DAREY ART ALADE. ( how he found fame)

Darey is a Nigerian multi-platinum selling and award-winning musician, singer-songwriter, and Idol series judge. He is the son of the renowned Nigerian entertainer, Art Alade. He is quite loved by his fans for his awesome R&B Songs.

EARLY LIFE AND BACKGROUND  

Dare Art Alade is the last of the five children of Olapeju Art Alade, wife to Art Alade a famous Nigerian highlife / jazz artiste in the sixties and seventies. His older siblings are Abimbola, Taiwo, Kehinde and Bolaji and he hails from Lagos state, the former capital of Nigeria.

Dare's road to stardom started in 1998 when as a teenager, he was performing at B Jez Nite Club on Victoria Island, Lagos State. It was there that a member of the Cool FM management spotted the talent in him and invited him to radio station, where he (Dare) groomed him in all aspects of radio production and marketing.

Dare honed his skills at an early age, singing with several choirs, including the National Troupe of Nigeria Choir and then the Cathedral Choir. From the age 15, he began performing extensively in clubs around Lagos, Ibadan and other cities in Nigeria. It was during one of those late night sessions he met an executive at Cool FM, a major Radio station, who appreciated his voice, and his ability to interact with his audience. The determined teenager began shuttling between Cool FM and the University of Lagos where he was studying for a degree in Music. During his time at Cool FM, he had the opportunity to acquire the basic knowledge of radio production and marketing. Darey has over almost the past decade been a disc jockey, TV presenter, entertainment consultant, voice over artist and performing/recording artist.

Dare grew in Lagos, where he resided with his mum, and shuttled between the CoolFM radio station and University of Lagos where he was a student in the Department of Creative Art.
Apart from playing music on piano and drums, Dare also loves riding all kinds of motorbikes and keeping dogs.
Dare worked fulltime as a DJ, VJ, events compere, band member and voice-over artiste. Quite a wide portfolio for this talented Nigerian who creativity and bubbly personality pervades everything he does.
He was a DJ for 96.9 CoolFM, a Lagos-based radio station where he hosted various shows.
Dare was a member of an Acapella group called ChordWebs they sang in churches as a group and individually.


CAREER AND LIFE

Darey's big break finally came during the 2004 edition of Project Fame Academy, a well renowned Reality TV show and continent-wide talent hunt, where he had the opportunity to perform in front of over 100 million people, and emerged third in the contest.

After an unfruitful record deal with Sony BMG Africa, his debut album 'From Me 2 U' hit the Nigerian market two years later on Storm Records. The album was laced with several hit singles, including 'Fuji' and 'Escalade' which enjoyed massive airplay in the Nigerian and international media. The top selling album also included the song, 'Original Naija' which was used as the theme Song for the first ever edition of Big Brother Nigeria. Darey's album, 'From Me 2 U' won several awards including the Awards for Musical excellence in Nigeria (A.M.E.N) and the 2006 Channel O Music Video Awards for best R&B Video in Africa.

 In 2008, Darey spent several months as the host of a music based reality show 'MTN Project Fame West Africa' from where he first hit continental fame in the South Africa edition in 2004.

Two years after the release of his successful debut album, Darey released his highly anticipated follow up entitled 'unDAREYted', on the new start up label, Soul Muzik. The album sold over 150,000 copies across Nigeria in just two months. The album features appearances by Darey's contemporaries and friends: Cobhams Asuquo (Asa's producer), 2face Idibia, Naeto C, 9ice, Tee-Y Mix and the up and coming R&B crooner, Pheel, to mention a few. The critically acclaimed work features the smash hit ballad "Not The Girl," which has been nominated for several awards and won video of the year at the 2009 Nigerian Entertainment Awards held in Washington DC.

In 2010, Darey performed at high profile shows in many cities across the World including Nairobi, Johannesburg, Abuja, Lagos and other major African cities, including a special concert with R&B legend R. Kelly in South Africa and the This Day Peace Concert Tour in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria, which had 50 Cent and Ciara as headliners. On request of the President of Nigeria, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, he was invited to perform at the presidential villa in an exclusive dinner to commemorate the Country's 50th independence Anniversary. At the event, which was broadcast live to over 200 million viewers across the world, he performed a medley of 50 songs with his 15-piece band, "Soul band" to a room filled with several African presidents and past world leaders.

Darey was the main host of both the Gulder Ultimate Search and Glo Naija Sings reality shows in 2011 and in February 2013, put together alongside his Soul Muzik team one of the biggest shows Nigeria has ever seen, Darey Presents: Love Like A Movie in February 2013 which had the red carpet hosted by Kim Kardashian as well as the highly successful release of the music video, "Asiko" featuring Jozi and Ice Prince.


In May 2013 Darey released a new single, Special Fever, produced by internationally acclaimed producer Harmony. In June 2013, hosted the launch of media mogul Mo Abudu's multi-broadcast network Ebony Life TV alongside Dolapo Oni and most recently signed on as an ambassador to Unilever's popular beverage drink – Lipton.
Darey is currently a judge on Nigerian Idol, replacing Jeffrey Daniel.


As a philanthropist and humanitarian, Darey supports several causes close to his heart including Cancer charities, Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and several foundations in Africa. He also set up the Art Foundation, whose main goal is to keep music education alive for kids in primary and secondary schools in Africa.

Apart from his accomplishments as a recording artist, music producer, TV/Radio personality and Master of ceremonies, Darey is also an accomplished businessman and philanthropist with backbone support from Soul Muzik his event and TV production company, Soul band and a state of the art production facility, Soul Muzik Studios, where he does all his production and recording.

AWARDS AND ENDORSEMENTS

Has a lot of big awards to his name, a few below

* Best Male Video "Not The Girl" (2009 Channel O Music Video Awards)
* Best R&B Video "Not The Girl" (2009 Channel O Music Video Awards)
* Best R&B "Not The Girl" (2009 Nigerian Music Video Awards)
* Best Use Of Costume "More" (2009 Nigerian Music Video Awards)
* Video Of The Year "More" (2009 Nigerian Music Video Awards)
* Best Music Video Of The Year "Not The Girl" (2009 Nigeria Entertainment Awards)
* Best R&B Video "Escalade" (2006 Channel O Music Video Awards)
* Best  Picture / Musical Video "Escalade" (Awards for Musical excellence in Nigeria (A.M.E.N)) 

- Be Inspired

"THE DREAM" (Hakeem Olajuwon)

Hakeem "The Dream" Olajuwon led the Houston Rockets to back-to-back NBA championships during the peak of his magnificent 18-year professional career.

Synopsis

Born on January 21, 1963, in Lagos, Nigeria, Hakeem Olajuwon overcame a late introduction to basketball to star at the University of Houston. The cornerstone of the Houston Rockets for 17 of his 18 NBA seasons, "The Dream" led the Rockets to back-to-back championships with his scoring, rebounding and shot-blocking abilities. He was named to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2008.

From Nigeria to Houston

Hakeem Abdul Olajuwon was born on January 21, 1963, in Lagos, Nigeria.

Amazingly, the future NBA legend didn't play basketball until he was a 15-year-old student at the Muslim Teachers College in Lagos, though he easily adapted with his coordination honed from playing soccer and handball.

Olajuwon emigrated to the United States to play basketball at the University of Houston. Mistakenly enrolled as "Akeem" but appropriately nicknamed "The Dream" for his eye-opening skills, Olajuwon teamed with future NBA All-Star Clyde Drexler on the high-flying "Phi Slamma Jamma" squads, leading the Cougars to three NCAA Final Four appearances.

