DAY 36 OF 100 DAYS SELF-REINVENTION SERIES - To Succeed, you must ACTIVATE your Multiple Personalities.

You can take on any personality at any time. Everyone has multiple personalities that together will make every limitation give way.

I wasted too many years waiting to feel something before taking action. I lost several business and entrepreneurial opportunities. I will lie on the bed waiting for one strange feeling called passion to suddenly fall on me before doing what I knew would be of benefit to me. An opportunity to take action will stand naked before me, and I will let it slip because the feeling for action did not come. I blamed my inaction on my personality.

I was born a shy person; I am an introvert; it did not feel good to talk too confidently, blah, blah, and blah. So much junk spewing out of me at the time. Only proud people talk that way. Having big dreams was not godly after all. I had so many excuses that helped support and encourage the building of a personality that I called ME.

?

When I saw friends and relatives take on different personalities, my internal dialogue labeled them as being ungodly, fake, and hypocritical. As a teenager, I remember attending a religious gathering where the minister spoke so pious, and I wondered how he could be this way with his wife and kids.

It just doesn't look possible that this man has a wife; no man can possibly talk like this and be able to have sex. It just wasn't real, except he was a different person on the pulpit from what he was at home. I look back and wonder how I must have been quite “stupid” to think like this. Like it or not, that was me then, and that was the ignorant me.

I am right to think that the priest must put on a new personality when he is about making love to his wife; the problem was I just did not know that I, too, was putting on different personalities for different occasions. When I sang in the choir, I was a different person from the one that was sleeping or running. When I thought my friends were fake because they wore different personalities for different occasions, it did not occur to me that I, too, was fake. In fact, in retrospect, I was the real FAKE, not them.

They knew something I did not know; they knew that, as humans, we all have plenty of personalities living inside of us and that the skillful act of living demands that we activate the personality that is appropriate for the moment. While I activated different personalities for different occasions, I ignorantly thought that personality was a fixed steel structure, not knowing that I was fixated on just one of several possibilities that I lived in. Donald Trump is the president of the United States. That is one personality. At home, he is a father and a husband.

?

Today, I see so many persons, especially young adults, who have come to identify themselves with just one personality – a fixed statue in their minds akin to the Statue of Liberty in New York. They relate to this invisible persona that lives only within their imagination. They are not aware that the statue they created does not exist. In my work as speaker and coach, I had a session with a young adult a few weeks ago and this was the way a part of the conversation went:

Me: Can you tell me why you turned down the Microsoft sales offer?

Mr D: My uncle in New York got the job for me; I will never go for a sales job knowing who I am and my personality type

Me: Can you enlighten me on who you are and your personality type?

Mr D: I am an introvert; I rarely socialize. My parents can testify to this, and I have been this way since I was born. I guess one's personality is acquired from birth.

Me: That thing you call your personality does not exist. It is a creation of you, your thinking, and your imagination. I thought this way for a long time; I thought I was an introvert, and I was condemned to die this way. I avoided a great deal of social interactions because I felt I was a shy person. I wasted “time without end” to get myself into action once it involved even making a simple sales call. One day, I found out that all my life experiences are only thought-created. It was a eureka moment for me.

Mr D: So, you mean I can change my personality? How long do you think it will take?

Me: I mean, you have different personalities right now, and you can use your thoughts to decide which one you wish to project right now. It is not something that requires 10,000 hours of practice. It is something that you can do right now. You see, we all project different personalities every day. Have you watched Black Panther? Mr D: Yes, I have

Me: You see, Chadwick Boseman had to activate a new personality. The personality that you activate depends on the occasion. That is why actors can take on different roles. Chadwick is not ruling Wakanda when he gets home, but to play the role, he has to wear a new personality. That you hardly go to social gatherings doesn't mean that you cannot do it; it just means you chose not to, and that is because you are thinking thoughts that make you not to. What you need to do is just to mentally project a new personality that fits the occasion and the ACT IT.

Mr D: “Silence”

Me: Who would you be if you did not have the thoughts that you are thinking right now? I tell you the truth, you will be totally invisible,

THERE IS NOTHING THAT WILL BE IMPOSSIBLE FOR YOU TO DO. You see, all experiences of life are self-created through thoughts, and so are all LIMITATIONS. We limit ourselves without thinking. By design, we were designed to be impregnable, godlike, with the ability to create and bring into being whatever we can think or imagine, but the very tool that God gave us to create WHATEVER WE WANT, we have turned around to build silos that have imprisoned us. If you understand what I am talking about, you will wake up tomorrow morning and ask to be the chief marketing officer of Microsoft.

Mr D: Thank you very much, sir. I am calling my uncle right away, and I will be taking up the job and resuming immediately.

Me: You are welcome, Mr D.; feel free to call me anytime.

In the course of my public speaking and coaching activities, I have painfully encountered so many young adults like Mr D who are wasting valuable potential because they are waiting for a feeling to take action when, really, they should be doing the reverse. The feelings will come when you TAKE ACTION. You feel what you think; you do not think what you feel. The feeling follows the thinking. It always works this way. So, do not wait to feel like you are not shy before you take action; just replace the shy thoughts with thoughts that make you a lion, and shyness is all history.

Of all the great autobiographies and biographies I have read, over 75% of the successful billionaires, politicians, preachers, and executives say that they grew up as introverts. Somewhere in their story, they found out either consciously or unconsciously that personality was not a fixed concrete structure.

They changed personalities as the occasion served them.

I remember listening to the great preacher Kenneth Copeland; in the beginning days of his ministry, he would start his preaching with his tape recorder on and immediately after the preaching, goes to the backstage and change his suit, and come out selling audio tapes of the message he just preached. In 10 minutes, the preacher has turned out to be a salesman. You, too, can do this.

Rather than wait “forever” for a feeling to do what you know you ought to be doing right now, what you need is the knowledge that every personality type exists inside you right now. The one you call your personality is the one that you decided to be fixated upon. With this understanding, you can now call upon any personality that you need as the occasion demands.

Some years ago, a friend arranged for me to be appointed to a very high-profile executive role. It did not occur to me that I should find out the personality required for this role. At this high-profile interview and in front of some very prominent executives, I projected a personality that was wrong for the job. It was like being interviewed to play the role of Chadwick Boseman in Black Panther and showing the personality of a monk. I guess you know the outcome of that interview: I was NEVER taken and was not even given a second chance.

Quantum science is beginning to show that all possibilities exist in every person, kind of telling us something Jesus said in the scriptures. All things are possible. Which possibility you give expression to in your life is dependent on your choices. Activate the right personality for the appropriate moment, and you or ANYONE CAN DO IT AT ANY TIME.

ACTION ALWAYS TRUMPS THINKING – TAKE ACTION

?