you
realize you’re not being honest with yourself?
Often, people make a big drama about expressing
‘authenticity’, when in reality, being true to yourself is
quite simple. But it isn’t for the fainthearted. In order
to be true to yourself, you need courage. However,
thankfully, courage is a source of power we all have
access to no matter how insecure we feel.
“Be strong and of good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the LORD
thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake
thee.” – Deuteronomy 31:6 (KJV)
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If you feel like you’re living a lie, forgive yourself. So

many of us feel the same way. In fact, learning how to
be true to yourself is all part of the human growth
experience. When we came into this life, we were
practically destined to live inauthentic lives at some
point. Often, we need to first discover how we are not
being authentic in order to uncover who we truly are
deep inside. Don’t worry; there is nothing wrong with
you. You aren’t at any serious fault. But now that you
have woken up out of the dream, it’s time to do some
inner serious work.
Be true to yourself. Trust yourself. In life, you cannot
be successful or happy without having confidence in
your own powers and God given abilities. For you to
succeed in whatever you do, you need to have self-
confidence. Inferiority complex may try to hinder you
from attaining your goals or dreams, but self-
confidence will carry you to successful achievement.
The key weapon for eliminating the inferiority complex
which in other terms is a deep and profound self-
doubt, is to fill up your mind with a vast amount of
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faith. Faith comes by hearing the truth and hearing by

the Word of God which is the number source of truth.
Develop strong faith in God and you will have sound
faith in yourself. Tremendous faith is developed by a
lot of prayer, reading and mentally soaking into the
Word of God and by practicing what it says.
When you pray, dive deep into your doubts, fears and
inferiorities. Pray prayers that have an abundance of
sanction and you will come up with powerful and
everlasting faith. At the end of the day, you will come
face to face with the truth, the truth that what you fear
is really small as compared to your faith, powers and
abilities.
Almost every person in existence at some point has
stopped and stared blankly at their lives. Sometimes
this feeling of inner emptiness is accompanied by
feelings such as surreal dissociation or that ‘this isn’t
my life’. Some of us feel smothered by the weight of
our social masks and responsibilities, resulting in
states of chronic anxiety insomnia. And sometimes, we
feel a heavy numbness inside that swallows up our lives
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in depression. Realizing that you are not walking the

right path can come gradually, like day fading into
night, or all of a sudden, like an avalanche consuming
everything around us. How did this realization feel like
to you? For me, the realizations that I was living a
complete lie dawned on me slowly, across the span of
a year. I felt increasingly confused, disoriented,
anxious, depressed, and my mind spiraled into a very
dark place. Thankfully, God took me out of that place.
So, you think you might be living a lie? Here are some
red flags to look out for:
 You feel trapped
 You feel unheard, unseen and undervalued
 You feel alone
 Your smiles hide terrible pain
 You’re obsessed with falsely pleasing others
 You’re tired of putting on fake personalities
 You base your self-worth on how others
perceive you
 You rarely feel true happiness anymore
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 You constantly carry a feeling of dread in the

pit of your stomach
 You have forgotten what makes you feel joyful
and fulfilled
 You escape your reality through addictions
 Life feels bleak and dreary
 You feel bored with life
 You have a feeling that you’re living in
autopilot mode
 You carry a heart full of regrets
 Your mind is obsessed with the past
 You have trouble expressing your true-self
 You are surrounded by judgmental and
unsupportive people
 You look at your life and feel like you are
someone else
 You hide many secrets from others
 You’re scared to express your feelings and
thoughts openly
 You keep self-sabotaging
 You struggle with self-loathing
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 You feel like you don’t know who you are

anymore
Stop and reflect on these signs. How many of them
resonated with you? The more signs you said an
internal “yes” to, the more likely you’re living an
inauthentic life.
How to Be True to Yourself

All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the
point is to discover them. | Galileo Galilei
✽ ✽ ✽
Each and every one of us has a destiny, a true-life

path, a deeply significant soul mission. When we
innocently listen to others and try to align our lives to
their expectations, we come out of alignment with our
own ultimate life purpose that God has given us. It’s
not that we choose to deliberately walk the wrong path,
instead, our fractured lives are the result of
unconsciously conditioned autopilot living. But if you
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are craving to connect with your soul and be true to

yourself, here are some good pieces of advice:
1. Act with integrity in every social situation.
Speak honesty, no matter who you are talking to.
Part of being true to yourself is saying what you
mean. It can be very tempting to give in to peer
pressure or social expectations and merely repeat the
opinions of others. However, people who are true to
themselves resist this impulse, and let their honest
thoughts and feelings be known (without being rude
about it, of course). For example, if some of your
friends are singing the praise of a music concert that
you didn’t enjoy, you can say something like, “I am
glad you guys enjoyed the music concert, but it didn’t
do much for me.”
Don’t put others down to make yourself look better.
In social settings, it can be tempting to pick on
people for the sake of making yourself look witty,
clever, or cool. Avoid this impulse. For example, if your
friend group is teasing a less-popular person, don’t
join in the teasing for the sake of making your friends
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laugh. Instead, say something like, “I think we should

stop the teasing.” This will show your friends that you
have personal morals and won’t change your behavior
simply because it gets a laugh.
Surround yourself with friends with integrity.
The people we hang out with have a big influence on
who we are as a people, and it’s hard to stay true to
yourself when everyone around you is influencing or
pressing you to be something or someone other than
yourself. Supportive friends can let you know if you’re
acting out, and can support you when you’re going
through tough times. Choose your friends wisely. Be
close with genuinely kind and nice people, not cruel or
detracting ones. Make sure that your friends support
and admire you for being yourself, if they don’t,
question their motives and the reasons for your
friendship. Make sure you have friends or close family
members that can serve as your integrity
accountability mentors. This person should help you
when you need to consult someone about making
decisions in line with your values.
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Don’t hide your character or preferences.

As a general rule, there is very little to be gained by
deceiving others about who you are or what you value.
People who are true to themselves are comfortable with
letting their true beliefs and personality be known. If
you feel like you need to conceal parts of your
character, it is possible that you are not being true to
yourself. For example, if your friends all love playing
chess, but you are not into board games, don’t go along
with them just to feel like you fit in. Instead, say
something like, “How about we do something different
for once? Let’s go and watch a football match.”
2. Figure yourself out.
Examine your own values.
Your values will guide your personal interests and
behaviors, so it’s worth taking some time to figure out
what they are. To help you identify your core values,
make a list of those characteristics you find important,
such as freedom, power, helpfulness, and integrity. Try
to prioritize the list. This will help you come up with
your core personal values. Your values may change over
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time. Your list won’t remain static, and that’s fine. The
point is to check in with yourself and clarify your
values. You can do this exercise any time to help
yourself with that process.
Determine what some of your own interests are.
This is an important part of getting to know yourself
and staying true to who you are. Interests can include
things like interpersonal skills, professional skills, and
hobbies. Once you have a few of your own strengths in
mind, you will have a better idea of yourself and a
better handle on what it means to be true to yourself.
For example, maybe one of your friends is an incredible
athlete. But you lack their athletic talent. That’s fine.
Figure out what you are good at; maybe that’s music or
business.
Brush off mistakes that you make.
Everyone can and will make mistakes. Over time, it’s
important to learn from the mistakes you have made
and move forward, rather than dwelling on them.
Otherwise, you will continue to mentally beat yourself
up for something that’s in the past and unchangeable.
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For example, if you lost money on a wrong investment,

don’t be too hard on yourself. Instead, figure out what
you did wrong that made you lose that money, and
work to correct that error on your next investment.
Set SMART goals and work towards them.
You will have more personal drive and integrity if
you have personal and professional goals to work
towards. SMART is an acronym which stands for:
Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-
Bound. SMART goals can help you be realistic about the
type of goals you can achieve, and will help keep you
on track to meet the goals. For example, say you want
to start a new business. First, be specific: decide what
type of business you’d like to start and serving which
market. Then, decide if you can attain these goals.
Make sure your goal to being a business person is
relevant to your personal interests, even after one, two,
or four years have passed, and give yourself a specific
time limit in which to meet your goals.
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3. Avoid a negative self-image.

Don’t pay attention to others' detracting opinions of you.
If your friends or acquaintances have unjustified
criticism to make, pay them no attention. The people
who really mean the most are those who stick by your
side and respect and love you for who you are. For
example, if a friend decides to make fun of you behind
your back for wearing clothes that he or she doesn’t
like, ignore their rude opinion. However, this isn’t to
say that you can’t learn from positive and constructive
feedback about improving yourself from friends and
family. Those you trust will sometimes be excellent
sources of suggestions for ways to improve yourself
that will help bring out your true talents and abilities.
For example, if a friend says, “I think that you need to
work on your temper; you have been angry lately and
it’s starting to drive your friends away”, their advice
would be worth listening to.
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Write down some qualities that you think are personal

strengths.
This can help you develop a positive image of
yourself. It’s hard to be true to yourself if you have a
low opinion of yourself in general, or if you lack self-
esteem. Pull out a sheet of paper, and write down 5-
10-character strengths that you think you have. For
example, you could write: Good at public speaking,
sympathetic, funny, and ambitious when it comes to
following my passions and a good listener.
Think about how you can live out your strengths.
This will help you be true to yourself in a way that is
authentic, and that you can maintain over time. For
example, if you think you’re sympathetic, you may
decide that you want to show great sympathy to your
friends and family members when they need it the
most. If you have a great sense of humor, try to find
ways in which you can make others feel better through
some jokes. This activity will help you develop a
positive self-image. A positive self-image will
encourage you to stay true to yourself and your beliefs,
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since you will feel less pressure to be someone you’re