After the 1983-84 season, in which he topped the NCAA with 13.5 rebounds per game, 5.6 blocked shots per game and a 67.5 percent field-goal percentage, Olajuwon was selected with the No. 1 pick in the 1984 NBA draft by the Houston Rockets.

Top Rocket

Olajuwon was an instant star in the NBA, displaying stunning quickness and agility en route to 20.6 points, 11.9 rebounds and 2.7 blocks per game as a rookie center. Listed at an even 7 feet (though he was closer to 6'10"), he formed one half of Houston's formidable "Twin Towers" duo with 7'4" Ralph Sampson.

The promise of the Twin Towers faded with Sampson's deteriorating knees, and an increasingly frustrated Olajuwon found himself putting up big numbers for mediocre teams. He became the first player in NBA history to record at least 200 steals and 200 blocks in a season during 1988-89, and led the league with 14 rebounds and a staggering 4.6 blocks per game the following year, though the Rockets fizzled early in the playoffs in both seasons.

Olajuwon reaffirmed the traditional spelling of his first name as "Hakeem" in 1991, a change that coincided with his seeming maturity as a player and leader on the court. He became a more active passer and perfected his "Dream Shake," a series of fakes that left opposing defenders helpless.

During the 1993-94 season, Olajuwon averaged 27.3 points, 11.9 rebounds and 3.7 blocks per game, and the Rockets outlasted the New York Knicks in an exhausting seven-game series to win the NBA championship. It truly was a dream year for "The Dream," who became the first player in NBA history to win the Most Valuable Player, Finals MVP and Defensive Player of the Year awards in the same season.

The following year, the Rockets received a midseason boost by trading for Drexler, Olajuwon's former college teammate, and went on to claim their second straight NBA crown. Olajuwon averaged a career-best 27.8 points per game, and again was named Defensive Player of the Year and Finals MVP.

Having secured his U.S. citizenship, Olajuwon won a gold medal with the 1996 U.S. Men's Olympic Basketball Team. Soon afterward, he was named one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History as part of a campaign to mark the league's 50-year anniversary. However, after one more typically huge season, his performance on the court began to taper.

Olajuwon retired after spending the 2001-02 season with the Toronto Raptors. Over the course of his 18-year career, he was named to the All-NBA First Team six times, and to the NBA All-Defensive First Team five times. He finished with impressive averages of 21.8 points and 11.1 rebounds per game, and a record 3,830 total blocks.

A Dream Retirement

After leaving the hardwood, Olajuwon reinvented himself as a successful real-estate dealer in Houston and became a coveted instructor for NBA players seeking to improve their moves around the basket.

When not tending to business in Houston, Olajuwon spends his time with his family at a home in Jordan, where he studies the Koran.

Olajuwon was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2008, a fitting coda to the career of one of the game's all-time greats.

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Qualities You Need to Reach Your Goals

Sometimes we give up on our goals because we don’t follow through on everything we should do. We all do it.

Starting today and moving ahead, don’t be one of those people that doesn’t achieve their dreams. Not because you fail—because we all make mistakes. More because we should live with absolutely no regrets, because you don’t want to go through life knowing that you didn’t go for it in life.

In my work as a motivational speaker and mentor, I talk with people that have not achieved their goals, and, usually, it’s not because their goal wasn’t a great one—it’s because they give up too soon, before reaping the rewards of their efforts.

If this resonates with you, I want you to change that—to become one of those people who do achieve their dreams. I want to share my personal experience and what I advise clients are the characteristics that help drive you to huge success to accomplish your goals. 

Here are five qualities you need to reach your biggest goals:

1. Be positive.

I have always believed that everything starts with a positive mindset. What you put your mind to is where you will put action to. You have to believe in yourself and stay positive as much as you can. Some of the best ways to do this are to surround yourself with positive, inspiring people; journal your progress; and start each day reading an inspirational article or listening to something positive and motivational.

2. Be persistent.

At times when you are trying to reach a large goal, there are people that are going to say “no” to what you want and need. I have been told that and you will, too. Strong, successful people do not give up. You don’t want to push too hard on people—sometimes it just takes a 15 percent shift in your strategy. And sometimes it’s that very next person who will say “yes.” So keep moving forward on your goals. Always believe that today is going to be your day.

3. Be patient.

You must also have amazing patience when going for your biggest goals.  We all want to achieve our goals today. We want the fruits of our labor right now, but sometimes the timing isn’t right for our goal. As Beverly Sills said, “There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.” Get into a mindset that the wait will be worth it. Take massive action on anything that you can, but remember that great things take time. Your dreams are worth the wait.

4. Be resilient.

Throughout our lives, there are people and situations that will try to throw us off our path to success. There will be people that will try to tell you that you can’t do it, and there will be challenges along the way that might want to make you quit. Resilience is definitely a quality that you need to have in order to make it. If you find yourself doubting yourself at times, one of the best things you can do is hire a mentor or coach to help you positively push through. Alone you can do a lot, but together with the right support system, you’ll find that you’ll accomplish so much more.

5. Be adaptable.

As Og Mandino said, “Always take the attitude of a student. Never be too big to ask questions, never know too much to learn something new.” You must always learn and grow through life because that will help you achieve great success. You must have an open mind to the awesome possibilities and opportunities out there. Surround yourself with really smart people who you can learn and grow from. When you surround yourself with others who have already taken the path that you are on, it’ll open you up to awesome strategies to achieve success. 

You deserve to achieve your goals and dreams. If want it, you have to go for it—but you have to do the right things to achieve it. Be positive, persistent yet patient, have resilience and always be adaptable.

What are your big goals that you want to achieve? Believe in yourself. You can do this!

- Be Inspired.

‘Lessons I learnt from blindness’ – Cobhams Asuquo (Net newspaper)

I’m a dreamer, and I don’t mean that in the literal sense or in the literal context of going to sleep and dreaming even though that’s very nice because that’s when I get to drive and play golf.

But a picture of an average guy who lies down and faces the ceiling and just dreams away. Fortunately for me, a lot of things I have dreamt about in my life have come true. I believe strongly that one of the strong elements that fuel my very strong sense of imagination and my ability to dream is the gift of blindness. And I’m going to share with you, a couple of things that I have leant and a couple of life lessons that could be invaluable to you as well that I have learnt from Blindness.

So to start with, I will state the obvious fact that I was born blind. No one else in my family of six children is blind. There’s no known cause. No links. No explanation. Just the reality that I cannot see with my eyes.

I was born and raise in the military barracks. I don’t mean the great side of the military barracks but the other side of the military barracks. I lived in a small block of 18 two bedroom flats. I shared a flat my two parents, my three siblings and whatever stray pet came out way at a time. As well as my father’s Honda Roadmaster 180 Motorcylce, which slept in the living room with me and my siblings for fear that one of its mirrors might be stolen by morning.

In my neighborhood there were always something  to look forward to. My mornings were characterized by news of whose pumping machine had been stolen by morning or squabbles between neighbours over who had eaten their chicken. Actually some people try to resolve the chicken situation by tying to attach a piece of red things on their chicken legs. I don’t know how well it works…

Now, blindness does not have any physical, psychological or social meaning.  Since I’ve never experienced sight, I wasn’t aware that I was without sight. And so, I indulged in the innocence of young boyhood. I ran downstairs, jumped over gutters, played hard. Fought even harder. And got into any imaginable trouble that a Skinny young child could get into.

