Black and Successful

BLACK AND SUCCESSFUL


A young boy went to a park on a public holiday with his parents. Somewhere in the park was a man who sold balloons and he had a lot of young children around him.

Once in a while the balloon man would release a balloon into the sky, as the balloon floated into the sky children will see the balloon and of course tell their parents they wanted to buy balloons and then they would run towards the balloon man and buy balloons from him.

This young boy who went with his parents to the park watched as one balloon after the other was released into the sky and those balloons were of different colours.

After sometime he persuaded his parents to buy a balloon for him, then he went to the balloon man, before he bought any balloon at all he asked a question.

He said Sir; I watched you released the green balloon into the sky it floated up, when you released the red one it floated up, when you released the white one it floated up, the blue one also floated up, may I ask Sir; if the colour of the balloon is black will it also go up.

The balloon man looked at him and said son it is not the colour of the balloons that make them to go up, it is what is inside the balloon; so if it is black it will also go up.

I am sure you understand the essence of this story. This young black is black and he was wondering if the colour of the skin was the reason why he was not going to be successful and he got the powerful message that day.

Today we begin a series titled Black and Successful. Being black is not a curse, having a dark skin is not essentially synonymous with having a dark mind.

Now the first lesson, the black man must learn to put first things first and one of the first things is Education.

We must value information, if you would be a different kind of blackman you must value information, you must value education because you can never rise beyond your level of knowledge. Go after information and you will experience transformation.

Dear reader you must remember that it is not the colour of the balloon that makes it to float into the sky it is what is in the balloon. We said that the black man must learn to put first things first.

All successful people developed this ability to prioritize. When you put first things first other things would find their place. You would expend your resources on the things that give you the greatest return in life.

What are the first things that the black man must put first education, valuing on information. Secondly, development of character traits. We must have values, without values you have no value and another thing to put first is a trade.

You must have a skill, there must be something that you must know how to do so well; everybody in town want your services; you must have area of expertise.

Money is what you get in exchange of problem solved, you must develop the ability to solve problems for people. We may pray from today till tomorrow the prayer will not take the place of skill acquisition.

Prayer is important but it cannot take the place of skill acquisition and then we must value home ownership; living in our own home and not giving somebody our money through rent of five, ten, fifteen or twenty years.

We must learn to value investment instead of spending our money on clothes, on food, in show that is in trying to impress people and having what we call a good time.

We should not buy what we want and then beg for what we need, we should not buy clothes so many of them to the extent that we now beg for transport money to go to the place where we make our money in the first place. Please; do first things first.

Remember that the black skin is not a liability it can be an asset; as a man thinketh in his heart so is he not as the colour of his skin is. So dear reader, it is what is in you that makes the difference in the quality of life that you live.

Now the black man must stop expecting God to do for him what he must do for himself. God has commanded us who are strong to support the weak but even then God does not do for man what he can do for himself. There is tremendous power in self reliance, life is a do it yourself affairs.

The most important things you have to do in this life are things you must know by yourself. You must learn for yourself, you must eat by yourself, wherever you have to go you have to go yourself, whenever you go to the toilet whatever you do there you must do it by yourself.

However much your parents love you, however much you spouse loves you they cannot breathe for you. If it were possible people would not die easily around us because we would immediately begin to breathe on their behalf when they stop breathing, but you must do that yourself.

The things that count the most in your live will be the things that you do for yourself.

Godspeed!!.