not or to act in a way you find inauthentic.
Learn to embrace your flaws.
They are a part of you, and that won’t change.
Balance these by acknowledging and making the most
out of your good features and putting your best self
forward as much as possible. Being true to oneself
doesn’t mean forcing yourself to be perfect. Rather, it
involves knowing your interests and behaviors as a
person, and fully embracing yourself. For example,
maybe you’re impatient, or maybe you realize you have
a bit of a temper. It’s okay to work on improving these
aspects of your personality, without devolving to self-
hatred or denial.
The attitude of being true to yourself engenders
others’ trust in you. If you want to change your life for
the better, you have to seek the truth and truth alone.
Be true to yourself first before anything else in your
life. Don’t fight yourself, that’s one of the secrets to
success. Never go to war with yourself.
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CHAPTER 2 –
FRIENDSHIP
“A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: and
there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother” – Proverbs
18:24 (KJV)
F riends can challenge us,

sometimes we might wonder why we bother. But
confuse us, and
friendship is as important to our wellbeing as eating

right and exercising. What’s more, friendships help us
grow through each day of our lives.
The friends we meet in life teach us how to be
patient, wait our turn, reach out, and try new hobbies.
When we move into young adulthood, we learn more
about taking responsibility, finding a career path, and
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seeking out people as mentors. As we progress through

life’s rites, we learn to weather the ups and downs in
life, and once again friends provide a sounding board
and place for us to grow. Friendships are the key to our
success with all our relationships and they can create a
sense of purpose in our lives.
As attested by that old adage, “We choose our
friends, not our family”, this means that the personal
and positive nature of friendship is voluntary. We are a
social species and we need that sense of ‘belonging’, of
feeling deeply appreciated by people we care for.
Meaningful, long-term friendships are cherished.
Intimate friends share each other’s experiences and,
in some way, they inhabit each other’s lives. They often
have similar viewpoints and values, and they may
share similar backgrounds and traditions. They
witness the milestones and unexpected changes of life,
the highs and lows, celebrations and sadness. People
without friends often experience the vulnerability of
loneliness, that poignant state which most of us have
felt at some point.
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Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, “What!
You too? I thought I was the only one”. | C.S Lewis
Friendships first develop during childhood, when

youngsters learn to interact with others. They learn
how to agree and disagree, to exchange meaningful
words, and gestures, to accommodate to others’
temperaments, and to make friends. These early skills
are foundations for later friendships. Friends exchange
caring, celebration and solace. When people feel blue,
they often reach out to old friends for support and
counsel. Close friendships enhance moods and
functioning as well as emotional and physical health.
Friendships have to be cultivated and nurtured to be
meaningful over the years. Good friends are open,
genuine and honest with each other. They tolerate each
other’s frailties, appreciate their differences, and
honestly criticize each other when necessary. Over
many years, they participate in each other’s
celebrations. They are there for each other during
illness and setbacks, and some are left to mourn the
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losses of their dear old friends, almost as a loss of a

part of themselves.
You know that some of the feelings and experiences
you shared with friends during good times and sad, are
among your most cherished memories. Simply put,
good friendships are some of the best stuff of life.
There are three types of friends that you will
encounter in life, if you are destined for a great life.
These are:
CONFIDANTS; you will have very few or probably you
have few of these in your life. Confidants are those
people in your life who love you unconditionally. They
are into you, whether you are up or down, right or
wrong, they are into you. They are in your life for the
long haul. If you get in trouble, they get in trouble with
you. They will come to see you even in jail or on your
deathbed. You can open up and share anything with
them.
You will never live your life to the fullest until you
find your confidant. You can’t be King David until you
find your Jonathan. Having a good confidant is the key
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that unlocks a great life. You’ve got to have a confidant

behind the wall who can mentor you for the next big
thing that is going to happen in your life.
The problem with most people is that everybody they
run around with is under them. And so, you are forever
feeding people who can’t feed you. And after years of
feeding them, they begin to drain you. You’ve got to
have somebody who can feed you, so you can feed
somebody else.
You need a confidant. Confidants are those few
people that come along with your life, they are for you,
and they are with you. They are there to make sure that
you reach your destiny. They will confront you; they
will get in your face. They will get in your business.
They will tell you when you are wrong because they are
confidants. If you have two or three of them in a
lifetime, you are a blessed person. Without them, you
will never be who you are supposed to be. You need to
find your confidant.
CONSTITUENTS; these are not into you; they are into
what you are for. As long as you are for what they are
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for, they will walk with you and labor with you, but
never think they are for you. They are for what you are
for, and you have to know that, because if they meet
somebody else that will further their agenda, they will
leave you and hook up with them, because they were
never for you. They were just for what you were for.
And, throughout your life if you are not careful,
particularly if you are broken, you will mistake your
CONSTITUENTS for your CONFIDANTS. And you will
think that they are for you when they are really not for
you; they are just for what you are for. By the time you
get to falling in love with them, they will break your
heart as they hook up with somebody else who is for
what you are for, because it was never about you
anyway. It was about the causes that you represent.
They are for what you are for but they are not for you.
They are your constituents.
COMRADES; these people are not for you, nor are
they for what you are for. It is just that they are against
what you are against. The comrades will make strange
bedfellows. This will cause people to come together
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who are not for you and they are not for what you are
for, but they are against what you are against. And they
will team up with you to help fight a greater enemy.
But don’t be confused by their associations. They will
only be with you until the victory is accomplished.
These people are like scaffolding. They come into your
life to fulfill a purpose and when the purpose is
completed, the scaffolding is removed. But don’t be
upset when they are removed, because the building
always remains when the scaffolding is removed.
Expect the constituents and the comrades to leave
you and desert you after a while. Don’t be upset when
they don’t react to your dream, the way you expected
them to, because they were never really with you in the
first place.
Be careful who you tell your dream, because if you
tell your dreams to your constituents, they will desert
you and try to fulfill the dream without you. If you tell
it to your comrades, they won’t support it because they
never were for what you were for anywhere.
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If you find a few people in your entire life with which

you can share your dream with, you are a blessed
person. Thank God for that. How do you identify people
who are really for you? If they are really for you, they
will weep with you when you weep and they will rejoice
with you when you rejoice. When you walk in a room
and you tell somebody good news, stop being happy for
a minute and watch their reaction. If they are not happy
for you, shut your mouth and walk back out of the door,
because when they are really connected to you, they
will be happy for you, they will be happy for you when
you share your dream. Today, take whoever you call
your friend, look them in the eye and ask, “Are you
happy for me?” If you don’t get the right reaction,
don’t tell them anything else.
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The Importance of Having Friends

A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world
walks out | Walter Winchell
✽ ✽ ✽
1. Friends help us interact with just about

everyone.
The people we bring into our lives as friends will
show us how to forgive, laugh, and make
conversations. The basic components of any
relationship, from marriage to coworkers, are all
around friendship. When we learn how to interact with
people because of our friends, even the ones that are
opposite from us or share a different worldview. We
don’t just talk with others but learn from them. We
understand the process of meeting new acquaintances
and finding out what makes them tick. These people
help us out of our comfort zone while still providing a
safe emotional space for us to be totally ourselves.
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2. Friends keep us mentally and physically strong.

One of the most overlooked benefits of friendships is
that they help keep our minds and bodies strong. In
fact, it’s as important to our physical health as eating
well and keeping fit. Having solid friendships in our
lives even helps promote mental health. Friends help
us deal with stress; make better life choices that keep
us strong, and allow us to rebound from health issues
and diseases more quickly. Friendship is important to
our mental health. Spending time with positive friends
actually changes our outlook for the better. That means
we’re happier when we choose to spend time with
happy people. What it means is, leave all toxic
friendships behind.
3. Friends help us weather lonely times.
Friends don’t completely cure loneliness, that’s a
common myth, but they do help us during lonely times.
We learn how to accept kindness and also to reach out
when we need help. Those painful times when we
might be without friends also help us to appreciate the
friendships that come in and out of our lives. Having a
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steady stream of friends let us know that some

friendships won’t last forever but each one brings
something special. We learn more about ourselves and
how important it is to have someone, just one person,
who knows and understands you. This is the key to
coming out of loneliness.
4. Friends improve the quality of our lives.
Friends can change our value system so we learn to
inject more meaning into our lives. In spending time
with friends, we fill up our lives with great
conversation, heartfelt caring and support, and laugh
out loud for fun. When we fall on hard times, friends
are there to put things in perspective and help us. When
we have success, they’re smiling at our good fortune.
With down to-earth, positive people in our lives we will
be more mindful of gratitude and doing nice things to
others. We don’t just live when we have healthy
friendships, we thrive.
Growing and relating to one another in order to make
a beautiful everlasting friendship takes time and
patience.
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Unless you become true to yourself, and build strong

and solid friendships, you are not ready to change your
life. However, if you have given yourself to ‘openness’,
then you are ready to go through the process of change.
The process of change in your life begins with this one
step called ‘openness’.
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PART TWO
The Process of Change

