Leaders are readers and readers are storehouses of ideas – ideas that could address the emerging challenges of our time.
We live at a time where the prevailing complexities and challenges are constantly defiling conventional reasoning. More than ever before, we need to learn new lessons and deploy new thinking so that we don’t bequeath agony to generations after us.
There is nothing that kills faster than ignorance. A leader is dead who does not read.
Fresh, executable and profitable ideas keep you on top of your game. These ideas might just be lying in the pages of that new or old book you have not read.
Every organization, whether profit or not-for-profit, wants idea and solution-minded men and women to steer their ships and I dare say that they will also do anything to keep such men and women from poachers.
The ideas contained in books could lighten up your life and reignite your passion for excellence. Information is one of the key elements of transformation.
Having committed myself, over these few years, to studious reading and extrapolation of concepts from books, I have come to appreciate the power of leveraging on the thoughts and ideas of great minds for achieving my objectives. As a leader that I know I am, I regularly interact with the minds of other leaders through their writings.
I see books as tools for acquiring new paradigm necessary for value creation both at personal and at professional levels. When I read, I seek every opportunity to learn new things and drop old and unprofitable approaches. With my professional responsibility also involving gleaning relevant scientific, business and market information in order to provide value-based products and services to agri-food and agribusiness enterprises, I just have to read to stay relevant in my trade.
There are principles contained in books that could fundamentally challenge your competence set and heal your arrogance and ignorance.
Stay away from leading people, projects, processes and programs if you will stay away from reading. A mind that cannot leverage the knowledge, capabilities and thoughts of greater minds, through reading, to answer unanswered questions should not think of leadership.
Pick up a book today and read it; you will be on your road to enrolling as one of the leaders of this age.
Again, leaders are readers and readers are the custodians of ideas we need for the transformation of our world.
Monday, July 11, 2011
Monday, June 20, 2011
Friday, June 10, 2011
Don't eat your future
A seed planted in a good soil presents an opportunity for a harvest. With harvest comes the possibility of an increase. With increase, choices should be made to either plant more of the harvested seeds or just eat up the increase.
Those who make the choice to further plant their harvested seeds are wise and those whose decision is to eat up their increase are foolish.
The future is real and wisdom demands we prepare for it. Eating up everything we have today is not a wise way to prepare for the future.
No matter how hungry and in need we are today, it should matter to us that having some of our harvests stored up for tomorrow is going to keep us fed for longer periods.
Gluttons eat their future, niblers save for their future.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Ambition vs Vision
‘I want to’ ‘I’d love to’ ‘how beautiful would it be if’
Desires! Hopes! Aspiration! Ambition!
I write this piece from the premise that the conflict between what we want and what God wants for us is an ongoing one. By birth, every human remotely acquires the ability to wish, want, will and work towards to specific ambitions. However, if such ambitions are not seeds of a vision, all efforts directed at achieving them might end up in a rat race, a sad adventure of motion without promotion.
Our desires and delights are powerful and to a great extent, define our aspirations and expectations. They could be product of our fears, failures, feelings, likes and dislikes and could go a long way to determine how our days, weeks, months and years will go.
After years of relentlessly pursuing a course, often times I hear people say ‘I missed it’, I should have considered XYZ from the onset. I should have measured twice and cut once. This sad and sudden realization has made some people given up on life and everything around them. They based major life decisions on what others where doing rather than what God was doing. They are now apostles of their misfortunes.
They are folks who have judged a book by the cover and jumped into the ‘wrong’ relationships, picked up ‘juicy’ but unknowingly life-damaging careers, fiercely jostle for seemingly ‘bright’ but glory-sapping opportunities and even jetted mysteriously into ‘god’s own’ but eventually agony-loaded countries and would later languish terribly in regret.
Where could they have missed it in their calculations?
The answer; putting ambition ahead of vision
I submit that God, our sweet, loving creator is not the author of wasteful and regretful living. His plans are locked up in His vision for our life. We run into troubles when we adopt the bottom-up rather than top-down approach. We push our feelings, wishes and personal ambitions to Him for His endorsement rather He handing out His plans to us for our compliance.
While God will not take the power of our aspirations and ambitions from us, He is actually counting on us to remember we did not create ourselves and we could not have had a plan for ourselves from onset. He is hoping we would acknowledge that there is a divine plan behind our life that is bigger and greater than all our capabilities. Our skills, education, experience and personal abilities will NEVER equate this divine plan.