On a number of Occasions, I ran into walls. Ran into people. Ran into furniture’s so hard that that observers will shake their head and say in Pidgin English:

‘Person wey we dey feel sorry for, e no dey feel sorry for himself.’

Of course my response to such a rebuke was to scurry off and catch up with my friends and hide whatever stray bruises I had sustained away from my mother’s disapproving eyes.

Initially, scoffed at other people’s well meaning concern and pity, because I do not understand what the force was all about. As I grew older and I gained more understanding of the intricacies of living as a sightless person in a world designed for sighted people, I was faced with the looming possibility of failure in my life. But what I actually considered to be much worse was people were ready to excuse my failure because of my disability.  Which brings me to my first lesson.

1. Do not Excuse Failure, for any reason on any account

Now, I don’t mean we should be unmerciful and impatient towards those who are either less-able or weak or disadvantaged because I believe that we should share one another’s burden, because we’ll all face low points in our lives.  What I’m saying is this. That failure will come. But the same way that it comes that we should see to it that goes. Instead, what I’ve observed is that whenever there’s a larger than life seemingly insurmountable flaw,  in a system, in our cities, in our leaders, even in our own character, we tend to excuse the failure. We overlook it. We pardon it. We indulge it. And become even comfortable with it. Sometimes, we even find different terms for the failure. In my country, we sometimes call it the Nigerian Factor. So, if something isn’t working the way it should, we shake our heads, and we automatically blame it on the Nigeria Factor. And then we move on with our lives.

But see by excusing failure, and blaming it on some systematic flaw, we miss the opportunity to scale through those seemingly insurmountable obstacles. To elevate ourselves and elevate others.

When I turned 10, I was enrolled in a Primary Boarding School for the Blind, fast forward to graduation day, teachers and other well wishers were giving us advise on going into the outside world. We were forwarned that we would come across people who be genuinely mean to us. People will snatch away our guide canes, pull out our typewriter ribbons, not give us the correct change, and generally just take advantage of us because we are blind.

And from my experience, and I’m sure most of you must have discovered, not all public opinion is correct opinion.

So, I personally decided that I didn’t want to want to worry myself about Guide Cane Snatchers, Ribbon Type writer thieves, and the likes. I decided not to take that advice. I don’t know if it was conscious, but decided to just trust. I figured that there was so many unfortunate things in life that has happened to you regardless of whether or not you were blind. So, why should I heap on an extra burden of worry on myself  just because I’m blind.

2. This is my second lesson, and it’s a tough one, to Trust.

I have learnt this from blindness to trust. Sometimes, even when I have no reason to. And as you can imagine I have learnt this lesson over and over again. now, as a child I was quite a Kid to have fun with and play little pranks on. My older brother taught me how to jump over open street gutters so anytime I was walking with friends and they inform me that we were approaching a gutter, I would jump – No questions asked. Pretty soon, I discovered that my friends were telling me to jump even when there were no gutters.  Just so they could have a laugh. But even after I found out, I still continued to jump. I chose to trust them because quite honestly, staying out of the smelly sewage gutters was very very important to me.

Now some people might ask. Can’t a person be too trusting? But I think trust has no expiration date. Blindness has taught me to keep trusting. To keep hoping. To keep believing. And by the way in case you haven’t heard, technology came along, thankfully. And not only did it take the rhythms from the typewriter, it also took away the typewriters themselves and replaced them with computers and screen readers.

And as for my guide cane story, I’ve yet to meet one friend of mine whose had their white canes snatched from them.

As a matter of fact, at some point I got too desperate and  I went ahead in my first year in the University to buy myself a Mercedes Benz Wagon. It broke down on the first day I bought it. And I remember my friend, we were trying to change the tire, and anyone who called me I will say, you know what, I’m having a little car trouble. And thankfully, we can afford better cars and I have a faithful driver, and he’s under the watchful eyes of my wife. So no guide cane ‘stealers’ and all of that.

3. Be blind to be focused

So speaking of my wife. My wife sometimes go shopping together. Now note, I stressed the word, sometimes. Because while most men would share my sentiments towards shopping. I really feel the same way for a different set of reasons. Because shopping, as a female sport, and I do believe it is, it is about feasting your eyes on goods and things of assort. So you can generally imagine how quickly I will lose interest.

Now some time ago, my wife and I, we walked into a duty free shop at an Airport. We wanted to buy a bottle of water. Before I knew it, she had stopped by to browse through a magazine, had picked up a book… seemingly normal actions for her but I found it quite alarming.

Now, here we were. We went in to buy an item but ended up browsing for other stuffs. And that was when it hit me. Sight, sometimes, is a distraction. Now, I have to say that when my wife goes shopping, no matter how good her intentions are to purchase only the items on her list, she somehow manages to come home with extras.

Good Deals! She will like to call them.  She knows a lot about good deals, and sales and half sales.  And I have to say my wife is a fantastic wonderful woman.

Now don’t get me wrong, sight is a precious gift. But on your way to your destination, what you see, can also be a big distraction from your goal. So, I have learnt that you have to be blind in order to be focused. Focus is blindness in a sense. Im sure you can relate to this because you have been focused on your goal and attained your successes by being blind to several things in your life.

Now, we live in a culture that esteems sight over blindness. And associates blindness with weakness. Yet, blindness in all of its weakness, I have drawn some key strength in my life’s journey.

When I love the veil of childhood innocence, the brutal reality of blindness stared me in the face. Self pity, and failure loomed over my shoulder. Some, I’m sure would have excused me if I became a failure. But I found it more fulfilling to break away from the expectations of mediocrity. To successfully navigate and negotiate my way through life. Even if it ruffled the feather of those who genuinely cared about me.

• Be Inspired.

SEAL ( How he got the world listen to him)

Seal emerged from England's house music scene in 1990 to become the most popular British soul vocalist of that decade. Although his earliest material still showed signs of acid house, by the mid-'90s he was known for a distinctive fusion of soul, folk, pop, dance, and rock that brought him success on both sides of the Atlantic. Early on, he enjoyed a very high level of success -- an Ivor Novello Award was given to him for the writing of his first single, and he won three Grammy Awards only a few years later. His albums were typically released a few years apart, yet they tended to earn multiple gold and platinum certifications in different countries.

The son of Nigerian and Brazilian parents, Seal, born Sealhenry Samuel in 1963, was raised in England. After graduating with an architectural degree, he took various jobs around London, including electrical engineering and designing leather clothing. After a while, he began singing in local clubs and bars. He joined an English funk band called Push, touring Japan with the band in the mid-'80s. When he was in Asia, he joined a Thailand-based blues band. After a short time with that group, he traveled throughout India on his own.

Upon returning to England, Seal met Adamski , a house and techno producer who had yet to make much of an impression in the U.K. Seal provided the lyrics and vocals for Adamski's "Killer," which became a number one U.K. hit in 1990 and was acknowledged with an Ivor Novello Award. Sealsigned a solo recording contract with ZTT and recorded his eponymous debut album with label founder Trevor Horn, who had previously worked with Yes, ABC,Frsnkie Goes to Hollywood, and Grace Jones, among others. The first single pulled from the album, "Crazy," became a number 15 hit in the U.K. in 1990 and reached number seven in the U.S. upon its release there the following year. Seal was likewise a success, reaching number 24 in America and selling over three-million copies around the world.

Seal subsequently took three years to complete his second album. In between the two records, he appeared on the Jimi Hendrix tribute album Stone Free , singing on Jeff Beck 's version of "Manic Depression." In the summer of 1994, he released his second album, also titled Seal

 Preceded by the American Top 40 hit "Prayer for the Dying," the album did well upon its release, peaking at number 20 and selling a million copies by the spring of 1995, but it didn't really take off until a year after its release, when "Kiss from a Rose" was featured on the soundtrack to Batman Forever . That song became a number one pop single in America and spent a total of 12 weeks at the top of the adult contemporary chart. Its success sent the parent album into multi-platinum status; two years after its original release, the album had sold over four million copies in the U.S. alone. Additionally, the song was connected to three Grammy awards: Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Male Pop Vocal Performance.

Human Being, Seal's third album, hit the shelves in 1998 and didn't fare nearly as well on a commercial level. Five years passed -- a period that included the recording of Togetherland, a shelved album Sealtermed "crap" -- prior to the release of Seal IV

. That album put the singer back in the Top Ten of the U.K. album chart and, for the first time, in the U.S. Top Ten. As another lengthy between-album period ensued, there were a couple stopgap packages, namely Best: 1991-2004 and the live CD/DVD combo Live in Paris. Additionally, Seal married Heidi Klum, who appeared as a duet partner on "Wedding Day," a song on the 2007 album System.

For the next several years, Seal was more productive than ever. He switched gears with Soul(2008), for which he covered classic soul songs. In eight territories, the album was certified gold, platinum, or diamond, while it reached number 13 in the U.S. It was produced by David Foster, who remained a creative partner for Commitment (2010) and Soul 2 (2011), the latter of which -- a second set of covers -- also involved Trevor Horn. The album 7 (2015), issued three years after Seal and Klum's divorce, was previewed with the tracks "Every Time I'm with You" and "Do You Ever." Those two songs, as well as all others on the album, were produced by Horn.

• Be Inspired.

JOURNEY TO STARDOM (Agbani Derego)

Miss Agbani Darego, an 18-year-old Nigerian computer science student is the winner of the 51st Miss World pageant held Friday in Sun City, South Africa. She was chosen from 93 contestants from all over the world. She had promoted herself as wanting to be a computer scientist as well as a super model. Runners up were Zerelda Lee (Miss Aruba) and Juilet Horne (Miss Scotland). The event was hosted by U.S. TV talk show personality Jerry Springer, and was beamed to a projected global television audience of 1.2 billion people. The beauty gala was held in Sun City, at South Africa's Kingdom of Pleasure, a luxury resort of casinos and wild animals. Darego won a total cash prize of $100,000, plus gifts valued at $150,000. She was quoted with this statement "black is beautiful", moments before being crowned.

Directed to email addresses and local telephone numbers, TV viewers for the first time took part in the voting. Emails were for questions to contestants, the phone for registering votes. Pageant organizers refused to disclose the weight of the votes of viewers.

Miss Agbani Darego hails from Rivers State in Nigeria. Today the governor of Rivers State, His Excellency, Peter Odili, congratulated her, on her great achievement. Governor Odili called her achievement "an expression of the natural endowment of the people of Rivers State and noble qualities of Nigerian womanhood." He went further that the historic feat was "symbolic of the spirit of the new Nigerian nation and renaissance of our cultural values."

The Miss World contest was founded by British entrepreneur, Eric Morley in 1951. Morley died last year weeks before the 50th anniversary celebration of the event. There have only been three winners from Africa since the inception of the event and two of them were white South Africans (1958 and 1974). The third, was from Arab Egypt (1954). Miss Agbani Darego is the first black African woman to win the title.

She won the Silverbird crown and entered the Miss Universe pageant, where she made it to the semifinals - along the way she caught the eye of Donald Trump, and Naomi Campbell invited her to model at a benefit show in Barcelona. Gorgeous Agbani Darego can now be seen alongside A-listers such as Aishwarya Rai, Vanessa Williams, Natalie Imbruglia, Laetitia Casta and Beyonce Knowles as a L'Oreal spokesperson.

The chances of an African being crowned Miss World were seen as pretty slim, according to odds-makers. The contest's official bookmaker rated Darego a long-shot at 66-1. The favorite was a 19-year-old blonde from the United States, Carrie Stroup, closely followed by Miss Chile, Christiane Balmelli, another blonde.

She exclaimed the Guiness beer slogan "Black is Beautiful" upon winning the Miss World 2001 title in Sun city, South Africa.

She was crowned Miss World 2001 by the previous year's winner and popular Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra.

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Chief Obafemi Awolowo Facts

Chief Obafemi Awolowo (1909-1987) was a Nigerian nationalist, a political leader, and a principal participant in the struggle for Nigerian independence.

Obafemi Awolowo was born in Ikenné, Western State, Nigeria, on March 6, 1909. He received his early education in the mission schools of Ikenné, Abeokuta, and Ibadan. Often he worked at odd jobs to raise money for tuition fees, and his entrepreneurial spirit continued to express itself in the various careers which he subsequently sampled: journalist, teacher, clerk, moneylender, taxidriver, produce broker. His organizational and political inclinations became evident as he moved to high-level positions in the Nigerian Motor Transport Union, the Nigerian Produce Traders' Association, the Trades Union Congress of Nigeria, and the Nigerian Youth Movement, of which he became Western Provincial secretary.

Despite his interest in business ventures, Awolowo wanted to continue his formal education. In 1944 he completed a University of London correspondence course for the bachelor of commerce degree. His greatest ambition, however, was to study law, which he undertook in London from 1944 to 1946, when he was called to the bar. Returning to Nigeria in 1947, he developed a thriving practice as a barrister in Ibadan.

Political Career

During his residence in London, Awolowo moved to a position of prominence in the struggle for Nigerian independence. In 1945 he wrote his first book, Path to Nigerian Freedom, in which he was highly critical of British policies of indirect administration and called for rapid moves toward self-government and Africanization of administrative posts in Nigeria. He also expressed his belief that federalism was the form of government best suited to the diverse populations of Nigeria, a position to which he consistently adhered. Also in 1945 in London, he helped found the Egbe Omo Oduduwa (Society of the Descendants of Oduduwa, the mythical ancestor of the Yoruba-speaking peoples), an organization devoted to the study and preservation of Yoruba culture.

In 1950 Awolowo founded and organized the Action Group political party in Western Nigeria to participate in the Western Regional elections of 1951. The Action Group's platform called for immediate termination of British rule in Nigeria and for development of various public welfare programs, including universal primary education, increase of health services in rural areas, diversification of the Western Regional economy, and democratization of local governments. The Action Group won a majority, and in 1952 Awolowo as president of the Action Group became leader of the party in power in Western Nigeria. In 1954 he became the first premier of the Western Region, on which occasion he was awarded an honorary chieftaincy. During his tenure as leader and premier, he held the regional ministerial portfolios of local government, finance, and economic planning. He was also chairman of the Regional Economic Planning Commission.

In 1959, confident of an Action Group victory in the federal elections, Awolowo resigned the premiership to stand for election to the federal House of Representatives. About that time he published his second book, Awo: An Autobiography of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, in which he once more endorsed federalism as the most appropriate form of government for Nigeria. He also outlined the successful history of the Action Group and was optimistic of Nigerian independence.