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some
other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the
change that we seek. | Barack Obama
✽ ✽ ✽
No doubt the biggest enemy of change is people,

especially leaders. Any act of change would be easier
and more effective if people yielded to it and not vice
versa; otherwise it takes twice the effort for half the
results. Change aims at stimulating vitality within an
individual, overcoming laziness and optimizing
performance.
Before I break down this to how you can change your
life as an individual, allow me to clear yours and my
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mind by giving you some of my thoughts. These are

just general thoughts that will open or refresh your
mind to get what I am going to lay down about
changing your life as an individual.
Business has no nationality and markets know no
boundaries. How many Western companies in the
Fortune 500 do you see waving their national flags
around? Their ambitions are global and yet they make
a core contribution to the strength of the countries
where they’re brought into being. What is the cost of
change then? The cost of change is to put a high level
of commitment in contributing to the strength of your
beloved community, city or nation. No matter where
you are in God’s green earth, as long as you call
yourself a true citizen of your nation, there is always
something you can do for your beloved nation. One way
or the other, whatever you decide to do has to bring
some kind of positive change in your life and the lives
of the people in your community, city or nation.
In the business world, the mission of a merchant is
to make profit, seeking fame is anathema. In this
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diverse world, everyone and every trade play a definite

role and the title of star is reserved for performers,
politicians and their ilk. Entrepreneurs and business
people on the other hand, should keep themselves as
far away from the stage as possible. No one can
successfully chase both profit and fame at the same
time, so business should race away from fame just as
politicians shouldn’t race towards profits. What does
this imply?
On the contrary, those who manage to hold
themselves back from the carnival are those who are
most likely to survive and become great. Treating
quietly for the time being, they are the ones who may
very well become the most lasting stars in life, building
successful businesses or careers that are lit by the
failing light of fickler and falling stars.
Strength and greatness are choices; do not be
tempted by the pleasures and distractions of weak
people. Most of us have suffered a great deal, but how
can we survive and grow? We have to become just like
a tree. The tree takes root in the earth, but this
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rootedness is a huge evolutionary constraint. The tree,

therefore, cannot grow unless it has a strong will to
weather all manner of stones, absorbing nutrients
from the earth to build out its roots, stretching its
canopy upwards and outwards amid relentless change
and adaptation. An aggressive advance is the only way
to grow stronger every day.
There is, but one rule that exists in the jungle; hunt
or be hunted. Its either you make a choice today, that
you have to start working on changing your life for the
better, or your life will embark on a cruel mission of
changing you into someone that you will never like. My
friend, the world around you is changeable, although it
operates according to rules.
Art is different from reality. The reality is that people
lead diverse lives. Whether you are a student,
entrepreneur, musician or a corporate employee, you
face a similar problem: No two people look alike. The
world is varied and complex. Human nature is like the
universe; vast but tiny, constant but changeable,
regular but diversified. Your life is changeable, so do
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not even think that your life is in a tight spot where

change is impossible. Your life can be changed for the
better as long as you are willing to put in the effort and
work that is required to do so.
No one can embark on the journey of changing his or
her own life for the better without a risk-taking
disposition. That’s why entrepreneurs fascinate me a
lot; they are like sailors navigating the sea or knights
riding through the wilderness. They have a risk-taking
disposition that drives them to embrace the process of
change so as to change theirs and other people’s lives
for the better. One cannot succeed without an insane
stubbornness to change. There is no shortcut to
survival and development; despite how stupid and
elementary it sounds, fighting hard and persevering is
the only way.
People tend to neglect or ignore the fact that change
happens over a long period of time, and at a terrible
cost. If you are ready to change your life, let’s jump into
the pillars of change that are practically applicable in
changing your life.
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CHAPTER 3 – A WHOLE
NEW MIND
“And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by
the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that
good, and acceptable and perfect, will of God.” – Romans 12:2
(KJV)
B irds that live in a cage have little freedom and they

depend on their owner for food and water; in
return, they can only express their appreciation by
singing the sweet melodies. In the end, they are just a
plaything. Training horses is different. Horses are
familiar with running wild on vast land. We often
compare unrestricted imagination to wild horses
running free. To train a horse, you must allow the
horse to retain some of its wild nature while
attempting to regulate its behavior. In simple terms, a
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well-trained horse runs with a warlike passion but

within a certain set of boundaries. When compared to
birds, horses live in a world that is rich and fulfilling.
The two are worlds apart. What kind of illumination did
you get from these differences?
A birdcage represents a certain set of rules and
prohibitions. But in a vast land where horses can run
wild; although there is a fence around the boundaries
of the farm, there is also freedom and imagination
within. In the minds of most people, rules are equal to
restrictions, and one of the mistakes that people make
is to pit rules and goals against each other. They falsely
believe that rules make goals impossible, yet the worst
enemy of change is the human mindset.
Once your mindset changes, everything on the outside will change along
with it | Steve Maraboli
Mindset is everything. Whether you are talking about

career success, starting your own business, getting
through a tough workout or being a parent, having the
right mindset can make the difference between success
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and failure. Let’s take a look at some nuggets that will

help you renew your mindset.
An Open Mind
In fact, the more each person can remove his or her ego from
the discussion and focus on the subject matter, the more
fruitful the conversation will be for all involved | Matthew
Kelly
✽ ✽ ✽
Openness indicates how open-minded a person is. A

person with a high level of openness enjoys trying new
things. They are imaginative, curious, and open
minded. Individuals, who are low in openness, would
rather not try new things because they are closed-
minded, literal and enjoy having a routine. High
openness means being creative and open to new ideas
Open Minded People vs. Closed Minded People
Have you ever wondered why some people seem to
make constant progress and success in their
professional and personal lives, while others struggle
to do the same and are doomed to repeat the same
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mistakes over and over? While the answer isn’t cut and
dry, there is an interesting difference in mindset
between the two: they approach challenges and
obstacles in a different way. Their mindsets are worlds
apart.
Successful people approach life with an open
mindset. They possess an eagerness to learn and a
willingness to be wrong. However, unsuccessful people
dig their heels in the first sign of disagreement and
would rather die than be wrong. The way each group
approaches and deals with challenges and obstacles is
what separates them. Which group are you in?
Before you smugly slap an open-minded sticker on
your forehead, hear this: closed minded people would
never consider that they could actually be closed
minded. Actually, their perceived open mindedness is
what’s so dangerous. Nobody wants to admit to
themselves that they are closed minded.
The ability to change your mind is a super power.
The rate at which you learn and progress in life
depends on your willingness to weigh the benefits of
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new ideas, even if you don’t instinctively like them.

The following are the top seven benefits of having an
open mind:
Letting go of control
When you open your mind, you free yourself from
having to be in complete control of your thoughts. You
allow yourself to experience new ideas and thoughts,
and you challenge the ideologies that you currently
have.
Experiencing changes
Opening up your mind to new ideas allows you to
have the opportunity to change what you think and
how you view the world. This does not mean you
necessarily will change your beliefs – in fact, the
process may actually reinforce your current beliefs
more strongly, but thinking with an open mind gives
you the power to create positive change and stronger
results.
Making yourself vulnerable
One of the scariest and greatest things about seeing
the world through an open mind is that you make
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yourself vulnerable. Agreeing to have an open minded

view in the world, you’re also admitting you don’t
know it all. This vulnerability can be both terrifying
and exhilarating.
Making mistakes
Making mistakes doesn’t seem like it would be much
of a benefit. When you allow yourself to see things from
others’ perspectives, you will gain the opportunity to
fail and learn from those mistakes. This removes the
fear of failure.
Strengthening yourself
Open mindedness provides a platform to build upon,
piling one idea on top of another. Everything you
experience collectively ‘adds up’, strengthening the
person you are and what you believe in. It’s very hard
to build experiences without an open mind.
Gaining confidence
When you live with an open mind, you have a strong
sense of self. You are not confined by your own beliefs
or the beliefs of others.
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Being honest
To be open minded means being honest enough to
admit that you are not all knowing. This understanding
creates an underlying sense of authenticity that
permeates the character of any person who lives with
an open mind.
For some, being open-minded is as easy as
breathing. For some, it’s a challenge, it’s something
they have to think about constantly and make a
continual effort to keep and obtain. The majority of
people struggle with this concept. But making the
effort to think openly and embrace new ideas will truly
produce great benefits for your business, career and
your personal life as well.
Since we are all facing this challenge together, what
can we do? The following are the top five things
successful people do differently in this regard. They are
simple tactics you can use and adopt as well to become
more open minded in your life. If you follow them
carefully, you will achieve great success. These are:
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Listen more than you talk

Seek first to understand, then to be understood. This
golden truth is strong and obvious in its sense, yet
people like you and I, entrepreneurs, politicians and
corporate employees often ignore it. We don’t learn
new things or ideas while our own mouths are spitting
words. We learn when we listen intently, thoughtfully,
and silently. Stop using your smart phone. Stop
multitasking. You have to listen genuinely and deeply
for at least 70% of the time you are interacting with
others. Your brain will explode with new ideas and new
approaches you will learn as well as the sensitivities
you will gain about how to make those ideas most
successful with the people you work with. Each
individual is different in their motivation. These are
critical nuances that you miss entirely when you jump
in too quickly to speak.
Avoid making snap decisions
How many times has an occurrence hit you straight
in your blood pressure? A call goes unanswered. A
WhatsApp message goes unreturned. A bad surprise
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happens that you learn about through a second party.

