Teenagers Mentorship Class!

…inspiring productivity
www.teenagersclass.wordpress.com | mentor@foladaniel.com | +234 703 790 7851 | +234 805 247 2448

This is a human capacity building initiative targeted towards teenagers to inspire their productivity. It emanated from the experience of a young man who once managed to get promoted from Junior class 1 to Senior class 1. At Senior class 1 his parents were invited by the school authority for having 5F9s out of 9 subjects. As expected, he had to repeat that year. Two years down the line, the same young man had become the school’s chief speaker in debates and impromptu speeches. He became the Senior Prefect in the same school with over 4000 students and got the award of the best literature students before graduating. Almost 10 years after he graduated, teachers from Mayflower School are still saying no other Senior Prefect has been able to replicate his feet as a young leader. Today he has regular appearances on both local and international television! That is Fola Daniel Adelesi’s true story!

Join our group on facebook today. Search for: Teenagers’ Mentorship Class
Register online at www.tinyurl.com/teenagersclass

Discovering your purpose | Fola Daniel Adelesi, ASM, ACL, Wcc

1.) Purpose is your reason for existence (Why you were born, why you had to be black or brown or white, why you were born in Asia and not America or why you were born in Africa and not Europe, why you had to be a woman and not a man!)

2.) Without purpose, your education can still be frustrating. Education leaves you with a platform in life but it cannot give you fulfillment.

3.) Your purpose clearly defines to you where you are relevant, how to be relevant and what makes you relevant in a community, state, country, continent or the world.

4.) We must emphasize that fulfilling your purpose is easier with your education but the education here goes beyond what you get in classrooms of schools. It is self-education: reading biographies or autobiographies when you don’t have to write an exam, training yourself to use a computer to achieve other aims!

5.) To fulfill your purpose you have to discover innate (natural or inborn) abilities that you have been given by God because of that purpose (talking for me is natural, what is natural to you?)

6.) After the discovery of innate abilities, there are skills you still have to acquire to brush up the inborn skills (learning to use a computer and taking a training as a speaker were additional skills I learnt in order to brush up or aid my speaking skills)

7.) To discover yourself you can take a pen and a paper to begin to list the gifts you have in you. You can also ask a few people around you, especially older people who know you well, to tell you about special abilities or gifts they have seen in you.

8.) When you have a list of skills or abilities attributed to you, the next step is to consult a mentor, counselor or your parents to ask them where they think these skills will lead you to in life.

9.) Another way to discover yourself is to look at where the burden in your heart points to all the time. There is something in you that makes you feel you can change the medical world, police force, civil service, entertainment world, broadcasting profession or the public speaking field. If you always have the nudging that this thing can be done in a better way, then you already have an indicator to your purpose.)

10.) Purpose can be discovered through what you like or hate.

11.) What you like is an indicator showing you where to build skills and what you hate is an indicator showing you where to proffer solutions.

12.) Purpose is not discovered fully at once. It is an unfolding process and you must keep learning about yourself and your purpose.

13.) Discover the reason for your existence today, discover the hidden skills required or acquire the needed skills and begin to live life according to purpose.

Living a planned life | Fola Daniel Adelesi, ASM, ACL, Wcc

1.) The only way to have great results in life is to live a planned life (Simple or general plans).

2.) Every stage of your life needs to be planned through decisions and goal setting.

3.) What is a plan? It is your guide for how an action would be taken or your details of what to do, where to do it and how to do it.

4.) A goal is a target for what you desire to accomplish.

5.) Just as we have established that decisions are products of thoughts, we must know that plans are products of decisions.

6.) Simple planning often involves planning for the immediate just general plans may involve planning for the future and usually for a long time (planning a day, a week or month is a good place to start.)

7.) For plans to work you must have goals. What’s your goal for today? What’s your weekly goal? What would you have achieved at the end of each month and each year? You can plan to be a doctor but you should have goals to make it happen.

8.) Setting goals and following them will help us to achieve results and gradually see our life plans become real.

9.) Remind yourself of your goals by having postcards in your room, toilet, kitchen and every other place where you can easily see them. The goals that are seen very often will become a part of you and can be easier to achieve.

10.) The way to plan your life is to set goals that put demand or pressure on your skills and ability to make sure that you become productive (Example of demand is to set a goal to have 7 articles every week if you can write or 7 speech outlines if you like to talk. It could be practicing daily with football, basketball, piano, guitar or saxophone.)