God is only one who will birth this plan into our life. Once we are committed to living our vision, He will orchestrate everything around us to direct us to the place of the unfolding of this vision. He will burn all the bushes He wills to get our attention. He will supernaturally make provision available for our vision.
Life is too short to be wasted on regrets. It’s time to jettison personal ambitions and go for our God-designed vision.
Desires! Hopes! Aspiration! Ambition!
I write this piece from the premise that the conflict between what we want and what God wants for us is an ongoing one. By birth, every human remotely acquires the ability to wish, want, will and work towards to specific ambitions. However, if such ambitions are not seeds of a vision, all efforts directed at achieving them might end up in a rat race, a sad adventure of motion without promotion.
Our desires and delights are powerful and to a great extent, define our aspirations and expectations. They could be product of our fears, failures, feelings, likes and dislikes and could go a long way to determine how our days, weeks, months and years will go.
After years of relentlessly pursuing a course, often times I hear people say ‘I missed it’, I should have considered XYZ from the onset. I should have measured twice and cut once. This sad and sudden realization has made some people given up on life and everything around them. They based major life decisions on what others where doing rather than what God was doing. They are now apostles of their misfortunes.
They are folks who have judged a book by the cover and jumped into the ‘wrong’ relationships, picked up ‘juicy’ but unknowingly life-damaging careers, fiercely jostle for seemingly ‘bright’ but glory-sapping opportunities and even jetted mysteriously into ‘god’s own’ but eventually agony-loaded countries and would later languish terribly in regret.
Where could they have missed it in their calculations?
The answer; putting ambition ahead of vision
I submit that God, our sweet, loving creator is not the author of wasteful and regretful living. His plans are locked up in His vision for our life. We run into troubles when we adopt the bottom-up rather than top-down approach. We push our feelings, wishes and personal ambitions to Him for His endorsement rather He handing out His plans to us for our compliance.
While God will not take the power of our aspirations and ambitions from us, He is actually counting on us to remember we did not create ourselves and we could not have had a plan for ourselves from onset. He is hoping we would acknowledge that there is a divine plan behind our life that is bigger and greater than all our capabilities. Our skills, education, experience and personal abilities will NEVER equate this divine plan.
God is only one who will birth this plan into our life. Once we are committed to living our vision, He will orchestrate everything around us to direct us to the place of the unfolding of this vision. He will burn all the bushes He wills to get our attention. He will supernaturally make provision available for our vision.
Life is too short to be wasted on regrets. It’s time to jettison personal ambitions and go for our God-designed vision.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Complacency
‘I have done enough’ ‘I have tried’ ‘Nothing can be better than this’
How often do we find ourselves muting or expressing these statements? Very often, I can bet.
It’s called complacency. Thefreedictionary.com describes it as ‘a feeling of contentment or self-satisfaction, especially when coupled with an unawareness of danger, trouble, or controversy.’
It’s stopping right in the middle of a highway and declining to move further; a state of doing nothing when something needs to be done.
Complacency places a false sense of accomplishment on one’s life and builds an unreal aura of euphoria around one’s thinking. It’s a negative vice that is bred by comparison, fear of taking risk, negativity and laziness.
While looking up to people as models and mentors might not be bad, it may however lead to a point where one places a limit on one’s potentials. Men and women who compare themselves with others put a full stop at the beginning of their sentence rather at the end. They stop being creative and productive and start developing a sense of unhealthy competition. They eventually lose sight of their dream and capabilities.
Risk is part of everything. Taking calculated risk enhances the chances of success. Folks who always like to play it safe and venture into nothing end up wearing the garb of complacency. They call it being careful but on the long-run, it fuels their sense of self-satisfaction and keeps them at the same spot while others are way ahead.
In my few years of living, I have also come to see how negativity can clamp one down to a world of self-satisfaction and nothingness. When one’s worldview is that of hatred, bitterness, anger and revenge, there is practically nothing to look forward to in life. To a negative person, good looks bad and dreams appear as nightmares. A negative person continuously saps his/her own energy and finds a safe haven in his/her own unpopular and anti-progress thoughts and feelings.
Laziness is the age-old father of complacency. Doing nothing and being nothing. Abhorring responsibilities and placing a demand on others for one’s upkeep; constantly churning out excuses for inactivity and failure. Nothing can be more damaging in life than a combination of laziness and complacency.
Complacency is killing our world. Great minds are giving up and brilliant voices are going into silence. We are consoling ourselves with the past and eating up our present without any real investment in our future. We are consumed with praising ourselves instead of praying for ourselves.
There is a clarion call for us to be sensible with our time and life. Not just wasting away with everything that comes our way. Finding a vision and pursuing it. Staying focused rather than jumping at every task, job, lifestyle etc that could age our mind and life early.
It’s time to unlock our potentials. Let’s get to work: to device new concepts, write new books, solve new problems, help new people and conquer new enemies. Let’s challenge ourselves to new heights and new depths and stamp complacency out of our world.,
How often do we find ourselves muting or expressing these statements? Very often, I can bet.
It’s called complacency. Thefreedictionary.com describes it as ‘a feeling of contentment or self-satisfaction, especially when coupled with an unawareness of danger, trouble, or controversy.’
It’s stopping right in the middle of a highway and declining to move further; a state of doing nothing when something needs to be done.
Complacency places a false sense of accomplishment on one’s life and builds an unreal aura of euphoria around one’s thinking. It’s a negative vice that is bred by comparison, fear of taking risk, negativity and laziness.
While looking up to people as models and mentors might not be bad, it may however lead to a point where one places a limit on one’s potentials. Men and women who compare themselves with others put a full stop at the beginning of their sentence rather at the end. They stop being creative and productive and start developing a sense of unhealthy competition. They eventually lose sight of their dream and capabilities.
Risk is part of everything. Taking calculated risk enhances the chances of success. Folks who always like to play it safe and venture into nothing end up wearing the garb of complacency. They call it being careful but on the long-run, it fuels their sense of self-satisfaction and keeps them at the same spot while others are way ahead.
In my few years of living, I have also come to see how negativity can clamp one down to a world of self-satisfaction and nothingness. When one’s worldview is that of hatred, bitterness, anger and revenge, there is practically nothing to look forward to in life. To a negative person, good looks bad and dreams appear as nightmares. A negative person continuously saps his/her own energy and finds a safe haven in his/her own unpopular and anti-progress thoughts and feelings.
Laziness is the age-old father of complacency. Doing nothing and being nothing. Abhorring responsibilities and placing a demand on others for one’s upkeep; constantly churning out excuses for inactivity and failure. Nothing can be more damaging in life than a combination of laziness and complacency.
Complacency is killing our world. Great minds are giving up and brilliant voices are going into silence. We are consoling ourselves with the past and eating up our present without any real investment in our future. We are consumed with praising ourselves instead of praying for ourselves.
There is a clarion call for us to be sensible with our time and life. Not just wasting away with everything that comes our way. Finding a vision and pursuing it. Staying focused rather than jumping at every task, job, lifestyle etc that could age our mind and life early.
It’s time to unlock our potentials. Let’s get to work: to device new concepts, write new books, solve new problems, help new people and conquer new enemies. Let’s challenge ourselves to new heights and new depths and stamp complacency out of our world.,
Monday, February 14, 2011
2010 Aspiring Youth Award
Towards the close of 2010, i was privileged to be a recipient of an award i felt really humbled me. I was honored with the ADLER 2010 ASPIRING YOUTH AWARD.
The award was part of the yearly ADLER Entrepreneurship Award hosted by the African Youth Foundation (AYF), Germany. AYF is a non-profit organization with a focus on entrepreneurship, education and social empowerment amongst Africans in Diaspora as well as Europeans with African descent. The organization is based in Bonn, Germany and is headed by Dr. Paulyn Jansen.
Below are a few pictures from the award night. Thanks to Mr. Kingsley Tabot for the pictures.
Receiving the award certificate from Dr. Jansen
Giving the acceptance speech
Standing with other Dignitaries and Awardees
The award was part of the yearly ADLER Entrepreneurship Award hosted by the African Youth Foundation (AYF), Germany. AYF is a non-profit organization with a focus on entrepreneurship, education and social empowerment amongst Africans in Diaspora as well as Europeans with African descent. The organization is based in Bonn, Germany and is headed by Dr. Paulyn Jansen.
Below are a few pictures from the award night. Thanks to Mr. Kingsley Tabot for the pictures.
Receiving the award certificate from Dr. Jansen
Giving the acceptance speech
Standing with other Dignitaries and Awardees
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