If you asked your mentor for clues on how to become ‘somebody’ in life, I bet there is 90% possibility that amongst so many other points he cited was ‘attending motivational and career talks. It is also noteworthy that there is a plethora of seminars and talks of the aforementioned kinds going on campuses. Plus there are countless number of such audios and videos online. However the question is whether there is any need to apply common sense in putting what we gain from motivational seminars to use.
First and foremost, there is no dispute that attending career and motivational seminars is good especially for undergraduates who are yet to make decisions on how to run their lives and even for some other people who maybe the decisions they made in the past are not working for. To be precise and concise, the need to attend such seminars cannot be over emphasized. Nevertheless, something we must not forget when we find ourselves in such gatherings is that 8 out of 10 speakers in such seminars are people who have made substantial progress in life and we always tell you what worked for them. With that being said, it’s only necessary that we apply wisdom in what we take home from these seminars. Samuel Taylor Coleridge said, “common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom.” For instance, if a college freshman who makes judicious use of his daytime decides to change his reading hours to night time because a motivational speaker did it while in college and came out with Alpha grades, it’s obvious that his results might not be the same as that of the speaker. More so, because the likes of Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg are not graduates, you now decide that school is of no use and drops out-woe betide you. An old adage has it that all fingers are not equal.
We need to do more than just sitting in every seminar and swallowing all that is being said hook, line and sinker. Sometimes all we need to emulate is the zeal, the tenacity, the industrious nature (to mention but a few) of such speakers and not necessarily the path they towed. It is important that we understand that our destinies hence for the fact that ALiko Dangote succeeded as a business man does not mean you will succeed if you tow the same path. Furthermore, we need to study ourselves, understand what works for us, pin point our strength and weaknesses before deciding what to and what not to apply to our lives.
In Summary, we should never forget that the same society that abhors abortion frowns at teenage parents, the same pastors that preach ‘one family in Christ’ reserves special seats in church for the well-to-do members. Nothing is ever as straight forward as it is said and that’s the more reason we need to be wise. So next time we find ourselves attending career or motivational gatherings, let’s not forget to evaluate every sentence, sieve out the ones we don’t need, plant the ones we need into our lives and give them time to bear fruit. The decision we make today affects our tomorrow.
About The Author
