Packaged for Success: Practical Steps to Identify and Unleash your Purpose for a Fulfilled Life

By Ugo Njoku

Man's search for meaning is a lifelong quest. If you have ever wondered what you are supposed to be doing with your life; you're not alone. This book provides a step by step guide to help you discover your unique life's assignment. It goes beyond discovery by showing you how to start acting on what you have discovered.

Through Packaged for Success, you will…

Clearly understand the need for you on the earth

Discover your mission in life

Understand the next steps to take once you discover your mission in life

Grasp the concept of building your life around your mission – i.e. choosing a spouse, career, investments, etc.

Learn how to build a strong network to support your growth and development

Overcome the pitfall of comparison

Develop a plan to harness your mission to build success, wealth, and fulfillment

Packaged for Success provides a practical framework for living life on purpose to achieve maximum success and fulfillment while making a transgenerational contribution to the world.

This book makes an amazing companion to The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren, and The Principles and Power of Vision by Dr. Myles Munroe, as it drives the concept of purpose several steps further.

• Language: English
• Publisher: NEU Gen Leaders Publications
• Release date: Nov 25, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393421092

Book preview

DEDICATION

To your success as you embark on this life-altering journey in the pages ahead.

CONTENTS

DEDICATION

FOREWORD

PART 1: The Inception

Chapter One: The Gift of You

Chapter Two: Purpose and Mission

PART 2: The Awakening

Chapter Three: How to Discover Your Life’s Mission I

Chapter Four: How to Discover Your Life’s Mission II

Chapter Five: The Melting Pot

PART 3: The Unleashing

Chapter Six: How to Know When You’ve Found It

Chapter Seven: Benefits of Discovering Your Mission

Chapter Eight: The Ultimate Trap

Chapter Nine: Inevitable Success

Other Books Published by NEU Gen Leaders

Other NEU Gen Leaders Resources Available to You

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

FOREWORD

Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed

Proverbs 16:3

Being the well learned and travelled individual that I am, my interactions with many people from different backgrounds across the globe have taught me that everyone holds a totally different view, or opinion of what success is and how to work towards achieving it – while having one’s life purpose in mind. For some, they spend a lifetime looking for a stable job with security that can allow them to gain a steady income and live comfortably. Others may strive toward achieving great academic strides and finishing at the top of their class. The word PURPOSE in itself means many things to each individual. It is finding and settling down with Mr. or Mrs. RIGHT, having beautiful children, amassing great wealth, or being celebrated in certain echelons of society. It means being accepted and appreciated for one’s talents, in disciplines such as music, arts and sports. Even reading this, I am sure you too may hold one of these common opinions about what your life purpose is.

But regardless of what it may be to us, most of our time, attention, energy and efforts throughout our lifetime will point toward pursuing it. However, the sad reality is that most people spend their whole lives pursuing one thing they assumed was their purpose only to get to know in the end that it wasn’t what they were called to do. It is a very sensitive matter, and it takes divine revelation and some practical guidance and mentorship to unearth one’s calling, and function in it successfully. I have shared severally on so many platforms across the globe how it was my dream to become a footballer. I did pursue this for a short while, until by grace and through the workings of God I am now pursuing God’s original intent for my life which was to be a gospel musician and eventually pastoring.

for there is a way that seems right to man, but its end is the way of death

Proverbs 14:12

Achieving success or becoming successful is the longing of every single one of us on earth. The Bible in fact gives account that one of the very first mandates that was given to man after his creation was to be fruitful and multiply. And so, it does not matter whether one is a child, a youth or well advanced in age, at every phase of our lives, it is our innate desire to be fruitful and multiply. The spirit or urge to compete with each other can frequently be seen in our homes (among siblings), in our schools and colleges (among students), in coaching (among athletes), and even in work fields (among organizations and offices).

As a juxtaposition to the endeavors we make to achieve this great success, we ever so often in expectation of so much more, strive for success to knock on our doors immediately. If this does not happen, or this takes more time than expected to manifest, we easily get frustrated. In worse cases we drift into the darkness of inferiority and depression. Sometimes if counsel and care is not taken, suicide sets in and today there stands several such examples all over the world. Most of the stars and celebrities we hail and whose lives we tend to look up to have previously faced such failures in their life’s struggles. Yet, they continued on their way to success and finally achieved massive success in their fields of expertise. One classic example is Abraham. He was instructed to leave people and a place he had known all his life and start on a path that he was absolutely clueless about. You and I know that we would not have easily obeyed like He did, but in the end, he was conferred the title of the Father of Many Nations. He fulfilled his purpose and was a success at that.

Show me any person who we can say has made it in life, and you will know that this is a person who has seen a lot of pain, a lot of betrayal from people they might not have thought would ever turn their backs on them. Even after identifying one’s purpose, fulfilling it will cost you a lot. I have experienced this firsthand over the years. It will come with a lot of lifelong lessons and throughout your success journey, there will be a lot of yeses and nos. And we can become discouraged along the way or even lose hope if we think we’ve failed. I believe that one of the biggest challenges we face is our misunderstanding of what purpose really is. And more often than not, comparing ourselves with others becomes an idol in our lives that replaces our devotion to God. Striving for what they have, while ignoring God’s mission for us, turns friends into competitors and can make us prone to corruption, cheating, arrogance, or despair.

