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Your Turn Back Moment


How do you see/view failure as a person in your life?

Do you count failure/failing as a bad omen for endless counts of disaster or you view failure as a blessing in disguise??

The founder of Panasonic, Konosuke Matsushita had a very interesting taste of failure early on his life as an apprentice in an electronic shop in Tokyo.

The shop where he worked produced mechanical electric bulbs for sale. In those times, I'm guessing the 1800s you will have to whine up something under the bulbs for it to light up or produce light. But this young apprentice after several tries found an ingenious way for the light to light itself in the bulb without any human help.

Beaming with excitement, he showed the invention to his boss and pleaded with them to try it on all the next production of bulbs.
But his boss didn't listen to him. He continued begging and pleading with him, but to his suprise, he was fired from the job for being irritating and annoying.
With the  little money that he had, he produced much bulbs as many as he can. And would usually go to the market square to display them, hoping someone would buy them.

But no one did. One day as he was preparing for the market again to sell, his wife said to him, let me take over the work from here.

She took  a sample of the bulbs to the market and asked her women friends to display them next to their items so potential buyers could see that too.

And that plan worked like magic. People started buying them and trying them out in their homes. A few days later, a man came by the market and proposed to his wife that he would love to invest in her husband's invention but only if he agrees to make him a partner. The wife informed the husband that day and from the partnership and support, the company you know today as Panasonic was born.
You see, with this man, his wife was his turn back moment in his life at the time he failed and couldn't anywhere else to turn things around in his favour.
Your turn back moment is usually the period or moment where you have failed so much that you are planning to quit, but just when you decide or think about that, things suddenly begin to turn around great for you.
  We Africans are specialists at blaming everything on the devil. In fact, every bad thing is from the devil, even when we know fully well it was our folly or ignorance that caused us as to fail.
  We should have won an Oscar by now on blaming others for our failures but ourselves.
  Don't look at me with your side eye like that haha. Every African knows this is so true.
 

   Great or incredible turn back moments can be possible and achieved if we can psych our minds, body and soul to understand that every failure or awful moments we face in life is our blessing in disguise for much bigger things to happen later. And not the end all horrible disaster story of our lives.
    We do everything to avoid failing at anything with this our generation, we want so bad to be associated with money, riches and fame so bad that we will do anything to get the things that can help define this lifestyle for us.
    We don't even bother to ask, learn and to understand how long it took for these rich guys to get to where they are now.

    Femi Otedola, the Nigerian oil billionaire in 2008 had to sell several of his company and oil blocks just to defray the debts he owed the banks and the government of Nigeria. Not only that, most of his houses all over Nigeria were sold too when he went totally bankrupt.
    Instead of panicking and cursing out the Nigerian banks and the government  with the gods of "Amadioha" (a name of an Nigerian god i picked from their movies haaha), he made up his mind to start building his business again right from scratch just like when he was starting out in the beginning.
    In his words; " I know I have failed miserably and rendered myself bankrupt back to ground zero. But I know I can rise again.

This time I have lots of experience and knowledge backing me" By 2015, Femi Otedola was back in the billionaire circles again. This time making wise business decisions, expanding his oil territories with caution and hired solid professionals to help him build his business back again..

What is your turn back moment when failure stares you or is staring you in the face??
For Otedola, it was his worth of experience and knowledge in the oil business. For the Panasonic founder, it was the smart thinking ability of his wife.
What is yours? or what will be yours when that ugly time or moment comes?

Before I go, let me ask you, do you even have the strength or the capacity (what it takes) to endure your own failure and learn some lessons from it?

Or as for you, like most impatient people, Antoa Nyama is your shepherd, quick consultation is your green pastures and God's approved time for your life is your "deliver us from temptation" moment because that time will take so long in coming compared to quick Antoa Nyama consultation.

Dare to be a stoic (someone who perseveres through pain) and learn from it instead of wishing to tip toe your way quickly to success.

Know, find out and understand what your turn back moment is (it could be a skill, a destiny helper or act of kindness to someone) before your darkness comes.

Cheers to you

Kwame Sarpong
Freelance Writer

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