Dear Destiny Friends,

To succeed in any life endeavour, be it business, academia, religion, politics, family, and the likes, you must have a strategy or game-plan. This is a universal principle of life. If one does not have the right principle or strategy, he is bound to fail. It is generally said that the highest form of politics is the church. However, some will opine that the family has a greater stake.

 Regardless of where your interest lie, one thing is certain; to get whatever you want, you must play the game of politics. For example, to get a child to do something, you must come to his/her understanding. That’s politics. To succeed in a job, you must know the right people, and you must know the right strategy, even if it entails acting like a fool to get what you want. It can also mean losing an argument to win a friend. This strategy can be likened to common sense or even wisdom. But it is sad to note that many people lack the understanding to navigate this terrain.  Moral: you must be intentional in whatever you do.

You may be wondering how this principle plays out! To pass any subject; Mathematics, Law, Nursing, Engineering, Accounting, Medicine, etc., you must understand the rules, formula and terms in addition to knowing how to apply them. The same is applicable in business, to succeed in your business, you must know the needs of your target audience and know how to position yourself. Even in marriage, there’s a formula, it’s quite unfortunate some people assume that there’s no formula for marriage. I disagree with that school of thought because when there’s constant adultery, domestic violence, or a fundamental issue in the marriage, it’s capable of ending the marriage. So, it’s imperative you know your partner’s likes or dislikes as well as their love language, personality and mental understanding which entails knowing how to communicate with them.

To succeed in life, one must know how to play the politics of life. Imagine, if you are recently hired for a job, your success in the job lies in your ability to know how to play office politics. I call it the power dynamics. To do this, you must play the game of politics. The same principle is applicable if you want to get a favour from a resource person. Let’s take a case study of a mentor- mentee relationship. If as a young man or lady you want to meet a resourceful person, your ability to research on the works of the person, know the kind of causes they are passionate about, their likes and dislikes, as well as their thought process on topical issues. These will be a great way of showing the person you understand them to some extent. All these combined exemplify the act of playing politics. In some cases however, you can like the works of the person, comment on their work or even share their work on social media.

It is worthy of note that nobody succeeds on their own terms, you need people to climb the ladder of success and a great skill to assist you in working with people is personal relationship skills. When you know how to relate and network with people, you stand a better choice of attracting success.

Even in politics, you must understand how to play the game before you can win an election. Apart from being liked by the citizens, you must know how to use the right words by being “politically or factually correct”, and you must know how to meet the people where they are as opposed to them meeting where you are.

The politics of life is not only limited to the work environment, it’s also applicable to personal development. In fact, one of the highest forms of politics is the one that happens within oneself. As human beings, our bodies experience many metabolic processes due to changes that occur from the food we eat, age factor, or the general environment that affects the body system. All these are politics which our body responds to. That’s why as human beings, we are constantly evolving, and tend to surprise ourselves everyday.

Therefore, before you embark on any project, it’s imperative you take time to study or know the applicable politics or strategy needed in that industry.

Henry Ukazu writes from New York. He’s a Human Capacity & mindset coach. He’s also a public speaker, youth advocate and creative writer. He works with the New York City Department of Correction as the Legal Coordinator. He’s the author of the acclaimed book Design Your Destiny – Actualizing Your Birthright To Success and President of gloemi.com. He can be reached via info@gloemi.com