PREPARING FOR THE

 LABOUR MARKET

EDOKA PETER-PAUL

Writer, Motivational Speaker, Founder of Pillarious Foundation

PHASE I:

 KNOW WHAT YOU STUDIED

INTRODUCTION

Anyone can wake from whatever sleep to seek employment for the sake of making earns meet.  Everyone on the face of the earth has the obligation to be gainfully employed and make a living from a particular job or craft or skill. But this is not what we see today. There are those who don’t have any skill or job or are engaged in any craft, but are seriously wishing to make a living by all means – even if it’s through dubious means.

We are lucky to be in a state of the nation when nothing much is coming from the government and the institutions that are suppose to put some infrastructures in place for easy growth of human empowerment. I said we are lucky because, without what we thought should ordinarily be in place, we are forced to be creative and inventive at craving means of survival; but again, the dubious means too are been invented by those with such minds.

We are here today because we sincerely want to learn how we can be prepared for the labour market, get a good job and or start a business. We have a mind that is willing to strive for excellence and goodness, a mind that is ready to start the journey that at terminus, it will be recorded that it has acquire perfection. This should be our collective quest as a community and as like-minds that belong to one generation and that will do anything to bring growth and development to the human race.

Here however, we will see how to prepare for the labour market for those who desire to work for someone; we will also see how to start a business or a career and even how to choose a vocation, for those who feel the call to serve in the hospital of human spirituality. These are areas where each and every one of us must belong to either one or more of it. And it is not limited, for there are those who are walking on these whole paths: they have a career, a business, a job and are involve in the ministration of God’s word too.

There are questions that we must answer, as individuals and as a body. These questions are meant to help us put-on our thinking cap-as it’s been said, and to help us come to terms with the truth which some of us have been avoiding for long. The truth, according to the Bible, is capable of setting us free from whatever captivity we may find ourselves.

-          How many are graduates here?

-          How many need job?

-           How many wish to start a business/career?

WHAT DID YOU STUDY IN SCHOOL?

For those who are graduates, what did you study in school? Was it the course you desired that was giving to you? If your answer is NO, what have you been dong with what you studied? And if your answer is YES, what have you done with what you studied?

Before ever you entered into the university or any other higher institution, you havd a desire, a wish to study a particular course. Why did you choose that course? It’s because you had the passion and sincere wish to pursue a career in that area of study, a profession that you believe suits you. You must have mapped out for yourself how you will succeed eventually when you leave school. You must have been dreaming the kind of huge influence you will be in the society and among family and friends.

I would love you to take your mind back to when you were much younger and have dreams and desires and wishes. If you have the power, will you not bring back those days? If you can, will you not be happier seeing yourself in the kind of life you desire or wish to live? You would do all you can to  put yourself back in that dream-land, where you live the kind of life you want and express yourself the way you want. But the good news is that: YOU CAN!

You can choose to use the tool given to you by education to succeed, you can choose to use the tool given to you at creation to succeed, and you can also choose to use the both tools to succeed; this in fact is what we preach at Pillarious Foundation: to use both your educational experience and your desire – when you channel these two towards your chosen path, success will chase you like the sun flower follows the movement of the sun.

You that was given your desired course to study in school, it means you have spent the last four or more years of your life in the area and field you wish to earn a living and make a life. The question is: how sincere are you in the utilization of that opportunity and grace and luck. It means you must be in a better position to succeeding in life than those who left school and start the pursuit of a career that has nothing to do with what they studied in school.

For you that studied for four or more years, the course that was forced on you by the school because you could not pass the cut-off mark meant for the course you desired to study, what have you been doing with what you were given? You must find a way to make this knowledge useful, because the truth is: no knowledge is a waste. Whatever you must have been thought, whatever you must have been made to study, there are areas in life – in the field – that this knowledge are needed and required for positive change and lasting success.

There are some who entered into school to study any course that was given them. From the beginning they said to themselves: “I will study anything in school.” And eventually the school gave them a course and they jump at it and went with the flow in school by studying that course for four or more years. Such persons come out of school the same way they entered years ago; and when you ask them: “what kind of job do you want?” they will answer: “any kind job I will do.” Such person has lost the grip on success, because success needs planning and chasing. The same time you spend planning on how to chase and woo and win that pretty lady and handsome guy is the same way you need to plan on how to chase and woo and win success.

If back then you don’t have choice at what to study in school, now you must make a choice on been successful or a perpetual failure. This choice you must make as you are no longer living a student life on campus, but a life where your integrity is been measured by the amount of productivity and excellence you exhibit in your area of expertise. The world and your generation are watching and waiting for you to make your own contribution towards collective success, and this obviously should be a desire from you, and not a force, like back then when you were much younger and free and with little or no responsibilities and without much choice too.