What do you do? Typically, you recent immediately,
firing shots. Let me assure you, it’s a bad idea. Imagine
the possibilities open if you suspend judgment until
you’ve carefully, and without bias, gone to the source
to pursue the actual facts. If only we could adopt this
principle for living, always, when emotions and
tempers are high. Beyond getting the facts and
considering them carefully, consider this question as
well: “What is it that I want to happen? Is what I’m
about to do the best and clearest path to that
outcome?” I am certain that at least 90% of angry
words, and damaged relationships would melt away if
we were to take this one simple step.
Thank people for their suggestions
One of the biggest causes of consternation in
business settings is the lack of gratitude for a great
idea. Employees feel a great sense of injustice when
bosses steal their good ideas to present as their own,
without stopping to give credit where it is due. Will that
offended employee or team member be likely to offer
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his or her best creative thinking again? Likely not, they

will still continue to be creative but they will save their
ideas and thinking for their own startup company or
for somebody else’s company where they feel respected
and appreciated for the work they have done. We
should never fail to keep this common and underlying
courtesy in mind.
Encourage frankness
How many times has someone asked you to give
them the straight and unvarnished truth, and its then
been immediately evident that they didn’t really want
to hear it? A wise executive noted that he did come to
realize that he had sensitive feelings. He knew that
criticism, particularly in the press would affect him
deeply, and knew that in his leadership decisions, this
factor would be a weakness for him. Knowing this in
advance allowed him to compensate for this known
weakness with greater care within his executive team,
to prevent it from slowing the company down.
However, one of the greatest traits you can assume and
can teach others to assume with you is the ability to
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speak the truth with high diplomacy and tact. The

respect you hold for another person should be evident,
and with it, your motivation for sharing a strong
feedback should be evident, and with it, your
motivation for sharing a strong feedback should be
evident as well. If you can master this skill, your ability
to speak, to hear, and to share fully and with an open
mind will increase many folds.
Hunt for new opportunities
If you have an open mind, one of the most
tremendous results of that trait will be your ability to
perpetually seek and discover new opportunities, new
ideas, and new approaches to solving the challenges
you face. There are no new ideas? Really? You’ve looked
at every possibility and every angle for solving a
problem? I sincerely doubt it. The world’s greatest
investors have a single trait in common; they realize
that when you think you have tried every approach to
solving a problem, inevitably you are wrong. How
many attempts did Thomas Edison make before he
came up with a properly functional light bulb? History
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has it that it took him more than 1,000 tries. Truly,

open minded people are never weary of the effort, and
always alert to new ideas and opportunities to try.
Developing a Success Oriented

Mindset
Most of the important things in the world have been
accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there
seemed no hope at all. | Dale Carnegie
✽ ✽ ✽
Take a minute to imagine an entrepreneur you

deeply respect. Think of that person at the start of his
or her career, working on a product or service that
would eventually make it big. Regardless of whom
you’ve chosen, chances are the entrepreneur in
question had a success-oriented mindset from the
outset.
Entrepreneurs who lack confidence or who have a
pessimistic mindset will usually fail. It’s hard to
motivate people to invest money in a new idea or work
for a company if the entrepreneur behind it lacks
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confidence. But having a successful mindset isn’t just

helpful for those who are launching a new business
venture. I think it can also help you to make smarter
decisions that result in better personal or business
outcomes.
Here are ten strategies that can help you develop a
winning mindset:
Put Yourself in Challenging New Situations
You gain confidence by overcoming challenges, but
when you fail to put yourself in challenging situations
because you assume the outcome won’t be positive, you
will be unable to grow. Instead, develop a list of
exciting challenges you’re interested in overcoming.
This might include writing a book or enrolling in a
challenging business course at your local Business
School, or even volunteering to help on a philanthropic
outreach. This can provide a challenging situation that
will foster growth. Whatever the challenge you select,
be sure it is something that interests you; otherwise it
may be difficult to stay focused along the way.
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Be open to finding a mentor

Mentorship is often discussed with regard to self-
improvement and business success. I will talk about
the importance of mentorship later in this book, but for
now let us just scratch the surface. Many professionals
assume that finding a mentor is as simple as asking a
senior professional for help. However, finding a
mentor does not work that way. Instead, you need to
put yourself in situations where you can build real
relationships with senior business leaders, spiritual
leaders, whatever your trade might be. In time, after an
existing relationship has formed, it may be appropriate
to ask that senior professional for mentorship. That
means you have to make yourself available to build a
professional relationship before you can secure a
mentor who can help you grow.
Think of failure as a learning opportunity
Failure is an outstanding learning opportunity. If
you find yourself succeeding frequently, it may be a
sign that you aren’t challenging yourself enough.
Develop a mindset that views failure as an experience
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to learn from. By reframing failure, you will find it is

easier to take risks. Adopting this mindset will leave
you less prone to anxiety, which is key to creating a
winning mindset.
Keep a folder of your proudest moments
While it’s important to focus on the present and
future instead of the past, maintaining a collection of
moments you are proud of can serve as a helpful
reminder when you’re feeling down. By periodically
reviewing past success, you may find inspiration for
the future. At the very best, you can use past successes
as a way to build long-term confidence.
Surround yourself with top talent
The environment around you plays a significant role
in creating your mindset. After all, we’re social beings
and we are influenced by people around us. Surround
yourself with talented individuals who can teach you
new things and who can encourage you to grow
personally and professionally. This will help you to
create an environment that can consistently encourage
you to form a successful mindset.
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can make it difficult to adopt a success-oriented

mindset. Travelling can be a good way to disconnect, as
can spending high quality time with your friends and
family after work, on a daily basis.
Find time to disconnect from stressors
The average person works 8 hours per day. Work
related stress creeps up every working day. You should
find time to disconnect from work related stress that
can make it difficult to adopt a success-oriented
mindset. Travelling can be a good way to disconnect
from stressors, as can spending high quality time with
your friends and family after work, on a daily basis.
Develop a morning routine
According to lifestyle gurus, we are shaped by our
morning routines. That means it’s important for you to
develop new habits as well. Since your morning has the
power to make or break your day, consider creating a
simple morning routine that positions you to have a
successful day. Waking up earlier than normal can give
you time to focus on yourself in ways that might have
otherwise been impossible. Before you face anything
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else as your day begins, you have to face God first,

because He is a source of power for success. Pray before
you put your hands on any kind of work.
Set time-bound and achievable personal goals
More than 90% of New Year’s resolutions fail. If
you’re serious about changing your mindset, you
should take a different approach to goal setting.
Instead of relying on a New Year’s resolution, create
time-bound goals that you know are achievable from
the outset. Approaching goal setting from this angle
will help to build your confidence, which in turn will
reshape your thinking.
Listen to your instincts
Part of developing a winning mindset is learning to
trust your instincts. We are usually capable of making
decisions when we rely on our gut instincts. This is
something spiritual. Sometimes, this is how divinity
speaks to mankind. Confidence in your instincts is a
critical component of success. While it’s usually ideal
to rely on research and data to make decisions, there
are a variety of scenarios when empirical evidence is
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unavailable or inconclusive. In these situations, people

with a winning mindset are comfortable making
decisions with their gut. This serves well in the long
run.
Avoid stagnation
If you feel as though you aren’t learning new things
in your personal or professional life, it’s time to change
it up. Avoid stagnation in order to continue to grow.
This will help you face new challenges and overcome
new obstacles.
Developing a successful mindset can take time. To
get started, focus on learning new skills and putting
yourself in new situations. By overcoming adversity,
you will begin to develop faith in yourself. Establish
morning routines and build a network of talented
colleagues and mentors in order to avoid stagnation
and achieve moments you can be proud of.
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CHAPTER 4 – YOUR LIFE

PURPOSE AND WORK
“Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that
keepeth the law, happy is he.” – Proverbs 29:18 (KJV)
A person without a conscious life purpose is totally

lost, drifting and adapting to events rather than
creating them. Without knowing your life purpose, you
live a weakened and impotent life.
You should live a purpose driven life. Everything in
your life, from your friends to your career path, must
align with your purpose if you are to change your life.
If you know your purpose, then the secret of success is
to discipline yourself so that you support your life
purpose and avoid distractions.
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If you don’t know your purpose, then you can’t align

your life to it. Everything in your life is dissociated
from your deepest desire or purpose. You can start a
business, but since it is not connected to your life
purpose, it is just a way to earn money. You go through
your daily routine with your family and friends, but
each moment you spend with them is just another in a
long string of moments, going nowhere. When you are
disconnected from your life purpose, you feel weak.
This void feeling will undermine your existence in this
world.
Whatever your life’s work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that
the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better. | Martin Luther
King, Jr.
However, when you know your true purpose, your

life purpose, which is your deepest desire in this life,
each moment, can become a full expression of your
deepest desire. Every instant of your career is filled
with the power of your life purpose. You are no longer
just going through each day randomly without a plan,
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but you are living the truth about your life, and
changing your life for the better, bit by bit. For you,
each day becomes an opportunity to fulfill your life
purpose.
As you drive yourself to the edge of discovering your
purpose, your purpose will begin to make itself known
unto you. During this process of discovering your true
purpose, you will go through layer after of purposes,
with each one bringing you closer to your true-life
purpose. It’s as if your true purpose is placed at the core
of your being, and surrounded by layers of lesser
purposes. You have to penetrate each of these layers
until you reach the core of your being where your
purpose is found.
These layers of purposes are often the purposes you
have learned or inherited from your childhood
experiences, school or parents. The outer layers of your
true-life purpose, the purposes you often adopt too
early in life, are most likely distant from your true
purpose.
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If your deepest purpose is to reach out to the youths

and empower them, you might find that before you can
totally dedicate yourself to this purpose, you must
work your way through the layers of developing a
career, getting a full-time job, leaving that job, starting
a new business and finally, having quenched your
fascination for all that, getting down to the business of
full-time youth empowerment.
As you live from one layer to another, you are more
and more moving towards your deepest purpose. Just
stay on high alert so that when you reach your true-
life purpose, you’ll know it by the feeling of fulfillment
and peace that it brings to you. Successfully moving
from one lesser purpose to another does not feel good
for very long, because these are simply stepping stones
towards a greater embodiment of your true-life
purpose. These lesser purposes are meant to be fully
lived until they become empty, boring or useless, then
they should be thrown away. Don’t mistake this with
failure, this is a sign of growth. Your next layer to
unfold your true-life purpose will make itself clear.
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The Call to Work

