Use the L.I.F.T.: Proven Techniques for Choosing and Excelling in a Career Path

By Olugbenga Seyi Hodonu and Kester Audu

Discover and hold your field, delve into fortunes, and drive yourself to fulfillment.

Do you ever think about the direction of your life as it relates to your career path especially with so many choices on hand? You need not beat about the bush; simply use the lift. This will aid you in finding and fitting in to your niche right on time. It will also launch you to a strong pedestal in your profession and business from which you can make progress and achieve success.

This is a helpful starting point for self-analysis, a book that will introduce you to yourself and take you beyond yourself. Apart from providing informed advice and choices on career planning and employment, it will challenge your thoughts or stimulate your thinking and lead you to productivity.

It features the following:
Structured tools, techniques, and essential principles necessary for professional and project success
Exploration of various career options and skills for attaining your summit
Tested principles for running your own business
Inspiring words from leading lights of various fields
Career self-assessment questions and many inspiring subjects

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Feb 10, 2015
• ISBN: 9781496968104

Olugbenga Seyi Hodonu

Seyi Hodonu (Olugbenga Seyi Hodonu) is the cofounder of Careerspire Limited. He is a legal practitioner with a passion for positive change in the society. His writings over the years vigorously reflect this. Among his works is Songs from My Mother's Heart (winner, Association of Nigeria Authors/Gabriel Okara Prize for Poetry 2010). He is also the author of Life is a Privilege, a book that expounds the unique access-way to justify our existence and fulfill God's purposes for our lives. Seyi resides in Lagos, Nigeria, with his lovely better half, Patricia Oluwabunmi, and their children. Kester Audu is the cofounder of Careerspire Limited. He is a human resource consultant by profession and a motivational speaker by vocation. Kester, in his career spanning over the years, has delivered speeches at seminars and sessions, including training and coaching of myriad professionals. Starting from his university days, Kester has mobilized, mentored, and inspired a great number of people. He is vocal, active, and committed to the task of building a virile nation in which the youths play prominent but focused roles. To this task, he commits his energy, resources, and acquired skills. He presently resides in Germany.

Book preview

AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: [phone]

© 2015 Olugbenga Seyi Hodonu; Kester Audu. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Illustrated by Harrison Ugwu Phone No: 08023768298

KJV

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the Holy Bible, King James Version (Authorized Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV Classic Reference Bible, Copyright © 1983 by The Zondervan Corporation.

Published by AuthorHouse 02/06/2015

ISBN: 978-1-4969-6811-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-6810-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015901869

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Dedication

Appreciation

Foreword

Introduction You also have a place

Chapter 1 Use the Lift to your own dream floor

Chapter 2 Many floors ahead

Chapter 3 Don’t leave your Kits behind

Chapter 4 Learning Opportunities

Chapter 5 Running your own business

Chapter 6 The Big Picture

Modules

LIFT 1 Finding the Right Career Path: The LIFT Model

LIFT 2 You and Your Skills

LIFT 3 You and Your Attributes

LIFT 4 Using the Hollard’s theory to determine your study area

LIFT 5 Selecting a Career Field/Area of Study

LIFT 6 Making a Success of your studies

LIFT 7 Rules of effective time management

LIFT 8 Pitfalls on the Path to Success

LIFT 9 Overcoming your weaknesses, limitations, frailties:

LIFT 10 A Job-Seeker’s Path to Opportunities

LIFT 11 While you Wait in the Wings

LIFT 12 What to consider before picking up the job

LIFT 13 Behavioural Traits every Employer wants from an Employee

LIFT 14 Before you leave that job, Consider

LIFT 15 What an Employer Owes the Employees

LIFT 16 The D’s of Successful People

LIFT 17 4 Terrific motivating tips on learning opportunities

LIFT 18 People you should connect with

LIFT 19 How to generate ideas

LIFT 20 What to do with your ideas

LIFT 21 Personal Qualities of an Entrepreneur

LIFT 22 Aspirations of an Entrepreneur

LIFT 23 Signposts on the Road to Entrepreneurship

LIFT 24 The doors your career helps to unlock

LIFT 25 Greater Gains from your Career

Dedication

those who wish to write

their names

at the top

Appreciation

Special thanks to Dr. Kayode Ogungbuyi, Laura Erukunuakpor, Daisi Olaseinde, Jibike Solola, Emmanuel Agbola, Femi Daniel, Pastor Emmanuel Madu, Tosin Adeleke, Barrister A.O.S. Hodonu and Patricia Oluwabunmi Hodonu

Foreword

U se the Lift contains some of the best career and business advice you could get from other sources and more. The information in this book can save you many hours of research; help you avoid some costly mistakes; give you the information you need to become an achiever in your chosen career and help you in starting your own business ou tfit.

