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Never make your job the ultimate plan

By Gbenga Adebambo
12 December 2020   |   1:50 am
Poor people get paid 12 times in 365 days; if you are a salary earner, you would understand what I am saying. If you desire to be rich, then you would have to change that narrative.

Poor people get paid 12 times in 365 days; if you are a salary earner, you would understand what I am saying. If you desire to be rich, then you would have to change that narrative.

Many graduates are poor because they spend all their lives pursuing salary and pension instead of pursuing their passion and dreams. While God wants you to have a job, so you can pay your bills and take care of your needs, working a nine-to-five job and retiring when you are 65 is not God’s definition of a fulfilling life.

The will of God for you is not to be living from paycheck to paycheck; His will is for you to pursue fulfillment and abundance through your passion, gifts, talents and unique abilities.

Salary is a limitation, and those that desire to blow up this lid of limitation do so by following their passion. Never design your life after a steady paycheck and guaranteed pension, as it is the easiest route to financial frustration. Hear this: Your job has expiry date, but seeing and seizing opportunities is a life-long journey does not.

The only thing that is truly ours in life is the opportunity that we see and seize, not our job. What really keeps people ahead in life is not their degrees, certificates or jobs, but the opportunities they seize in life. You are not poor because you don’t have a job; you are poor because you are not seeing and seizing opportunities. Being POOR is simply Passing Over Opportunities Repeatedly.

You would need your job to gain experience, exposure, acquire necessary skills, form formidable relationships and make ends meet at the moment, but your job must NEVER be your ultimate plan. Make your job as temporal as possible, but make seizing opportunities a life-long journey. There is nothing as financially liberating than getting to a point in your life when you are no longer looking for job, but seeing and seizing opportunities.

You must never allow your ‘comfortable’ salary blind you from seeing opportunities around you. You may be so comfortable today with your salary, but the truth is that your financial future depends on your ability to see and seize life-transforming opportunities.

Someone said: “Your salary is the bribe they give you to forget your dreams.” I believe there is an iota of truth in this quote, because most times, if care is not taken, we become so much busy with our job that we have little time for our dreams. Many people run aggressively after money and forget that the true purpose of having money is to give us ample time to pursue the critical things of life. Warren Buffett said: “If you don’t find a way to make money while you sleep, you will work until you die.”

One of the greatest financial decisions you would ever make is to think outside the box and design your life beyond your salary and pension. Design your life around your dreams, gifts and passion. Farrah Gray said: “Build your own dreams or someone else will hire you to build theirs.” Design a future that makes you less dependent on salary and pension, and don’t confine yourself to a lifetime of living on someone else’s schedule.

Jim Rohn said: “If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.”

Design a life that you don’t need to take a vacation from, a life you don’t need to retire from. Don’t be addicted to your salary and pension; they can stifle your initiatives. Salary is becoming increasingly unsustainable and undependable. The only income that is sustainable is the one you earn from putting your gifts to use and not the one from your job. Apart from the sober truth that the proceeds from salary is unsustainable, you could actually get fired from your job.

The illusions of salaries, jobs and pensions had stagnated the pursuit of many for excellence and impactful adventures. Never get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life. You become financially free when you no longer have to work for money, because money is working for you. Life is not about how much money you work for, but how much money that is working for you.

Don’t be too busy making money that you forget to make a life. Busy people don’t make more money; they actually make more ‘stress.’ Even if you work for the government, your pension should be an added advantage and must never be the object of your pursuit. Make your passion your profession; pursue your passion, not your pension.

Don’t be a victim of your job. Don’t allow your life to be paralysed by the uncertainty of salary and pension; design your future. My sincere question to you is this: What is that one thing you are so passionate about? Follow it and it would lead you to your treasure.

A colleague asked me a diagnostic question after his many years of fruitless search for inner satisfaction on how a man can distinguish between his passion and his job. I still recall vividly my answer back then. I simply told him: “Our passion will always excite us, while our job exhausts us.”

I have learnt from experience and observation that the surest road map to life’s treasures is in following our passion. The Bible captured it perfectly in Matthew 6:21: “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” You cannot fully live life until you learn to give expression to your passion. What is your passion? It can be music, writing, acting, painting, sports, fashion designing, teaching, arts, etc.

Sir Richard Branson said: “There is no greater thing you can do with your life and your work than follow your passions, in a way that serves the world and you.” There are few things in life that brings deep fulfillment, and one of them is aligning your passion with your profession.

Many graduates have sometimes put this question across to me during trainings: How do you know if a job is not right for you? I have always told them this discerning truth: When a job is stifling and hindering the expression of your passion, then it is not your job. Your real job is finding your passion. Your job gives you an opportunity to make a living, while your passion gives you an opportunity to make a difference. Be a ‘PASSIONEER’ and not a ‘PENSIONEER.’

Take conscious effort to stop complaining about situations around you and instead, look out for ways to be part of the solution. You are as rich as the solutions you provide and not the complaints that you make.

Today, look for opportunities to solve problems around you. Look out for opportunities to make life better for others. Look out for opportunities to impact lives positively. Look out for opportunities to help others achieve their goals.

Your sensitivity to opportunities would determine whether you would be poor or rich. Opportunities and not jobs are the secret to a sustainable wealth.

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