One of Our Many Facilitators

 Olaniyi Opeyemi Success

Olaniyi Opeyemi Success is the Project Manager of The Writers’ Community Course, a journalist by profession, a Life Coach, Writer, Media practitioner, a Prolific Speaker and Entrepreneur of International repute. He is equally the Chief Executive Officer of The Renewal Team International, an organisation designed to mentor, teach, inspire and motivate. He also writes for the Magazine arm of the organisation.

A graduate of Mass Communication from the Osun State Polytechnic, Iree, he has had media experience with media houses like Lagos Television, LTV, The Guardian Newspapers, The Pillar (a publication of The Renewal Team International). He is equally an Associate Member of the Nigerian Institute of Management.

Success developed is flair for writing while he was in the tertiary institution, Osun State Polytechnic, Iree with the group, ‘Soft Mega Bugs’, a group that was well known for its objectivity. It was on this note that he became the Associate Editor of the school’s Student Union Government Editorial Board (SUGEB).

Success is also into professional photography for corporate organisations, events and models.

UPDATES FOR REGISTERED PARTICIPANTS

Hello there,

Registered candidates for The Writers’ Community Course should please visit their mails for updates on the project. The venue for the lectures will be sent to your personal mails and phone numbers.

Kindly avail to like our page on facebook, ‘Armstrong Consults’, follow us on twitter @ask_Armstrong and visit our blog, www.armstrongconsult.blogspot.com to get updates on the course schedule and venue.

This one-time opportunity is for nobody but you.

However if you are still interested in participating you can visit our blog to get details or send the following details:

·         Your full name

·         Your contact address

·         Your email address

·         Your phone number

 to the following phone numbers;

08135494686, 07060685831 (sms only)

Armstrong Consults

THE PLATFORM

Renewed Asirvo

FROM THE OTHER SIDE

Writing this piece does not just excite me, it arouses bubbles both in my heart and belly that I just cannot but express my exhilaration. It is like remembering my favourite songs and having goose pimples lavished all over my skin. This piece affords me the opportunity to go through a momentary déjàvu of my days in secondary school and I can still re-create and re-paint this scene-it is so funny that the expressions of people into our lives, (the words they speak) often times do go a long way in forming our lives, save we are able to live beyond the indelible impressions of their words in our minds.

‘Like a replayed scene of an episodic film, it was one of the week days during school hours, that I had approached class-mate in my noble Arts Department. I was in SS2 then-this young class-mate of mine was reputed to be the best Literature in Student and I had written a poem waiting for this young boy to affirm me-I staggered towards his desk that day, hoping that I can find a positive affirmation from the reputed ‘Literature in English Legend’. It was like my life, my confidence, and the essence of who I was depended on whatever he ‘says’. I got to his desk, shuddering, stammering and lisping some few words: ‘…this is my poem, will you please rate me?’ my heart raced faster like I had just finished running some miles. I kept praying that he will affirm me-did he? He paused for a moment and gave a sneer. Sincerely, I had actually written the ‘best of me’. Sweats dropped profusely from my armpits, soaking my white shirt as I anticipated my fate from his words. (I had concluded that he had the final say on all of my academic life).

He muttered some few words, sighing incessantly as he read the last lines of my poem. His words: ‘you really don’t have the potential to write poems (re-phrased though), this is not a poem, and you really need to learn a lot, your writings are so weak’. God! I shrunk, I melted, I died inside… a death of failure… it was the death of my own esteem of myself. I believed him, taking his words hook line-sinker and I almost concluded that I cannot become the poet I wanted to be. I was wrapped in that smallness for years until…

Thank God I did not believe him forever, because that same poem I wrote in the year 2002 that he wrote off was published in a Sunday Guardian in the year 2008, and many other writings of mine have found their way into many other papers- 6 years after he uttered those words, my poem still had relevance to find a place in a major newspaper in Nigeria-today I have written a book that stands close in comparison with Bishop TD Jakes books(pastor of the Potter’s House, teacher, life-coach, in Dallas, Texas, USA), with four other books ready to be published.

My point?

What people say to you does not matter much like what you say to yourself. The most successful people on earth today are mostly from the other side of the rope, the other side of the river-bank. They are the ones people believe to be the least-likely to succeed, but somehow they make it though and become reputed for greatness, excellence and distinction.

Oh! You say, ‘Asirvo! I don’t believe you!’ no quagmire, do you know that noble laureate, prof. Wole Soyinka finished with a pass, same as late Gani Fawehinmi (SAN)? That Barack  Obama was raised by a single parent with the help of his grandpa? Farah Gray from a poor slum in the city of Chicago became a millionaire at the age of 14 and found his way to having an office in Wall Street as the youngest black?

Ask the legendary Albert Einstein if I lie.

Oh! Let me bring it home, I have the stories of two people who finished from reputable universities with first class-do not let me tell you their stories, just open and read through – I believe their stories will spur you into the greatness that you have so long waited for.

Great, successful and brilliant people are not born, they are made-a genius is a product of consistent hard work and faith in one-self.

Have fun!

My point? You can become the writer that you have always dreamed