Arise from Grass to Greatness: The Seed of Greatness Is In You. Cultivate It To Fruition: Part Two

By Excel Osamwenyobo

A detailed self-improvement book presented in four parts with the third and fourth awaiting publication that takes a reader step-by-step how to achieve great success, written by a celebrated authority on personal development.
While there are many self-help books that promise the world, there are very few that answer the age-long question of how to achieve great success. Arise from Grass to Greatness: Parts One and Two fill the gap by showcasing the step-by-step principles of how to move from poverty to prosperity in an organized whole. Written by one of the world’s top authorities on personal development, these parts are unique because the greatness blueprint they unveil is applicable to individuals, organizations and nations. The success formula answers all questions and it can be applied to every aspect of life encompassing career, education, family, marriage, business, finances, health, religion and relationship.

In fourteen chronological steps, the first five covered by Parts One and Two, the four parts take the reader through practical universal principles that people can use to discover their selves, make the most of their innate endowments, and achieve the greatest possible. Think of Bill Gates and the personal computer (PC); Thomas Edison and incandescent light bulb; the Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur, and the airplane. Remember the G8 nations and the Fortune Global 500 companies amongst others. The majority of people are unsuccessful today, not because they are unlucky, but because they never discovered this principle – or if they did, they used it rather haphazardly or in bits and pieces. Learn how to harness your success and achieve the unachievable today. The following two parts will be published soon.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Nov 28, 2021
• ISBN: 9781800467910

Excel Osamwenyobo

Excel Osamwenyobo is a researcher, economist, statistician, entrepreneur, writer, consultant and motivator. He is one of the world’s top authorities on personal development and enterprise growing, and President of IDEAS. He is also the Chairman and CEO of Creativity Excite Worldwide, a firm that specializes in the training and development of individuals and organizations.

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Praise for Arise from Grass to Greatness

This book is a recipe for success. A must-read. The author painstakingly places, in the palm of your hand, the ability to plan your life to achieve a prodigious vision.

Adetayo Olorunlana (PhD)

This book is a must-read. It is a dependable source of motivation and inspiration for all. Studying it will certainly give you a great idea of how to turn your situation around and use your potentials to become a billionaire and great achiever.

Frank Aghwaritefe, MBA Graduate, Anglia Ruskin University, Chelmsford

This book is a greatness recipe for all and sundry.

It reveals what achievers have done differently and what people need to do to achieve great success.

Individuals need it in their effort to succeed in life. Organisations can’t do without it in their venture to grow and become successful in business. For both poor and prosperous nations, it is a blueprint for continuous improvement and accomplishment of sustainable development.

Professor Julius Afolabi Falola

Copyright © 2021 Excel Osamwenyobo

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

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ISBN 9781800467910

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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

This book is dedicated to my mum in particular, and broadly to all caring parents who are committed to the educational attainment and moral upbringing of their children.

Acknowledgements

My heartfelt thanks go to all who contributed to the success of this book. I am particularly grateful to Prof. Afolabi J. Falola in addition to Chris Holifield and some members of staff at WritersServices.com for their scholarly contributions to making this book a dependable companion and an intercontinental champion. Equally, I very much appreciate the effort of my immediate younger brother, Felix Osagie Evbenaye, for working tirelessly to improve the design of the initial book cover and making it more attractive. His graphic contribution has definitely taken the book on a quantum leap and made it more beautiful and marketable.

I am exceedingly grateful to my mum for her continuous care, motherly support, and advice. Mummy, you remain a source of inspiration and encouragement to me, and words cannot express the extent of my appreciation for all you have done for me all my life. Mum, I love you so much and am really indebted to you. To my wife, Pauline Osamwenyobo, I say thank you, darling, for supporting me and showing the needed understanding and sacrifice all through the time I was engaged in doing research and writing this book. I am also thankful to my kids, namely Efe, Excel, and Osasere, for their wonderful support and understanding during the making of this book.

My wholehearted gratitude goes to Mr. Frank Aghwaritefe, my childhood friend, and secondary school classmate. Without him, efforts to get this book finally polished and printed in Britain and circulated through world publishers like Amazon may have ended in failure. Thank you, friend, for sacrificing time, talent, and trust in a bid to make this manuscript a great success.

I appreciate Google for always being ready in serving as the search engine through which billions of materials can be reached on the internet. I also thank Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia, and other sites on the World Wide Web for providing quick access to materials and ready-made information on concepts, and in relation to the biographies of the 500 personalities studied in this book.

Of course, I must never forget to thank celebrated authors such as Brian Tracy, Anthony Robbins, Robert Kiyosaki, John C. Maxwell, and Jim Collins, amongst others. Their books have been a source of motivation for me. I read their books and was significantly influenced in a wonderful way. I also acknowledge all whose names have not been mentioned but in one way or another contributed to making this book a success. I say thank you very much and God bless you.

My acknowledgement will not be complete without mentioning the contributions of my graphic designers and typesetters. I must say thank you to Mr. Francis Edosa Osaikhuwu, Emmanuel E. Esene, and Miss Loveth NanaHauwa Zubair for their immense effort in executing the initial typesetting, graphic design and proofreading of the book before the final polishing work was done in the United Kingdom.

