Pushing Through Boundaries: How to create epic outcomes in life and business

By Innocent Usar

In this breathtaking book, you'd learn how to: Heal from past hurts, dysfunction and trauma Become aware of your values and build a life of character Stop procrastination and self sabotaging behaviours This book will empower you with transformational tools to start your journey of change and helping others in the community.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Worital
• Release date: Oct 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9791220862592

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Copyright ©2021 Innocent Usar

ISBN:

All rights reserved. No part of this book can be duplicated in any form without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations in book reviews.

Although the author and publisher have made every effort to ensure that the information in this book was correct at press time, the author and publisher do not assume and hereby disclaim any liability to any party for any loss, damage, or disruption caused by errors or omissions, whether such errors or omissions result from negligence, accident, or any other cause.

The right of Innocent Usar to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the copyright laws

A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Nigeria

Published in Nigeria by WORITAL GLOBAL, 2021

13a Baptist Church Street, Gbagada Phase 2, Lagos, Nigeria.

WORITAL ([e-mail])

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Cover Design, Layout, Printed and Bound by:

WORITAL ([e-mail])

Editing and Proofreading by SW Advantage Resources; [e-mail], www.sw-advantage.com, [phone]

Printed and Published by Worital

Dedication

I dedicate this work to the teacher and influence that I did’nt get to really discover and meet on time - My Father, JOHN

TERLUMN USAR

INTRODUCTION

I grew up in military barracks.

My dad served with the 81st Mechanised Battalion for over three decades, they were transferred and moved to Kaduna, Birnin Kebbi, Keffi, and Ibadan. When an opportunity came to leave, I took it with both hands. At the time, I felt free of what I’d considered a constricting cord of my association with the military.

I have both fond and painful memories of growing up in Northern Nigeria, surrounded by disciplined military men. My memories include friends made, games played, toys and those times my dad laid down the law and meted out punishments. Looking back, I marvel at how I misconstrued his efforts for hatred. Children really know nothing.

The man I am today is grateful for the parenting style adopted by my parents, for the values inculcated and for giving me the mental fortitude that has aided my growth and successes. I have had to draw upon lessons from a past I once was not proud of, a past which I now flaunt at every turn and at most of my training events and speaking engagements.

The then absence of material comfort and sophistication underlie my zeal and quest for excellence and success today.

Barrack boys... That is what they called us (kids raised within the confines of the military barracks). That is what we are and will always be. But we hated being called that. We associated it with failure, mediocrity, stubbornness and never-do-wells. Calling anyone a ‘barrack boy’ was a call to throw hands.

Even in the barracks, there was a divide. Those on the ‘great side’ and the rest of us. Popular music producer Cobhams Asuquo, himself a barrack boy, once said: ‘I didn't grow up on that other great side of the military barracks’. That ‘great side’ is the Senior Officers’ Quarters. Not the Privates and the Sergeants Quarters many others and I called home. Until a friend and one-time resident of the ‘other side’, Amanyi Mike, disabused me of the notion, I assumed they had it better. According to him, they envied us too.

The grass is not necessarily greener on the other side.

One of my happy childhood memories is the sense of joy and pride that pervaded our home when my father was promoted and decorated with the rank of sergeant. I never knew a day would come when I would write and talk about this because back then, I didn't cherish my growing up years. Instead, I refused to be identified with the military.

Things have changed. I view that time in my life with a different lens now. My reaction to the things I experienced is either indifference or gratitude. As a way of giving back to the community that raised me, I have since gone to a number of military barracks to teach officers and men in different formations. I did it free and felt fulfilled after each event.

Chronicles of a Barracks Boy (i)

I had a dysfunctional relationship with my dad early on and only began to pay attention to the positive and empowering impact of my upbringing and background in my twenties.

I grew up a shy person with low self-esteem. My father was in the military but he was not a high-ranking officer. In the early 90s, he was transferred and the family had to move, but I could not go with them. At that time, I was running my Ordinary National Diploma program (OND) at the Polytechnic in Birnin Kebbi, so I needed to stay back and finish the programme. I was to stay with a relative of ours, a senior officer, who had agreed to house me till I finished my programme.

While there, I noticed that I got a lot of unusual attention from the other young people in the barracks, especially girls, because they thought the officer was my father. I got special treatments and some level of respect.

When I fully understood the reason for the attraction, I decided to capitalize on it. There was a girl I liked and approached. She was intelligent, black and beautiful. She was sort of checking me out too; you know how these things go. Being a sharp young guy that I thought myself to be, I told her that my relative, whom everyone very much respected and regarded highly, was my father.

That appeared to be the magic wand. It paved the way for a lot of things between us. She picked interest in me and this snowballed into a full-fledged relationship. We dated for some time and we were on and off until I left town eventually.

A few years later, I got admission to study for my Higher National Diploma (HND) in Bauchi. I had a lot of issues with my dad who refused at one point to be responsible for my fees. After I secured admission, I had to pay my own tuition fees. I did this by selling garri. Whenever I needed money at school and during holidays, I would go home to Keffi where my parents lived, take a loan from my mom and go to local farmers to buy cassava. With the help of local women who uprooted and peeled the cassava, I would make garri for sale. I would have you know that I am an expert at making and selling garri.

I did this from time to time but on a particular day, I did not have enough money to get the number of women I needed to uproot and move the cassava to the location where we peeled and prepared it for processing. I had to join the women.