I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my
mind in the process | Anonymous
✽ ✽ ✽
Speaking of work, there is a kind of God’s creation

that inspires me, bees. The bees do not stop working,
they do not think about ‘should we make honey or
not?”. The bees do not go to some strange place to take
a year off or find themselves; they don’t need a
guidance counselor to help them select a career path
they would be happy with. Bees do not follow the
“follow your dreams” generic advice that is given to
young people today (please stay with me; I am not
contradicting anything that I have said earlier or
anything that I am going to say. There is an important
point in what I am saying, please get it right). Instead,
the bees just work – every day and night. The bees
work around the clock to make honey and serve their
purpose, which is their work. The bees do the work that
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only they can do, and thus you must do the work that
you only can do – the work in front of your face. The
work that your community, city or nation needs done.
The work in front of you that validates your purpose,
building trust with other individual, and making you
capable of serving your purpose – that’s being a true
human being who has decided to put on the work and
effort to change his or her life for the better.
“He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand: but the hand of the
diligent maketh rich.” – Proverbs 10:4 (KJV)
Will mankind always love their work? Oh no! Work is

work; it is not play. Play is grounded in childish energy
and is reserved for weak people. Play is not reserved for
strong people. Nobody promised that work was going
to be fun. Work is not dreaming. There is nothing but
work and grinding in this life, and the day you stop
filling your purpose with work, is the day you become
useless, retire, and ready to be tossed from the ship of
society into an early grave. Retirement has never really
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existed throughout history and cultures. You would

work until you were no longer useful or you died,
whichever came first.
People, real people, do not live in fantasyland. Real
people, strong people are not drowning in the useless
pleasure of this world. These are foolish pursuits.
Instead, real people wake up early in the morning or
sleep late at night, to work and do the work that is
required. Real people may love their work and they may
love their purpose, they also may not love their work or
purpose. At the end of the day, no one cares if you love
your work or not, it doesn’t really matter to anybody.
Your feelings do not matter. You must work to support
yourself and your loved ones. Your feelings about this
don’t matter, have never mattered, and never will
matter. Welcome to your life my friend.
Stop the fear; stop living the life that everyone else
says you should live. You must work and do your duty
as a human being. But if you fail to work on your
passion during your spare time, if you go home and
sleep, watch TV, eat unhealthy food and stay on the
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internet or social media all day, what’s the purpose of

life? Play this game of life to with. Play as if someone
is threatening you with a gun. You will think differently
if you know you would be dead at the end of this day.
Avoid the traps of comfort and the traps of poverty
and instead choose to use your heart and mind for
creation, for good, for passion and for becoming great
in whatever you do. Start with what you are curious
about because curiosity is a base ingredient for all
passion. Curiosity when followed will lead to passion
and adventure – just the thing that every human being
wants. But when you numb your curiosity and passion
with childish mentality of watching TV all day, staying
on the internet doing nothing that is in line with your
passion, you can never find things that will add the
ultimate color and excitement to your life. You will be
stuck in the land of mediocrity, average, or worse, less
than average. Do not trade the greatness of tomorrow
for the pleasures of today. Learn to delay gratification
to earn the right to do the things that you love to do.
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Passionate work stimulates the mind like a car

engine recharges its battery, by running, not testing.
Do your work as if someone is pointing a gun to your
head. Your life will become beautiful, the colors will
become brighter, and you will live the most beautiful
life.
Don’t be a coward to yourself, your children or
anyone who is your responsibility. Don’t show the face
of a coward when you are expected to stand strong and
work. What is the face of a coward? The face of a coward
is the back of his head when he is running away from
his problems.
Don’t use the fantasy of being a business owner to
avoid the real work of building a business. You know
what, in war deserters are shot. These are people who
run away from their work and their problems. In the
corporate world, people who don’t work are fired.
There is no place in this world for people who do not
work, and your place in this world must be earned
everyday if you are serious about changing your life. It
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is your purpose to do the work that only you can do.

Those are the rules of this concrete jungle called life.
The world isn’t sunshine or rainbows. Do not believe
in the myth of “one day everything will be different”.
Start doing whatever you are waiting to do until your
finances are more stable or until you have finished
school and you feel free to do what you really want to
do. Just do it.
A lot of postponements are excuses for a lack of
creative discipline. Insufficient money or family
obligations have never stopped anyone who really
wanted to do something, although they provide
excuses for a person who is not really up to the creative
challenge in the first place. Make a decision today
whether you are willing to do what it takes to give your
gift of purpose fully or not. The first step that you can
take is to spend at least an hour every day giving your
fullest gift, whatever that is for each day, so that when
you go to bed at night you know you couldn’t have lived
your day with more courage, creativity and giving.
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Life will always present you with unforeseen

challenges. You are either living fully, giving your gift
in the midst of those challenges, or you are waiting for
an imaginary future which will never come. People who
have lived significant lives are people who never
waited: not for money or security. See what you want
to give most as a gift to your nation and to the rest of
the world, and do all that you can to give it today. Every
moment waited is a moment wasted, and each wasted
moment degrade your clarity of purpose.
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CHAPTER 5 – WHY
MENTORSHIP?
“Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be yet wiser: teach
a just man, and he will increase in learning.’’ - Proverbs 9:9
(KJV)
I f you study the different prophets in the bible, you’ll

notice that their styles were not all the same. Each
had a very unique style of ministry. The way Samuel
led Israel was not the way Isaiah led Israel. But there
are two prophets who had a very similar kind of
prophetic ministry, and that’s Elijah and Elisha. God
gave Elijah the grace to raise someone who would carry
on with his mantle. Elisha lived under the carrying of
Prophet Elijah, learning everything that he could.
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Therefore, Elijah and Elisha developed a mentor and

mentee relationship. This relationship made Elisha to
be successful in his own ministry after Elijah was gone.
Apostle Paul once wrote to Timothy saying, “…stir
up the gift of God, which is in you by the putting on of
my hands”. In other words, he was saying, “I am
observing something on you, that you are not
functioning the way you are supposed to function.”
And he said there is already a purpose in you, now I am
teaching you how to function in it, and in order to
function in it, you need to learn to stir it up. That
means, there are some gifts that you have and will
always remain in you, and will become history if
there’s no someone that can teach you how to stir them
up. That’s in essence, mentorship.
Everybody would like to have their own encounter
with the ‘burning bush’, but not everybody can have an
encounter with the burning bush. But probably, you
will meet somebody that had an encounter with their
burning bush.
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One of the greatest values of mentors is the ability to see ahead what others
cannot see and to help them navigate a course to their destination. | John
C. Maxwell
The fastest way to get to Africa from America is to

use an airplane. But sometimes, ambition or
foolishness would want you to say, “I don’t want to use
this mode of transport, instead I’m going to build my
own boat and sail across the ocean”. Can you imagine
how many hundreds of workers, thousands of hours,
resources, strategy and engineering that went behind
building that airplane? You will spend a lifetime trying
to do it by yourself. Instead, humility and wisdom will
lead you to get into an airplane that is already built,
appreciate that airplane, and be grateful that there is
already an existing airplane and get to your destination
in a much faster way. That is mentorship. King
Solomon said, “there is nothing new under the sun”.
That means everything you want to do has already been
done. Everything you desire to learn has already been
tried by somebody. You can save time, pain, tears and
toil by finding somebody that has already tried and
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traveled the path that you desire to travel, by getting

under their wings or counsel. That will accelerate your
journey to success and it will get you there faster than
you could ever achieve by yourself. However, let’s take
a deep look on the five reasons why you need a mentor:
Mentors coach
Mentors coach and prepare you for change. The
economy of the new workforce does not operate solely
on hard work but rather on smart work. You need to get
smarter about people, relationships, processes,
opportunities, and strategies. Great mentors help you
get smarter with their wise counsel.
Mentors motivate
Mentors fine tune and transform your vision. They
provide ideas, thoughts and insights that challenge and
enable you to see beyond your sphere of influence.
Mentors amplify visions by elevating your thinking
capabilities. Mentors elevate you by making their
shoulders your platform. They prop you up and this
demonstration of trust must not be abused as their
extensions are a critical validation that will eventually
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open doors and grant you access to opportunities

beyond your circle.
Mentors challenge
Mentors push you to farther. They refuse to let you
settle on yours oars and invariably challenge you to go
farther than you can possibly imagine. They pat you on
the back for your successes, guide you in extracting
lessons from your failures and by so doing push you
far.
Mentors protect
Mentors protect you from missteps. Mentors protect
and nurture their protégés from premature exposure.
They provide insights on how to make sound decisions
in your business or engagements. Their counsel
prevents missteps that could otherwise derail your
success. Mentors by their sound counsel guide protégés
from ending up in pits. Mentors have a way of seeing
more of your faults that you would like. It’s the only
way you grow.
Mentors advice
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Mentors share life lessons. Mentors use their stories

and perspectives to paint pictures of what is possible.
They use words and their actions to support you,
invariably, building you up for more than you ever
thought possible. Lastly, mentors never give up on you.
They never quit believing, encouraging and engaging
their protégé. Great mentors assume the vision of their
protégés until it is a reality.
Placing your trust and effort in the right mentor can
propel you forward, just as placing it in the wrong
person can send you back to the starting point.
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PART THREE
The Essence of Criticism
Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the

same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to
an unhealthy state of things| Winston Churchill
✽ ✽ ✽
To criticize and to face critique in our daily life or in

some special occasions is not science, erudition nor is
it an application of the academic examination of
arguments known as ‘critical thinking '. It is not a
theory, it is practice.
Well done critiquing, comment, remark, assessment
or feedback meant to be useful, should be mostly two-
way; ideally face to face, carefully protected by an
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appropriate level of privacy and mutual respect. It has