This is not the time when your parents and friends and teachers and even the environment makes decision for you. This is the time when you must stand on your feet and see the future for yourself. You must choose the path or paths that will lead you to where you ultimately would love to go and remain. You must choose your career, your job, your partner in terms of relationship and your must choose wisely too. Your choice must be driven by what comes from your inside and that reflects in the outside. You must choose!

Your education and your environment and those who had been influencing you have made their marks on your heart and should be allowed to go. This is the time for yourself alone. Time to use all the teaching of your friends and teachers and parents and environment to grow towards better and brighter tomorrow.

CONCLUSION

Whatever you studied in school is meant to sharpen your mind and expose you to the strategies of becoming a success in whatever career or job you choose.  And what you studied in school does not put a rule on you that you have to live by it or with it before you succeed in life. Your education is a tool in your hand to be use to achieve great success. Thus in the midst of seeking answers to your purpose in life via lack of gainful employment or positive activity, you must know that you have, aside your degree, all that it takes to succeed in life. And these things are what you will see in the next Phase of this presentation!

PHASE II:

YOUR TALENT/ YOUR INTEREST

INTRODUCTION

The reason why you desired to study a particular course when you were much younger is the reason why you should succeed today. You desired a course because you have confidence that you will love to do a related job with that specific course. That feeling is either your TALENTs or your INTERESTs. Know the difference today:-

WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO –TALENTS

Some things come naturally to you. You must be very attentive to know what you are born with or what you are born to be. Sometimes too, it takes the help of others, especially experts, to help discover for you, what you have and what you need to work at becoming. Your talent: is your ability to do something with ease and joy and the willingness to learn and grow on it.

You might have been living like me: way back I thought I was just doing what I love to do-to write, to speak, to encourage, to sing, to act-Entertainment! These are what I grew up with and are what I have been spending my nights and days with.

You must make a deliberate effort to know what you have inside and to know how to put them to use. Knowing your talent(s) alone will not yield any fruit neither will it produce fruits that will last. After discovering your talent, you must continue in that striving-mode to also know where that gift is needed and how to ‘sale’ it. You know the saying “By the labour of your hand you shall eat.” This is to say, unless you put your talent to use, making a decent living will either be difficult or you might just be ‘managing’ just to make earns meet.

When you are doing what you love to do, you can be on it for hours without knowing you have spent such amount of time. When you are engaged with doing ‘your work’, you will be reminded to eat; because you will be so sucked in ‘your stuff’ that only outside remainder will call your attention back to reality. Your talent will be oozing out from the depth of you and its brilliant brightness will shone all round you and you will be a light for the world.

I think is good you know too that you can’t copy talent. You can't see talent in someone else and say you want to copy; you would only be wasting your precious time and delaying your destiny and putting hold to all you are meant to be and to achieve on earth. You will only be adding troubles to the original troubles that are mean for you. Because either you like it or not, you have your own challenges and difficulties, different from everyone else under the sun.

   

You need to identify your talent and put it to use, because you must belong to a particular department in this ecological state that we are. In this life and on this earth, everyone has a specific place where s/he belongs. And unless you find that place and become active and useful there, you might find it difficult to be fully happy; and growth will seem far from you.

WHAT YOU WANT TO DO – INTERESTS

We are often times interested in things that are not good for us. We always find ourselves hungry for what is not meant for us; that is our nature anyway-always going after what is not meant for you or what is not good for you. The reason is because what we see is what we want to have. But ideally, we should be drawn to what is ours, to what we have inside us and what we are made with. We should be hungry to bring forth what is hidden inside our being. We should spend quality time ‘digging’ that treasure that has been deposited in us by the Creator at Creation Time.

Interests are what excite us, especially. They could be persons, activities, jobs, career, relationship and even material things; but they kept us on our feet and energizes us to strive at getting them to be with us-often times at a very short moment-because what excite you today might not give you same excitement tomorrow.

Whatever interest you have concerning anything, your first question should be that: “for how long will this ‘interest’ last?” whatever you desire to start should be what will stand the taste of time and should be what will give you every reason to work tirelessly to achieve. That ‘interest’ should and will always be the fuel you need to continue in the path to positive success.

