It goes without saying that times are indeed desperate because there is deprivation and lack almost everywhere. Now, some of us are used to the words "Desperate times require desperate measures" or something in that regard. What we experience right now requires nothing short of desperate measures to match the tough times.

He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city: Proverbs 16:32

As I stumbled on this scripture this morning, it hit me so deep I could not resist the nudge to share these thoughts on it. The words of this scripture evoke the thoughts of self-mastery through first overcoming oneself. In other words, in order to become a master of yourself, you must first overcome yourself.

Your vision is your idea. It is intrinsic to you. It sets out to fix you, to fix something in your life, in your space, affects others and thus, has a ripple effect. With the attainment of that specific vision, change happens. Because of these, we must stay focused on the vision, regardless of the pains of the present moment.

Conquering your negative emotions and re-directing them towards the positive is your greatest accomplishment yet. This is far greater than gaining the world, its allures, enticements and endless vanities.

Renewed and effective thinking has made it possible for us to re-evaluate the way we see things. It has led us to seeing the value in challenges, opportunities in difficulties, and the discretion to look inwards in our search for value.

Over the years as I observe trends and events in the business, productivity and development landscape, I see that many seek and speak of exponential growth. While this is good, I often wonder how many know how important it is to understand the nature and character of phenomenal growth and how prodigious growth happens. We talk about scaling but we do not seem to know that such growth does not happen without sacrificing time and other currencies going extinct.

A friend shared a post on Facebook. It was about the marriage of the son of Abubakar Atiku to the daughter of Nuhu Ribadu. One statement from the post is: How many times have you heard their kids marry the average Nigerians? Someone made a comment in response to the statement thus: Where will they meet the average Nigerian now? It was a question and many funny responses kept pouring in. Then I threw the above scripture in: "The rich and poor meet together: the Lord is the maker of them all." Moments later, I got a response thus: Joseph Ayeni not by worldly standards, the unseen demarcation is just too large.

Recently I saw a video clip where John Maxwell hosted Steve Harvey and Steve said: "Your career is what you are paid for; your calling is what you are made for." John was so hit by the statement that he asked Steve to repeat himself as he took it down. As I finished seeing the clip, I also gave it a thought and the following thoughts came up: