Posts in category: Blog

”Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact” – William James.

Hey, compliments of the season to you! Can you believe that it is December already? When we all look back at the beginning of the year, I am sure some would have doubted that we could make it to the end, especially with the uncertainty that Covid-19 threw at the whole world. If you are reading this, you should be grateful that you made it this far. As the year rounds off, we look again at one of our core values. According to the dictionary, belief is an acceptance that something exists or is true, especially one without proof. For example, most of us use our mobile phones to communicate, but how are we sure that the phone will receive and send signals? We believe!

Belief is fundamental in the school of success. Most people who succeed are those that believe. If you want to achieve success, you must believe in yourself and your abilities. There is an example of how belief leads to success that we are experiencing in the world today. At the beginning of the Coronavirus pandemic, most scientists did not know a cure for it, so everyone was in the dark. I have a friend who is a researcher and a pharmacist. In March, he said to me that the process of creating a vaccine against the virus was going to cost at least a billion dollars. Developing the vaccine would also take at least a whole year! Many would have thought it was too difficult to achieve.

However, several pharmaceutical companies who believed they could create a cure and went to work. Some of them are; AstraZeneca, BioNTech and Pfizer, Gilead Sciences, GlaxoSmithKline, Inovio Pharmaceuticals, etc. What made these companies get to work? They believed that if they started working on a vaccine, they would eventually find a cure. Not surprisingly, in November, Pfizer announced that they had achieved a 90% safety rate for a Covid-19 vaccine, and more companies are coming up with similar results!

This story’s essence is that we must keep believing, no matter how bad things may seem. You may be at the bottom of your class now, feel inadequate or unsure of what the future holds. I will urge you not to give up but to keep believing because if you do, the chances of succeeding are higher than if you do not think so. At B2SL, we strive to make you believe in yourself.

I will love to hear your comments and questions in the comments section below! 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bessy Ebule is the Project Director at B2SL, where he works to encourage personal development and build success networks. You can contact him at bessy.ebule@b2sl.org.

“If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters” – Colin Powell.

Excellence is the quality of being extremely good. It is a quality that gives anything exceptional worth. Colin Powell once said, “If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters”. He is talking about having a prevailing attitude, striving to be better, intending to achieve more incredible things. No one is born excellent; you cultivate it over time through a series of actions and hard work. 

If you want to be an excellent student, you must first have the right mindset. You have to believe that it is a journey where you take little steps every day. The focus should not be only on getting the highest grades in school, but on developing yourself every day. 

One of the things that can help you in this journey to excellence is to be passionate. You must be excited at the idea of becoming better in your studies. When you love what you do, you don’t feel that you are working anymore because you derive pleasure from it. If you discover you don’t understand a subject or topic, ask someone to explain to you. Once you know the issue, you will love it.

It would help if you also concentrated on your studies to become an excellent student. Take time to focus on learning. Remove all distractions such as cell phones, television, loud/fast-paced music, and talkative friends/family members. Make sure you attend all classes, copy all notes, and spend some extra time by yourself revising what you have learned. Complete your assignments with diligence. If you look at how your subjects are structured, you will discover that there are always things that your teachers want you to focus on to pass. Learn the art of concentration, whether you are in school or at home. If you can focus on your studies, you are already a candidate for exceptionality.

Finally, it would help if you strive for excellence. Have you seen people running in a race? Everyone puts in the best effort to win the first position. You can apply this principle to your studies. The only difference is that you are not in competition with other students but with yourself. It would be best to strive to be better than you were last month, last week, or yesterday. You may remember the lines of a poem that says, “I shall never rest until my good is better, and my better is best.”

Let’s continue improving ourselves. We’ll love to hear your comments, questions, or experiences in the comment section below.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Nasirat and Timothy are secondary school students in Nigeria that are dedicated to success in their academics and future career. They are members of the B2SL Success Hub.

”Excellence is the unlimited ability to improve the quality of what you have to offer” – Rick Pitino.

When most students hear about excellence, they might confuse it to mean getting 98-100% in an examination or test. Scoring high marks is not a bad thing, but it does not make you an excellent student. What makes you an outstanding student is your continuous quest to improve yourself.

I like to make this analogy always. Let’s say two people write the same examination in different years. Student A scores 90% in the first year, and Student B scores 65%. The next year, Student A scores 90%, and Student B scores 75%. Though Student A has scored higher, Student B is the one who is working towards excellence because of the improvement from the previous year.

An average student is a regular student who doesn’t care about improvement. He or she wants to go to class and pass anyhow. The intention here is not to discourage you if you do not score high marks but rather encourage you to put in extra effort to become better at what you know and do. You might be surprised at how well you will improve if you put in some extra effort.

For example, if you are having problems understanding a particular subject or topic, you may want to consider asking some of your friends, teachers, or other people if they can help you. It may not be easy to find someone who helps you immediately, but you will be surprised to see how far you can improve just by spending 30 minutes with someone who knows the subject or topic well. You are on your way to becoming an excellent student when you do this.

On the other hand, the average student is not bothered by what he or she does not know. He or she goes to class, does not understand the subject or topic, and will not make any effort to catch up. As a result, he or she keeps getting the same poor results every time.

No matter what you know now, there is always room for improvement. It would be best to keep improving because the world is changing so fast with new information and discoveries every day. As further information comes, older ones become obsolete. You will observe constant updates on the applications on your phone to meet the realities of the day in a bid to deliver excellent services.

We at B2SL are always willing to inspire you to improve yourself because it is the only way to remain relevant in the world today. You have the ability, time and resources to improve yourself in every area of your life. Just go for it!

I will love to hear your comments or questions in the comments section below and will be more than willing to help you on your journey.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bessy Ebule is the Project Director at B2SL, where he works to encourage personal development and build success networks. You can contact him at bessy.ebule@b2sl.org.

“If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way” – Martin Luther King Jr.

Our Project Director at B2SL INITIATIVE, Besidone Ebule, usually reminds us of the need to focus more on doing small things every day instead of speaking of big things daily.

Don’t get me wrong here. It’s okay to want to be called a person of excellence in doing great things. But the issue is that every student wants to become great by getting excellent academic and future careers. Amidst this kind of dream, most students ignore the small things they need to do daily.

Academic excellence does not just show up automatically on the big occasions like being the best in your class or studying your dream course someday. Academic excellence shows up in what you do with your time every day. You can tell what kind of result you will get academically by merely looking at what you spend your time daily.

Do a reality check today on your academics. You can do this by looking at your last term result. What did you score in the different subjects? If the scores didn’t improve compared to the previous term, it means you are not on track to academic excellence. Your result will show academic excellence when you continually improve on every subject on a termly basis.

The best way to predict a future of academic excellence on the big stage is by creating it. Whether your story will be one of academic excellence or not is dependent on whether you want to make it that way or not. You are the solution to your academic excellence. So, what are you creating, or what have you produced so far? Go ahead and create your own educational excellence story with the assistance that B2SL INITIATIVE offers to secondary school students across Nigeria.

The fact is that before any student can achieve academic excellence from term to term, that student must be a student that is doing small things in a significant way with the hope of achieving great things. When you do this, you demonstrate how you use your time daily.

I love to hear your story on the small things you are doing in a significant way in your academics daily via the comment section. I will also be looking forward to your questions on academic excellence.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Charles Adimah is an entrepreneur and the Project Manager of B2SL INITIATIVE, where he manages the vision. He is a great believer that a prosperous Nigeria is a product of successful Nigerians. You can reach him via email at charles@b2sl.org.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][/vc_column][/vc_row]

”Do ordinary things extraordinarily well” – Gregg Harris

We hear people saying they want excellent, exceptional, or outstanding results. Our parents often want us to get the best grades. People appreciate it when we do well in anything, be it sports, academics, music, or any other field in life. We often don’t get applauded if we have not done very well, which can pressure us and even discourage us from trying further.

Leadership guru John C. Maxwell said: “Excellence is the gap between average and exceptional.” An average person does not care much about getting exceptional results, making it difficult for such people to command attention in life. Legendary basketball coach Pat Riley defines excellence as “the gradual result of always striving to be better.” It’s the ability to exceed expectations and consistently deliver superior quality. Becoming exceptional in what you do does not come overnight. It is a process, and it requires you to work on yourself continuously. You will know you are on the journey to excellence when you start making effort to do things well, even if it is a simple chore such as sweeping the house!

If you want to be an excellent student, you must focus on understanding what you have been taught rather than scoring the highest marks. It is not wrong to score high marks, but you must be improving in your knowledge. There is a difference between being exceptional in one subject and being a student of excellence. That you have the highest grades in either Maths, English, Physics, Chemistry, etc. does not make you an excellent student. However, striving to know more about what you do not know in other subjects puts you on the path to success. An outstanding student is consistent in his personal, social, and academic life. If you are dishonest, greedy, lazy, untidy, disrespectful, or selfish, it will reflect or can affect your academic life.

An excellent student goes the extra mile in performing all tasks and is not satisfied with the average mark. An outstanding student pays attention to details. An excellent student works to earn respect and merit. An ideal student is consistent in good behavior, manners, and attitude towards people and responsibilities. He/she will reach their destination called success. Exceptional people are scarce, be one of them. The world needs people like you. Remember, excellence is not a skill; it’s an attitude—Master the art of being excellent. Excellent students are exceptional people, and extraordinary people exceed expectations. You have all it takes to become one. Why not decide to work towards excellence and make our world a better place.

I wish you all the best!

I will love to answer your questions or read your comments in the comments section below.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Henry Ibrahim is the Content Creator at B2SL. He loves working with young people to help them discover their purpose in life. You can contact him at ibrahim@b2sl.org.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][/vc_column][/vc_row]