Taking Decisions | Fola Daniel Adelesi, ASM, ACL, Wcc

1.) Decisions are final thoughts on actions to be taken.

2.) Decisions have to be taken always because we must act

3.) Decisions can be good or bad and that is determined by the consequences of the action taken.

4.) Decisions will always determine the quality of your life. Great and wretched men are products of decisions.

5.) The basic transition from childhood to adulthood is in decision making. Decisions are made for children but adults take decisions on their own.

6.) To have good decisions you must engage in a constant learning process.

7.) Good decisions can also be taken by consulting the right people on issues.

8.) A mentor comes in handy when it comes to taking quality decisions. They guide you with right decisions.

9.) Don’t jump into conclusions with issues you have to handle. Some decisions will be proved wrong or right with time.

10.) Some decisions are taken for the future and some are taken for immediate results. In either case, quality decisions must be taken.

11.) A continuous chain of wrong decisions will destroy you. Example: an immature girl takes a boyfriend (1), she accepts to have sex (2), she gets pregnant and decides to abort (3), at this level she loses her life! (This last one is not in her capacity to decide! It’s the result of several wrong decisions)

12.) A continuous chain of good decision is what makes a success out of you.

13.) The advanced stage of decision making is when you have to choose between good and profitable decisions. Example: watching TV and reading a book; stay on the internet or go for a seminar.

Chastity and Values | Olufunso Rebecca Ehindola

1.) Chastity is abstaining from pre-marital, extra-marital or all other sexual intercourse once it is not with the person you are married to.

2.) Your chastity makes you so valuable and it definitely brings you respect.

3.) We have to realize that chastity may not only be abstaining from sex but from all other things that devalue you!

4.) You are sure to get the best out of life when you are prepared for sexual intercourse within the confines of marriage.

5.) Virginity is not old fashioned or old school and staying away from sex is not going to kill you.

6.) Be careful about the company that you keep because it will either make or mar you!

7.) With chastity you can hold your head high when you see all the people that could have slept with you but did not get a chance.

8.) When people talk about sexually transmitted diseases you don’t have so much to worry about at this level if you are not sexually active.

9.) You have decision to make; to stay with sex and live with the consequences or to stay away and reap the joy.

10.) Remember that you can’t plant a seed and change the harvest. Once you plant it, you must reap!

Don’t let anyone buy you | Olufunso Rebecca Ehindola

1.) Acknowledge the fact that you have your integrity to keep or protect.

2.) Issues of integrity do not have immediate consequences so you can’t afford to mess up now.

3.) Be truthful and trust worthy, no matter what happens to you at any time.

4.) If you tell a lie now you will have to tell a bigger lie to cover the small one or struggle to remember the last lie you gave so that it will not be uncovered.

5.) At every point in time there will be issues that are testing your integrity

6.) Avoid being carried away by sentiments

7.) Never fall victim of the saying, ‘use what you have to get what you want.’

8.) as human beings your flesh will always want comfort but you have to learn how to deny yourself.

9.) There’s no situation that can give you a good enough reason to sell yourself cheaply. Look at your future rather than succumbing to the present situation and give your values away.

10.) Our nation needs more people with integrity who will serve as models for other and you can become a role model for others by standing out today!

You and your self-worth | Olufunso Rebecca Ehindola

1.) You must know the fact that you are created by God in His image

2.) You need to know yourself and understand who you are by looking at your strength, weaknesses and passion.

3.) It is important for you to understand that you are unique and different from any other person which makes walking in someone else’s shadow a taboo for you.

4.) Don’t compare yourself with anyone.

5.) It is important for you to value your gender features with a close look on your body physique, complexion and the likes.

6.) Come to terms with the fact that you were created and sustained for a purpose.

7.) You should never be intimidated by anyone because there will never be another you!

8.) Knowing your worth helps you focus and strive towards fulfilling your purpose in life.

9.) Learn to appreciate yourself even when you fail.

10.) Appreciating yourself is the only way to boost your morale and it must be kept high. To keep going in life.

First steps in Public Speaking | Fola Daniel Adelesi, ASM, ACL, Wcc

1.) Speaking begins with what you look like – your dressing and total package enhances your perception and ultimately your reception. Your dressing operates by power of pictures.

2.) Your carriage is a message – it can either speak for or speak against your intention.

3.) Composure must be in check – You can win your audience with your composure

4.) Keep your voice audible – it’s public speaking, not whispering but don’t shout.

5.) Master your voice modulation – never sound the same from start to finish.