to be a real conversation among discerning people able
to speak sincerely and to collaborate. The giver and
receiver of criticism should have their turn to speak
and be listened to, with the aim to warn, correct, and
improve action, ideas or a person. This is achievable
but perpetually neglected. On a daily basis, the majority
of people tend to engage in casual criticism which goes
and comes one way without means to respond.
Like hunting, the going of critique may feel like a
noble sport or an assassination; it depends on which
side of the gun you are.
When we give criticism in good faith, we feel it is fair
and needed but we seem born to take criticism by
others as surprise, stoning and humiliation. This
innate defensiveness is quite undiscerning; it makes us
weak and blind. In fact, receiving corrective response
is vital if you want to lead a successful life. It is most
useful to find out what people think and how they judge
us and it helps us to improve or defend, instead of
leaving things on an unfavorable course until it is too
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late to do the right thing. Of course, you can find value

in any critique, even from the worst and foes, because
precious stones are hidden in the mud.
Criticizing someone or something without asking
yourself for which cause are you doing it and with
which practical purpose, is a vicious bad habit. It is a
good precaution to write down in advance the aim,
examples and the main points of a critique you intend
to be, instead of expressing it spontaneously.
When criticized, the urgent thing to do is to become
aware that you are in this special life situation of being
criticized, instead of just feeling something in your gut.
Don’t rush to argue with a critique, it is not a game of
tennis, handle it. Listen and ask yourself quickly which
kind of it you face and why: Constructive? Projected?
You give or receive the two modes with a different
mind.
To help you understand criticism, I propose we take
a deep look at these two kinds of criticism:
CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM; is a type of criticism
that every great person seeks out. If you are trying to
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improve yourself, hearing how good you are at

something isn’t helpful. It’s nice to hear, sure, but
what the person chasing excellence wants to know is,
“what can I do better?” Constructive criticism answers
this question. It’s well thought out, objective, and the
critic gives it with a level head. If the criticism is
accurate, then it helps you improve. If the criticism is
inaccurate, then you either learn what made the person
see things that way, or ignore it.
By being objective, constructive criticism analyses
and evaluates. It is meant to assess, to correct, to
perfect, to redress and bring to task, to do everything
towards various criteria of precision, beauty,
excellence, profit or success. With that given purpose
they are supposed to see and show things as they are,
with no fantasy. Impersonal, such feedback and
comments is supposed to be rational and sincere.
Constructive criticism does what is needed, nothing
personal. But it is not excused from following civilized
rules of relationship and concluding is useful solutions.
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Useful critique proposes some actionable plan of

improvement.
PROJECTED CRITICISM; is an emotional, negative
reaction to something you’ve said or done. If someone
rants about how irresponsible you are, it’s because
something you did emotionally threatened them.
Projected criticism is simply a projection of a person’s
psyche. It’s a result of envy, insecurity, or anger. It
should always be ignored.
Projected criticism is hostile. It is aimed at unwanted
projects, adversary ideas and enemies; it attacks, finds
defect or invents fault. Among persons it is to the
person; not to repair or improve, but to defend
something or to strike, to reject, to blame, to
undermine or to destroy. Unfavorable and definitely
not constructive, it works to contain, unsettle and
make things hard for the target and certainly not to do
the wrong thing right. Projected criticism points at
something wrong and leaves things there.
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CHAPTER 6 – FRIENDLY
CRITICISM
“Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance
of his friend” – Proverbs 27:17 (KJV)
F
riendly criticism observes, listens and gets
involved. It is a gift of caring intended to help and
serve the one criticized. Friendly criticism is willing to
give caring advice not an X-ray. The critique takes
openly the side of the person; to forewarn, to protect,
to improve, to encourage and to help succeed. Friendly
criticism is vital for you if you want to succeed in this
life. It helps you realize the areas of your life that you
have to improve.
You don’t analyze a friend to show things as they are
from an arm’s length of criteria and values, you
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intervene and take risks with truth sometimes

unpleasant. Friendly criticism allows sincerity on both
sides and counts on it. This includes telling the one that
you care for, the important things nobody else would
take the risk to say.
The obligation of helpful critique is to offer
surprising ideas that are meant to wake one up and
change the situation, maybe stop something or start
something completely new. The critique may show or
propose new meaning and unexpected consequences,
wider perspective or new frame on the subject at hand.
The critic and the criticized seek together more choice
and new possibilities; you give advice about what
should be and what not; you counsel what to do or stop
doing and also how to do it. This is bespoke work for
the wise.
When you are receiving friendly criticism wait and
listen, do not be defensive. You have to understand that
it is custom made for you. It takes your side; it is
expressed in your presence and normally in private. It
works for you; it does not intend to judge or hurt you.
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It is a gift. It is a success factor. You start something,

you face something new or you struggle to keep up.
Friendly criticism is then a spring of courage, steering
and energy. Without it, you are walking in darkness.
You have to feed on it to go on and keep on track. You
need to count on it to find out what to expect, without
bad surprises. The mirror that your trusted friends hold
before you improve your life. A high-quality life is
sustained with friendly criticism.
Do not interrupt your critic; instead listen from the
beginning to the end. Ask questions, in more detail, but
avoid arguing or playing the defensive mode. Ask for
advice and more enlightenment. Pride is misplaced
here. No need to be humble, but at least try to be. Open
your heart. If some observation surprises you, give it
time to sink in. Thank your critic for the advice and
work on it. You have to count on this precious resource
and keep it alive. You need friendly criticism as much
as you need time, money or skill. Seek it.
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I much prefer the sharpest criticism of a single intelligent man to the

thoughtless approval of the masses| Johannes Kepler
This kind of criticism comes from friends and family

members who are true to you. Advice from your
confidants is the best friend you will ever have. In your
life, it is a necessity like salt in your food. It is a
condition of progress and mutual protection from
harm. If those people that you assume to be close to
you cannot tell you when something is not right,
trouble is near. Cautioning and counseling one another
creates an environment of mutual trust and security.
Take the initiative. Try to invite such critique
regularly, ask feedback instead of waiting for moments
when your friends must decide to talk to you. Be ready
to generously the same for your friends. Sooner or later
they will need your advice.
When you give friendly criticism, give it to friends.
You are credible only if you are a trusted as having good
will. Declare your advice as friendly, with warmth.
Clarify why you speak now and what you desire to
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achieve. Do it in private and if the situation is serious,

do it after thinking twice that you have to do it. The
word ‘critical’ indicates the urgent and the important,
both the good and the bad; show both. Friendly
criticism is clarification, education, encouragement
and counsel.
You should begin from the point of view of the
person you help, not from some cold standard. Avoid
starting with their dead angle, blind spots or their hot
spots. Speak from an angle that is already familiar and
acceptable to the person as you are shifting towards
something that best serves his or her interest. Your
message must come alive; the criticized should listen
without interruption but you need to create a dialogue.
Avoid a one-way discussion, ask questions, listen to
objections, invite questions. Give or request concrete
examples. Choose that which the person can
understand in the present situation. Do not flatter
pride, but spare it.
Avoid judging and blaming things that cannot be
repaired. That would be useless. Quality critique is
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about the future. Discuss what is doable; do not

deliberate backwards about what should have been
done in the past. Deliberation is for what follows, not
for what was. Think strategy. Imagine opening more
choice, not reducing the choices; more choice is more
freedom. Give some new or wider perspective. The
allowance to finding more choice and taking reflective
distance is urgency, when the person is lost and
discouraged; then simplify your advice.
Friendly criticism, worth more than chatter, must
end in all cases with what to do, now and later. Show
how to turn your advice into action. Quality critique
does not end with the words; it is action. Friendly
criticism is more than just a speech. Give your support
and help, to complete your advice. Show how to
proceed and put your hand to it. Offer to be closely
available for a while, to assist progress. Friendly
criticism is a relationship. Friendly criticism is
friendship.
A best critique is an on-going coaching. In this way
the critique itself keeps adapting to the evolution of the
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matter, steering course to fit the moving reality, to find

ceaselessly new ways, until a desired result is obtained.
Things keep changing, your critique must match that
change. It is only a bad thing if you push into one,
inflexible direction without choice and then leave the
person alone.
That in essence is friendly criticism. All of us, every
single day we are on either side of the coin; today we
are the critics and tomorrow we are criticized. That’s
why I have showed you both sides of ‘friendly
criticism’; all the sides are vital for your success in life.
One is incomplete without the other.
Embrace Friendly Criticism

The final proof of greatness lies in being able to endure
criticism without resentment | Elbert Hubbard
✽ ✽ ✽
Your capacity to receive another person’s direct

criticism is a measure of your capacity to receive the
power to change your own life. If you don’t have a good
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relationship with ‘criticism’, then you will act like a

weak person and be hurt or play the defensive mode
rather than make use of other people’s criticism.
Every now and then, you should sit down with your
confidants (closest friends) and discuss what you are
doing in your life and what you are afraid of doing.
Keep your conversation short and simple. State where
you are, then your confidants should give you a
behavioral experiment, something you can do that will
reveal something to you, or grant more freedom in your
life. “I want to start a home-based bakery business, but
I don’t know if I am good at it. I’m afraid that I will
fail” you might say. “You have been talking about this
business idea for almost one year now. You are wasting
your time and energy by not walking the talk. You
should start working on this business as soon as
possible or drop the whole thing and never talk about
it again my friend”, your friend might say, challenging
your hesitation and mediocrity.
“Alright, I am going to start pursuing this business
idea. I see now that I have to walk the talk and be a
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person of action. I have to follow my dreams. Thank

you, my friend.”
Your close friends should be willing to challenge
your mediocrity by suggesting a concrete action you
can take that will pop you out of your fear zone, one
way or the other. You must be willing to offer them
your undivided honesty, in the same way, if you are all
to grow. Good friends should not tolerate mediocrity in
one another. If you are true to yourself, your friends
should respect that, but not let you off the hook. They
should honor your fears, and in love, continue to guide
you beyond them, without pushing you.
If you merely want support from your friends
without challenge, it bespeaks an unresolved issue you
have with yourself. You are not able to tell yourself the
truth about who you are or what you want.
You have to choose friends who themselves are living
at their edge (true to themselves or life purpose),
facing their fears and living just beyond them. Friends
of this kind can love you without protecting you from
the necessary confrontation with reality that your life
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involves. You should be able to believe or trust that they

will tell you about your life as they see it, give you a
specific action that will give you a light on your own
position, and give you the support you need to live in
the freedom just beyond your edge, which is not always
comfortable.
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CHAPTER 7 – SELF
CRITICISM
“Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye;
and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy
brother’s eye.” – Matthew 7:5 (KJV)
T he emergence of life is for the purpose of survival,

not death. Unfortunately, however, all forms of life
will eventually come to an end, including animals,
plants, humans, nations, even the whole world, and the
universe itself.
The prelude to the disappearance of life is fatigue
and aging. One may remain healthy for all one’s life,
but as time passes, one’s genes will decay, one’s
metabolism will slow down, and one’s vitality will
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decrease. A flower is brilliant in spring when it is

blowing, but it will wither away in autumn. Your
dreams can decay at a faster pace. The owner of the
dream may begin to suffer from laziness, and an
unfolding cluster of negative energy that grabs the
dreamer like the arms of an octopus. Why? Because
pragmatism pervades every single cell of the dreamer.
Self-criticism is an important tool to enhance and
firmly establish core values. In a turbulent age when
people are torn apart between rapid economic decline
and ethical decline, you must try to preserve the
uniqueness and purity of your own value. But this, of
course, is an extremely tough challenge. Self-criticism
is no doubt the best, least intrusive means of
suppressing entropy within your life as an individual.
However, when self-criticism isn’t able to hold back
the irreversible increase in entropy, you need to
introduce negative entropy flow through radical reform
to offset that increase. In this way, you will be able to
mend your disorderly state and regain vitality.
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I like criticism. It makes you strong. | LeBron James
Individuals are instinctively drawn towards an

increase in entropy, which is a form of degeneration
that occurs with the passage of time. However, humans
are not helplessly controlled by their instincts. The
purpose of self-criticism is to keep your ability to
endure discomfort on your pursuit to freedom. The
instinctual siren call of comfort affects an individual’s
behavioral patterns, performance, and reaction to
adversity, decision making and the process of aging.
Your long-term commitment to growth through self-
criticism aims to integrate the ‘uncomfortable’ state or
the culture of dedication in your DNA and at the same
time guard, resist, control and change your freefall in
order to keep you permanently out of the psychological
comfort zone.
For great thinkers, self-criticism is a sharp scalpel,
and the reforms that result from their criticism have
steered them away from fatigue and disease while
instilling them with new found life. Mutual criticism is
100
likely to hurt one another and create tension among

individuals. Self-criticism is much better. Everyone
knows their own boundaries and can criticize
themselves to that extent. While those who dare to
reveal their weaknesses and are willing to get help
from others will progress more quickly.
Self-criticism is not just criticism for the sake of
criticism, nor is it intended to deny or negate anything.
Your culture of self-criticism should be constructive.
Through self-criticism, the intention is to optimize
and further develop yourself. The end goal is to
improve the core competitiveness of whatever your
pursuit might be.
Benefits of Criticism
The trouble with most of us is that we’d rather be ruined by
praise than saved by criticism. | Norman Vincent Pale
✽ ✽ ✽
Where would we be if no one ever pointed out our

faults or shortcomings? The people who help us
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become successful are very important. No one living or

dead has been successful by themselves. As hard as
criticism can feel, it has some great benefits in yours
and my life. These are the benefits that criticism can
bring in your life:
Personal growth
Everyone needs to improve in one way or the other,
but it’s not an easy task to take an honest look at
ourselves. But, making the choice to seek truth in other
people’s assessments towards your life can help you
grow in humility and it gives you an opportunity to
improve where you need strengthening.
Practice forgiveness
We all need more forgiveness for one another. We
desperately need it. You need to remember how much
you have been forgiven by other people. Have you ever
thought how often we criticize our peers? Every single
time we doubt, we are telling our peers that they should
be doing things differently. What is their response?
Forgiveness.
102
Solidifies our own convictions

I have not taken heed of every form of critique in my
life. This is not because I am rebellious against the
critic, but because of a deep conviction that I discovered
within me and my relationship with my close peers.
People love to give advice, plenty of it, but sometimes
the advice comes from misunderstanding where we are
going with our lives. This is a point when you have to
run with your own vision, passion, and spirit led
conviction. Fortunately, criticism helps to strengthen
this if you give yourself the time and solitude to draw
on what those inner confidences tell you.
You are empowered to achieve even more
When you learn to accept, learn, evaluate, grow and
move on from the multitude of critics that will forever
be present in your life, you are better equipped to reach
your fullest potential. Imperfection is part of our fallen
human nature. The person who cannot accept criticism
shows that he or she doesn’t believe this universal fact.
You have to learn from your weaknesses whenever we
can. The trick is learning how you can work on them
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without getting down on yourself. Once you master

that, you can experience fulfillment, peace,
productivity, and increased success.
Expanded perspective
Through active listening, you have an opportunity to
consider an option that you never would have thought
of before. This book has been through many edits and
contributions and now it’s a masterpiece, all because
of my willingness to hearken unto effective criticism.
Improved relationships
We can’t get away from criticism. We all criticize.
When you accept or embrace this fact and handle
criticism well, you will have peace over any form of
conflict, lay down your need to be right all the time,
and learn to brush off small stuff and move on. All
these reactions will lead to improved relationships with
others.
Recognize unresolved issues
Criticism helps you to go deeper and look boldly at
unresolved conflict within your own spirit. It is
possible to experience unconditional love by those who
104
also correct you and they are still there to support you
through the ups and downs of life. You don’t have to be
sensitive, annoyed, or self-critical just because
someone sees something differently than you do.
Helps to monitor the inner self-talk
You must be willing to recognize that your biggest
critic is yourself. Before anyone criticizes you, you have
already done so. There are self-criticizing thoughts
that come directly from your mind, you have to
embrace them. You have to embrace criticism and then
choose to monitor your own inner critic to make sure it
is not taking simple advice to an unhealthy extreme.
The cost of uncovering your unique path and living a
productive life is getting face to face with criticism.
You can’t get away from it, but you have to choose to
learn from it. What benefit has criticism served in
your life?
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PART FOUR
The Vitality of Motivation
The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your
full potential…these are the keys that will unlock the door to
personal excellence. | Confucius
✽ ✽ ✽
A sense of responsibility held for an extended

amount of time will transfer into a sense of mission.
Success, or sense of mission, is the personal perception
or sense of value that each person possesses and
depends upon. Without this sense of value, people feel
empty. Emptiness is a dark force that can destroy a
person. Throughout human history, prominent and
successful people have substituted social commitment
106
and lofty values to fight off the perception of

emptiness. They are destined to lead a difficult life,
filled with solitude and pain.
There is a question that always struck my mind. Why
is it easiest to select leaders during war time? Because
war is cruel. First you cannot die; if you didn’t die, it
means the team you led won the battle. Whereas if your
team lost the battle, you yourself wouldn’t have
survived. Heroes are produced by the times, and
leaders who emerge during wartime are those who are
truly identified or selected based on performance. This
high level of performance does not come without
enough motivation.
When it comes to success, you have to aim for the
stars. As I am writing this chapter, its 12:12 AM, I can’t
sleep because the work that is required of me does not
allow me to love sleep like a newborn baby. I want to
move up the ladder of success, I am aiming for the
stars. If you can hold on to the thought “where there is
a will, there is a way” then you will succeed.
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L. T MAGURANYE
Wolves have ‘vision, will and character’. In their

culture, he who endures what others can’t will be the
one who leads the pack. This is a universally
acknowledged logic that applies equally well to
personal growth.
The concept of wolf spirit has nothing to do with
cruelty or inhumanity, instead it draws from wolves’
acute sense of finding opportunities, their strategic
vision, their strong drive to fight and forge ahead, and
their vision, will and character. Aren’t these three
advocated unanimously by various human
civilizations?
Wolves are eager to win, but they are extremely
resilient in the face of any resistance or frustration.
They adapt themselves perfectly to the environment,
and they tend to fight for survival in packs regardless
of circumstance. In a word, they are fierce and tough
threats to lions.
The material and spiritual hunger stirring within
more than 7 billion people in this world are the huge
drivers for social activity and the large-scale pursuit of
108
development; thus you and I, we have to march forward

with the same voracious appetite that our counterparts
have.
Winston Churchill in the 1940’s once said this about
the United States of America, “The United States of
America is like a giant boiler. Once the fire is lit under
it, there is no limit to the power it can generate.” There
are people who were born with a sense of mission.
When they set a goal in life, they begin to think and act
like a perpetual-motion machine. No matter the
situation, despite any pressures or difficulties, they can
quickly mobilize every cell in their body to march
forward and face what’s coming. This speaks of a high
level of self-generated motivation. There are indeed a
very few politicians, scientists, artists, and
entrepreneurs that were born with this innate drive.
They are simply made of different stuff.
There is a South American weed called Mikania
Micrantha (commonly termed Bitter Vine), also known
as ‘mile-a-minute vine’ because it’s insane rate of
growth far exceeds that of any other plant. It is
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L. T MAGURANYE
considered by botanists as the terrorist of weeds, for it