Power Struggle

However, the 1959 elections were to become an important turning point in Awolowo's career, for the Action Group was decisively defeated, and Awolowo found himself leader of the opposition in the Federal House of Representatives, while the deputy leader of the Action Group, Chief S. L. Akintola, remained premier of the Western Region. This situation led to a power struggle within the party which ultimately erupted in 1962 in disturbances in the Western Region House of Assembly. The federal government intervened and suspended the regional constitution. When normal government was restored, the Akintola faction had won; Akintola and his followers withdrew from the Action Group to form the Nigerian National Democratic party, which governed Western Nigeria until 1966.

In 1963 Awolowo was found guilty of conspiring to overthrow the government of Nigeria and was sentenced to ten years of imprisonment. In 1966, however, an attempted coup d'etat led to the suspension of the Nigerian federal constitution and the empowerment of a military government which promised a new constitution. That year, while in prison, Awolowo wrote Thoughts on the Nigerian Constitution, in which he argued for the retention of a federal form of government composed of 18 states. Later, in 1966, he was released from prison and the following year was invited to join the Federal Military Government as federal commissioner of finance and as vice chairman of the Federal Executive Council.

In 1968 Awolowo published his fourth book, The People's Republic, calling for federalism, democracy, and socialism as the necessary elements in a new constitution which would lead to the development of a stable and prosperous Nigeria. Although he praised the Federal Military Government for creating a 12-state federal system in 1967, he predicted further political difficulties because these states had not been based on ethnic and linguistic affinities.

Awolowo continued to serve the government as commisioner of finance and vice chairman of the Federal Executive Council throughout the years of Nigeria's civil war with Biafra (1967-1970). In his 1970 book, The Strategy and Tactics of the People"s Republic of Nigeria, he implied a position which he would state more firmly in subsequent years: that the government's post-war spending should be devoted to development rather than to the military. He resigned in 1971 to protest the government's continuation of military rule, and in 1975, following the overthrow of the Gowon government, issued a press release questioning the country's military spending. In 1979 and 1983 he ran for president as the candidate for the Unity Party of Nigeria, losing to Shehu Shagari. Awolowo returned to private life upon the overthrow of the Shagari government in December 1983. He died in Ikenné on May 9, 1987.

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Shania Twain

Twain’s career actually began more out of necessity than raw ambition. Her parents divorced when she was two, and she rarely saw her father. Her mom and stepfather, to whom she grew close, often couldn’t make enough to get by, so Twain started singing in bars to make extra money when she was just eight years old.

She recalls her mother waking her up at all hours to get up and perform. Sadly, when she was 21, her mother and stepfather were killed in a head-on car accident with a logging truck on the highway. Twain put her career on hold to step in and take care of her three younger siblings (who were in their teens at the time). She sang in resorts and put off going after big-time stardom until her sister and brothers were old enough to care for themselves. Only once her youngest brother graduated high school did she feel OK heading down to Nashville to pursue her career.

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Colonel Sanders (KFC) 

Colonel Harland Sanders was fired from a variety of jobs throughout his career before he first started cooking chicken in his roadside Shell Service Station in 1930, when he was 40 years old, during the Great Depression. His gas station didn’t actually have a restaurant, so he served diners in his attached personal living quarters.

Over the next 10 years, he perfected his “Secret Recipe” and pressure fryer cooking method for his famous fried chicken and moved onto bigger locations. His chicken was even praised in the media by food critic Duncan Hines (yes, that Duncan Hines). However, as the interstate came through the Kentucky town where the Colonel’s restaurant was located in the 1950s, it took away important road traffic, and the Colonel was forced to close his business and retire, essentially broke. Worried about how he was going to survive off his meager $105 monthly pension check, he set out to find restaurants who would franchise his secret recipe—he wanted a nickel for each piece of chicken sold. He drove around, sleeping in his car, and was rejected more than 1,000 times before finally finding his first partner.

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Sarah Jessica Parker (Success Story)

Parker was born in a poor coal-mining town in rural Ohio, the youngest of four children. Her parents divorced when she was two, and her mother remarried shortly thereafter and had an additional four children. Parker’s stepfather, a truck driver, was often out of work, so the future starlet took up singing and dancing at a very young age to help supplement her mom’s teaching income and feed their 10-person family.

Despite hard times and occasionally being on welfare, Parker’s mom continued to encourage her children’s interest in the arts. The family moved to Cincinnati, where Parker was enrolled in a ballet, music, and theater school on scholarship. When she was 11 years old, the family took a trip to New York City so Parker could audition for a Broadway play. The trip was a success—she and her brother were both cast, and the family relocated to New York. Parker continued to work hard and land roles, eventually becoming the title character of TV juggernaut Sex and the City.

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Tyler Perry( The journey so far from nothing)

Perry had a rough childhood. He was physically and sexually abused growing up, got kicked out of high school, and tried to commit suicide twice—once as a preteen and again at 22. At 23 he moved to Atlanta and took up odd jobs as he started working on his stage career.

In 1992 he wrote, produced, and starred in his first theater production, I Know I’ve Been Changed, somewhat informed by his difficult upbringing. Perry put all his savings into the show and it failed miserably; the run lasted just one weekend and only 30 people came to watch. He kept up with the production, working more odd jobs and often slept in his car to get by. Six years later, Perry finally broke through when, on its seventh run, the show became a success. He’s since gone on to have an extremely successful career as a director, writer, and actor. In fact, Perry was named Forbes’ highest paid man in entertainment in 2011.

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Emily Blunt (How she conquered her limitation)

Before Blunt was getting nominated for Golden Globes and landing leading roles on the stage and big screen, she could barely carry a conversation with her classmates: Between ages seven and 14, Emily had a major stutter. As she told W magazine, "I was a smart kid, and had a lot to say, but I just couldn't say it. It would just haunt me. I never thought I'd be able to sit and talk to someone like I'm talking to you right now."

But that all changed when one of her junior high teachers encouraged her to try out for the school play—a totally unappealing feat given the fact that she had such a hard time communicating. But the teacher kept gently pressing and suggested she try accents and character voices to help get the words out—and it worked. By the end of her teens, Blunt had overcome her stutter and went on to achieve the Successful Career she has now.

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Ways to Act on Your Ambitions

Building your ambition is building your enterprising skills: To consistently create new opportunity, to consistently take advantage of the opportunity you’ve created, to be aware, to face life with your eyes and ears open to the possibilities that might be just around the corner. Self-enterprising people always see the future in the present. Self-enterprising people will always find a way to take advantage of a situation, not be burdened by it.

Enterprise is always better than ease. Every time we choose to do less than we possibly can, it affects our self-confidence, our self-worth. If we keep doing a little less every day, we are also being a little less. If we don’t feel good about ourselves, we won’t feel good about our lives. And if we don’t feel good about our lives, we won’t be very interested in looking for opportunities.

You can reverse this process by using your self-direction, self-reliance and self-discipline. You alter your course by doing a little more each day. And pretty soon, you’ll develop a new habit of doing rather than neglecting.

Success isn’t in the having. Success is in the doing . It’s the process of doing that brings value. It’s the activity that transforms our dreams into reality that converts ideas into actuality. Self-enterprise is found in the activity. For without activity, we’ll miss the opportunity.

Some people out there would have us believe that positive affirmation is more important than activity. Instead of doing something constructive to change our lives, they would have us repeating slogans, such as “Every day and in every way, I’m getting better and better.”

Well, getting better doesn’t just happen from wishful thinking. Getting better only happens with the discipline of doing better. Discipline is the requirement for progress. And affirmations without discipline are—in all reality—delusions.

Now, don’t get me wrong here. There’s nothing wrong with affirming the good life, as long as we are disciplined enough to take action. Affirmations can be effective as long as we remember two very important rules:

We should never allow affirmation to replace action, activity, enterprise. Feeling better is no substitute for doing better.

Whatever we choose to affirm must be the truth. If the truth happens to be that we’re broke, simply say, “I’m broke.” By admitting you’re broke out loud, you’ll probably be disgusted enough to start the thinking process for how to change it.

So you’re here. You want to change and you’re ready to make the change. Follow these six steps to build the power of your ambition:

1. If you’re faced with a mental roadblock, put it down on paper.

Remember, creativity is the first requirement for self-enterprise. When you put a problem on paper, you take the emotion out of it. With the emotion gone, you can look at the roadblock objectively. You can figure out what you did right. You can figure out what you did wrong. You can figure out how to change it.

Pick a problem out of your head and pull out a piece of paper. And then draw a line down the middle. On the left-hand side, jot down the problem. On the other side, you put the solutions. And I have three questions you must ask yourself to find the solutions:

• What can I do?
• What could I read? You don’t need to reinvent the wheel… do your homework and find the solution.
• Who could I ask? Approach them and say, “I’ve researched this material and I’m still short. Can you help me?”

2. Develop the ability to brainstorm.

We hear this term all the time. But what is brainstorming? It’s letting your brain go. It’s being free from all inhibitions and objections and negatives—just putting an idea into your brain and letting it take off, not planning a train of thought, but thinking freely.

Effective brainstorming can only happen if you’re free from your ego. You can’t be worried about saying something stupid, or silly, or totally off the wall. Because your silly thought may trigger someone else’s brain to take it one step further. Brainstorming in a group is an experience of collective thought, an experience of developing one idea, or several ideas, through a variety of thought processes.

It can’t be effective unless everyone involved is comfortable with each other. If you don’t feel comfortable within the group, you may withhold the very thought that provides the solution to the problem.

3. Imagine outlandish solutions.

This is really an extension of No. 2. Get your brain out of the rut by considering ideas without considering their practicality.

If you allow yourself to think without confinement, you might come up with a solution that seems totally inappropriate. But it also allows you to open up the process, which will eventually lead to appropriate solutions.

4. Doodle.

That’s right: Doodle. The thing you got in trouble for in middle school is actually quite stimulating to the brain. Because the way you think while doodling is quite different from the way you think while creating a flow chart or writing a formula.

Your doodles might end up looking like some symbol that will trigger your brain to think of an alternative solution. Doodling wakes up a different part of your brain. Try creating your flow chart to success. It doesn’t matter if it ends up being accurate or not. What matters is that it’s stimulating the creative thought process.

Once you awaken that creative part of you, you’ll be amazed at the opportunities that were always there, ones you never saw before. It’s all a matter of how you look at life and opportunities.

5. Access the information highway.

You need to start networking with people whom you’d otherwise never meet.

6. Commit yourself to learning.

Feed your mind. Sharpen your interest in two major subjects: life and people. Learn how you can better interact with others. Learn more on how to get the most from life. Learn all that you can so you can become all that you can become.

Learning is the beginning of a life worth living.
Learning is the beginning of wealth.
Learning is the beginning of happiness.
Learning is the beginning of health.
Learning and searching is where the process of creating your own personal miracle begins.
Learning is the beginning of self-enterprise.

Keep learning!

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Another Success Story (Jim Carrey)

When Carrey was 14 years old, his father lost his job, and his family hit rough times. They moved into a VW van on a relative’s lawn, and the young aspiring comedian—who was so dedicated to his craft that he mailed his resume to The Carroll Burnett Show just a few years earlier, at age 10—took an eight-hours-per-day factory job after school to help make ends meet.

At age 15, Carrey performed his comedy routine onstage for the first time—in a suit his mom made him—and totally bombed, but he was undeterred. The next year, at 16, he quit school to focus on comedy full time. He moved to LA shortly after, where he would park on Mulholland Drive every night and visualize his success. One of these nights he wrote himself a check for $10,000,000 for “Acting Services Rendered,” which he dated for Thanksgiving 1995. Just before that date, he hit his payday with Dumb and Dumber. He put the deteriorated check, which he’d kept in his wallet the whole time, in his father’s casket.

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Stephen King

King was broke and struggling when he was first trying to write. He lived in a trailer with his wife—also a writer—and they both worked multiple jobs to support their family while pursuing their craft. They were so poor they had to borrow clothes for their wedding and had gotten rid of the telephone because it was too expensive.

King received so many rejection letters for his works that he developed a system for collecting them. In his book On Writing, he recalls: “By the time I was 14...the nail in my wall would no longer support the weight of the rejection slips impaled upon it. I replaced the nail with a spike and kept on writing.” He received 60 rejections before selling his first short story, "The Glass Floor," for $35. Even his now best-selling book, Carrie, wasn’t a hit at first. After dozens of rejections, he finally sold it for a meager advance to Doubleday Publishing, where the hardback sold only 13,000 copies—not great. Soon after, though, Signet Books signed on for the paperback rights for $400,000, $200,000 of which went to King. Success achieved!

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Another Reason Why You Should not Quit. (Oprah Winfrey)

Oprah’s dealt with a lot throughout her public life—criticism about her weight, racism, intrusive questions about her sexuality, just to name a few—but she never let it get in the way of her ambition and drive. When you look at her childhood, her personal triumphs are cast in an even more remarkable light.

Growing up, Oprah was reportedly a victim of sexual abuse and was repeatedly molested by her cousin, an uncle, and a family friend. Later, she became pregnant and gave birth to a child at age 14, who passed away just two weeks later. But Oprah persevered, going on to finish high school as an honors student, earning a full scholarship to college, and working her way up through the ranks of television, from a local network anchor in Nashville to an international superstar and creator of her OWN network .

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J.K. Rowling

  

J.K. Rowling had just gotten a divorce, was on government aid, and could barely afford to feed her baby in 1994, just three years before the first Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone, was published. When she was shopping it out, she was so poor she couldn’t afford a computer or even the cost of photocopying the 90,000-word novel, so she manually typed out each version to send to publishers. It was rejected dozens of time until finally Bloomsbury, a small London publisher, gave it a second chance after the CEO’s eight year-old daughter fell in love with it.

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Powerful Things Successful People Do At The End Of Each Day

There are a lot of habits successful people follow, either naturally or through sheer discipline, that help make them successful. If you use the same tactics, you might be able to reap rewards similar to what they’ve achieved. Here are 7 powerful things successful people do at the end of every day.

1. They don’t have any big decisions left to make.

Decision fatigue is a real thing, and should be avoided at all costs. As you make more and more choices, your ability to make good decisions steadily deteriorates over the course of the day. It’s been proven several times over. For example, judges are know to make less favourable decisions towards the end of their shifts.Successful people know that if they wake up in the morning, their biggest decisions should be made before the end of the afternoon. Avoid making major purchases or other life-changing choices late in the day so that your decisions will more likely be the right ones.

2. They cross every last item off their to-do lists.

Successful people tend to have some way of monitoring their success. One way to keep track of productivity is to keep a to-do list. That to-do list can be an app like Wunderlist or 2Do  or simply plain old pen and paper. The successful people of the world are the types to have every single task checked off before they hit the hay. The key to accomplishing that, other than, of course, working hard, is being able to gauge how much you can get done in a given day. Leaning towards fewer tasks on your to-do list might be a safer bet, and if you get more done than what’s listed you’ll feel better about yourself. On the other hand, having a lot of tasks on your list might motivate you more. Do whatever’s most effective for you.

3. They wrap things up.

More than just with to-do lists, successful people have pretty much everything taken care of that can be taken care of before the day’s end. You should do the same. For example, don’t leave conversations hanging when they can be resolved. If things like that are wrapped up in a bow by the time you shut your eyes, you’ll have a smoother transition into the next day.

4. They get organized for the next day.

Successful people complete their todays by preparing for their tomorrows. Make sure you know what the next day’s schedule is so that you don’t wake up to any unpleasant surprises.

5. They eat smart.

Successful people carefully consider their diet, especially when it comes to what they consume before they go to bed. The number one dietary productivity killer is caffeine late at night. Having a late night soda will cause you to sleep restlessly, stemming your potential for the next day. Also avoid having too much sugar, fried foods and alcohol to start off on a good foot.

6. They wind down.

A lot of successful people work until the minute they go to bed, but theextremely successful usually recognize the importance of having at least a little downtime. Bill Gates reads every night before bed. Arianna Huffington unplugs from her technology. The CEO of Buffer takes a walk. Read more ways to wind down as recommended by successful people here. Relaxing activities like those are the best ways to jumpstart the next day.

7. They have a bedtime.

This is a hard thing to hear for many, but successful people often go to bed at the same time every night. An erratic sleep schedule means you won’t know when or where you’ll be most productive, giving you less control over the efficiency of your day. Pick a time to go to bed and a time to wake up and stick to them to be among the extremely successful.

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Ways to Improve Memory

The human brain is one of the most mysterious and powerful tools in the modern world. This magical organ interprets reality through synapses and neurons, forming subjective thoughts, qualities, and memories, which form our identities. Using up to twenty percent of the energy we consume, our brain is always working and always changing. As we grow, the connections between regions of the brain reinforce each other, fortifying our memory, until a certain age at which, either naturally, through “disuse,” or through memory loss diseases such as Alzheimer’s, we begin to lose control of our memories. But we are not necessarily doomed to forget our brief passage through this life before our brain finally shuts down: here are ways you can enhance your memory through lifestyle changes.

1. Self-Awareness

Understanding how your brain makes memories is crucial to improving memory function. As you experience the world, the sensory information received is encoded through your short-term memory—visually, acoustically, and semantically—and stored in various regions of your brain with your working memory. Through the long-term process of recollection, your brain reconstructs the memory from storage, meaning that the more times you access a memory, the more likely it is to change (the opposite is true of “commonplace” memories which you rarely revisit, such as this morning’s shower, yesterday’s commute, etc.).

The act of recollecting is a helpful exercise in improving memory itself. What you notice in certain memories upon recalling them also affects their ability to be recalled. Becoming aware of what draws your attention to certain memories and choosing to focus on different points of view can force your brain to make new associations, thus strengthening your neural network and placing the memory in a context. Keeping a journal is possibly the best way to improve self-awareness, but literal self-awareness with mirrors, cameras, microphones, or audiences also improve the accuracy of memory.

Our memories fade with old age because our brain becomes less effective at encoding and retrieval as we discontinue learning. Learning and socialization arouse various parts of the brain—language, perception, problem-solving, motor coordination—all at once, and are undoubtedly the cornerstones of a bright, sharp, longitudinal memory.

2. Stress Reduction

 Stress has a significant detrimental effect on memory formation. If any strong emotion is present during an event, the neurons active during this event produce strong connections with each other. When the event is recalled, the neurons will more easily and speedily make the same connections (which can be disastrous for those suffering from PTSD or drug addiction withdrawal). These memories also tend to be warped or focused on extreme details rather than the greater context of the scene—another way self-awareness can promote healthy memories.

Get plenty of sleep! Neuroimaging studies have shown activation patterns in the sleeping brain which mirror those recorded during the learning of tasks from the previous day, suggesting that new memories may be solidified through such rehearsal. Coupled with a nightly recollection of the day prior, or even a dream journal, sleep can be a very powerful tool for managing memories.

Meditation, a form of mental training to focus attention, also seems to increase the control over brain resource distribution, improving both attention and discipline. The changes are potentially long-lasting, as meditation may have the ability to strengthen neuronal circuits as selective attentional processes improve.

Playing music also improves various aspects of memory through abstract connections in the brain between acoustic, semantic, and language-processing regions. Research shows that children who participated in one year of instrumental musical training showed improved verbal memory, whereas no such improvement was shown in children who discontinued musical training.

3. Diet and Exercise

Exercise has been shown to improve cognitive performance on encoding and retrieval of information, and has been found to regulate hippocampal neurogenesis, which promotes the survival of newborn neurons and helps form new memories. Physiological activity also provides the brain increased blood-flow and oxygen levels, which, along with the right diet, keep the brain healthy.

There are many “brain foods,” but only a certain group of fruits and vegetables provide direct benefits to the facilitation and maintenance of memory processes—flavonoids. Flavonoids are photochemicals found in plant-based foods and valued for their antioxidant properties,  and are found in onions, leeks, broccoli, parsley, celery, soybeans, citrus fruits, berry fruits, tomatoes, green teas, red wines, and cocoa. Glucose also plays an important role in improving memory, as it can pass from blood to the brain, providing energy and boosting neural metabolism.

Excess intake levels of fat and calories are harmful to memory function. Saturated fats and cholesterol are especially high-risk foods for the onset of Alzheimer’s, not to mention the myriad other health risks associated with these food groups.

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Best Foods For The Brain 

1. Avocados

This fruit is one of the healthiest ones you can consume and one of my all-time favorites. While avocados often get a bad rep because of their high fat content, it’s important to note that these green powerhouses are packed with mono saturated fats or the “good” kind, keeping blood sugar levels steady and your skin glowing.

Containing both vitamin K and folate, avocados help prevent blood clots in the brain (protecting against stroke) as well as help improve cognitive function, especially both memory and concentration.

They’re also rich in vitamin B and vitamin C, which aren’t stored in your body and need to be replenished daily. Plus, they have the highest protein and lowest sugar content of any fruit. Not too shabby! Avocados’ creamy texture makes them a smart addition to smoothies and a replacement for fats in baked goods, or try these brain foods in one of these 50 amazing and easy avocado recipes.

2. Beets

It might be their funny shape or memories of bad recipes eaten during childhood, but beets seem to be an intimidating food for many people, even vegetable lovers. That’s a shame, because these root vegetables are some of the most nutritious plants you can eat — they’ve even earned a spot on my healthy foods shopping.

They reduce  inflammation, are high in cancer-protecting antioxidants and help rid your blood of toxins. The natural nitrates in beets actually boost blood flow to the brain, helping with mental performance. Plus, during tough workouts, beets actually help boost energy and performance levels. I love them roasted or in salads — try my  sweet potato beet hash or beet and goat cheese salad for some creative new ways to eat this brain food.

3. Blueberries

Proving that great things do come in small packages, blueberries are a fruit I try to eat daily. That’s because they’ve got so many great health benefit ­while tasting like an all-natural candy!

For starters, it’s one of the highest antioxidant-rich foods known to man, including vitamin C and Vitamin K  and finer Because of their high levels of gallic acid, blueberries are especially good at protecting our brains from degeneration and stress. Get your daily dose of brain berries in an Omega Blueberry Smoothie, Pumpkin Blueberry Pancakes or in a Healthy Blueberry Cobbler.