6.) Sound the way you want to be received – entertainer or business like speaker!

7.) First few words should be hook lines – lines they will always like to remember or quote

8.) Engage your audience – don’t talk over people’s heads. Talk to them.

9.) Sound believable – show conviction, site examples, quote references, facts and figures.

10.) Use the power of pictures – Use teaching aids that reinforce your message. Remember the audience will use this for you so do the same to them.

11.) Be conscious of your non verbal signals – You may be saying what you don’t intend to say.

12.) Know your subject of discussion – avoid standing in front of a crowd with little knowledge.

13.) Use humour effectively – don’t run a dry presentation like a professor’s speech.

14.) Pronounce words correctly – when you don’t, people get distracted.

15.) Speak to inform – it’s easier for people to remember what you said.

16.) Use cue cards – trust your pen more than your brain, have your points written out.

17.) Watch eating habits – you shouldn’t frequent toilets as a result of indiscipline while preparing to speak.

18.) Expose yourself – a speaker must constantly get new experiences and be abreast or be ahead.

19.) Use feedback – to know how you fair and help yourself improve.

20.) Listen to other speakers – find out what the audience likes about them.

21.) Always improve – if people think you are good, prove you can be better.

Identity Crisis | Fola Daniel Adelesi, ASM, ACL, Wcc

1.) Identity is what makes you unique and what helps distinguish you from other people.

2.) Crisis is in this context of mentoring is when there is a difference between who you really are and who you are trying to prove that you are.

3.) Identity crisis put together would then mean a conflict of personality being experienced by someone which can make the person act contrary to his or her own desire or in a rash manner.

4.) Someone who is experiencing identity crisis has lost the power to do things for personal reasons because he or she is just reacting to what others do or trying to live life the way others are living.

5.) Some causes of identity crisis include: improper upbringing, lack of affirmation from parents or loved ones, absence of validation by superiors or peers, demoralizing experiences, wrong exposure and cross-cultural exposition.

6.) Signs of identity crisis in people include: intimidation, inferiority complex, insecurity, low self esteem, arrogance, materialism, denial, deceit, hatred, envy, depression

7.) When you have identity crisis, you will always think that you do not have powers to decide how you react to what others do. You keep saying, ‘he or she made me do that!’

8.) In times of identity crisis you will find it difficult to relate with people even when you need their help.

9.) We must come to terms with the fact that identity crisis leads to abnormal sexual behavior. You want to have sex because someone else is having it and is feeling so big.

10.) With identity crisis you will always seek approval from others instead of doing what is known to be right.

11.) To break away from identity crisis you have to discover yourself and your strength.

12.) You have to spend more time on what is your new found strength rather than focusing on what makes others look big.

13.) It may take time but you must begin to control your reactions when others do things to you. They can get you angry but it will take your thoughts to pick a gun and kill.

14.) Those who imitate are those who do not know who they are.

15.) You may be mocked when you decide to be different but you have to take a stand!

16.) When you eventually get out of identity crisis, it’s important you help another person out.

Living on borrowed time | Fola Daniel Adelesi, ASM

Our elders in the Yoruba land have a very simple but profound saying which, over the years, people have taken for granted or have just decided to neglect despite the weight that it carries. I grew up hearing people say things like, ‘ma wo ago alaago se ise.’ That can be interpreted to mean ‘don’t work with other people’s timing!’
In life you just have to admit the fact that your timing is so different from the person or the people around you and you cannot afford to always get agitated by the progress they make and the timing they have for the programmes in their lives. I really like to say that working with other people’s timing means you are living on borrowed time.
What does it mean to live on borrowed time? Someone decides to get married and you look out for the bio data of the person only for you to realized that the person is your age mate so you conclude that if she is getting married then you must get married as soon as possible. When you begin to run your life by other people’s plan for their lives then you are living on borrowed time. Someone wants to go for a doctorate degree and you think the next thing for you to do is to go for a doctorate degree, not because you feel so convinced about the degree but because you will want to say at the end of the day that your friends who started school with you now have a doctorate degree and you also have one. The right thing to do for you at this time might be to prepare the future of your children or to go on some other projects other than getting an additional degree. Some friends are going into the banking industry and you feel the next thing you should do is to go into the banking industry when you know so well that while growing up you didn’t have a flair for figures except when it is the money given to you! It feels good to be called an engineer and you have seen the reverence given to some of them so you also go on the path of engineering when you just might do better engineering the destinies of people as a strong and skilled communicator!
A number of times people will never know that they are living on borrowed time or working strictly by the plans and vision of other people because some of the plans they are following are seemingly very good plans. You will never see anything wrong in doing those things until you begin to ask yourself questions about the motive of doing those things. Buying a car because a friend has a car already and you need to measure up is living on borrowed timing because you may buy the car and realize that what you should have saved up for the your next rent or your new house. A young folk may have saved some money and would go for a sophisticated sound system because every friend in the neighbourhood has a system that can shake the building but when priorities are put in place what that young folk needs is a laptop that can boost his academic pursuit. Some other parents also push their children on the parts of borrowed time by dictating for them their career paths in life against the strong desires of those children. If there is anything I am grateful for in my educational pursuit it will be the fact that my parents did not decided for me what course to study or what path to follow. No matter what path you think a child should follow it will only be your will that will be fulfilled immediately. As soon as the child has to face life that child will find himself drifting towards the field of his strength or strong passion and will regard the previous years as wasted years because that was never what he wanted. That’s how some parents help their children to live on borrowed time.
We must realize that it is a disaster to live on borrowed time and here are some of my reasons:
- The borrowed time should have been spent doing some other things that will get you to your destination faster.
- It is also a disaster because when you realize the only important thing for you to do, all that you have done in the past may never have any relevance to what you really need to do now so you have to start all over in life.
- The realization of living on borrowed time will make you spend more than you bargained for since you have been spending money following up the things that are other people’s plans.
- When you live on other people’s time you will never have the fulfillment that you need in life but when there is a comparison among your mates, maybe in your workplace, you may be a little satisfied with yourself because the result of the comparison shows that you are not doing bad among your contemporaries. While the result of the comparison certifies you okay you know deep down on the inside of you that you seem to be doing fine but this is not where you belong.
How to avoid living on borrowed time
- Do your envisioning for yourself – create your pictures of your future yourself
- Live according to plan – every house is built according to plan, just enter new phases of your life every time by the plans you have carefully drawn up before that phase.
- Never get intimidated by the tall dreams of others – follow your dreams and realize that the reason some people get carried away is because they listen to some other people sweet talk about their dreams and ambitions. No matter how beautiful a vision looks, if it’s not yours it’s not yours. Don’t get involved and don’t run by it!
- Always have a plan that you can reach easily – when you have no plan to reach easily then you have nothing to put you in check and can therefore drift without observing it.
Retracing your steps if you think you are on borrowed time
- Ask yourself what you really think you are supposed to be doing.
- What is it that will really give you true satisfaction without the influence of peer pressure or societal demands?
- If you have to take a new degree or change your current programme then you must do that so that you do not regret it later.
- For some other people all they need to do is to change their career path since the basic programmes have given them skills that can be transferred into different fields. Seat, think and act because a change is necessary.
- Go back to the time when you were trying to fine tune your own plan before you began to run with other people’s plans or visions.
- When you have found the new path to go on, you must drop all other plans you have been running with if they have no relevance to where you are going in life.
- Review those innate desires to which you have said, ‘there’s no time or I wish I had time.’ Remember that so many people keep saying to the original things they are supposed to be doing that they do not have time because they spend all the time doing what they should never have started!
It is my belief that those who will say at the end of their lives that life is nothing or that it is not worth the input are those who would have lived so long on borrowed time. You can stop living on borrowed time right now because the short time you have to yourself is not even enough for you in the first place.

Starting and promoting a blog | A crash course by Fola Daniel Adelesi, ASM

If this is your first time of reading about blogging then I suggest you visit a few blogs to really grasp what these tips are all about. When you visit these blogs it will be easier to understand what is being discussed or suggested for your use. I hope you find this very useful.
A few blogs I suggest you visit
1.) www.foladaniel.wordpress.com
2.) www.speakerslaboratory.wordpress.com
3.) www.teenagersclass.wordpress.com
4.) www.debater5.blogspot.com

Brief introduction to blogging
1.) A blog is an interactive online forum where you can have a personal page (an example is www.foladaniel.wordpress.com)

2.) When you create your page you can invite people to respond to issues on your page because there are columns where people can pass comments on your posts.

3.) Having a blog makes you available on search engines like google or any other one. Your works on the internet will pop up whenever anybody types your name into the search engine and that will lead them to your webpage.

4.) You can use the blog to promote whatever you do on the internet.

5.) If your blog is very active you may not need another website because your blog is accessible anywhere in the world like any other website.

