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Posted by JuJuan Buford, Entrepreneur & Writer @JSBUFORD
"Life is like a checkerboard, and the player opposite you is time. If you hesitate before moving, or neglect to move promptly, your men will be wiped off the board by time. You are playing against a partner who will not tolerate indecision" - Napoleon Hill, Think & Grow Rich
JuJuan Buford is a Detroit native, a successful entrepreneur, activist, writer, and public speaker. Buford is dedicated to helping families, entrepreneurs, and business owners establish thriving enterprises, achieve financial independence, and build lives of satisfaction.
Posted by JuJuan Buford, Entrepreneur & Writer @JSBUFORD
Sprint as fast as you can from procrastinators.
People who refuse to accept responsibility,
When it can be avoided.
People who spend time creating alibis and excuses,
that could have been spent doing the job.
People who blame and criticize others, because they
Lack ambition and or are intellectually and physically lazy.
People who compromise with pressure and adversity,
As opposed to chiseling a more dynamic self.
You’ll smile more.
Breathe easier.
Walk with more vibrance.
Think clearer.
Achieve way more.
You’ll Go Further, Faster, Farther, Harder.
JuJuan Buford is a Detroit native, a successful entrepreneur, activist, writer, and public speaker. Buford is dedicated to helping families, entrepreneurs, and business owners establish thriving enterprises, achieve financial independence, and build lives of satisfaction.
Posted by JuJuan Buford, Entrepreneur & Writer @JSBUFORD
Is it just me, or do others find it puzzling that we don't have discussions regarding how to repair people any more? How to feed hope? Isn't fair to state, that if U.S. citizens are so concerned about the "competition" or "others", that we should take an all hands on deck approach? Meaning should we not be just as concerned about unleashing the genius inside the soul living in squalor in a closet sized apartment, wondering whether they're going to eat today, versus the dullard who by virtue of namesake or being born on third base is given a platform to speak of the platitudes of success and principles of refinement.
I admittedly, avoid the television, social media, and the radio. And I've accepted what that means. That I'm ignorant or not privy to the latest, greatest, most eviscerating attack or act of salaciousness. However, I also find myself less occupied about the isms, arguments regarding whose theological commitment to one political ideology is better, or this litmus test or another. I find myself asking simpler questions, and receiving simpler, but no less potent answers. After all, isn't the real war, the war to end all wars, really the war against poverty: spiritual, intellectual, material, emotional....poverty.
Yeah, I get it. We have to increasing invest in more devastating weaponry. And bad people exist. The bills have to get paid. I have to hit my KPIs daily too. However, at the end of the day, is not poverty the greatest weapon of mass destruction known to man? And if we can be in agreement with that, why not spend a inkling more time addressing it?
JuJuan Buford is a Detroit native, a successful entrepreneur, activist, writer, and public speaker. Buford is dedicated to helping families, entrepreneurs, and business owners establish thriving enterprises, achieve financial independence, and build lives of satisfaction.
Posted by JuJuan Buford, Entrepreneur & Writer @JSBUFORD
"Poverty and riches often change places. When riches take the place of poverty, the change is usually brought about through well-conceived and executed plans. Poverty needs no plan. It needs no one to aid it, because it is bold and ruthless. Riches are shy and timid. The have to be "attracted."" - Think & Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
JuJuan Buford is a Detroit native, a successful entrepreneur, activist, writer, and public speaker. Buford is dedicated to helping families, entrepreneurs, and business owners establish thriving enterprises, achieve financial independence, and build lives of satisfaction.
The climb up the ladder of success can be treacherous and you can find yourself beset by mishaps, prejudices, unknowingly self-inflicted wounds (those are the worst), and unfavorable circumstances; especially if you're not born on 1rst, 2nd, or 3rd base. But none of those compare to the ultimate gatekeeper of success. If you want to cross over to the other side, best be ready to pay the price of PERSISTENCE.
Posted by JuJuan Buford, Entrepreneur & Author @JSBUFORD
Honestly, failure (the habit of quitting permanently) feels really good in the beginning. It's like watching a baby wet its diaper. In the beginning its all warm and comfortable. But after a while it becomes a noxious, sticky mess, accompanied by a lot of screaming (alibis, excuses, and shoulda couldas).
Just like not having a written agenda. Not having a personal scoreboard. Failure doesn't require much effort. It settles in the environments that are favorable to it. And it feels good in the beginning. However, just as the axiom goes, if you boiled a frog one degree at a time, it would remain contented with its eventual fate. Not having a definite purpose, not having an agenda, or a scoreboard for your life and business, is boiling you.
JuJuan Buford is a Detroit native, a successful entrepreneur, activist, writer, and public speaker. Buford is dedicated to helping families, entrepreneurs, and business owners establish thriving enterprises, achieve financial independence, and build lives of satisfaction.
Posted by JuJuan Buford, Entrepreneur & Author @JSBUFORD
Sometimes being "stubborn" doesn't mean you're stubborn. Sometimes it just means you know how to think for yourself. The most effective killer of dreams, creativity, and success is caring too much about what everyone else thinks.
JuJuan Buford is a Detroit native, a successful entrepreneur, activist, writer, and public speaker. Buford is dedicated to helping families, entrepreneurs, and business owners establish thriving enterprises, achieve financial independence, and build lives of satisfaction.
Posted by JuJuan Buford, Entrepreneur & Author @JSBUFORD
This talk is relevant for anyone looking to lead a team regardless of industry.
JuJuan Buford is a Detroit native, a successful entrepreneur, activist, writer, and public speaker. Buford is dedicated to helping families, entrepreneurs, and business owners establish thriving enterprises, achieve financial independence, and build lives of satisfaction.
A great deal of youth is spent challenging things, expending voluminous amounts of energy testing everything, and that's good because that is how progress comes about. Then you turn the corner, and assuming your mind is still sharp and your spirit vibrant, you still challenge things. However, you also learn that certain universal laws remain unwavering like the constellations in the sky. And if you find yourself adrift, you can always course correct by pointing to the North Star. That's when life starts to get really interesting, fun, and fast.
Posted by JuJuan Buford, Entrepreneur & Author @JSBUFORD
I used to subscribe to the idea that good people deserve to win, and ultimately do win. I bought into the narrative that if you work hard, and you are good person, your victory in life is assured. And for a time it was, and can still be a useful, soothing fiction.
When you grow up in an environment whereas you’re told repeatedly what you cannot do or accomplish. When circumstances seem to vehemently reiterate your limitations. When your life chances are already seemingly circumscribed because of the last name you carry, the neighborhood you’re from, your complexion, cultural appendages, etc., it gets in to you. When you’ve been told repeatedly that you aren’t worthy or even valuable by those whose voices you hear the most, coupled with hardships befalling those around you, images on the nightly news, the swirl of it all confirming your worst fears and thoughts. You internalize it, or most of it.
Or if you are like I was, you eventually turn off the emotional thermometer. It just doesn’t register anymore, because at the time it’s easier to persevere absent emotions or feelings. At least in the beginning. It doesn’t mean the feelings aren’t there. You simply learn to subdue them, wear the mask. And only when they inundate you, the cup begins to runneth over, they transmute into other often times destructive things.
Some develop a huge chip on your shoulder and even become callous. Some use tools: alchohol, sex, and a host of alternating destructive behaviors. You’re trying to subdue yourself, curb the volatile waters churning inside. Push the urges of your soul down deep, in a faraway place, protect a piece of you from the anger and despair.
But here’s the thing. In the absence of emotion. The absence of burning desire. Where do you find the fuel to go further, go harder, go farther?
It reminds me of a monologue in the Dark Knight Rises with Bruce Wayne’s character and the blind doctor discussing his lack of fear.
Doctor: 'How can you move faster then possible, fight longer then possible, without the most powerful impulse of the spirit? The fear of death.'
Bruce:'I do fear death. I fear dying in here while my city burns. And there's no one there to save it.'
Doctor: 'Then make the climb.'
Bruce: 'How?'
Doctor: 'As the child did - without the rope. Then fear will find you again.”
Your emotions are a reflection of your desires. Desire is an impulse. It’s energy. And understanding and harnessing that energy is the only way you’re going to be able to battle the disappointments; sorrow from people failing you. Endure the setbacks and failures. Discouragements and temporary defeats. It’s the only way you’ll be able to outlast the haters and the wretched people you will inevitably cross paths with. And yes, do the personal development, that is necessary to become a better you.
The onslaught is real. We all endure it to varying degrees. It’s part of the human experience. There is a Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall. There are sunny days and there are terrible tempestuous storms.
And in order to give your all: creatively, physically, mentally.....and truly unlock your full potential and all the divine has placed inside you is to learn how to pull from the wellspring of burning desire. Be unabashedly obsessive, relentless, be willing to pay the price.
If you’re still reading this, I know what some may be thinking. This is some psycho babble nonsense. However, nothing could be further from the truth. This isn't coming from some curated, academic experience manufactured to fit into the framework of a motivational speech.
I know what it’s like to battle the stereotype. To have to fight just for the right to father your children. Spending absurd amounts of currency, time, and effort. Being told by some to abandon your children. Abandon the effort. It’s not worth it. I’ve been accused of every kind of offense you can imagine from sexual abuse to the least of offenses, like neglecting to clean a runny nose.
I know.
I know what it’s like to be engulfed and feel surrounded by negritude. Crabs in a barrel mindsets. To sacrifice for the benefit of others. Being an activist or being willing to do the right thing, stand up, is more often than not the most thankless of tasks. Zora Neal Hurston said it best, “All my skinfolk ain’t kinfolk.” I’ve watched in complete dismay as many of us, crack the whip harder than the oppressor.
I know what it is like to be told, “you’re not worth the food you eat”, regularly as a child.
I know.
I know what it is to experience, subdue, overcome hurt and disappointment. I’m still dealing with some wretches today, dressed up on overcoats and shoe budgets, pretending to be successful when their just trifling shrews. Money can only cover up the BS.com for so long.
And I’ve overcome and continue to overcome. Life is a 12 round fight. It’s a marathon. Things can appear bigger and more insurmountable when one loses sight of this. Even if you’re catching Ls for the first 3 rounds, there are 9 rounds left. Burning desire gives you the stamina to outlast it all.
Deserve is a subjective term. I’m not sure what I deserve. Or what anyone deserves for that matter.
However, being deserved is something different altogether. The difference is the willingness to pay the price. Taking the stones that are thrown at you by shrews, and building something spectacular with them. And smile in faith, knowing that you have the stamina to go the full 12 rounds.
JuJuan Buford is a Detroit native, a successful entrepreneur, activist, writer, and public speaker. Buford is dedicated to helping families, entrepreneurs, and business owners establish thriving enterprises, achieve financial independence, and build lives of satisfaction.
I choose not to believe that good people fail, simply because they suck. I believe that when you equip people with the tools to manage and harness their emotions; equip them with the information to make more informed decisions; expose people to the reality that the successful don't breathe different air or have greater intrinsic value, and they have the same stuff in them to succeed; that when shown examples and provided with mentors; ordinary people can achieve extraordinary things. I believe that is the charge of leadership, and that is the litmus test of any person, organization, society, and nation that dares to believe they are exceptional.
Being a good person is not enough. Having a work ethic is not enough either. It takes burning desire. Unabashed obsession. To persevere through the disappointments, hardships (monetary and non monetary), inevitable failures, non-constructive criticism, and the championship time wasters (bs-ers) who will float into your life as an entrepreneur. And some humility along the way.
Posted by JuJuan Buford, Entrepreneur & Author @JSBUFORD
Everybody wants to be an entrepreneur until it’s time to start the work. It’s exciting to focus on the accoutrements of success. The money, the recognition, fame, the extraordinary lifestyles, Big Events, Living in the clouds. However, you also have to be excited about the process, the work.
Get excited by the boring exercise of simply putting one foot in front of the other, faster than the next person.
JuJuan Buford is a Detroit native, a successful entrepreneur, activist, writer, and public speaker. Buford is dedicated to helping families, entrepreneurs, and business owners establish thriving enterprises, achieve financial independence, and build lives of satisfaction.
Posted by JuJuan Buford, Entrepreneur & Author @JSBUFORD
"write out a clear, concise statement of the amount of money you intend to acquire, name the time limit for its acquisition, state what you intend to give in return for the money, and describe clearly the plan through which you intend to accumulate it."
Think & Grow Rich - Napoleon Hill.
The most salient part of this passage paraphrased. What value do you intend to give to someone, in exchange for their hard earned currency. Truly, nothing had done more damage to an economy and on a macro and micro level then when we submit to the deleterious impulse to try to get something for nothing.
JuJuan Buford is a Detroit native, a successful entrepreneur, activist, writer, and public speaker. Buford is dedicated to helping families, entrepreneurs, and business owners establish thriving enterprises, achieve financial independence, and build lives of satisfaction.
Posted by JuJuan Buford, Entrepreneur & Author @JSBUFORD
Your reasons. Your commitment to see things through comes first.
Your answers. The solutions to your challenges come second.
Expecting that miraculous things will happen, absent unreasonable desire,
Is like shaking a tree to make dew drops fall.
If the conditions aren't right, you'll experience not much,
But splintered hands and dark clouds.
JuJuan Buford is a Detroit native, a successful entrepreneur, activist, writer, and public speaker. Buford is dedicated to helping families, entrepreneurs, and business owners establish thriving enterprises, achieve financial independence, and build lives of satisfaction.