Laws That Made Nations Great

Last weekend, I had the privilege of listening to Professor Osibanjo (former Attorney General of Lagos State, and a Pastor at the Redeemed Christian Church of God). He was speaking passionately about the laws and principles that made nations(like America, Britain, China e.t.c) great. I sincerely wish that I could force them to listen to his thoughts at the next Federal Executive council meeting in Abuja. I wish I had the power to force every State house of Assembly not to seat until they have listened to his teaching 3 times over! He was so spot on. Most importantly, I remember thinking to myself “All future leaders of our dear country need to start thinking of this now, even before they get into office”. This is what is motivating me to write this, sharing some of his thoughts, and spicing it with what I have learnt and seen about these principles. I know that most of you reading this will one day, not too far from now, be playing key roles in the leadership of this country. Most importantly, these laws and principles will work for individuals as much as it will work for a nation.

Life is governed by laws and principles. When these laws and principles are followed, then you have no choice but to reap the reward of it. When they are not, the same happens – you reap the reward! Principles are no respecter of persons. They are true anywhere, anytime and to anyone wherever you are in the world. Take the principle of gravity for example. Anything that goes up must come down. It doesn’t matter if you are the President of America or just a poor wretch by the road side. If you jump up, you will come down! Except overpowered by a greater law (law of aerodynamics, the law of gravity hold true for everyone, everywhere. You can pray more than praying mantis. You can speak multiples tongues, but all these will not are subject to principles that govern life

Most of us are not progressing as individuals, and our nation is backward compared to others, because we have little or no respect for life’s principles! An average Nigerian will rather pray than obey simple principles. Permit me to share with you some of these simple, yet profound principles that will certainly catapult us, as individuals, and as a nation, from where we are now to where we have always wanted to be.

The Principle of Hardwork – Rewarding Excellence And Merit And Not Quotas

I've always worked very, very hard, and the harder I worked, the luckier I got

Alan Bond

Many people think that hardwork is a curse. Nothing can be farther from the truth. Hardwork is the only substitute to a hard life. Either your work hard or you live hard. The choice is yours. Golden opportunities are nothing to laziness but hardwork makes the commonest chance golden. Unless you are willing to drench yourself in your work beyond the capacity of the average man, you are just not cut out for positions at the top. Believe me.

The dictionary is the only place in the world where “success” comes before “work” just because of the alphabetical arrangements of things. Work always comes before success, anywhere in the world. Show me a lazy man and I will show you a man who has kissed success goodbye. A wise man puts it in a wonderful way “show me a man who is diligent in his work, I will show you a man who will stand before kings and not before ordinary men”. The diligent and hardworking hand will always bear rule.

As a nation, we breed laziness! Research shows that a Chinese worker is about 6 times more effective that a Nigeria worker! I am sure you will believe that even without any research. You can see it all over the place. Have you been to a government Secretariat lately? Have you tried getting a 1 page latter signed from any ministry? You just wonder what the people there are doing and why it will take 1 week to get a letter signed. I am afraid to say that our nation will not change much until we adopt the pay by the hour culture. This is what happens in the developed nations of the world. They pay according to the hours of work you put in! Here, once you are on the payroll, you get paid for working 8 hours per day even if you don’t show up. It’s a shame.

I took statistics of public holidays in Nigeria in 2007. The ratio of work days to holidays between Jan and April is approximately 8:1. It’s like having a holiday once every 2 weeks! For me, that is an invitation do disaster. It’s a reflection of the state of our economy. Our over-dependence on oil gives us liberty to declare public holidays at will. Whether people are at work or not, the oil wells are producing oil!

I firmly believe that any man's finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is the moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle-victorious

Vince Lombardi

To worsen matters, excellence is not rewarded. We will rather reward people according to quota system instead of merit. In a football team, we MUST have representations from all geopolitical zones of the country, whether they merit it or not. I am tempted to mention names but i won't. Lol! We must obey federal character. Have you seen the list of those that were honoured with national awards of late? You will cry – governors disgraced out of office, politicians with integrity issues, and people who have spent a very long time in service (their contribution is immaterial). Until we start rewarding excellence and merit as a nation, we are not yet ready to become great! It is that simple.


