Power the Future with Israel Olaniyan

Long before Wi-Fi signals and skyscrapers, humanity gathered on a plain in Shinar with a singular ambition. They said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches the heavens.” It was not evil ambition that doomed them. It was disconnection. They built for themselves, not from communion with God. They failed to understand that progress without alignment, achievement without obedience and visibility without surrender is a death trap. The Tower of Babel was not merely an architectural failure; it was the first global project of self-worship. Humanity was attempting transcendence without submission. A future built quickly, but not rightly. And though the tower collapsed, its blueprint survived. Today, we no longer stack bricks; we stack metrics. Followers. Grades. Titles. Paychecks. Influence. Platforms. We measure ascent, but rarely ask what is shaping us as we rise. The danger of Babel was never height. It was autonomy. Success that originated outside God. A people moving fast, speaking the same language, sharing the same tools, yet detached from divine direction. Their progress accelerated but wisdom did not. That pattern has not disappeared. It simply matured. Scripture is clear about one thing: God is not against growth. He is against growth that leaves Him behind. When the people gathered at Babel, they shared unity, skill, and vision. On the surface, everything looked impressive. But something essential was missing, communion. They spoke to one another, but not to God. They planned together, but not with Him. That is the quiet danger of ambition. It can make progress feel spiritual while slowly disconnecting us from the Source of life. Jesus later echoes this warning in a different way: “Apart from Me, you can do nothing.” Not little. Nothing of lasting weight. This does not mean inactivity. It means origin matters. Where are you building from? Many of us invite God into the outcomes we want, but not into the processes shaping us. We pray for open doors, but resist inner re-ordering. We want movement without transformation. But God is far more interested in who you are becoming than how fast you are advancing. Formation is slow work. It often feels inefficient. It rarely attracts applause. Yet it is the only thing that can sustain future responsibility. Before God entrusts scale, He forms substance. Before visibility, He builds character. Before ascent, He establishes alignment. If your progress feels slower than others, it may not be delay, it may be mercy. So pause and ask yourself this week: Am I building with God, or merely asking Him to bless what I have already decided? Alignment is not dramatic but it is decisive. Build from communion, and what rises will last.

Power without pruning is a hazard to both the carrier and the mission. Let that sink in. That's why God doesn't trust unbroken vessels. He loves them too much to entrust certain levels of power. They will be destroyed by it. I didn't really understand this for a long time. Why would a loving God allow Joseph taste betrayal, endure injustice, and wrestle with long painful silence? Even with such a dream, the favour of God, the blessing of Abraham and the fact that the future was God's will? It was because the kind of power revealed via Joseph's dreams required a broken vessel. A vessel dead to self. Today, most people romanticise the idea of Joseph being a prisoner the night before and Prime Minister the next day. I am sorry, but that wasn't a random act of Grace. It's not a miracle to pray for or a favour to desire. It's a process to go through and many deaths to die. Joseph had been broken and prepared. He had died many deaths for God to trust him with the role of Prime Minister of the greatest empire of his time. That wasn't an overnight or random transfer of power. It had been years in the making. The pit, Potiphar's house, the dungeon? Those were the crucible where he was broken. Imagine if Joseph wasn't broken. You can already predict that Potiphar and his wife would be jailed or killed. His brothers would be hunted and killed. In fact, Joseph's greed and corruption would be what would eventually wreck Egypt as he would squander the wealth in the first 7 years of abundance. But broken vessels are always purpose-driven and God-led. That's why Joseph didn't seek revenge. That was why he understood the assignment: to preserve. What did he do instead, he wept before his brothers who he had every right and power to jail forever. He choose mercy over revenge. He preserved Egypt and the entire world and fulfilled prophecy and continued God's agenda as already designed. God will never entrust certain levels of influence and power until you are broken and emptied of self. That's exactly why God breaks us. It's not to ruin us. He wants to root us. The delays most times are not demonic or meant to frustrate us. They help to build character in us. Ask David, Moses, Joseph and even Jesus. Their stories teach us the greatest lesson about how God forges those He intends to use for serious business. And it is this: Only the broken can be trusted with the kind of power that sets nations, destinies, and civilisations free. That we may all see.

When you were young and foolish There was a time when you were young and foolish. When you enjoyed the sacred mischief of imagination. That time when you dared to believe that all things were possible, even when adults lied to your face. Now, you are all grown but your memory of failure and disappointment have discipled you into smallness. You probably don’t even know it, but you have slipped fully into default living. A life shaped by outcomes, scarred by history and programmed by experience. Your vivid imagination that could dream up anything has now become a catalogue of memories and fears. Back then when dreaming wasn't embarrassing and the world literally had no edges. You believed you could bend reality. Aye, grown up, who slaughtered your childlike faith? What happened to the many wishes waiting to become horses? When will you again remember the dreams that once plucked stars from the sky, and truly believed that God spoke the world into being? When will you awaken the little one with dreams that can bend reality to shape? When will you return to wonder? Israel Olaniyan ©2025

#009- In the past few months, I’ve spent most of my free time wrestling with one question: *"Where will human value live in a world where machines can think?"* After hours of reading, reflecting, and paying attention, I’m sad to report that I still don’t have a definitive answer.😎 But then, I found something just as useful: a clearer way to think about the future. Here’s what I’ve come to believe: 2030 won’t belong to the people with the most skills. It’ll belong to those with the clearest compass. Why? Because right now, everyone’s chasing the next big skill. Few are asking the real question: _Will the person you’re becoming still matter in five years?_ AI is already here. More change is on the way. But future-proofing your career and your life isn’t about panic or trend-chasing. It’s about clarity, leverage, and long bets on the kind of thinking machines still can’t replicate. This edition of the *Global Lens Newsletter* isn’t a list of tools to learn. It’s a strategy for who to become. Read: *_"Where Will You Be in 2030? How to Future-Proof Your Career Beyond the Noise"_* https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-future-proof-your-career-beyond-noise-israel-olaniyan-ll-b-b-l--wimuf

In 2021, my life cracked open with a quiet disruption that upended my sense of normal. I began rehearsing for a future no one could see. Delivering speeches I hadn’t been invited to give. Practising answers to questions no one had asked. Some called it delusion. I called it training, for a life that hadn’t happened yet… but would. Because preparation isn’t just discipline. It’s faith in motion. And faith, real faith, builds stables long before the horse arrives. My latest essay is not about productivity or planning. It’s a manifesto for the ones who believe greatness isn’t summoned by luck, but by rehearsal. Because when opportunity finally knocks, you don't rise to the occasion, you fall to the level of your preparation. Read: "What do you do for fun? Why preparation is the highest form of faith and the true birthplace of genius." https://open.substack.com/pub/inspiredtablets/p/what-do-you-do-for-fun

What if you’re not stuck, and just in the middle of becoming? What I've found is that not everything important comes with applause. Some transformations happen in the dark, quiet, slow, and unglamorous. You’re doing the important things while still doubting yourself. You’re holding on when it would be easier to disappear. You may not know it yet, but you’re growing in ways the world can’t measure. I know, there are no new jobs or big shifts. It's just the ache of unseen movement. And yet, you’re becoming. Even here. Even now. You're not behind. You're not broken. You're just in-between. I wrote this piece for anyone walking that quiet road. The one where growth wears no crown, and progress has no proof, yet. Well, it’s not a 'how-to'. It’s more of a hand on your shoulder. Read: "What Is the Shape of Becoming? A Letter from the In-Between" when it goes live tomorrow. Subscribe here: https://inspiredtablets.substack.com

The cost of distraction and indiscipline is a price no one should be able to afford. Everyone feels it. That haunting sense that you're not who you promised yourself you’d become. The truth? No one is stuck. Most are just drifting. Numbed by comfort, dulled by leisure, slowly sedated by distractions. Still talented. Still full of potential. But now distant; from the fire, from the hunger, from the version of them that once dared to believe their dreams. My latest essay is not a pep talk. It's a funeral; for the version of you that keeps playing small. Read here: https://inspiredtablets.substack.com/p/planning-a-funeral

Everyone wants a beautiful life, but no one wants the narrow road it demands. We pray for greatness, then curse the grind. We dream of purpose but dodge the pressure. We ask for Paradise and shrink from the path that leads to it. When David was anointed king, his trials officially began. Somewhere along the way, we started to believe that clarity should feel comfortable. That the right road should be wide, well-lit, and easy. It never was. The beautiful life doesn’t begin with applause. It begins in obscurity. It is not for the easily discouraged or the casually interested. It is for those who are willing to suffer forward, to stubbornly walk the narrow path uphill. Read "The beautiful life" here: https://inspiredtablets.substack.com/p/the-beautiful-life

We've hit 20k followers on LinkedIn. Click the link below to read my reflections on this milestone. Quite insightful and immediately actionable. You'll love it. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/israel-olaniyan_weve-hit-20000-followers-thank-you-to-activity-7315984414151184384-F4Cr?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_android&rcm=ACoAABa2GJEBg98TGsnR1GIDStBufNwVKzjMCnM

Mozart composed symphonies at eight. Tiger Woods was swinging golf clubs before he could spell. Stories like these, recycled in TED talks, have long sold us the myth that mastery is sudden, divine, and reserved for prodigies. But what if that’s only part of the story? What if real mastery isn’t about early talent but long-term grit? What if the true edge belongs not to the gifted but to the obsessed? In “The Long Road to Mastery,” I make the case for an older, truer path, one that defies the hype of instant success and demands something deeper. Because true mastery isn’t viral; it’s earned through discipline and long-term commitment. Read the full article here:https://inspiredtablets.substack.com/p/the-long-road-to-mastery

Time will pass, and seasons will change. Things may get bad, but they will also get better. What matters is to keep your head in the game. Eyes forward and your faith holding firm. The darkness that seems to be all you see is just a phase. It's not forever. Hold on to the light of life. The only hope is JESUS and the life He gave you. It will soon be dawn again, and this time it won't be fleeting because this light is eternal. This light will never go out. BTW, Jesus is coming soon😊

I read somewhere, "Normalize praying before making a decision." I agree. But then, we can take things a notch higher: "Normalize daily prayer as your lifestyle and your default posture will be to perceive and follow divine instructions.You will do more of listening, knowing and following. It even gets better: He will show you things to come long before they happen. The same way nothing surprised Jesus, you will always be ahead of time. You will never walk into a trap. You will experience being at the right places at the right times and always meeting the right people."

When asked to choose between comfort and calling, most people say they’d choose calling. But when the defining moments come, we often do the opposite, then call it wisdom, or caution, or “being realistic.” Here’s the truth: the life you want may be hiding behind the risk you keep avoiding. If you think risk is recklessness, flying blind, or hoping for the best, then you have it wrong. In "Risking it all", I share why the best decisions often look illogical in the moment and why they matter more than you think. Read the piece here: https://inspiredtablets.substack.com/p/risking-it-all

Not all who leave are fleeing. Not all who stay are stuck. In Nigeria, survival is the only dream most young people share. To stay often means shrinking your ambition to fit the chaos. To leave is to bury a part of yourself and learn to live with the ache of starting afresh in a strange land. This is the impossible choice facing millions of young Nigerians. While some write IELTS to escape. Some write code for foreign firms to endure. Some renew passports, others renew rent. But all ask the same quiet question: "How much more can I take?" Read: "Surviving Nigeria: The price of escape, the cost of staying" https://inspiredtablets.substack.com/p/surviving-nigeria

The greatest enemy of your progress is not the world. It’s you. People rarely fail for lack of vision. They fail because the version of them that wants growth keeps getting outvoted by the one that craves comfort. Growth isn’t just about setting goals. It’s about governance, learning to lead your inner world when parts of you would rather stay safe, small, and comfortable. I wrote about this in “A House Against Itself,” a personal reflection on discipline, desire, and the quiet war within. Read the full piece here: https://inspiredtablets.substack.com/p/a-house-against-itself

I wasn’t born into privilege. I was born into pressure. But the truth is universal: comfort is a trap, shortcuts are illusions, and mastery is the only real advantage left. Some say fate is fixed. I say: build yourself into something fate can’t touch. This isn’t motivation, it’s an awakening for those tired of waiting to be rescued. Master yourself. Walk through fire. Become sovereign. In the end, the hard way is still the only way. But you get to choose your hard: the discipline of mastery or the despair of mediocrity. Read the full post here. https://open.substack.com/pub/inspiredtablets/p/hard-way-the-only-way

Unbound Untethered, like a leaf dancing in the wind, Unburdened by the weight of fleeting days, Unfettered by the grasp of empty pursuits, A candle in the wind, shining brighter still. With a heart unchained and the will set free, Riding the tempest in fearless pursuit, Rooted not in place, but in purpose, An island adrift, yet blooming still. No chain to bind, no anchor to hold, Drawn ever forward by whispers of the wind, Neither lost nor found, just becoming A northstar, ever drawn to the light. – Israel Olaniyan © 2025

At just twelve years old, Stephen Olusesi is a child prodigy with the mind of a philosopher, he stands before crowds not as a spectacle, but as a challenger of old ideas. For this 50th edition of the Inspired Tablets, we interviewed Stephen. He not only dismantled the illusion of fate, he also left the audience impressed and unsettled—in the best way possible. Because if fate isn’t in control… then who is? Click here to read.👉 https://inspiredtablets.substack.com/p/the-fault-is-not-in-our-stars