"SUCCESS is Hidden in the Place of PAIN!" - Sunday Adelaja (@official_pastor) Top 10 Rules

Hello, Believe Nation. I'm Evan Carmichael. My one word is believe, and I believe that entrepreneurs are going to solve all of the major problems of the world. So to help you on your journey, today we're going to learn from Pastor Sunday Adelaja and my take on his top 10 rules for success. Rule number 4 is my personal favorite, and I'd love to know which one you guys like the best. And as always, guys, as you're watching, if you hear something that really resonates with you, please leave it down in the comments below. Put quotes around it so other people can be inspired. And when you write it down, it's much more likely to stick for yourself as well.

Enjoy.

Stop pitying yourself. Stop pitying yourself. Stop, you know, looking at yourself as a victim. That is one thing you must stop doing if you want to attain anything in life. You know what? Life is about pain. Everybody, one time or the other, feels pain. And if you are afraid of pain, or you want to run away from pain all the time, that means you pity yourself too much. And if you run away too much from pain, then you will not have any progress, or you will not experience any change in life whatsoever. Every change requires pain. For example, if you want to just sit down at home and study, and not watch TV, and not go to play with your with your friends, that costs something, that causes some pain. If you want to be different from other people, people criticize you and talk about you, that causes some pain. But those pains are what I call voluntary pains. They are pains that you need to pay the price of right now so that you'll be able to avoid greater pain later on in life. So, but if you are somebody that likes comfort too much and you think that any correction or any process of pain is too much for you or is deadly for you or is unbearable for you, you will only be pitying yourself. And if you are just— if all what you're doing is just pitying yourself, you will never become a better person. Sometimes we all need to be tough on ourselves. Be tough on yourself. Get that, your flesh, out of that bed and go do what you need to do. Sometimes you need to force your flesh to listen. Don't let the flesh have dominion over you. Get to do what you need to do and let that flesh feel that pain. Pain so that you might get the result that you desire in your life. Stop beating yourself. Now, success is, uh, one thing that is hidden in the most unlikely of places. And one of the places that success is hidden is in doing what you don't feel like doing. Most of the time, we do what we feel like doing, and we do— we don't do what we don't feel like doing. It's just like, um, somebody, a kid or a child that doesn't want to wake up in the morning to go to school, and, uh, but you make them go to school because that's the way to success. The same thing with adults. If you know, a failure is somebody that gives to his flesh and to his body what he wants. Your body wants to eat chocolate and ice cream all the time, you eat it all the time. You do what you feel like doing. Well, that will lead you to being obese. And, you know, if you feel like going to work, you go, but if you don't feel like going, you don't go. Or if you feel like, you know, studying, you study, but if you don't feel like studying, you don't study. Well, if you do what you feel like doing and you do what, you know, you do like what you feel like doing all the time, you become a failure in life. But in life, you've got to do what you need to do. You've got to do what you don't even feel like doing, but if it needs to be done, if you need to study, you study, even if you don't feel like studying. If you need to go to work, and if you need to go to work, even if you don't feel like going to work, you go to work because that's the right thing to do. So successful people are people who force themselves to do the right thing to do. They force themselves to do what they need to do rather than, rather than going out there to do only what they feel like doing, but they actually do what they don't feel like doing because they know it is needed to be done. So, you know, if you really want to be successful in life, don't look for, you know, the easy things in life to do. Look for the things that are difficult, even if you don't feel like doing it. But when you do it anyway, that is the— that's the way, that's the greatest way to success. When you break your flesh, when you you humble your desires and go to do the things that you need to do even if you don't feel like doing it. Well, success is hidden in the most impossible of places, in the place of pain. When you go to do things that you don't feel like doing, you find success. You know, the best victory you could ever have, the best, the number one, enemy you need to conquer is yourself. Many people are busy trying to conquer some principalities and powers and fight some demons and fight some, what do you call it, you know, curses from inherited curses or, you know, generational curses, they call them. And, you know, if you're a Christian, you You don't need to bother so much about your generational curses. Maybe, you know, some people might be having that problem, but you know what I discovered? I discovered that you and yourself is the biggest fight of your life. You need to conquer yourself first. You need to put yourself in place and begin to say and begin to talk to yourself that, wow, Well, I must change myself, I will change my habits, I must work on my weaknesses, and I must become a better person for myself.

Most of our challenges, most of our troubles are connected to us.