The Principle Of Integrity

This is perhaps the greatest bane of our nation. Our nation is in short supply of men and women with personal integrity and honesty. With more sophistication, it’s even easier to throw integrity to the garbage bin. From the salesmen on the street to the CEO of multinationals, from the Student Union Executives of our colleges to the National Assemblies of out nations, people have underestimated the importance of consistently living up to a set of ideals. What a tragedy!

We live in a world that has become so obsessed with success and material wealth at the expense of all else. It’s very rare to see men and women of integrity who would hold on to their righteousness by all means. “The end justifies the means” is now the motto of several people, all in a bid to amass wealth.

As I write this, I can remember an old Ghanaian fable that I read some years back. I think I should share it (again) to drive home my point. Here….

“An aging king woke up one day to the realization that should he drop dead, there would be no male in the royal family to take his place. He was the last male in the royal family in a culture where only a male could succeed to the throne - and he was aging. He decided that if he could not give birth to a male, he would adopt a son who then could take his place, but he insisted that such an adopted son must be extraordinary in every sense of the word. So he launched a competition in his kingdom, open to all boys, no matter what their background.

Ten boys made it to the very top. There was little to separate these boys in terms of intelligence and physical attributes and capabilities. The king said to them, "I have one last test and whoever comes top will become my adopted son and heir to my throne." Then he said, "This kingdom depends solely on agriculture. So the king must know how to cultivate plants. So here is a seed of corn for each of you. Take it home and plant and nurture it for three weeks. At the end of three weeks, we shall see who has done the best job of cultivating the seed. That person will be my heir-apparent. "

The boys took their seeds and hurried home. They each got a flower pot and planted the seed as soon as they got home. There was much excitement in the kingdom as the people waited with bated breath to see who was destined to be their next kingpin one home, the boy and his parents were almost heartbroken when after days of intense care, the seed failed to sprout. He did not know what had gone wrong with his. He had selected the soil carefully, he had applied the right quantity and type of fertilizer, he had been very dutiful in watering it at the right intervals, he had even prayed over it day and night and yet his seed had turned out to be unproductive.

Some of his friends advised him to go and buy a seed from the market and plant that. "After all," they said, "how can anyone tell one seed of corn from another?" But his parents who had always taught him the value of integrity reminded him that, if the king wanted them to plant any corn, he would have asked them to go for their own seed. "If you take anything different from what the king gave you that would be dishonesty. Maybe we are not destined for the throne. If so, let it be but don't be found to have deceived the king," they told him.

The D-Day came, and the boys returned to the palace each of them proudly exhibiting a very fine corn seedling. It was obvious that the other nine boys had had great success with their seeds. The king began making his way down the line of eager boys and asked each of them "Is this came out of the seed I gave you?" And each boy responded, "Yes, your majesty." And the king would nod and move down the line. The king finally got to the last boy in the line-up. The boy was shaking with fear. He knew that the king was going to have him thrown into prison for wasting his seed.

"What did you do with the seed I gave you?" the king asked."I planted it and cared for it diligently, your majesty, but alas it failed to sprout." the boy said tearfully, as the crowd booed him. But the king raised his hands and signaled for silence. Then he said, "My people behold your next king." The people were confused. "Why that one?" many asked. "How can he be the right choice?" The king took his place on his throne with the boy by his side and said, "I gave these boys boiled seeds. This test was not for cultivating corn. It was the test of character; a test of integrity. It was the ultimate test. If a king must have one quality, it must be that he should be above dishonesty. Only this boy passed the test. A boiled seed cannot sprout." ”

The single most important quality you can ever develop that will enhance every part of your life is the value of integrity. Integrity is the core quality of a successful and happy life. Having integrity means being totally honest and truthful in every part of your life. By making the commitment to become a totally honest person, you will be doing more to ensure your success and happiness in life than anything else you can ever do.I mean that in every sense of it!

Will you stand up to be counted with men of integrity?

I have 4 more principles to share with you. Can I ask you to be patient until my next post…..?

Till then, keep on winning.

Do What You Say You Will Do!

Working for a multinational in the last couple of years have taught me a lot about making commitments. The rule about making commitments is so simple that it is unbelievable. “Do what you say you will do”! Which part of this simple sentence is difficult to understand? The truth however is that most times, most of us to not keep our commitments. Interestingly enough, people will remember when you break promises, but they don’t remember when you help them out,

People expect you to fulfill your promises. Going out of your way to keep a commitment isn’t going to be remembered. But people will remember when you screw-up. Even if the screw-up is accidental, that broken commitment is going to linger for a lot longer than a spectacular success.

...90% of the world's problems result from people failing to keep their commitments.

It’s easy to forget this imbalance when you make commitments. Since breaking commitments has a much larger weight than helping out, it’s important to do what you say you’ll do. Usually you can’t repair a screw-up with a single offer to help out. It is astonishing that 90% of the world's problems result from people failing to keep their commitments. Heads of state, CEO's, family members and friends, every missed goal or uncompleted task can be traced back to someone not keeping their end of the bargain.

We all make commitments every day. Some seem small and insignificant-agreed upon time to meet, a promise to run an errand or a promise to follow-up. Others are ostensibly bigger and more important-a formal contract or legal document, etc. It is important to consider all commitments equally important, because this is the way trust is built and maintained. A person's reputation is built upon their ability to make and keep commitments. Your life will work better when commitments are carefully made and diligently kept.

Following this basic advice, there are a few conclusions about being a more reliable person and making sure your relationship accounts don’t go into debt:

Make Promises Infrequently

Don’t be hasty with your commitments. If something is important to someone, make sure that there is an almost 100% certainty you will be able to follow through. It’s better to explain, in advance, reasons that would prevent you from committing, than to back out later.

Write Down Commitments

If you make a commitment to do something, you should be writing it down in front of that person. Not only does this help you remember, it signals your level of commitment to the other person. It is not good practice to make offhanded commitments that isn’t stored anywhere.

Don’t Say “Maybe”, When You Mean “No”

If you won’t be able to do something, say so. You may feel you’ve left yourself a clever escape route to avoid making a commitment. But what you’ve really done is made a smaller promise. Backing out of a maybe isn’t a complete screw-up, but it still hurts your relationship more than if you were assertive enough to say “no” in the first place.

If you won’t be able to do something, say so

Don’t Forget Your Ongoing Commitments

Whenever you agree to do anything, the commitment should be placed into your to-do list, calendar or whatever organizing system you have. Even if your commitment didn’t have a specific deadline, keeping track of where you’ve agreed to help is important.

What’s Unimportant to You May be Crucial to Another

It’s easy to evaluate the importance of everything in terms of our own goals. I might get a request from someone that is unimportant to me, but extremely important to that person. It’s easy to push aside items that aren’t priorities for you. But if those items also happen to be priorities for other people, you may break an incredibly important commitment without realizing it.

If People Aren’t Reliable, Call Them on It

I wouldn’t recommend getting into a fight. But if someone is building a deficit in your relationship bank account, let them know. Often busy people won’t even realize they are being completely unreliable. If you let them know that you’re disappointed that they haven’t followed through on their promises that give them the option of gracefully scaling back their commitments or being more responsible in the future. However, be sure to do to others what you want done to you

By paying careful attention to the commitments you make, tracking them and developing the habit of keeping all your commitments you will be known as a person of integrity. Your life and the world around you work in direct proportion to the quality of your commitments.

Talent - A Myth? (Part II)

After a couple of attempts, I was able to get two days off work just to rest! Unfortunately, I am not sure I have rested and the 2nd day is almost over. Isn’t that interesting? Anyway, I couldn’t let the 2 days pass without responding to some of the thoughts that readers of my last article has shared with me. It’s very expedient that I write a follow up article and that is exactly what I am doing. I hope my son sleeps for another 1 hour, so I can do this without any interruption (lol)

In his book “Talent Is Not Enough”, John Maxwell shares a thought that is what stating here. He said “Talent is often overrated and frequently misunderstood”. When people achieve great things, others often explain their accomplishments by simply attributing everything to talent. That is a false and misleading way to look at success. I am sure you know highly talented people who are not successful. Just look around you.

Many people are obsessed with talent. They think this is the answer to every problem. Far be it. Talent alone is never enough. Before you label me as anti talent, let me tell you what I believe about talent. Talent is important. Talent is God given and should be celebrated. Talent enables people to do extraordinary things. It stands you out and gets you noticed. In the beginning, it separates you from the rest of the pack. It gives you a head start on others. However, this will not be forever. Too many people who start with an advantage over others lose that advantage because they rest on their talent instead of raising it. I like the way that bestselling author Stephen King puts it. He said “Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from successful ones is a lot of hard work”. Characteristics like punctuality, effort, patience and unselfishness are more important in the school of success than mere talent.

Character and Talent

There is a story that comes to my mind here. It’s the story of one of the best professional footballers Nigeria has ever produced. He was one of the 1st Nigerians to play professional football out of the country and was making a lot of money from it. He was adored by many and was a “wizard” on the ball. I am talking about Etim Esin. While preparing for the U20 world cup in Chile (in 1987, I guess), he was shot by armed robbers on his way from a night club, while still in camp! His talents were so great that he had to be rushed out of the country for a surgical operation in order to make him fit for the world cup. Needless to say that, he, and the whole team performed woefully at the event. Even after the event, his wild life will not let him rest. In a few years, he was off the stage. I am sure many young Nigerian football lovers will find it difficult to remember him. They will however remember people who are far less talented but used their skills to help their fatherland. It is character that protects your talent.

You can never climb beyond the limitations of your character. If you do, be ready for a free fall!

Absence of strong character eventually topples talent. You can never climb beyond the limitations of your character. If you do, be ready for a free fall! The enron example and several other examples are there to show that.

People are very much like icebergs. There’s much more to them than meets the eye. Only about 15% of an iceberg is visible. That’s the talent. The rest (the character) is below the surface, hidden. It’s what they do and think when no one is watching them. The greater the talent is, the greater the need is for strong character. If they are “too heavy” with talent, then they are likely to get into trouble.
Talent will most certainly bring you into limelight, but it’s not likely to keep you there for long, except you develop strong character. Developing talent without developing character is a dead end. If your life is long on talent, but short on character, then, your life will always be out of balance!

If your life is long on talent, but short on character, then, your life will always be out of balance

A Teachable Spirit

Have you ever been on the same team with a highly talented individual? If you have, chances are high that you would have also seen someone who is very unteachable. Afterall, he is a star! He knows it all. Who the hell are you to tell him what to do and how to do it? If you cannot be teachable, having talent won’t help you. It will get in your way of success.

One of the paradoxes of life is that things that initially make you successful are rarely the things that keep you successful. You have to remain open to new ideas and be willing to learn. If you want to expand your talent, you must become teachable. “The most important skill to acquire is learning how to learn” says Author John Naisbitt.

People who are teachable are often a greater assets than people who are merely talented

People who are teachable are often a greater assets than people who are merely talented. People who are teachable are continually growing and improving by the day. They look out for new opportunities to learn. They are easier to work with and are better team players. While a coach will definitely like to have talents on his team, he will be more successful in the long term, if he has a team full of people who are ready and willing to learn…from him and from each other.

There would never be a talent shortage in the world. Talent is God given and as long as there are people in the world, there will be plenty of talent. What is missing are people who have made the choices necessary to maximize their talent. Talent in itself is not enough. Talent in itself is a myth.

Well....i couldn't finish this before my son got up! He is currently struggling with the laptop with me. Hmmm.....looks like that is his own talent (lol)!

Till i come your way again, stay right at the top of the topmost top!