Malala Yousafzai: This girl is sixteen and she is one of the 100 most influential persons on earth but the Taliban wants to kill her

She was born in 1997 in Pakistan. She is an education and women’s rights activist and was almost killed in an assassination attempt last year. She is one of the most famous teenagers on earth and one of the 100 most influential people in the world. She is also a Nobel Peace Prize nominee. Who is this 16 year-old?

Malala Yousafzai began blogging for BBC News at age 12 under a pseudonym, depicting her daily activities under Taliban rule and her views on education for girls. Her profile began to rise when she started appearing on television to publicly advocate for female education. She had earlier appeared in a documentary by New York Times. As Malala became more popular, she started receiving death threats. In fact, death threats against her were published in newspapers.

Last year at age 15, a Taliban gunman boarded Malala’s school bus in northwestern Pakistan, shot her and two other girls in an attempt to kill her. The bullet went through her head and neck, and lodged in her shoulder. The Taliban, by the incident, wanted to show what would happen to anyone who had the courage to stand up for education, freedom and self-determination, particularly for girls and women. Malala was flown to the UK for treatment at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham and on February 2nd, 2013, she underwent a five-hour operation to reconstruct her skull and restore her hearing. The Taliban has threatened to kill her if she returns to Pakistan.

Today, a global campaign in Malala’s name, spearheaded by the United Nations (UN) Special Envoy for Global Education, Gordon Brown, a former prime minister of Britain, is already on in support of what she stands for. The main focus of the campaign is that no children will be left out of school by 2015. On her 16th birthday on July 12th 2013, she spoke at the UN to call for worldwide access to education. The UN called the event "Malala Day”. Hear this extract from her speech at the UN:

"The terrorists thought they would change my aims and stop my ambitions, but nothing changed in my life except this: weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born ... I am not against anyone, neither am I here to speak in terms of personal revenge against the Taliban or any other terrorist group. I'm here to speak up for the right of education for every child. I want education for the sons and daughters of the Taliban and all terrorists and extremists."

It is obvious that this young girl has succeeded in affecting the world. Her story is a lesson on the power of a vision and doggedness. I came across an online publication that states ten ways in which Malala has changed the world and I share it below:

1.      She has sparked a dialogue about children's education throughout the world
2.     Three million people have signed the Malala Petition
3.     Her ability to be fearless is inspiring beyond measure
4.     She has created the Malala Fund
5.     She has taught us all about forgiveness
6.     She has shown us that there is no age limit to stand up against injustice
7.      Her story has reminded children throughout the world not to take anything for granted
8.     She has challenged us all to wage a war...
9.     She has illustrated the importance of peaceful conflict resolution
10. She has caused the UN to recommit to Millennium Development Goal 2

Malala’s story has taught me that I can affect the world from my own little corner and that I should never give up on a cause I believe in. What about you?

The Largest Building in the World and Its Artificial Sun: This Story Will Fascinate You

The world’s largest building was recently opened in China and not Dubai as many who might want to hazard a guess may think. Yes, China has the largest building in the world. The building, named the New Century Global Center is the world's largest freestanding building and it is capable of fitting 20 Sydney Opera Houses inside or three pentagons. And do you know what? This building, which is located in the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu, has its own sun – an artificial sun. The following are some other details about this building that makes it tick:

Ø This gigantic building occupies 1.7 million square meters of floor space (enough to contain about 329 football fields).

Ø The structure is half a kilometer long, 400 meters wide and 100 meters high.

Ø The center will include two five-star hotels

Ø The massive structure has inside it shopping centres, hotels – including two five-star hotels, a water park, a Mediterranean village,

Ø It has a 100-metre high glass ceiling that comes with its own artificial sun which will keep visitors warm 24 hours a day and an ice-skating rink.

Shopping, swimming, skating, sunbathing and sleeping are all activities on offer to visitors.

I am fascinated by this building and I have decided to write about it because it again demonstrates the saying that whatsoever the mind can conceive, it can achieve. I would not want you to lose sight of the fact that this is one building. It is not a compound. It is one building. So think about. How massive will a building with all these features be? It even has a village inside it!!! It has a water park. It has many hotels inside it and it is just one building!!!

It may not be out of place to assume that when the idea to build such a gargantuan structure first dropped into the mind of the person who conceived, his/her first reaction was to discard but that God (s)he did not discard it. And today what was a dream is now a reality. It is also possible that this person who conceived the idea was discouraged by many people including experts in architecture, engineering, building technology, etc. but this person and his colleagues were not deterred.

So next time you are tempted to discard that ‘preposterous’ idea. Wait a minute and think it over. When you are absolutely sure that it is impossible to achieve the idea, you can then discard. I have come to learn that experts can be wrong too. So don’t let people talk you out of your dream.

Have a great week.

Tom Cruise, Steve Jobs, Steven Spielberg, Albert Einstein, Richard Branson and Their Disability

Tom Cruise, Whoopi Goldberg, Steve Jobs, Steven Spielberg, Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Beethoven, Richard Branson, Magic Johnson, Leonardo da Vinci, Winston Churchill, Tommy Hilfiger, Muhammad Ali, George Washington, Henry Ford, Woodrow Wilson, Alexander Graham Bell, Pablo Picasso, Agatha Christie and many others have something common to them; they are all dyslexics.