Even if we are not the sole person or totally or wholly responsible for whatever we're going through, one way or the other, there is a place there is a role that we ourselves have played in it. And if we don't take the— if the majority of the blame doesn't go to us, well, that doesn't mind— that doesn't— no, it still doesn't matter because some percentage of the blame still go to us. So it's better to focus on ourselves and focus inside and see what amount of the blame do I carry, and then try to work on yourself to eliminate and to remove some of those things that have led you to that trouble you are in in the first place. So the first work you could do in this world is to work on yourself. The first victory you gain in this world is the victory of yourself, you over yourself. So let us consider talking and working on to ourselves and work and work working on ourselves rather than being concerned, over-concerned about other people. You are the biggest enemy of your life. And you know what? Many of us have some dreams, great dreams, and many of us have some aspirations, great aspirations, and many of us are dreaming of becoming great people, dreaming of doing a lot of great stuff. But unfortunately, What I've discovered is that most of the time, if we don't conquer ourselves, we cannot conquer the world around us. A man that will conquer the world must first of all conquer himself. Have you thought about that? Have you really conquered yourself? You need to conquer yourself first before you could be thinking, or before you could think of going to conquer the world. And if you don't work on yourself, if you don't perfect yourself, if you don't train yourself, if you don't discipline yourself, if you don't tutor yourself, if you don't, you know, administrate yourself, if you don't manage yourself, you will discover that you will not be effective in managing any other person out there, and you will not be effective in managing any other thing outside there. So for us to conquer the world, We must conquer ourselves. As a matter of fact, only the people that have conquered themselves eventually rule over this world. Only the people who have conquered themselves conquer the world. Only the people who have overcome and gained victory over themselves are the people that have authority in the world because they don't have the same challenges, they don't have the same issues. Well, you might say, well, there are some people people who don't have, who have not conquered themselves but are successful in the world. But that success is temporal, it's temporary.

Most of those people, they are disgraced out of those successes eventually.

Your success will become sorrow to you if you don't conquer yourself because it will be revealed and you'll be exposed eventually.

You have got to surround yourself with the right people for you to be truly successful. If anybody you— for example, if you want to become politician, make sure that you surround yourself— you go and find an environment, a suitable environment where you could learn from the politicians and where the politicians could help you to advance in your calling and in your destiny. If you want to become a businessman, surround yourself, find yourself to get yourself to where business people are. And environment is a major key to success. It's one of the— actually the most important factors of success. It's more important than, than, than, than, than preparation. It's more important than knowledge. It's very important. You cannot underestimate the role of environment in success.

So you need to find people who are already in the place where you wish to be.

You need to— even if you don't have people around that are like that in your surrounding or in your, in your environment, You know, if you need to be a politician and there are no politicians around you, go and read books of politicians. Surround yourself with the books or tapes of great politicians. Learn from them. That is environment. Create the environment for yourself. If you don't have millionaires around you and you want to become a millionaire, get the books and literature of the millionaires around the world. Learn from them and create the environment of success and surround yourself with the environment of a millionaire. And you discover that it is possible. So this is a major factor to being successful.

So success is available and attainable. And success is always hidden in the most unlikely of places. One of the places where success is hidden really is in work, is in the ability to work hard and work work smart and work more. Work is one of the major instruments for success. Really, you cannot find a truly successful person who doesn't like to work. You cannot find a truly successful person who is not a workaholic. For you to really be successful in life, you've got to love to work. And work you must, not just anyhow, because many people work really, and many people work hard, but you've got to work smart. The difference between working smart and working hard is to get enough knowledge about what you want to do before you begin to do it. And when you start to do it, you do it hard. And when you do it more and work even harder, there's no way success could escape you. So if you really want to be successful, learn not just to work, but learn to work by gaining first knowledge about the nature of work you want to do and to be able to work smartly, to be able to do things strategically. And that's— working smart is the kind of work that you do when you focus on the results. On the result that you will get at the end of the day. And you focus on that and you work aiming— you work aiming to get to the result that you are targeting. Not just work for the sake of working. And of course, working hard is not to work just 8 hours a day. It's to work for as long as possible just to get to where you want to get to. So working hard, working smart. And working more is the key to success. You must stop trying to be someone you are not. You must stop playing games on yourself and on other people. You know what most people do around us? They paint a picture of who they really are. That's why it's a big thing to dress when you are going out of the house. Why do you want to dress? Well, you need to do some makeup and remove some of the rashes and some of the acne. It's good to do those things, but most of the time we dress to create the wrong impression. We look, we behave to create an impression rather than be who we are. Because we are scared of who we are, we are even scared of accepting ourselves for who we are. So, we live a deceptive lifestyle. We're deceiving other people about the truth about us. Some people have deceived themselves so much, they don't even know who they are anymore. So, to really improve your life and make your life better, you must stop trying to be who and what you are not. Stop trying to create an impression. Stop trying to impress everybody. Stop trying to make everybody accept you. Stop trying to make, put up a show. Stop being an actor. Come to realize who you are and come to accept who you are And if you are not good enough, begin to work on yourself to make yourself good enough. If you don't like how you are, face it that this is how you are, and it is the starting point of making yourself better. Stop being who you are not. Stop lying. Stop playing games. And stop deceiving the world. And yourself. Then you could begin to make yourself a better you.