King David on his deathbed shared these words with his son, Solomon:

Do what the LORD your God commands and follow his teachings. Obey everything written in the Law of Moses. Then you will be a success, no matter what you do or where you go

1 Kings 2:3

One thing that stood out to me from this verse was that David didn’t ask his son to focus on acquiring wealth, building up his kingdom, or inflicting pain on his enemies. On the contrary David asked him to make obeying God and being faithful to His Word his life’s mission. This Word is a manual that will guide our lives. This Word became flesh and dwelt among us. This Word is JESUS. All that we will ever need to know concerning our life’s purpose to successfully live it is inscribed in this Word.

One person we can undoubtedly say is worth studying, in terms of having lived a purposefully successful life is the man, Jesus Christ. If we were to measure Him by the world’s standard of success, his life was nothing to write home about. Born in a manger and under questionable circumstances, He never even had formal education. He was never married and never had kids or acquired worldly wealth. Before Jesus’ death, even his disciples, followers and friends alike abandoned Him to die a painful death as a criminal. Someone would say, by the world’s standards, that this was a man far from successful and one who died without fulfilling anything substantial.

But as Christians you and I know that this was a man on a mission, He came and executed His purpose and mission leaving no stone unturned. He fulfilled all scripture and prophecies that had been said about Him. Jesus taught that success was and will always be about seeking first God’s kingdom while allowing God to provide for the rest (Matthew 6:33).

Being able to fulfill your life’s purpose, and walking in success, therefore, is walking with God and experiencing the joy of His presence and His favour in your life. In each changing season of life, you can confidently give your best efforts and trust the results to Him, knowing that I can do all things through him who gives me strength (Phil. 4:3). Give precedence to the relationship rather than the result, and God’s provision and blessing will follow your faithful efforts.

And so, I trust beyond any doubt that this book, Packaged for Success – Practical steps to identify and unleash your purpose for a fulfilled life, by my son, Ugo, is a book inspired with a mandate to teach and equip you with not just Biblical, but also practical leads to rightly identify and run with your purpose.

Dr. Sonnie Badu

PART 1

The Inception

Chapter One

The Gift of You

Ever wondered how humans came to be? You might be aware of the age-old battle between the theories of evolution and creation. I know some people who bear a striking resemblance to Caesar from the movie, Planet of the Apes. They almost serve as proof that the theory of evolution is accurate. Evolutionary scientists tell us that man is an advanced form of apes. I’d like to think that I’m way too cute to have come from an ape! No knock on science, of course.

The theory of evolution essentially teaches that a single-celled organism, by continuous mitosis and meiosis, adaptation, cellular advancement, and natural selection, evolved for millions of years to form man. When I pondered this, I had some questions. For instance, why hasn’t evolution continued? Why hasn’t man visibly evolved to the next evolutionary form? Who created the first cell? Who created the gases, which caused the big bang, according to the Big Bang theory?

The theory of creation teaches that God made man in His own image and established the principle of birth through conception. In pondering both theories, I’ve come to identify with the theory of creation and have found a deep sense of meaning in believing that my life flows from God and that His creation of man was intentional, not an accident.

But regardless of your persuasion about how man came to be—whether through apes or through God—what really matters is that you are here. In the coming pages, we will go on a journey to find out why you’re on earth at this time in history.

Success is a relative term. This makes the title of this book, Packaged for Success, one that could be easily misconstrued. To make sure we’re aligned, I’d like to explain the perspective from which we’ll be approaching the subject of success.

Success and Fulfillment

Let’s turn to Merriam-Webster for a definition. According to the dictionary, success is a favorable or desired outcome. Basically, it means accomplishing what you set out to achieve.

Becoming sophisticated, wealthy, and influential would be considered success if those were the outcomes you set for yourself and achieved them. However, the timeline of humanity is cluttered by the stories of people who had a lot of wealth but compromised themselves by self-destructive behaviors, some leading to death.

The only way to truly enjoy wealth and influence is by the addition of fulfillment. That’s the only way to guarantee true happiness. In order for you to be wealthy and fulfilled, you must live for a cause larger than your life. We will discuss more about this later. This cause must also, amongst other things, positively impact humanity.

S. Truett Cathy, the Gates couple, and Andrew Carnegie illustrate this point well. While many might know S. Truett Cathy as the culinary genius who founded Chick-fil-A, many don’t know about his devotion to foster children. He had a big heart for caring and nurturing these children and committed a good portion of his time and resources to this cause. He also founded WinShape Foundation with his wife. The same could be said of Bill and Melinda Gates. Through their foundation, they’re tackling healthcare challenges, working to reduce extreme poverty, and expanding educational opportunities. Andrew Carnegie was a Scottish-American steel magnate, who became one of the richest Americans in history. Based on his own life experience, he recognized the role self-education plays in