If you believe you deserve to have a career of your dreams or a career that will make you beam with joy this book is for you. This book will take you on a lift that will help you explore the different career opportunities and will also help you to decide on the one(s) that fit(s). In addition to giving you what to choose, it also sets out the nuts and bolts of planning your career development.

This book is relayed in an inimitable way. Kester and Seyi have utilised small and astutely arranged set of words to convey these large consignment of ideas. Indeed Kester and Seyi have given us several lists of four interlinking success-stimulants that can put us in limelight; which we can also apply in many facets of living.

Without a doubt, this book contains a mine of information you can interact with, suitable for students, school leavers, job-seekers, employees, employers, entrepreneurs and everyone hoping to move ahead in life. Chapter two for instance, introduces the variety of careers/career options at your disposal which you can choose from.

In all, every one of us has a part in this book or guide. Ingest it, Digest it and Utilize it. Definitely, you can find your way to a fitting career path and excel at it by Using the Lift; instead of trying to find your way through tiresome staircases and labyrinthine dark corridors.

Dr. Kayode Ogungbuyi

CEO Sustainabiliti Limited

President and Chairman of the Council of the Nigerian Institute of Training and Development,

Member of the Board of the International Federation of Training and Development Organizations (IFTDO),

Former Vice Chairman of the Training and Special Programmes Committee of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Management of Nigeria

Introduction

You also have a place

Image%20(50).jpg

Y ou also have a place—specially carved out for you. You have a place to fill up in the workings of life. There is something vested in your hands to do. The problem is most people don’t know how to get there and some only get there after they have stressfully beaten about the bush.

First of all, you must understand that it’s not your great grandfather’s age. Between then (grandfather’s age) and now you can imagine how far the world has come. Think about the various inventions that have popped up: steam engine, E = mc², Insulin, Penicillin, Semi conductor, Transistor, Cars, Aero planes Internet etc. Also should you desire any information today, it is just a Google search away.

One thing all those inventions have done is that they have broadened the scope of our careers, areas of operations and ‘means of livelihoods, as you may call it.’ Man is truly replenishing, subduing and domineering the earth.

Industrializations, Discoveries, Technological Inventions expanding by the turn have spelt out more and more career lines and jobs. The fields of human penetrations are now countless. The penetrating voice of John F. Kennedy echoes in our minds again, ‘we choose to go to the moon.’ This was a feat that was declared impossible half a century before his time. Every aspect of human life or endeavour seemingly has ready hands willing to show their expertise. Out there, someone is ready to take the burden off your shoulder in exchange for some wads of note.

As newer degrees are being fletched out to stand side by side with the traditional Law, Medicine or Engineering, the curricula of so-called traditional ones too are expanding. Cyber crimes have stealthily jumped into our course works. Forensic Linguistics is no news at well. We woke up one morning and suddenly found that Biometrics was now a part of the syllabus or course work. Orson Scott Card once said, ‘most people in their teens don’t know what it’s like to live in a world that isn’t online¹.’ In short, more opportunities are abounding and people’s minds are getting wider and running wilder.

In the spate of these wide spectra of human endeavours and careers, it is very easy for one to be charmed and confused about the career to pursue. Again, while some are even able to bridge the chasms and crossover to their dream career, they still end up not maximizing their careers well enough. This book was written for this purpose to aid you in choosing your dream career and help you in getting out the best from your career. Better put, to assist you in getting to the place you are meant to be and help you to match yourself with the career that suit you the most.

You may not have the full picture but just dream it, envision it and envisage it. Some other people are discovering themselves, discovering things and discovering new ways to do old stuffs. Don’t be left out. Don’t measure yourself by the standards, achievements, success, and family background of others, though you can be motivated by them. We are all valuable and powerful because of the unique gifts and abilities that have been given to each of us. Forget the fact that ‘Neighbour So- and-So’ attended a better school than yours and had a superb education. You too, you have a place. Take your flight far into the distant sky and let nothing clip your wings. No one can determine how far you will go; no one calls the shots, but God.

Let nothing kill your creativity; stifle your brilliance or halt your living, because you are going somewhere. God did not create you to be a failure. He intends good for all. ‘No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined