CREATING VALUE AND ART OF LEADERSHIP,
A PRESENTATION DELIVERED BY MR AYOTUNDE OKUNOWO DURING THE ANNUAL SYMPOSIUM OF AGSOBA CLUB OF FEDERAL POLYTECHNIC ILARO, OGUN STATE.
Today is indeed a remarkable day. I therefore count it as a great honour to be among you to share some thoughts together. I thank the executives of the club for putting up this kind of forum and for inviting me here . This is highly commendable and I salute your outstanding leadership! I also greet my audience with great humility. It takes few men to rule the world, and the few I believe, constitutes this audience.
In 1900, the world panels of engineers had a conference on how to build a device that could fly on air, and at the end of the symposium, it was unanimously agreed that no metal could fly as anything denser than the weight of air can not be suspended in the sky, therefore the first possibility of building an aircraft was washed away. Just three years after, mere bicycle repairers, people who weren't skilled in physics or aeronautics engineering, Orville and Wilbur Wright, known as the Wright brothers constructed the first aircraft which flew on 15th December, 1903. If we are to talk about cars, Lamborghini cars remain one of the choicest and sleekest cars in history. This car was actually invented by an Agricultural scientist. Ferrucio Lamborghini was just dissatisfied with the clutch of his old Ferrari, rather than complain as we often do, he went into his laboratory and gave birth to the world famous and classic cars called Lamborghini.
As we have seen from the verdict of history, creating value is not a function of degrees, certificates, race, colour, creed, or tribe. Value is a measurable quantity which is created after the most rabid, radical, unusual and provoking thought line. In essence, anybody that wants to create value must not accept the status quo or be complacent with things around him. He must be a person who is ready to challenge and probe into normal things. He must have the courage to stand alone. The sufficiency to be abused as an abnormal person, and his ability not to go in the way of the crowd, because he that follows the crowd would not be followed by a crowd.
Like my book thirty things you must do before you are thirty, I want to give you five great ways to create Value. And the first one is that anybody that wants to create value must think without the box. What is the box? How do I know whether I think in d box? Thinking within the box is the pancea of letting your self think alone only in the acceptable standard way of behaving or limit once oneself only to the limits of the comfort zone or popular knowledge. Let's test ourselves and know whether we are thinking without the box or outside the box. lets test ourselves and know whether we are thinking without the box or in the box.
If you are in a race, and you overtake the person in the 2nd position, what position are you- if u say 1st, you are thinking inside the box
Which is correct to say, the yolk of the egg is white or the yolk of eggs are white- if your answer still carries white, you are thinking inside the box.
A man saw a snake crossing the road, and swerved to crush it with his tyres. All the street lights were off, as well as the car's headlight. There were no other lights along the road. How did the man see the snake- if you are still thinking about a source of light, you are wrong, you are thinking inside the box
A father and the son had a terrible accident, on getting to the hospital, the doctor exclaimed, "oh my son" who is the doctor? If you do not know that the doctor is the son's mother, you are still thinking inside the box
A farmer has five haystacks in one field, and four haystacks in another. How many haystack would he have if he combined them all in one field.- if you say nine, you are right inside the box.
Distinguished audience, anybody that wants to create value must improve his thought line and think without the box. The very first law of creating value is to think outside the box. The late business mogul Otunba Gadaffi of DMT mobile toilet saw money in the management of human excreta called shit, while other were covering their nose and looking sideways. What is the box in your life, it is your parent's wealth, your beauty, your grades, or your religion? Don't limit yourself. Explore the genius in you. Tap into your greatest resource. Don't be cornered by anything. There's a part of your yearning for expression. Don't allow anything to pin you down. Think without it. Beautiful Nubia read Veterinary Medicine, how many who have known him as a veterinary doctor, or how many who have known Funke Akindele (Jennifer) as a lawyer, or Lagbaja as a mathematician.
Secondly, anybody that wants to create value must invest in himself. Abraham Lincoln said, "I will study and prepare, maybe one day my chance would come". Opportunity dances to him who is already at the dance floor. Now is all that we have. Those would want to become champions do not need to carry weights; those who want to become champions should simply carry information. Everybody that thrives for create an impact must take the pain to develop himself. No pain, no gain. Go for seminars, read good books, be a part of a progressive association, dissociate yourself from time wasters. Unnecessary arguments about music and sport hardly take a man anywhere. Moreover, poor minds discuss people, average minds about events and great minds about ideas. Greek philosopher Sallust said 'the renown that beauty and wealth confer is fleeting and frail, mental excellence is the splendid and lasting possession' Take the necessary pain of development now. I recommend you read more than your peers because a man who wants to build a cage would lay a slab of wood, a man who wants to build a house would dig six feet down, while a man who wants to build a tower would dig many miles down. How robust and productive you want your life to be depends on how deep and wide you read as a person. A poem says 'the height which great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight, but they while their companion slept were toiling upward through the night'. Don't join the bandwagon of those who ping their lives away, they can't buy a book but they can subscribe for BIS with N1500. What are you doing in facebook and face their book; they should not be carried away with the glitz and glamour, facebook is a fakebook. The world would never celebrate common men, the world only celebrates the uncommon men. Leave the majority to do what the majority desires, but be part of the minority that the majority would later celebrate.
Thirdly, anybody that wants to create Value Must have the spirit of persistence. Recent statistic shows that man can survive 40days Without Food, 4days Without Water, 4minutes Without Air, but only 4seconds Without Hope. That reminds me of the story of two popular drinks. In one, the foolish inventor, the man whose name was rubbed of history, took a drink in a black kettle and the formula for preparing it and sold it to a chemist known as Asa Candler for a peasant amount. The wise chemist took the leaflet from the foolish scientist and modified it till it become coca cola that you and I drink today. On the other hand, the inventor of the second drink was abused for his tasteless mixture, people complained that the drink was more of a drug, a sedative than refreshing, yet the unrelenting scientist tried again, and at the 7th mixture the drink became celebrated and accepted hence he named it 7up. While the first inventor sold a fortune due to lack of persistence, the other scientist maintained his fortune. The kindergarten poem says "good better best, I will never rest, until my good is better and my better best" only with persistence did the snail reach the ark that was the summation of Andres Lara in his book inspiring the sleeping giant within you. Nothing is ever done at once. The tallest building in the world starts brick after brick. Rome itself was not built in a day. Life, like bicycle is one step after another. It is the sun and the moon which keeps their tracks that lightens the world. A goldsmith as you know would hit the steel hundred of times before it splits into two. The road to success is lined with many tempting parking space, don't park in one. Sir Winston Churchill of Britain said thus; never, never, never, never give in. So far you are faced in the right direction, it doesn't matter the size of your step
Anybody that wants to create value must be humble; 'My character is greater than my book', so were we taught in Abeokuta Grammar School. What would limit a man, is grossly is character, that is why you must always put some checks and balances, always asking yourself, whether you are doing the right things. You must have heard the story of two job seekers who went for an interview. When they got to the venue, a short man, typical of a dwarf, mistakenly stepped on one of the guys. As if they had prepared for such an encounter, our bosom friends lambasted the man and called him all sorts of name. They only got to the interview room to learn that the dear man was the dear boss of the organization. Do not look condescending on anybody. Have sublime faith in your ideas, even if you have the highest purchasing power. Never be like the hen that has barely laid an egg but cackles as if it as laid an asteroid. You may never know who is who. Greet everybody you know, by name if possible. Benjamin Franklin advised "Be civil to all, acquainted to many, liberal to few and be friend to one"Never taste what you know you cannot eat. Desist in neither taking nor accepting bribe. Do not pay for marks in school, if you think you can bury your past, some of your friends know how well to use the shovel. Exposing your body would get you a man but thatwould not keep him. Tread the path of honour. Be time conscious in all you do. Somebody somewhere is watching you that you might know. If you do not have a good name, you have lost everything in life. Take care of your character.
Value is also created by running from energy reducers. If there is any relevant example I must also give here, that would take us to Sparta, in Greece. The story about the rise and fall of the Greek empire is a story that tells us, that we can be a man or woman of consistent value, only if we can be as disciplined as it warrants. In the days when Sparta embraced great disciplines they were the greatest warriors known on earth. History has it that they wore simple garment, ate cold meal and put their time to the discipline of the art and mind. They were on top of the world. But sooner or later, the citizens of Sparta started to keep harem of women, drinking wine and wearing fine robes. Their power no doubt began to grow less until the very mighty city of Sparta was overcome. The presence of sheer indiscipline robbed them of their hereditary values. He that wants to lead the orchestra must back the crowd
Finally, anybody That wants to create value must belive in God, As H.G Wells, rightly puts it 'A man who is not religious begins at nowhere, and ends at nothing. God is the grand architect of the cosmic host. If you want to have a glorious end, take God seriously. He holds the key to every success. By strength shall no man prevail. Post Santa simpilicita "the world is spiritually entwisted" Be a man of no little religious standard, there is power in words. It is like a hammer which forges steel and shatters glass. Confess the right things, say I am great always like the famous Mohammed Alli. Sow words of prayer into your life. Hold your articles of faith and never let it go. Education without God is a waste of time. but when F.W Nietzsche experienced the spiritual toxicity of this world, he cried: O santa simplicita-this world is not spiritually simple.
My passionate listeners, I have taken much time to dwell upon how to create value because that's where leadership starts from. Anybody that creates value is already a leader. Like I told the young man who came to me few days ago. The young man said sir, I want to become a public speaker can you teach me how to become one?, I told the young man I said "if you want to become a public speaker, go and do something worth hearing, that is go and create value and people would call you to come and speak in public". The leadership in you is not expressed until people sees you as a person of value who can be trusted with elements of power.
I would consider the whole essence of this topic as not totally dealt with, if I do not pick some lines from the words of the English writer, novelist, poet and journalist; Rudyard Kipling, in his classic poem, If..., he wrote
"If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
If you can talk with the crowd and keep your virtue, or walk with kings- nor lose the common touch,
If all men count with you, but none too much, yours is the earth and everything that's in it"
Then would you be a man my son!
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