If you know, have information, if you know, if you have the right information about success, or if you know the factors of success, and it's easy for you to attain success, to be successful, and to become everything that you wish to become in life. You just need to get the right information. That is why knowledge Knowledge is regarded as power. Knowledge is power. For those people who know the importance and the significance of knowledge, their lives never remain the same. They are never the same wherever they are. No matter where you are, either in the darkest village in Africa, if you can lay your hand on knowledge, if you could go for information, information has the ability to exalt you. Information and knowledge has the ability to raise you out of darkness and put you into the light and on top of your world. Information makes the whole difference. When information comes to you, it just disperses darkness and it brings you into the top of your world. So one of the first factors to success, or of success, and that makes success available to you is to make yourself informed. Yourself, go for knowledge, be, you know, be hungry for knowledge, be thirsty for knowledge, you know, be on the adventure for knowledge. If you go for knowledge, if you look for knowledge, yeah, we will see that you will never remain where life has put you. You will always move forward and you will be closer to success, and success will become such a reality to you than you could ever imagine.

The greatest wealth that you could think of is the wealth of Time. Time is the greatest, you know, the greatest thing that you have, you and I have in our lives, because time itself is equal to life. Time is more than money, time is more than gold, time is more than precious silver. Time is equal to life, because our life itself is a totality of time. So, if we say a child is born, that child has life in himself, but, and we say this child is 10 years old, for example, or we say this child is 20 years old, the person is 20 years old, that 20 years that we refer to, or that 5 years we refer to, or 10 years that we refer to, is a subtotal of time. So, if I'm saying I'm 40 years old, 40 years old or 43 years old, that is a subtotal of the amount of time that I've lived. So that time equals my life. So time is life, and whatever you do with your time is what you do with your life. So if you waste your time, you're actually wasting your life. So if you value your time, you value your life eventually, because life is the greatest commodity, is the greatest blessing, is the greatest treasure that heaven has given to all of us, all of us on earth. So if you really want to be valuable, be a valuable person, you must value your time. If you want other people to value you and to respect you, you must respect yourself by respecting your time. You have to think of what you do with your time on a daily basis. How do you spend your time? Do you waste your time? If you waste your time, you waste your life. If you waste your time, other people will waste your time and your life as well. So wasting time is actually an abuse. If you don't want to abuse yourself, you don't want to abuse your life, yeah, the best thing to do is to think about it and begin to value every minute of your day.

Don't just go about and talk.

Don't just go about and do just anything out there, you know. Think twice and calculate the way you spend your time and think about it before you do something. Think in the terms of time is life. Everything that you have now might be insignificant, might be small, but it is It's those things that you have now that will be a blessing to you tomorrow. If you want anything big in your life, if you want anything big to come to you, it will only come from the little things that you have right now. Big stuff will not come to you from outside or from the moon or from somewhere when you never had it. The big things you will ever have in your life will grow out of this out of the little, little things you have right now, out of the small things that you have in your hand. So whatever you have in your hand, you've got to treasure them. Whatever things you have in your hand, you've got to value. And then not just value and treasure, but you've got to nurture the small things you have, because the big things that will come to you will normally come and only will come through those small things that are right now now in your hand and in your care. As you are faithful in them, they will become big. If you really want to be great and successful, you've got to meet the needs of other people. You've got to go and help other people meet their needs, you know, to be the servant of all. If you want to be the greatest, it means go and help somebody else resolve their problems. So the act of success is when we are able to identify problems of other people and go to help them to resolve those problems. So success is in resolving problems. Success is when we resolve, when we help to solve other people's challenges and problems. So you want to really be successful? Well, go about, go on a search, go on a search for problems and for situations where people are having needs or difficulties, and go and find and prepare yourself and find a way of meeting those needs and resolving those problems of people. As you bring your services or goods that will resolve the problem of these people, you will discover that they begin to thank you. They begin to show their appreciation either in forms of remuneration, salary, or honorarium, or one way or the other they'll begin to pay you or to compensate you for your efforts and for your services. So now, if your purpose in doing this is not just to get the money or to get the remuneration, if you just go to resolve the problems and to provide solution and answers, you will discover that you keep on getting more skills and you you keep on getting more recognition, and not just recognition and skills, but you keep on getting salary or money or compensation for your efforts. And that will keep on lifting you up. The more you do, the more you sacrifice yourself for the others, the more you experience real success. So success is going to find a need and meet it. Success will automatically come to you.

Thank you guys so much for watching. I made this video because Nekiru Ojimadu asked me to. So if there's someone you'd like me to cover in the next top 10 video, check out the link in the description and go and cast your vote. I also want to give a quick shout out to Skip Pritchard. Skip, thank you so much for picking up a copy of my book, Your One Word, and taking that picture and posting it to your Twitter. I really, really appreciate the support. and I hope you enjoyed the read. So thank you guys again for watching. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is. Much love.

I'll see you soon. You've got to be proactive.

You've got to be proactive and become a person of action if you really want to attain success, if you really want to be successful and move forward in anything you do in your whole life, you've got to make sure that you are a person of action, that you are proactive. You don't wait for people to tell you what to do. You don't wait to get a command from anybody, but you stand and go and do what you need to do. You be proactive. You initiate changes. You initiate a move. You know, Be ready to go out and do as much work as possible. Be a person of action. You know, the Bible tells us that the hand of the lazy brings poverty, but the hand of the diligent brings wealth and riches. Be diligent in everything you do. Be a person of diligence. Be somebody that would do, you know, if you need to work for 8 hours, work for 10 hours. If you need to do 10 works, do 20 works. Just make sure that you act and you do better than any other person around. You know, when I was in the university, when I came from Africa to study in Europe, I knew for me to get anywhere, I must become the best student in the university. I must beat all the students from every other country because I'm a black person. And if I really want to make a difference in this world, if I really want to, you know, make a lasting impact, if I want my Jesus to be proud of me. And if I don't want to be ashamed— I mean, for him to be ashamed of me, or for the world to be ashamed of him, I must make sure that I study extra class, extra time. And that's the key to become the best in your field. So be proactive and be a person of action, and success will be available and ready for you. Preparation is a key, and a major key, to success life. You could become great in life. You could become successful in life. Only be adequately prepared. Many people do things shabbily. Many people do things on the surface. Many people just do things to get by it, and you just, you know, to just mark, to get a mark that they have done it. People go to school and just, you know, give exams as if they are doing it for the teacher. People go to school and, uh, you know, just play around in the school People go, no, to universities and don't give their best. They are not adequately prepared and they are still dreaming, and yet they are dreaming of being successful in life. Well, success is not possible to just anybody. Success comes to people who fulfill conditions of success. Success comes to people who do and abide themselves by the laws of success. Yesterday we spoke about the law of information and power of knowledge and the role it plays in success. But today we're talking about the importance of preparation. You need to get yourself prepared. You need to be the best you could be in everything you do. You need to make sure that you don't just jump into doing something, but you make sure that you first of all prepare yourself. You make sure you have adequate preparation before you start to, you know, you embark on any journey or any activity or anything whatsoever you do. That's the principle that the sports people use, sportsmen who win the Olympics. They used to spend, you know, maybe 2, 3, 4 years preparing. Some spend up to 5, 10 years preparing themselves rigorously before they go and compete in their— in their— in whatever sports they are competing in. So preparation There is nothing but preparation. Preparation is a womb to success. Preparation is the womb of success. So let's get prepared adequately before we engage in anything. That is another major factor to success. If you really want to be successful, you must be diligent enough to go through the process.

Many people just want to wake up one morning and just wake up being successful or wake up being big.

Wake up being great and just have everything at once. No, that is deception. You cannot have everything just at once. You must be willing and ready to painstakingly go through the process of production. You must not be one of those ones that want to have something for nothing. You must not be one of those people that want to have something where you don't pay the price for it. You must be willing to pay the price for anything that you desire to have in life. Don't just have a goal, but be willing to walk and go through the process of pain, of endurance, of sacrifice, of labor, of work. Just make sure you follow the order, make sure you follow the rules, make sure you follow due process so that you will be able to to get to where you want to go, because that is the only thing that can assure you or give you a lasting success. So you must be a person of process. You must be thorough. You must be diligent. You must learn to pay attention to details and to minute, insignificant things. So you must pay attention to the details and the process of creation, the process of production, process from getting from A to B must be thorough. You must make sure that you follow the rules. You must make sure that you don't omit any single or any small point in your quest to go and get to where you wish to find yourself. So be a thorough, diligent person. Diligence and being thorough to follow through the process is a major factor to becoming successful in life.