only needs a little bit of water and nutrients to thrive,
at which point it suffocates the surrounding plants at
lightning speed. Again, this speaks of a high level of
motivation to thrive in whatever circumstances.
What motivates you in life? Is it the desire to become
great at what you do or it’s the money? A dream has no
soul if its owner is in it only for the money; and a
soulless dream is not sustainable. You either make it or
break it. The dream is yours; you have to be motivated,
take risks to rise up and fight hard. Be adventurous,
and remember, risk is the price that you pay for being
adventurous. However, the purpose of this last part of
the book is not about ‘risk taking’, instead it speaks of
‘motivation’ as the vitality for success. After all has
been said and done, what mankind need is motivation
to pursue their dreams and work towards a successful
life.
110
CHAPTER 8 –
CONFIDENCE AND
MOTIVATION
“Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be
strong.” - 1 Corinthians 16:13 (KJV)
H ow badly do you want to achieve your goals? How

much are you willing to sacrifice in the short term
to gain in the long term? Are you motivated enough to
keep pushing, even when times seem bleak and all
hope seems to be lost?
Motivation is a serious subject. People that want to
achieve their goals know that a large part of their
chances for success boil down to their ability to get and
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L. T MAGURANYE
stay motivated consistently. When you lose your

motivation, you lose the ability to achieve your goals.
Staying motivated is partly the secret to success. It’s
not the whole formula, but a large part of it rests on
the shoulders of motivation.
No matter what goals you set or how detailed your
plans might be, if you can’t find the motivation to take
massive consistent action, success is largely fleeting.
But, when we can stay motivated and push through,
breaking the bad habits that tend to hold us back,
literally, anything is possible. Find the best strategies
for staying motivated through the toughest of times,
and you’ll find the road to success.
For anyone trying to overcome failure, staying
motivated can be the furthest thing from the mind. Yet,
without motivation, we’re stuck in neutral, and even
forced to live life in reverse, filled with regret, anxiety,
fear, and animosity.
Lack of self-confidence apparently is one of the
greatest problems besetting people today. Therefore, if
you feel that you are defeated and have lost self-
112
confidence or motivation in your ability, sit down, take

a sheet of paper and write down a list of factors that
are for you, not of the factors that are against you. If
you and I constantly think of the factors that are
against us, we will build them up into a power that is
far beyond that which is justified. They will assume
strength which they do not actually possess. But if on
the other hand, you mentally visualize and affirm the
factors that are for you and keep your thoughts laser
focused on them until they fill your subconscious mind,
you will be able to overcome any difficulty regardless
of what it is. You will feel constantly motivated. Your
inner powers and abilities will come to your aid and
with God’s help, lift you from defeat to victory.
Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done

without hope and confidence. | Helen Keller
One of the major keys to curing lack of confidence or

lack of motivation is to always live your life with the
thought that God is always with you and helping you.
God is your companion. He stands by you, helps you
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and He sees you through. To get hold of this key,

simply affirm: “God is with me; God is helping me; God
is guiding me”. Spend time each day visualizing God’s
presence. Believe that affirmation. Spend the rest of the
day believing that what you have affirmed and
visualized is true. Affirm it, visualize it, believe it, and
it will manifest. This procedure will release some kind
of power which will amaze you.
Confidence and motivation are products of the type
of thoughts that constantly occupy yours and my mind.
If we think failure, we are bound to feel we have failed.
The practice of positive thinking or confident thoughts
begets the development of a strong sense of capacity
that regardless of what situation stands against us, we
will be able to overcome it. If you practice confidence
and faith, your fears and insecurities will soon have no
power over you. Never listen to your fears. Listen to
your faith. Fill your mind with thoughts of faith,
confidence and security. This will cast out all thoughts
of doubt, and all lack of confidence or motivation.
114
What can you do now to build up your self-

confidence and stay motivated? Below are ten simple
keys for overcoming inferiority complex by building
your self-confidence, staying motivated and learning
to practice faith. Practice these keys and you will
develop a new feeling of power.
1. Create and boldly paint in your mind a mental
picture of yourself as succeeding. Hold this
picture like an egg and never allow it to fade.
Your mind will seek to develop this picture.
Don’t even think of yourself as a failure, don’t
doubt the reality of the mental image of
success. The mind always tries to complete
what it pictures. That’s why king Solomon
said, “As a man thinks, so is he”. Therefore,
always picture success no matter how
difficult things seem to be going around you.
2. Always believe and remind yourself that God
is with you and nothing can defeat you. You
have received power from Him.
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L. T MAGURANYE
3. Every time a negative thought concerning

your personal powers and abilities comes to
mind, you have to instantly unleash a positive
thought to cancel that negative thought.
4. Submit your life in God’s hands by simply
saying “I am in God’s hands”. Believe that
you are now one with Him and you are
receiving all the power that you need from
Him. Confess that, “God’s kingdom is within
me” in form of adequate power to meet life’s
demands.
5. Do not erect obstacles in your imagination.
Remove every obstacle that threatens your
positive imagination. Challenges or
difficulties must be analyzed and dealt with
instantly. They must not be inflated by fear
thoughts.
6. You need to make an honest estimate of your
own abilities, then raise in ten percent. Do not
be driven by ego, but develop some self-
116
respect. Believe in your own God-given

powers and abilities.
7. Do not try to copy other people. Nobody will
or can be you as efficiently as you can.
Remember also that most people, regardless
of their confident faces and actions, are often
as scared as you are and as doubtful of
themselves.
8. For several times each day confess the
following confession boldly if you can, “I can
do all things through Christ who strengthens
me”. That golden statement is the most
powerful antidote on earth to inferiority
thoughts.
9. For several times each day confess the
following confession, “If God be for me, who
can be against me?”.
10. Get a good mentor or counsellor to help you
understand why you do what you do. Learn
the origin of your lack of confidence, lack of
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L. T MAGURANYE
motivation and self-doubt feeling. Self-

knowledge leads to a cure.
If you take a look around, you will see that all people
who lead happy and successful lives have understood
the power within the mystery of ‘Openness’, embraced
the process of ‘Change’, ‘Criticism’, and utilized the
power of ‘Motivation’ to keep going and winning. I
think these are the essential stepping stones that one
needs to be loosed off the chains of living a fake life,
depression, lies, laziness and poor, toxic and stressful
relationships, thus living a life that filled with
happiness.
118
EPILOGUE
You have finished reading this book. What have you
read? A series of practical and workable principles for
living a happy life. You have read the principles of
‘Openness, Change, Criticism and Self-confidence’
which will help you live a happy life.
But reading is not enough. If you really hope to live
a happy life, please go back and practice consistently
the principles given. Keep at it and the results will
surely come.
I have written this book with a sincere desire to help
you. It will give me great happiness to know that the
book has helped you. I have a strong belief and
confidence in the principles outlined in this book. They
work when worked.
We may not or never meet in person, but in this book
we have met. We have become good friends. God will
lead you – just believe and live a happy life.
119

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FINDING YOUR WAY TO HAPPINESS

“A handbook for mastering

Cover designed by Marktech Inc.

Printed in the Republic of Zimbabwe

First Printing: Aug 2020

Perhaps you feel that other people are more

The Mystery of Openness

I am a millennial and I was born in the late 90s. By

time growing up and navigating the rites of passage of

A state of void inflicts a spirit of openness. Openness

because openness is one of the major keys to unlock the

constraints and the ever changing environment that

provide nutrition for its offspring. Isn’t this selfishness

How can you embrace openness and live a successful

T he truth lasts throughout history; the truth lasts

If someone is able to show me that what I think or

this because we are trying to love one another. We want

The objective of ‘truth’ is not to be on the side of the

Do not be a double minded person, know what you

Being True to Yourself

To be true to yourself means to act in accordance

Begin by not being afraid to be who you are. As

Be true to the very best that is in you and live your

If you feel like you’re living a lie, forgive yourself. So

faith. Faith comes by hearing the truth and hearing by

in depression. Realizing that you are not walking the

 You constantly carry a feeling of dread in the

 You feel like you don’t know who you are

How to Be True to Yourself

Each and every one of us has a destiny, a true-life

are craving to connect with your soul and be true to

laugh. Instead, say something like, “I think we should

Don’t hide your character or preferences.

For example, if you lost money on a wrong investment,

3. Avoid a negative self-image.

Write down some qualities that you think are personal

since you will feel less pressure to be someone you’re

F riends can challenge us,

friendship is as important to our wellbeing as eating

seeking out people as mentors. As we progress through

Friendships first develop during childhood, when

losses of their dear old friends, almost as a loss of a

that unlocks a great life. You’ve got to have a confidant

If you find a few people in your entire life with which

The Importance of Having Friends

1. Friends help us interact with just about

2. Friends keep us mentally and physically strong.

steady stream of friends let us know that some

Unless you become true to yourself, and build strong

The Process of Change

No doubt the biggest enemy of change is people,

mind by giving you some of my thoughts. These are

diverse world, everyone and every trade play a definite

rootedness is a huge evolutionary constraint. The tree,

not even think that your life is in a tight spot where

B irds that live in a cage have little freedom and they

well-trained horse runs with a warlike passion but

Mindset is everything. Whether you are talking about

and failure. Let’s take a look at some nuggets that will

Openness indicates how open-minded a person is. A

new ideas, even if you don’t instinctively like them.

yourself vulnerable. Agreeing to have an open minded

Listen more than you talk