6.) If you really want to use your blog for serious business you have to work on driving traffic – inviting people – to your webpage. I will tell you how to do that in subsequent pages.

Creating a blog for yourself
1.) You can enter any search engine and type the word ‘blog’ to get a list of different blogs and choose which one you would like to use. Before that I can easily tell you that ‘taking it global (www.takingitglobal.com),’ ‘wordpress (www.wordpress.com)’ and ‘blogspot (www.blogspot.com)’ are some of the most popular blogs.

2.) For the purpose of this brief introduction I will suggest you go for ‘wordpress’ (www.wordpress.com). To start blogging please enter the link into your browser.

3.) The last step takes you to the home page of wordpress. From there you will find a ‘sign up’ button. Click the sign up button to commence registration of your blog.

4.) Please note that if you have a slow link the sign up button may not be displayed so you may have to refresh the page or look for ‘register a new blog.’

5.) You will be required to enter usernames. I always suggest you use your name (www.foladaniel.wordpress.com) so that it will be easy for people to remember your web address

6.) You will also be required to use passwords. Passwords on wordpress are usually a combination of letters and figures. If you want to use letters alone then you should use slightly long words. You will be told the password strength after entering the word. If it’s low then you will need to use another word.

7.) When you are done with the registration page you will be required to open your email to click a link which completes the registration process. Once you get a message that your blog is now active then you can commence blogging.

8.) To visit your new page enter the link (eg. www.foladaniel.wordpress.com)

9.) To start uploading on your site enter the admin page by typing the new link and add ‘wp-admin.’ (eg. To enter my admin page I will type www.foladaniel.wordpress.com/wp-admin)

10.) The last step takes you to a login page where you provide username and password. Your username is the same as the name of the site (eg. foladaniel is the username for www.foladaniel.wordpress.com)

11.) When usernames and passwords are entered correctly the next page you will see is your dashboard (same as admin page). This is where you edit what you need to edit or add whatever you need to add.

To upload texts
(articles, marketing materials, type in an information)

1.) You will usually find two columns on the right side of this dashboard. A small and a big one. On top of the small one you will see ‘title.’ Enter the title of whatever you want to upload and you will see content on top of the big column. Copy and paste the content of whatever you are uploading into the big column.

2.) The next column you will see is for ‘tags’ – this is to put your articles or content in categories. For instance if your article is on leadership you will type leadership into the column for tags. This will make it easy for users of search engines to find your article when they are looking for anything under leadership.

3.) After putting the articles in categories you will find a ‘publish’ button. Click on the publish button to make the new article available on your webpage. You will repeat this process anytime you want to upload a new article.

4.) When you want to see the new article on your page you can look for the ‘visit page’ button and click on it to see your article. If this is not displayed then you may just type your new blog address (eg. www.foladaniel.wordpress.com) to see your new article on the blog.

5.) To create additional pages on your blog remember to enter the dashboard by typing (eg www.foladaniel.wordpress.com/wp-admin) the only thing that will change is that you have to put your name and not my name. When you have supplied username and password you will be back on the dashboard. Look to the left side of the dashboard to locate some bars. You will find the bars for pages, links, appearances and others. Click on pages to create and name additional pages. Follow the instruction on uploading articles to put content on the new page.

6.) To choose a new template or new theme you will click on appearance. This will show you several appearances available on the wordpress site that you can click on activate to have that theme running on your webpage.

To promote or drive traffic to your webpage

1.) You have to tell people about your site and do it in different ways.

2.) Make your new link a signature on your email accounts and for text message from your phone

3.) When you type documents you have to put your new link in footnotes or may choose to make it a header.

4.) You can use facebook or other social utilities to promote your blog. In the same line where you upload pictures on facebook, you can click on link to always type your link and make sure people visit.

5.) Put our new link on notice boards for people to know about it and visit it as well

6.) Don’t forget to put the new link on your complimentary cards whenever you are printing .

7.) If you are delivering a lecture or speech in any gathering you can take advantage of that gathering to notify people and as well paint a good picture of interesting things they can find on it.

8.) Have the new web address stuck on your wall such that everyone who comes in can see

9.) Make sure the new link is a part of your letter head.

Sustaining the traffic

1.) Keep your site new by putting something new from time to time

2.) Sometimes all you may do to the site is to change the appearance by adding pictures or changing the theme you are using.

3.) Make your content very engaging and respond to people’s comments on your blog.