Imagine you having ‘interest’ in your talents and abilities. Imagine you having interest in what is inside you. Imagine you having interest in what the Creator has given as a tool to success and to make great contributions to the development of the human race; you will exile in it without having to ‘use your head to make a passage through the wall.’ (My Proverb)

It is not as if you should be blind to beautiful things or close your mind from seeing success in what other persons are doing; it is just that you should be challenged by the success of others and give yourself the needed boost to discover your own very nature and talent and interest and ability. What you see in others that excite you should make you find out what you have inside you that will excite others and encourage others and motivate others. This is what you should do with your life and your success and your career and your relationship: To inspire others positively!

CONCLUSION

As you are preparing for the labour market, it is important to note that the market needs those that will help it to grow to greater heights. Employers are looking for those who have potentials and talents and interest at what they are ‘selling’, so that they can make enormous chain. No one goes into business to lose anyway.

For you to be successful, you must remember to use the both tools: Talent and Interest. And you must also seek engagement where your talent and desire and interest and educational knowledge will be needed – because it is only there that you can be relevant and useful, and you will also be on high demand.

 It doesn't matter what you studied in school: be it your desired course or not; what matters is you need to succeed in life because you are meant to be a success-not just any how success, but huge success. What you learnt back in school might not be what you will see in the field as you enter into the labour market, but what you studied will definitely be a tool that, if well utilize, will lead you to greatness; the application of what you learnt in school is all that is needed to make you succeed in the field, outside school.

At Pillarious Foundation however, we preach Entrepreneurship. We encourage people especially young ones to embrace the entrepreneur spirit that is hovering over this great generation. We know how difficult it could be to start a business or a company, but we also know how easy it is to success at this seemly difficult task once your mind is set on it.

Challenges are what makes you know how ‘rich’ you are in terms of ideas and creative power. Unless you allow yourself to see challenges as stepping stone to greatness, you will withdraw your positive intention and striving spirit each time you meet with obstacles and challenges and conquerable tasks. Because most things you see been difficult to achieve are actually meant to test you will power to succeed, such that as you over-come one task, you are one step to achieving your goal, and suddenly, another task surfaces. These are ultimate designs of the Creator to see how sincere you are in your quest for positive success and how genuine you will be at handling whatever that will be giving to you-in terms of success.

We all cannot work in the oil sector of the country’s economy, neither can all of us work in the bank, or become teachers or business persons or politicians, or musicians or doctors, etcetera. The Creator has assigned each and every one of us to perform a specific task while you last on earth. You therefore cannot afford to spend your life ‘living’ in another person’s dream or performing the duty of another soul and leaving your own unattended to.

UNLEASHING YOUR GREATNESS

… THROUGH YOUR TALENTS

By

EDOKA PETER-PAUL

Writer, Motivational Speaker &

Founder of Pillarious Foundation

DISCOVERING YOUR TALENT

What Is Your Talent? Your TALENT is your natural ability to do something- what you can do with joy and improve on it as you grow with it.

     Every human being on the face of this earth has talent or talents. And the reason why, is this: so that there will be what I personally call ecological (Natural) departments-where personnel’s will be needed to occupy, to function and excel. So, you must therefore identify what you have, so that you can get to where you were meant to be and occupy that position you were born to occupy.

Knowing it is also Discovering it. And this ultimately requires that you give yourself the discipline of been sincere with yourself: identifying with your strengths and weaknesses, and doing everything in your power, with the help of others too, to strengthen your strengths and (accepting and strengthening) your weaknesses.

     From creation, God in His wisdom has deposited talent(s) into our being when He breathed the breath of life through our nostrils into our spirit. That singular action of His made us unique as an individual and complementary as a group; designating everyone to do one thing or the other for the continuity of creation. Even those that can do multiple stuffs with different talents, are specifically good at a particular talent – and they excel in that more, while they work at improving the other(s).

     Your talent therefore, must be what you love to do, regardless of the immediate reward – for a little while you shall see how rewarding your talent’s exhibition will be. Thus, you should not set-out with the intention of  making ‘money’ from it, at its inception – you should ‘wear’ patience like cloth and perseverance like pair of shoes – this way, rewards will come running to your busy-open hands.

     Your talent and potentials had been with you since creation – because they are tools that God has given to you, tools that should lead you to greatness. They are tools in your hands that should help you to achieve your purpose in life. They are your best friend through the past years and will be till forever comes.

          What is that thing you love to do, either you get paid or not? What is that stuff that gives you joy when you are engaged with it? That could be your talent.

Have You Discovered Yours?

 I have encountered persons who mistake Interest for Talent.  You can have interest in what is not your talent, but you must have interest in what is your talent. Interest is the ‘force’ that leads you to achieve that which has drawn your attention. Talent on the other hand is the forceless ‘force’ that made you do what you ought to do.  Music, acting, broadcasting, motivational speaking, counseling – these and more are my interests. But writing (of anything: music, movie, script, lyrics, motivational/inspirational articles, and more) is my talent.