What this means is that they apparently at one point in their life struggled with a particular disability. But what is unarguable today is that they overcame the disability and are/were among the most successful or famous people in the world.

Why am I writing about famous people with dyslexia? I recently wrote about Ryan Blair, who went from being a gangster to becoming a multi-millionaire. In one of his interviews that I read, Ryan disclosed that he was diagnosed of attention deficit disorder (ADD) and dyslexia early in life and was told that he did not possess the intellect or aptitude to become a doctor or lawyer but ironically, today, he employs doctors and lawyers. So I decided to search the Internet for successful or famous people who were diagnosed of dyslexia.

What is dyslexia? The Encarta dictionary defines it as a learning disorder marked by a severe difficulty in recognising and understanding written language, leading to spelling and writing problems. It adds that dyslexia is not caused by low intelligence or brain damage. Thus, dyslexia is a difficulty with reading and spelling and it is not an intellectual disability. There is no cure for dyslexia, but dyslexic individuals can learn to read and write with appropriate education or treatment.

Those who don’t know better see people with dyslexia as dumb and dyslexics are often labeled stupid and unable to learn. It is painful that often times, dyslexics accept that they are stupid and unable to learn. But research seems to point out that dyslexics are often more brilliant and possess far superior abilities in some areas than non-dyslexics or ‘normal people’.

My aim of writing this piece is to encourage anyone with any type of disability to strive to overcome such disability and not to succumb to the limitations that such a disability may seem to have imposed on them. I will also add that all of us have disabilities in at least one area. This is what we have come to call weaknesses. Personally, my disability is in the area of mathematics or calculation. We should not let our weaknesses prevent us from being what we can be. We should focus on our strengths and develop them to such an extent that society will be unable to ignore us.

Listen to the secret of a dyslexic, John Irving, an award-winning writer, “To do anything really well, you have to overextend yourself. In my case, I learned that I just had to pay twice as much attention.  I came to appreciate that in doing something over and over again, something that was never natural becomes almost second nature.  You learn that you have the capacity for that, and that it doesn’t come overnight.

I also believe that the realisation that we all have our disabilities will make us tolerant of people with glaring disabilities.

From Gang Member to Millionaire Chief Executive: The Inspirational Story of Ryan Blair

Ryan Blair lost his Dad at 13. He joined the wrong crowd; was thrown in a juvenile institution; dropped out of school; got a job as an assistant (man Friday) at 17; started his own business at 21 and is now a multi-millionaire, CEO, author and mentor. His is another amazing grass-to-grace story. Ryan’s story exemplifies what eventually becomes of a person who decides to turn around his negative background to his advantage. In 2011, he published a bestselling book titled Nothing to Lose, Everything to Gain: How I Went from Gang Member to Multimillionaire Entrepreneur.

One of the things that helped Ryan was his dissatisfaction with the way his life was going. He wanted a good life. "I was in and out of trouble all the time, but I didn't like it. I didn't want that life," he says. At just 16 years old, he had been arrested 10 times.

A looming four-year jail sentence was what made him decide to turn his life around and he begged the judge for leniency. His mother introduced him to a real estate entrepreneur who hired him as an assistant. This contact with the wealthy made a huge impact on him and he decided he would like to make money through legal means.

At 21, he established his first company, 24-7 Tech. Since then, he has created and actively invested in multiple start-ups and has become a self-made multimillionaire. He later became the CEO of ViSalus. In 2008, the company was in debt to the tune of $6 million but in less than two years, Ryan was able to turn the financial fortunes of the company around to $150 million in revenue.

It becomes interesting when one learns that Ryan had attention deficit disorder (ADD) and dyslexia and because of this, never got past the 9th grade. A career counsellor in high school told him he didn’t have the intellect or aptitude to become a doctor or a lawyer. Trade school, construction or a vocation that required him to work with his hands were suggested to him. But the irony is that today, he employs plenty of doctors and lawyers and he asks this question: ‘Would you rather be a doctor or a lawyer, or a guy who writes a check to doctors and lawyers?’

This is what Ryan thinks about having a college degree: ‘As an entrepreneur, having a college degree or getting classroom training won't hurt your chances for starting a successful business, but it's ultimately not necessary. In Malcolm Gladwell's book "Outliers," he makes a point that it takes approximately 10,000 hours to master a skill set at a professional level. That means experience, over traditional education.'

While in incarceration at the juvenile home, Ryan says he learned some lessons which are helping him in the business world today. These are some of them:

• If you give people the impression that you can be taken, you will be.
• Adaptation is the key to survival. ‘Darwin was absolutely right — survival is a matter of how you respond to change,’ he adds.
• The last lesson I got from jail is that you have to learn how to read people. You don't know who to trust. 

Some of the lessons we can learn from Ryan’s story are:

• Others may write you off, don’t write yourself off.
• Refusing to be satisfied with a certain way of life will cause you to eventually come up with a way or ways by which you can improve your life.
• Learn life lessons from whatever situation you find yourself; you don’t know when they will be useful.

NOBODY CAN WRITE YOU OFF EXCEPT YOURSELF.