Title : Take Charge, by Adeolu Akinyemi. ED Generis Solutions Hello all, please can I get your permission to address you like I’m speaking to you one on one? I really want to help and add value, and feel strongly that if I’m free and I express myself I’ll be able to achieve my objective faster. Thank you! First of all, let me say that we had an objective in putting this programme together, that objective was to add value to lives. To educate people and turn things around for people generally. The whole concept was to create a new experience and fire people up to change their lots and consequently the lot of our Nation Nigeria. As you can see, we have decided to give full value, despite the fact that it was free. Our objective was and still is to add quantifiable value, to turn people around and set them up for their dreams. Talking about this noble objective, there was a story I once read, that makes me always want to clarify ahead of the objective, lest it’s misconstrued. There was once an old woman who had three grown up sons. All of these sons had great jobs, did good businesses and were what you would call successful. The old woman -their mother, was doing her 70th birthday and they each decided to honor the mum with a gift. After sending their gifts the met together to discuss the gifts they had each bought for their mum. The first son had the bought the mum a mansion. It was a 10 bedroom state of the art, beach side magnificent domicile. It was simply exquisite, it cost him $50,000. The second son bought the mum a first in class, new in the market, latest version of the Mercedes Benz. He bought this car and got one of the best drivers in the market to go with it, he felt pretty confident that the mum would enjoy the gift; it had cost him $75,000. At last the third son spoke, with a lot of glee and excitement in his voice…surely he had been able to outdo both of his brothers. He had bought the mum a parrot! Parrot? You might wonder, but not any parrot. He said, “We all know how much our mum loves to read the bible but for her ailing eyesight, well I knew that mum really wanted this, so what i did was get mum a parrot that had been in the seminary for the past 7yrs, and had been thoroughly coached on how to recite the entire bible. Mum only had to quote the book and verse, and the parrot will bring it on! This seemed pretty exciting and the brothers agreed, the bird had cost him $50,000 down payment and $100,000 per year for the next 5yrs. 2 weeks later they each received a note from the mum. The letter acknowledged their gifts. To the first son, the mum said, “My son, the gift you bought for me is impractical, I live in only one of the rooms but I have to clean them all! It’s simply too tasking and might kill me before my time. To the second son, “In as much as I think the car is a good one, I haven’t used it, and doubt seriously that I would, where am I going? I have no desires to leave my room; the car is not so helpful. To the thirds on, the mum wrote, “Ha, you are the only one who knows what your mum wants, you are a true son. Thanks very much for the chicken, it tasted so nice!!! Hello all, we have gone through a lot to bring you this sophisticated parrot. Please let it serve its purpose, don’t cook it! Let’s stretch to achieve the objectives. I want to start by asking you a question. Where will you be 5yrs from now? Have you answered that question? You need to. The world is changing rapidly, what was real some years ago is absurd today. We need to be able to answer the question of our position in the future, lest we be irrelevant in it. Let’s take a walk back it time. In just 1900, a little over a hundred years ago, there was no electricity on earth, no cars on the streets, technology was history. In the same breath, the inhabitants of the earth were less than 1 billion. Fast forward that to 1950’s, the population of the world had doubled! With a computer, much less powerful than the least desired one today, NASA had launched a man to the moon. In another 10 years, the world will be about 9 billion. Technology would have taken bigger leaps, the economy that has improved more in 25yrs than 500yrs behind would still have moved again. In that world…5yrs from now, where would you be? The future belongs to those, who believe in the beauty of their dreams. The future is what we make of it! No wind blows in favor of a ship without direction, the wind favors the ablest navigators. You need to set your sail, know your mark and gun for it! I loosely remember a story of a house that was burning in Lagos. Like we used to say then, a magnanimous conflagration was consuming a magnificent domicile, multitudes aggregated with velocity to extinguish it amidst hullabaloo ;-). Well, to cut a long story short, everybody around town gathered in front of this house. Some where weeping, some crying, others shouting, and many others sharing the pains of those whose properties had been trapped in the 10 story edifice. The most pathetic case was a woman who was literally beside herself weeping and lamenting. All the other victims had to get easy on their complaints as this woman lamented that her baby was in the room on the 10th floor. The fire service men had gathered, but without water. Everybody sorrowed for this woman, but the building burnt and all watched. The 10th floor was on fire, a man had to be insane or madly in love to venture into that building, but while they were all discussing and obviously cowing away from doing any such thing, a fire service man decided to brave the odds and make it straight for the building. He ascended the stairs as quickly as he could in the full view of all, while they all had their hearts in their tongue, all hopeful that it would not be two lives lost. The practically counted the floors for him as he mounted them one after the other, running frantically as he was out of time. By the time he dashed into the room of the 10th floor, all hoped for him. After like 30 seconds of dodging fire crusts, he came out to the stair case. Floor by floor collapsed after him as he held on to the baby all covered with cloth. He ran for dear life, fell, got wounded, but stood up again. As if an a movie with a good ending, he bursts out of the house and was welcomed by the victorious shout of the crowd. They simply went ballistic. He dragged himself to the mother and handed over the baby. The mother was joyous, glad almost anxious. She collected the baby, opened the shawl and cried out bitterly…”its my babies doll you took, not my baby!!! The fireman was daring, courageous bold, intelligent, risk taking, nothing he needed to do that he didn’t do. He had the activity done to get the baby, but he failed in results. Why? Because he didn’t carefully define his target before he moved. Many like this, spend 20yrs climbing the ladder of success only to discover that the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall. What is the future you desire? Write it down! And yes, I’m sure someone will say, but this is Nigeria! This things work in the west, not here. In Nigeria, there are many issues, government is inefficient, no infrastructure, there is complete system failure e.t.c. The government has become the blaming point of bastard excuses. I hear even the ministers and Baba complain about the government, who then is the government! Once upon a time there was a king who put an obstacle on the road as a test. He wanted to see what the villagers would do. Some passed by and complained bitterly about the government, some erected a signpost saying the road belonged to the federal government, some passed without a word, and only one man ventured to remove the stone. When he did, he found a bag of gold underneath, inside which was the message, this belongs to whoever chooses to remove obstacles because underneath them are always opportunities. Everyday different colors of men come to this nation. Have you asked what they might be looking for? Opportunities abound in this country, they are the same problems many complain about, and gold is under every one of them. For example, I’m solving a problem, I’m making jobs available online for people to see www.deoluakinyemi.com/categoryjob-blog , people check the information for free, it solves their problem, but I am getting to earn some dollars by the sides because I make the information available and people go to the site. There are as many opportunities as obstacles around you…Look! You might be looking for easy opportunities, don’t kid yourself. Easy come is still easy go! Nothing that does not take sweat from you is yours! You need to learn that every good thing takes work. Alternative to hard work is hard life. Everybody will work, some will choose their labor, and others will have it bestowed on them. Where do you want to fall? Thomas Edison forced us to have light bulbs. He didn’t give up. When he died, America shut out its light for one minute, in honour of the man who gave it light! What you struggle to achieve is what you’ll be remembered for. The butterfly needs to struggle to break its own cocoon. If you help it, it will not fly. For the strength to fly is derived from the struggle to break out. Don’t look for help from work or gainful struggle. Endure! There is a velocity beyond which all earth bound pulls refuse to hold. That velocity is escape velocity. In everything you do in life, things will attempt to pull you back, keep building your momentum; someday you will escape…soon! Having understood these fundamentals, we also need to ask ourselves, where do people get bypassed by opportunities, and are they redeemable??…here are some reasons. People are not aware of opportunities, people are not qualified, people are qualified but don’t look the part, people are too busy, people are not prepared for the opportunity when it comes, people are not connected……these are excerpts from the speech of Adeolu Akinyemi on 180 degrees, if you are interested in getting to know further…send a comment to book ahead for the CD.