4. Bone Broth

Bone Broth is the ultimate food for healing your gut and, in turn, healing your brain. This ancient food is full of health benefits, ranging from boosting your immune system, overcoming leaky gut, improving joint health and overcoming food allergies.

Its high levels of collagen help reduce intestinal inflammation, and healing amino acids like proline and glycine keep your immune system functioning properly and help improve memory. Bone broth is what I prescribe most frequently to my patients because it truly helps heal your body from the inside out. You’ll also be surprised at how simple and economical it is to make at home with my Beef Bone Broth Recipe.

5. Broccoli

Your mom got it right when she told you to eat your broccoli. It’s one of the best brain foods out there. Thanks to its high levels of vitamin K and choline, it will help keep your memory sharp. 

It’s also loaded with vitamin C — in fact, just one cup provides you with 150 percent of your recommended daily intake. Its high-fiber levels mean that you’ll feel full quickly, too. If you’ve only chowed down on overcooked, tasteless broccoli, you’ll love my Crockpot Beef and Broccoli, Creamy Broccoli Soup and Broccoli Pesto Dip — they’ll turn you into a broccoli lover fast!

6. Celery

For a vegetable with such few calories (just 16 per cup!),celery sure does offer a lot of benefits. Its high levels of antioxidants and polysaccharides act as natural anti-inflammatories and can help alleviate symptoms related to inflammation, like joint pain and irritable bowel syndrome.

Because it’s so nutrient-dense — packing loads of vitamins, minerals and nutrients with very little calories — it’s a great snack option if you’re looking to shed pounds. And while we often eat celery stalks, don’t skip the seeds and leaves; both provide extra health benefits and taste great in things like stir fries and soups. Not sure where to begin with eating more celery? Try my easy Ants on Log or refreshing Super Hydrator Juice recipes.

7. Coconut Oil

Ahh, coconut oil, one of the most versatile — and good for you — foods out there. With 77 coconut oil uses and cures, there’s almost nothing that coconut oil can’t help.

And when it comes to your brain, it’s full of benefits, too. Coconut oil works as a natural anti-inflammatory, suppressing cells responsible for inflammation. It can help with memory loss as you age and destroy bad bacteria that hangs out in your gut. Get your dose of coconut oil in this Bake Grouper with coconut cilantro Sauce or Crust Pizza.

8. Dark Chocolate

Not all chocolate is created equal; in fact, dark chocolate can actually be good for you! Chocolate is chockfull of flavonols, which have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. They can also help lower blood pressure and improve blood flow to both the brain and heart.

But don’t go wild munching on Hershey’s Kisses just yet. Most of the chocolate you see on supermarket shelves is highly processed with few benefits. The rule of thumb is the darker the chocolate, the more health benefits.

Skip milk and white chocolates and opt for a minimally processed dark chocolate with at least 70 percent of cocoa. This ensures you’ll get your choco fix and its brain benefits! Satisfy your sweet tooth with these Dark Chocolate Almond Butter Cookies or Chocolate-Covered Berries.

9. Egg Yolks

On the nutritional naughty list for years, egg yolks are finally experiencing their well-deserved day in the sun. If you’ve been eating only egg whites, the yolk’s on you. Yolks contain large amounts of choline, which helps in fetal brain development for pregnant women. It also breaks down bethane, a chemical that produces hormones related to happiness. That’s right, eggs can make you happy!

If you’ve kept away from eating eggs whole because of cholesterol concerns, there’s good news. Studies show that eating eggs had no effect on the cholesterol levels of healthy adults and might, in fact, help raise good cholesterol levels.

It’s also one of the most inexpensive sources of protein out there; just be sure you’re buying organic, free- range eggs. Need some egg-spiration? I love these Baked Eggs and Spinach and Breakfast Baked Eggs and Spinach and Breakfast Salmon Egg Bake. For even more ideas, try whipping up one of these 28 delicious egg recipes.

10. Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Real extra virgin olive oil is truly a brain food. Thanks to the powerful antioxidants known as polyphenols that are found in the oil, including EVOO in your diet may not only improve learning and memory, but also reverse the age- and disease-related changes.  The oil also helps fight against ADDLs, proteins that are toxic to the brain and induce Alzheimer’s. 

As great as extra virgin olive oil is, remember that it’s not a good option for cooking, as it hydrogenizes and begins decomposing at high temperatures. The best way to get your fill is by eating it cold or at room temperature. I love extra virgin olive oil as part of Zucchini Noodles with Marinara Sauce ands Quinoa Tabouli Salad.

11. Green, Leafy Vegetables

It turns out that Popeye was onto something with his spinach obsession. Getting regular helpings of leafy green brain foods — like kale, Swiss chard and romaine lettuce — can help keep dementia at bay according to new research. 

In the study, which evaluated the eating habits and mental ability of more than 950 older adults for an average of five years, those adults who ate a serving of leafy green veggies once or twice a day experienced slower mental deterioration than those who ate no vegetables, even when factors like age, education and family history of dementia were factored in.

Green, leafy vegetables are also loaded with vitamins A and K (just one cup of kale has more than 684 percent of your recommended daily serving!), which help fight inflammation and keep bones strong. Reap the benefits of these brain foods with a Mango Walnut Spinach Salad or Kale Chips.

12. Rosemary

We already knew that rosemary oil has a variety of benefits, but did you know that the herb does, too? Carnosic acid, one of the main ingredients in rosemary, helps protect the brain from neurodegeneration. It does this by protecting the brain against chemical free radicals, which are linked to neurodegeneration, Alzheimer’s, strokes and normal aging in the brain. 

It also helps protect eyesight from deteriorating, thanks to its high levels of antioxidants and anti-inflammatory properties.  Get your servings of fresh rosemary with these Sweet Potato Rosemary Fries  and Maple-Glazed Rosemary Carrots.

13. Salmon

If you like seafood, get excited, because salmon is one of the most nutritious, brain food-friendly foods out there! It’s packed with omega-3 fatty acids to help keep your brain running smoothly ­— goodbye, brain fog — and improve memory.

If you have kids, feeding them salmon can help prevent ADHD by improving their focus. And these same fatty acids can also help prevent cancer and kill tumors — not bad for a four-ounce serving of fish!

Please note that these benefits are for Alaskan wild-caught salmon — farm-raised and regular wild-caught salmon can be filled with mercury and toxins. Enjoy it in these Salmon Cakes or homemade Smoked Salmon Sushi Bowl.

14. Turmeric

Isn’t it great when a simple spice has amazing health benefits? That’s the case with turmeric, an ancient root that’s been used for its healing properties throughout history. Thanks to curcumin, a chemical compound found in turmeric, the spice is actually one of the most powerful (and natural) anti-inflammatory agents.

Turmeric also helps boost antioxidant levels and keep your immune system healthy, while also improving your brain’s oxygen intake, keeping you alert and able to process information. Talk about a super spice! Start your day with this brain food and make my Turmeric Eggs and Turmeric Tea.

15. Walnuts

It turns out that eating walnuts can keep you from going nuts. Just munching on a few walnuts a day can improve your cognitive health. Their high levels of antioxidants, vitamins and minerals also improve mental alertness. The vitamin E in the nuts can also help ward off Alzheimer’s.

So go ahead, grab a handful of walnuts — or try this Brain-Boosting Smoothie Recipe!

-Be Inspired