By WALE AKINYEMI

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The past five decades have been marked with adventures — some successful, some not too successful and some outright failure, but I have picked up a few things along the way. Let me share some of the 12 biggest lessons I have learnt. I have called them the Wale Rules. We start with the first one today.

Experience may be the best teacher but also the most painful. It is the best teacher only when it is someone else’s experience. So, the wise learn from the mistakes of others while fools insist on making their own. I learnt this from experience and converted the lessons into learning modules that have helped leaders worldwide to deliver stellar results. I hope it does the same for you.

Mega project

There is a cost for not doing things when you are supposed to. About 15 years ago a certain government contracted us to put together a proposal for them to help them make a decision on a mega project.

They stressed the urgency. but we felt we had time. We could have put it together immediately but put it off to the following day. Next day, we discussed and analysed it severally and eventually put it together.

We submitted it two days later but were told that decision had already been reached and the door was closed. The annoying part is that we could have sent it in within an hour after they called. Why then did we not do so?

Procrastination is cancer that slays great destinies before they are born. Putting things off is the manifestation of a mind that has been deceived to think it is in control of time.

You save time by stepping out, making mistakes, learning, and rebooting than by waiting for perfect conditions. Ordinary people wait for perfect conditions but winners create the conditions with their decisions.

I finally got over that moment of hesitation that cost me big time. I now help people to overcome procrastination. We have created modules for use at group sessions to teach people to manage their time better and complete tasks. We discerned an interesting pattern: The volume of work accomplished was determined by the allotted time.

Work expands or contracts according to the time allotted to each task. There is no room to relax and burn the time candle on unimportant tasks. With too many options, decision making processes become impaired.

Overcome deception

Overcome procrastination by inducing a sense of urgency. When you make the mind believe you need job done at a particular time, it will release the right inspiration and energy for you to do it.

Remember, procrastination is a cancer that robs people of their potential. A demon that lies to people that they have all the time in the world. It is deception that you are in control of time and circumstance. There is no time like now to be who/what you want to be. Start doing what you need to do. Now.

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