     Unless you have interest in your talent, it will be dormant and useless. And your purpose in life might not be achieved. And if your purpose in life is not achieved, then you have thousand and one question to answer from the Creator. Recall the scriptures recorded that God said: my Word cannot go out of my mouth and return to me without accomplishing what I sent it out to accomplish. In other words, you can’t be in existence and refuse to do what you were sent to do.

     So many of us are either living our dream in its quarter phase or pursing and living, at the same time, another person’s dream. My father was a soldier, I love the well ironed uniform and the respect that comes with it. Once while growing up I thought I would be end up been a soldier, but later I discovered that I can’t survive a day as a soldier-because of the nature of the job. But my father’s career almost bought me over.

     The life of a man is spent either pursing to succeed where his father failed, or striving to make a new path for those coming behind him.

KNOW WHERE IT’S NEEDED

     Your greatness is needed; this I am sure of.  Your greatness is needed here on earth, and much more, in the community where you live.  But, DO YOU KNOW WHERE IT’S NEEDED?

     In an attempt to ‘knowing’ your talent, you should also know where that talent is needed. You must discover alongside your talent, where it is strongly needed; where it will grow with time.

     For a start and even when it seems serious, your talent should be a fun-fulfilling tool. Since it’s something you love doing, it should be something too that gives you joy and full of fun while you are on it. But you must first give your talent out for free and for fun-like testing the waters. Enjoy sharing it with people whose input will help you to be better at it. Enjoy giving it out without asking for anything in return.

     At a point, when you have grown with your talent, it should be a money making venture – Even the Good Lord said it, “With the labour of your hands you shall eat.” Strategically placing your talent where it is needed will make it produce abundant fruit, thereby, fulfilling the demand and command of God – Subdue the earth …

     We’ve heard stories of bankers who later become fashion designers, we’ve heard of insurance brokers who later become broadcasters, we’ve heard of soldiers who after years of service in the force, left and become more successful in an entrepreneurial venture . Now, from all these examples, you must take from them one singular fact: that they were somewhere before they got to where they so belong.

YOU MUST START FROM SOMEWHERE – HERE

     Your present job is not meant to make you lose sight of your dream. NO! It is actually meant to help you reach your set dream – to help you realize who you are and gradually walk to where you really belong. But since time is not always our friend, and will never be- the moment you realize your ‘way forward’, the second you finally arrive at the MOMENT, that instant, take more stock of your time and set out and set a deadline for actualizing your dream. START NOW!

Your talent is needed where you are presently spending your time – for as you spend your time, so you must spend your talent – because with TIME you will return to where you will give account of how you spend your TIME. So you must not waste too much time planning how to spend your time. Make it prompt, make it now.

With the birth of social media, platforms were created where your ideas can be tested for free and someone somewhere can even pay you for thinking it out. That is to say, no matter your talent, if well groomed will surely be rewarding-financially, socially and emotionally. Even as you give your talent out for free and for fun, you are gaining experience, learning from your mistakes as you improve on yourself.

As you know WHAT YOU HAVE, you must know WHICH INDUSTRY you belong to. You must know HOW THEY OPERATE and WHERE THEY GATHER the most. As you know WHERE TO MEET them, you must know HOW TO DRESS for such meeting. You must have done your RESEARCH and be acquainted with some of their VOCABULARIES.

Because you do not know it all, because you want to know more, and because ‘iron sharpens iron’, you must go to where your likes are. You must mingle with those who have and are generating ideas like you. That is why we have ASSOCIATIONS – to ASSemble Our Caucus Toward One Notion-SUCCESS.

This is how to SELL IT, this is how to MANAGE it, this is how to IMPROVE it.

YOU MUST START SMALL - PLEASE

      The sun does not reach its peak the moment it was its turn to rule the world from the sky. Even with all its might in brightness, it rises at the wee hour of the day – the nano second between dusk and dawn - and makes its journey in gradual procession with pride and dignity and sure hope of ‘ruling’; until it covers the face of the earth and rules till it’s the turn of the moon and the stars.

      STARTING SMALL means starting from where you are, whatever the kind of job you are doing, whatever the course you are you are studying right now – start with it. The work you are doing and or the course you are studying right now, has little or nothing to do with your being great. They are tools in your hands to use, and to become what you need to become. Are you a cleaner or secretary or a receptionist; have you just discovered that your passion lies in listening to people and counseling them? Then, don’t quit your job, draw a GOAL-MAP, state clearly how much you will need to register for a course in the nearest institution, for the studying of a course in guidance and counseling.