Everything appeared to be going fine till I reached a corner after a long stretch with the cassava on my head. As soon as I turned the corner, would you guess who I saw right in front of me? That same girl that dated me for the regard she had for my supposed dad.

‘Oh, my goodness,’ I muttered under my breath. I was paralysed by a combination of fear, shame and embarrassment. All I could think of in the seconds I had before we met was, ‘What do I do? How do I explain the bundle of cassava sitting on my head with the kind of clothes I had on?’

I have never felt as embarrassed as I did that day when I walked past my ex-girlfriend with cassava on my head. I wanted to vanish into thin air, wished for an earthquake and rapture to happen at the same time. But none happened. I had to continue walking until we met. I cannot describe how I felt. It is the most embarrassing day of my life.

Fast forward to today, would I have handled that situation differently? I definitely would have responded differently, because I am now confident in myself and do not care what people have to say about me or what I do. I am shameless and have no regard concerning what you think of me as a person because of my past and my background.

Why am I sharing this with you? Because realizing who I am helped. Every single thread in my story, including the things I once was ashamed to let people know, I gladly share and teach from today. These are the stories that made me who I am.

Your past is the exact ingredient you need to succeed. Any other mix would have given you a different outcome. I believe with my whole heart that there are no coincidences, no happenstance or accidents. If I had missed any moment in my life, good or bad, I would not have gotten to where I am now in life. A place where I am happy and excited and helping loads of people change their own outcomes as well. That’s why I have chosen to reach out and connect with people.

Learn to embrace your past, every bit of it, and let it inspire you, teach you and spur you to become better.

I hope you will dispel the shadows of your own past too and rise above the past, selfsabotage and limiting decisions.

Part One

The Power of an Aware Mind

‘The mind is its own place and in itself, can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.’ 

John Milton

Chapter One

Who Are You?

‘Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom’

Aristotle

You live with yourself everyday till your last breath. The least you can do is know who you are because every success and pitfall is going to be determined by how well you do. You need to know, very early in life, which of the two types of persons you are. Yes, I said two.

Are you a single father who blames his late wife, mother and son for ruining his life? Every morning, screaming in frustration, ‘You this boy, do you want to kill me as you killed your mother?’ He is afraid to admit that he could have prevented her death by showering her with love during her pregnancy and giving her the best healthcare, he could afford.

Are you a public servant who cuts corners and fabricates dubious ways of earning extra income from his workplace? He tells everyone his life would be easier if only his boss would like him better.

Are you a man who wakes up with a sense of purpose each morning? He knows he is responsible for his outcomes. He knows he is the master of his fate, the captain of his soul.

Are you a woman who learns from her mistakes and bounces back after every failure? She knows that as long as she has breath, she can decide how her life will turn out. Like the proverbial virtuous woman, she isn't afraid of tomorrow because she does all she can today to prepare for it.

If your life goal is to be fulfilled, break new grounds, start new chapters, remain relevant and make trans-generational impact, then you need to aspire to be a person who seizes the day.

So, who are you? Do you live intentionally or receive the end of life's twists and turns? Do you happen to life or does life happens to you?

Carpe diem!

Chapter Two

The Mind Holds it All

‘When you become the master of your mind, you are the master of everything.’

Swami Satchidananda

Most people think they’re pretty aware and observant, but the truth is our level of awareness is very small compared to the unlimited and expanded awareness of our mind.

We only have the capacity to see what we're looking at per time because we see with our minds and not with our eyes. Don't believe me? Look around you for thirty to sixty seconds. As you do, I need you to take note of everything that is white in your environment. Only the white things. Are you done? Now, I want you to close your eyes and list the number of black things in your environment. This is difficult, yes? That’s because the conscious self makes up just 0.006% of our mind and is only aware of what we deliberately focus on.

On the other hand, our un-conscious makes up 99.994% of our mind and constantly absorbs about 2,000,000 bits of information per second from our immediate environment and beyond, including many things we are not consciously aware of. The greatest network marketers and sales consultants in the world are aware of this and use it masterfully. They strategically leverage on simple things like font, colour and shapes to convey the idea of a certain product to our unconscious mind.

The unconscious mind is less structured and can hold memories from an entire lifetime, as it has a large storage capacity. The conscious mind collects and evaluates information by analysing and critiquing. As such, conscious processing demands structure and organization and has limited storage. It tends toward procedures and a more specific or detail-oriented mindset. Relating this to the miniexercise we did above, memories tend to be accessed through the emotional feelings attached to them. So, the reason why you can't remember the black objects is because you didn't attach any emotion to them.

The unconscious mind is less structured and can hold memories from an entire lifetime, as it has a large storage capacity.

Memories are stored mental images and events of a multidimensional realm but our memories capture one instance per time. Understanding weakens our sense of awareness, so out of confusion, the mind makes a decision. The conscious mind is impregnated by our thoughts, which are tailored fragments of experiences bred to birth ideas or words seasoned by our level of expectation. But the unconscious mind always stores unresolved emotions and unprocessed meanings. Our best bet is to keep an open mind that doesn't limit the flow of information.

Elastic Mind, Perfect Memory

One of the most embarrassing situations to be in is to forget someone's name or an important item you are supposed to pick up.

Studies have found that the unconscious mind is capable of receiving and retaining about 2,000,000 bits of information per second while our conscious mind absorbs and processes only 126 bits per second. The unconscious mind records everything you have ever seen, read, heard, said, felt and experienced in detail and sits dormant until triggered.

It isn’t the job of your conscious mind to remember things because your conscious mind only lives