I stumbled into a piece about 3 months ago when I ventured into the basement unit of my office to collect materials for quality checking my staff, it reads “To get what you have never got, you need to do what you have never done before”. Believe me, it gripped my attention and for about 5 minutes I stood still staring at the wall, soaking in the very depth of the saying. It has become part of my weekly self talk that repeating the word to myself many times over has become a habit.

In the article last week, I said that transformation is a word that transmits the result or expected result of a process that involves the conscious application of the mind to diligence. In other words, it is not a state that you attain in the twinkle of an eye, or on the spur of the moment rather it is a state that you attain by submitting yourself to whatever it takes to metamorphose into your desired being.

Thoughts they say are things, consequently – you cannot become what you cannot think or imagine. In other words, limitations, barriers, mountains, impossibilities, credit crunch et al begins and ends in your thoughts or imagination. That is the way the creature has programmed you and me.

To validate this tried and tested principle, I call to the witness stand Dr. Frank W. Gunsaulus, a clergy man and an educator. At an early age, whilst in the university, he identified a defect in the American educational system and purposed in his heart to bring about a change in the system. Although he understood that the only way he could ever achieve this goal was to become the head of an institutional – an uphill task – nevertheless, the thoughts consumed him totally.

When he goes to bed, there is only one thought in his mind – a change in the educational system. When he woke up from sleep, the thought is right beside him. As he goes about his daily business, he carries the thought with him – a change in the educational system in America.

His idea would see a system where young men and women are able to learn by doing in an environment that is not hampered by the orthodox methods of education. He needed $1million to achieve this. The consuming question was, where is he going to get this money from, it is a lot of money – he recognized (fact). He also recognized that the only limitation is that which one sets in their own minds (truth).

Instead of going though the natural process – “I know that I have a great idea but there is nothing that I can do about it because I can never procure the $1million that I need to accomplish it, I do not know any influential person – so what is the point”. That would have been true for majority of people but not Dr. Gunsaulus.

On e Saturday afternoon after wrestling with the idea for about 2 years, he made up his mind there and then that he would get the necessary $1million within a week. Not bothering about how this was going to happen, he set out and called a newspaper and announced that he would preach a sermon the following morning, titled “what I will do if I had a million dollars. He went to work on the sermon immediately.

That night he slept with a strong sense of assurance for the following day, he could see and feel the physical cash; and he queried himself ‘why did you not reach the decision earlier, the money was waiting for you all that time’.

He woke up that Sunday morning excited with confidence as he said a prayer and left for the church. So excited was he that he forgot his sermon notes, which he did not notice missing until he was on the pulpit to deliver the sermon. It was too late to go back for the notes and the audience were waiting. So he rose up, closed his eyes and spoke from his heart.

He described his plan and demonstrated how it would be accomplished. As he sat down after the sermon, a man slowly walked up to meet him on the pulpit from the back row and said ‘Reverend, I liked your sermon. I believe that you can do everything you said if you had $1million. To prove this I would give you the money if you come to my office tomorrow morning’. The gentleman’s name was Phillip D. Armour.

Dr Gunsaulus collected the money the following day and shortly afterwards he founded the Armour Institute of Technology – the result of an idea that was birth in the young preachers mind. Truly, thoughts are things. This is why Paul said “Be not a conformist but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may know that thing that is good, acceptable and perfect will of God.

It will require a shift in your world view, paradigm and mindset to effect a total transformation. Change what you hear, change what you look at, change what you speak and you are on your way upward.

Impossible = Nothing, Difficult = Do It!!

See what you can do.

Sam Opeche