Above all, I give God all the glory and adoration for giving me inspiration, wisdom, and strength to write this book. May His name alone be praised and exalted forever.

Contents

Preface

Introduction:

1.Achieve Great Success (2)

2.Every Adversity is for a Purpose

3.The Great Success Experiment

4.Develop Your Mind

5.Develop Your Mind (2)

6.To What Extent Are You Cultivated?

7.Take Responsibility for Your Life

8.The Day My Life Changed

9.Taking Responsibility is Not Against the Will of God

10.What is Your Locus of Control?

Conclusion:

Bibliography

Appendix

About the Author

Preface

There is nothing that gives me more satisfaction and happiness than engaging in critical thinking and putting pen to paper to motivate people, solve human problems, adding value to the personality of some, and impacting the lives of others. As I sat down one day to think, I saw the need to write this book to help people achieve personal transformation and achieve accomplishments corresponding to the invaluable capabilities embedded within them.

It makes me unsettled to see an alarming proportion of people in the world today being weighed down by limitations which nobody forced on them, but which they imposed on themselves, by their own hand. It is worrisome that a large number of individuals do not know that they sabotage their chances to become a great personality by their own attitude and way of thinking. The whole magnitude of limitations that hinders people includes self-induced barriers resulting from lack of vision, indecision, inaction, cluelessness, parochial thinking, ignorance, doubt, lack of self-confidence, and frail desires.

As a result of these barriers, a lot of people end up underachieving in life despite the massive potential embedded within them. They pass on without becoming the best in anything in spite of the extraordinary abilities which they possess. If at all, they achieve far less than what they are capable of and waste an entire lifetime without making use of their talent. As these self-imposed drawbacks take their toll on the population, poverty sets in, causing a sizeable number of folks who ought to be great personalities to die in penury, dissatisfied and wretched.

This book offers a lifelong solution. I wrote this book to enable the reader to overcome these barriers and be the great personality he or she is capable of being and accomplish the extraordinary things he or she is gifted to achieve. In this book readers will learn the how, the where, the when, the why, the who, and the what, in every aspect of life, and the stepwise principles required to succeed and be great.

Studying this book, you will learn to start the journey to greatness by having a vision of who to become and what to achieve. After that, you will be motivated to decide and take action so as to bring about the realisation of what you visualised. Knowing that hardship is inevitable, this book reveals how to turn obstacles from being stumbling blocks to stepping stones. By harnessing these lessons, you will be propelled to make the best out of any adverse situation. That is to say, you will ultimately emerge victorious in any disappointing situation because you will no longer think of a setback as a problem but rather as a challenge.

The value of reading this book is worth its weight in gold as it makes readers see the need and begin to take responsibility for their lives. I have discovered that people without a sense of responsibility are in most cases lackadaisical, negligent, lazy, unambitious, complacent, and lethargic. For how long will you continue to exonerate yourself from blame? How long will you continue to make excuses? How long will you continue to justify your incompetence, unpreparedness, and irresponsibility? For how long…?

This book, therefore, is a clarion call to each and every one of you to rise to the challenge and start making things happen, instead of waiting for others to make things happen. I challenge you to wake up from slumber and arise from grass to greatness.

Excel Osamwenyobo Evbenaye

Introduction:

The Seed of the Greatness Question and How to Cultivate It to Fruition

This book (part 2) was written to take the reader further into understanding the steps, practices, and principles of the 14-step greatness formula which provides an answer to the question of how to arise from grass to greatness or how to achieve great success in life. Following the first three steps consisting of ‘Dreaming big dreams’, ‘Harnessing your willpower’ and ‘Thinking of hardship as a challenge rather than a problem’, as demonstrated in part 1, part 2 then buttressed the third step on the success ladder in addition to illustrating the fourth and fifth stairs, which comprises ‘Developing your mind’ and ‘Taking responsibility for your life’. The remaining parts of the success ladder continuing from maximising your potentials through transcending the nadir to peaking your ascent are covered in parts 3 and 4 of the book.

Making the most of your potential, cultivating the seed of greatness in you or arising from grass to greatness is about breaking up from lack of vision by dreaming big dreams. It is more of breaking away from procrastination, indecision, inaction, and weakness of mind by harnessing willpower. It is about cutting off from the vicious cycle of suffering by turning stumbling blocks into stepping stones via thinking and responding to adversity as a challenge that spurs you on rather than a problem that limits you. It involves building up and developing your mind to become competent, knowledgeable, and virtuous. It centres on taking responsibility for your life to be in command of your fortune and control of your destiny.

The question of how to achieve great success in life may alternatively be put: how to cultivate the seed of greatness embedded in us to fruition. The fact is already known that every one of us is gifted, as there is nobody without a unique capability. It is certain that we are all born with great potentials as the seed of greatness is embedded in us. The seed is in your DNA, it is in your genes, it is in your blood, it is in your veins, it is in your marrow, it is in your being, it is in you.

A number of people still look down on themselves, thinking only a set few people are gifted. While some do not want to try again because of previous experiences of failure, others have concluded in their mind that they cannot make it in life no matter how hard they try. This book is written to build confidence in people as they are inspired to know that naturally, they are good, intelligent, talented, and gifted. And that the fact that they failed at one time or the other does not mean they cannot be equal to champions. It only means that they have not practised the greatness blueprint, or they applied it in bits and pieces, or they have not grown the seed embedded in them enough, or they have not cultivated it to fruition.

It is common knowledge that the seed of greatness is in you; it’s in me, it’s in each and every one of us. However, what remains unknown to the majority of people is how to systematically cultivate the seed embedded in them to fruition. This is the reason this book was written. To teach and help readers actualise the cultivation of their inborn seed to fulfillment and be the great personality they were destined to be. It is to rekindle people’s confidence in themselves and encourage them not to give up as well, no matter the setbacks.

You may call it talent, a gift, potential, capability, forte, or natural endowment. In whichever name you prefer to call it, the fact that needs to be understood is that our individual gift is characteristically like a conventional seed that needs to be cultivated before it can grow and become fruitful. Bearing the nature of a seed, our potential demands growing and nurturing like what a farmer does in terms of planting and harvesting before we can become productive. The fruits are nothing but valid successes, great achievements, inspiring breakthroughs, a good name, productivity, a decent character, lasting legacies, and exemplary lifestyles.

Think of polio and how Jonas Salk developed the first successful polio vaccine. Ponder on malaria and the effort scientists are making to advance treatment. Reflect on space travel and how Yuri Gagarin made humanity proud by being the first human to journey into outer space and achieving a major milestone in the space race. Meditate on how the computer was reduced from being larger than a bedroom to being a desktop, laptop, and even palmtop. Looking at the exploits of the aforementioned achievers, one may be prompted to ask questions: What is the project you are currently working on to solve a problem or improve on existing solutions? What are your dreams, goals, and plans, and what are you doing at the moment to achieve the target?

Polio caused havoc in its wake. Malaria shocked the world to its root. HIV/AIDS came in and took centre-stage. And now, the world is grappling with the coronavirus pandemic. Considering how prosperous people succeeded in the face of adversity even at the time their contemporaries failed one may be prompted to ask again: What have you learnt or are learning from your life experiences? How are you using the lessons you have learnt? How are you responding to adversity? What are you doing or which steps are you taking to overcome the obstacles that may come your way? As you make an effort to actualise your dreams, it is most likely that you will experience setbacks. Are you seeing setbacks as stumbling blocks or stepping stones? It is helpful to remember that a problem can be a source of suffering or enjoyment, but which of the two the problem will eventually become is determined by your own attitude and choice.

As mentioned before in part 1 of the book, you are less likely to surmount adversity by making it smaller; you overcome it by making yourself bigger. Make yourself bigger by harnessing the success formula in every aspect of your life, consisting of education, career, marriage, family, business, finances, health, religion, and relationships. It is a fact that you cannot achieve extraordinary things by remaining an ordinary person. To achieve extraordinary things, you yourself must, first of all, become an extraordinary person, as ordinary people don’t achieve extraordinary results. To make yourself bigger, you have to behave a little better than you are behaving now, dig a little deeper than you are digging now, put in a little more effort than you are putting in now, dare a little more than you are daring now, think a little better than you are thinking now, and aim a little higher than you think possible. It is of benefit to be conscious of the fact that people who certainly achieve breakthroughs are those who take things one step further than others.

Life is certainly not a bed of roses. That is why I have never said it is easy to achieve great success. The fact is, nothing good comes easy and greater things come with more difficulties. However, even though achieving greatness is not easy, it can practically be said to be simple. Simple? Yes! It is because the formula method for achieving great feats has been discovered and made handy. Today is unlike the dark ages when there were no discoveries. What is required of us now as a matter of responsibility, irrespective of situational differences, is to obey the instructions, follow the steps, and apply the principles. I agree that it is not easy to crack a nut. What should be acknowledged, however, is that the difficulty in cracking the nut only lingered at the time the formula for cracking it was not known. That is to say, since the procedural method for cracking it was discovered, cracking it became simple, even though it is not easy. The same analogy could be applied to the achievement of great feats in life. The point: nothing is impossible, as impossibility is only in the imagination of the doubter.

The blueprint for the actualisation of greatness has been there for ages, but the majority of people never utilised it, and that’s why they are poor, not because they are unlucky. The few people that rightly harnessed the principles now constitute the rich and prosperous people celebrated in many parts of the world today. Based on the life stories of successful people, it can be inferred that the difficulty associated with the achievement of great feats is less inherent in the nut embedded in it but entrenched more in our failure to harness the success formula required to crack the nut with ease.

With this book in your hand, you are good to go in terms of moving to the next level from consolidating on the step of turning obstacles into stepping stones to developing your mind and becoming an extraordinary person. You are now set to ascend to a higher level of personal transformation where you will be better able to cultivate the billionaire seed in you and then become the great personality you were destined to be. Unlike unsuccessful people, achievers harnessed the success formula in three broad steps