It takes "U"- Part 1

It takes “U” - Part 1

The credit for this post goes to my role model, my boss, my friend, my encourager, a consummate entrepreneur, an astute blogger, an enthralling motivational speaker and an astute networker; Mr Isaac Adesuyi Oluyi. By going around with him to some of his speaking engagements, he has figuratively speaking, burned into my mind the illustration that informed this post. It’s such a simple illustration; the difference between the words ‘mourning’ and ‘morning’.

The words ‘mourning’ and ‘morning’ are two words which are pronounced alike but with very different meanings. What differentiates these two words is the letter ‘u’. Take the letter ‘u’ out of 'mourning' and you have ‘morning’. There is a profound lesson to be drawn from this illustration. As my boss would say, ‘morning’ denotes hope, and for me, brightness also while mourning denotes gloom. But to move from mourning to morning, it takes ‘u’. This means every one of us is responsible for our lives and we cannot continue to blame others or wait on others in order to experience the bright side of life.

I listened to a speaker who said the word ‘circumstance’ comes from two Latin words which mean the circle in which you are standing. And if you are not comfortable with the circle in which you are standing all you need to do is to walk out. So quit complaining about that circumstance in which you find yourself. Do something about it. Walk out of that circle or turn the circle around. Just do something about the circle because your life is in your hands. I started writing this piece yesterday but I couldn’t finish it. Later in the day, I was driving on the highway when a car hit my car from behind.

The first thing that flashed through my mind after the crash was ‘money to repair the car’. The people who came around advised the two of us to go and repair our cars. I accepted even though I was hit from behind. At that point I had various options available to me: either to start griping about the situation or to take actions toward repairing the car. I could either decide to drown myself in self-pity or refuse to allow my mood to be dampened. But because I have come to realise that it is not what happens to you that matters but how you respond to what happens to you, I decided that my spirit would not be dampened and with the assistance of my inspirational boss, I took the car to the panel beater.

Blaming others as the reason why we find ourselves in whatever unpalatable situation we are in is just an excuse to remain in such situation. I could blame various people as being responsible for the crash but doing that would not have resulted in anything positive. So I decided to respond to the situation at hand instead of reacting to it. To move from mourning to morning, it takes you and no one else. This means you must do something about that situation you are complaining about. It takes you to move from a state of despondency to a state of optimism. It takes you to move from a state of hopelessness to a state of hope. It takes you to move from a state of helplessness to a state of abundance. It takes you to move from a state of lack to a state of abundance. It takes you to move from failure to success. It takes you and only you!

The Law of Connection-2

The Law of Connection-2

Last time I promised to share lessons I learned from watching the movie Invictus and the tape Law of Connection by John Maxwell. Here are the lessons:

Connecting with people means they see you as their friends. It means developing credibility with people. For people to follow you, they must trust you and believe you are their friend. This is what positional leaders do not understand. They usually think the position they occupy automatically bestows on them the right to lead people. They fail to realise that leadership is basically influence. And if this is so, everyone who aspires to be a leader must strive to build influence with the people they intend to lead. This means your followers are willing to follow wherever you go. Jesus Christ, Nelson Mandela, Indira Ghandi, Martin Luther King (Jnr.) are perfect examples of people who connected with their followers. They earned the trust of their followers by showing them they truly cared for them. You must have heard the saying: People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.

To connect with people means to touch their hearts. You must realise that that the heart comes before the head. Maxwell sums this up with the statement, leaders touch your heart before they ask for a hand. Influential and effective leaders have come to understand that followers will do a thing if it feels right and not necessarily because it is right. Humans are emotional beings. Thus leaders have to realise that you cannot move people to action unless you move their emotions. Followers need to feel good about a particular course of action before they can carry it out with enthusiasm. They need to feel good about their leader before they can wholly commit themselves to them. And the way to make them feel good about you is to connect with them, identify with them. They should see you as approachable and someone who can relate with them. Leaders who value the importance of connecting with others must realise that they have to make the first move at times – they are initiators. They do not wait for their followers to come to them before a relationship can ensue. They do not believe connecting is the sole responsibility of followers.

The impact of connection on an organisation or group is tremendous. Followers develop extreme loyalty. The vision of the leader becomes the aspiration of the followers. So I want to urge you today to learn to connect with people whether you are a leader with a title or without a title. If you understand the fact that a true leader is a leader who has influence, then you will understand that you do not need a title to become a leader.

The Law of Connection

The Law of Connection-1

I saw a movie recently. The movie was released in 2009 but I just saw it for the time this year. The title of the movie is Invictus. The movie is about Nelson Mandela’s handling of post-apartheid South Africa. He is portrayed in the movie as a leader whose major desire for his nation is to see his nation recover from the evil inflicted by apartheid. He preaches and exemplifies the need for forgiveness and reconciliation, and he is keen to keep the nascent nation from being polarised along ethnic/colour lines. The movie is also about the rise of South Africa’s Rugby Team, The Springboks, from obscurity to prominence and this is largely due to the personal efforts of Nelson Mandela. Madiba – as Nelson Mandela is fondly called in South Africa – recently celebrated his 94^th birthday and his influence on sports in his country was again brought to the fore.

What had the most profound effect on me in the movie was Nelson Mandela’s remarkable ability to connect with the people around him. He knows them by their first name – this is one laudable attribute of great leaders. At a point in the film, Morgan Freeman, who acted as Nelson Mandela in the film, is seen asking one of his security agents about the agent’s child who is sick. Mandela is portrayed as a thoughtful and caring leader. He is affected by the condition of those working with him. I do not know how you see this: a country’s president is not only aware that the child of one of his security aides (security aide not personal secretary or cabinet member!) is sick, he even has the presence of mind to inquire about the child’s condition. This for me is an extraordinary act of leadership.

One reason the film struck a chord with me was because shortly before the time I watched the movie, I listened to John Maxwell on the Law of Connection and everything he talked about in the tape was exemplified in the movie by Nelson Mandela. This post is thus an attempt to share the profound lessons I gleaned from John Maxwell’s Law of Connection and the movie, Invictus. I sincerely hope these lessons also resonate with you.

It is YOUR Journey

A few days ago, I was driving with three other persons in the car. Of the three persons, two were close friends while one was just an acquaintance. We had barely driven for five minutes when I discovered that one of my tyres was losing air rapidly. I discovered I could not go on without changing the tyre. I stopped to change the tyre with my spare and then something happened which brought back a lesson I had always known. Two out of the three persons I was carrying informed me they had to leave. Sincerely, I was prepared for that since that was not the first time I would have such an experience. In fairness to them, they had genuine reasons for wanting to leave. I could not stop them from leaving; I would not even try. What was also funny was the fact that my closest friend among the trio was one of the two persons that had to leave.

That incident was for me another poignant reminder that my journey through life is a personal and lonely one. While I will definitely require the help of others as I journey through life, and at times have to travel in company of some people for a while, the stark reality is that the journey is my journey not our journey. If I can constantly remember this, it will help me not to expect too much from people. It will help me to handle disappointments very well. It will help me to take my destiny in my hands and chart my life course. While talking with my boss about the incident, he reminded me of the saying that success has many friends while failure is an orphan. As long as the going is good, there will always be friends and hangers-on around you but you just experience a blip, you will be stunned at how quickly all your well-wishers will disappear, leaving you to weather your storm alone.

I learnt on that day that your closest friend may have very genuine reasons not to stay with you during your difficult moment. Some wives have jumped ship on their husbands in trying periods and some husbands have done likewise. Blessed are those whose spouses stick with them in times of crises. Unless you are blessed with a wonderful spouse, you will journey through life alone. So when trusted friends, loved ones and confidants abandon you when you need them most, remember: It is a personal and lonely journey. But please do not misunderstand what I am driving at. I am not saying you do not need people in your journey of life. You actually cannot achieve anything worthwhile without the help of others. You must have heard it said that no man is an island. I believe that so strongly. I believe in relationships. I believe in connecting with others. But I have come to realise that our paths in life are personalised even though my path will cross some other persons’ and some other persons’ paths will cross mine. So if you find yourself alone at times, it is because the path you are treading is YOURS not mine.