A LIFE OF
IMPACT
Ayo Adebamowo
Published by Imprimata
Copyright © 2010 by Ayo Adebamowo
Second edition September 2010
Ayo Adebamowo has asserted his rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical or otherwise and whether invented now or subsequently) without the prior written permission of the publisher or be otherwise circulated in any form, other than that in which it is published, without a similar including this condition being imposed on any subsequent publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil action.
Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.
A CIP Catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-906192-48-8
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DEDICATION
Joyfully dedicated to you my little princess, Victoria Adeola. You were only a month old when I began writing this book. I believe you will grow up to live a life of impact.
Making The Most of Life
Realities of a Changing World
Responding to Changing Times
Opportunity Recognition And Utilization
A Life of Purpose
Freedom is a Treasure
By Working Thoughts Become Things
Wisdom Is Life’s Master Key
Enhancing Quality of Life Through Results
Results: The Golden Key to Maximizing Fortune
How Results Enhance Fortune
Results Enhance Value
Results Determine Reward
Results Enhance Capacity to Help Others
Results Guarantee Perpetuity
Results Enhance Credibility
Results Reflect Competence
Results Enhance Promotion to The Top
Results Turn Entities to References and Role Models
Results Enhance Capacity For Influence
Results Multiply Opportunities
Generating Results
The Informed Succeed
Decisions Determine Destinies
What Constitutes Results?
Qualitative Performance
Prerequisites For Success
Results Orientation
Appreciating Humble Beginnings
Preparation is The Bedrock of Success
Confidence Wins
The Foundation of Discipline
Discipline as a Foundation For Success
Why Discipline is Critical to Success
The Role of Discipline in The Making of Champions
The Dynamics of Discipline
Motivations For Discipline
The Pursuit of Excellence
Life is a Journey, Travel First Class
The Basis of Excellence
Striving For Excellence
Running a Successful Organisation
Creating a Culture of Excellence
We Labour to Become, Not to Acquire
The Underestimated Power of Passion
The Force of Hardwork
Hardwork Can be Easy Work
Achieving Efficiency: Primary Tasks vs Secondary Tasks
Achieving Excellence: Round Pegs in Round Holes
Enhancing Financial Success
Financial Success is Important
Wealth is Transient
Poverty is an Aberration
What Determines Financial Destinations
The Rich’s Attitude to Investment
Investment in Assets Holds The Key to Wealth
Intelligent Management of Opportunities
Financial Success is Connected to Knowledge
Creating Value
The Practice of Liberality
Maximizing Leadership
The Influence of Leadership
Leaders as The Face of Their Organisation
The Purpose of Leadership
Developing Followers
Developing Leaders Through Mentorship
The 3Cs of Leadership
Effecting Desired Change
Strategies For Effecting Change
Dissatisfaction With Present Condition
Willingness to Pay The Prize
Applied Knowledge is Power
Knowledge as The Foundation For Progress
The Pursuit of Knowledge
The Wealth of The Wise
Overcoming Cultural And Peer Influence
Ability to Respond Effectively to Changes
Personal Development
Reinventing Yourself
Maximizing Success
Commitment to New Goals
Effective People Are Always Prepared
Developing Potentials
Maintaining Your Key Assets
Leveraging on Speed
Helpers Will Be Helped
Recourse to Examples And Precedence
Security Enhances Prosperity
Ensuring Long-Term Success
Continuity is The Goal
Decadence is Gradual
Ensuring Continuity
Surviving The Storms
Never Become Complacent
Relating With People And Influencing People
Why Relationships Are Valuable
Relationships Are Essential to Maximizing Returns
Association is Transformational
Not All Relationships Are Profitable
Proper Treatment of People
Unlocking People’s Treasure
The Force of Unity
The Power of Influence
Becoming Influential
Becoming Valuable
Reward is a Measure of Value
The Demand For Value is Endless
The Basis of Value
Utilizing Success Tools
Enhancing Your Value
Generating Improved Results
Continuous Training
Character Counts
Why Character Counts
Hallmarks of Good Character
Good Character Produces Good Reputation
The Best Immunity Against False Accusations
Foundation For Lasting Success And Greatness
Preserving Integrity
Handling Difficulties
Adversities Have Advantages
Handling Difficulties Successfully is Critical
Recognizing The Root Causes of Difficulties
Ignorance is Costly
Inadequate Preparation Has Consequences
Internalized Limitations Hinder Progress
Limitations Can Be Overcome
Failures Are Moments Not Monuments
Vulnerabilities Are The Weakest Links
Mismanaging Difficulties Perpetuate Them
Recovering From Setbacks
Securing the Future
Investment Must Be Continuous
Be Prepared For Challenges
Visionary Leadership
Setting Landmarks
Developing Future Generations
Timely Detection of Changes And Response to Changes
Harmful Practices Are Inimical to Repeatable Success
PREFACE
Do books really hold any value? If they do, why do statistics indicate that most people don’t read meaningful books once they complete formal education? Considering the high number of books on success literature already in circulation, many from world-renowned authors, it is only natural to ask why another book on success? Why should the reader read this book at all? Of what benefit will reading A Life of Impact be to the reader? These and other questions dominated my thoughts in the course of writing this book. The desire to provide for the reader, satisfactory answers to these and other questions was taken into account in putting together the ideas expressed in the next 180 pages. This intention is particularly anchored on a belief that no two books are the same.
The writing of A Life of Impact is premised on three philosophies: that people perform better when they become better; that the key to impact is to generate good results, and that the informed succeed because the principles of success and failure are universal, timeless and constant, making it possible for the success of some to be duplicated and the failure of others to be avoided. The book is organized around seven cardinal principles put together to help the reader live a life of impact and make the most of life, namely: the principles of repeatable success, effective leadership, personal ethics and discipline, effecting desired change, financial success, problem management, and human relationships.
The book does much more than simply motivates you to achieve success; it equips you with the wherewithal to make a positive difference in your undertakings. By so doing, you achieve much more than success; you secure an enduring legacy becoming a source of inspiration to others in the process. It is not designed to be a one-off reading material but a reference resource you recourse to constantly for inspiration, motivation, information and education. It teaches not just what you should do but why you should do it and how should do it.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I do not believe that there is such thing as a ‘self-made’ person. What I do believe is that because success is an aggregate of inputs, the success any individual records has been made possible by the contributions of several other people, no matter how seemingly little those contributions may appear to be. This same principle applies in the writing of A Life of Impact. With this in mind, I thankfully acknowledge the support of my darling wife Sade; she created an enabling environment that made possible the writing of the book in my spare time. Thanks to Mrs Christiana Balogun and Rev Ladi Lawal for their editorial and proofreading contributions. I appreciate my sister Anne who was always seeking to know when I would follow my first book: Success Power with another and my brother Toks who was on ground doing the runs to bring the book to print. Thanks to my friends Joseph Akindipe, Sola Famubo, Bayo Awonaike, Seun Adewuyi, Gbenga Sesan and Dcn Tayo Ojo for their help in facilitating some key contacts. I cannot but thank you the reader as well for setting apart valuable time to read the book; the desire to reach you provided the motivation for writing it.
INTRODUCTION
Much of success in life is a triumph of information. This explains why the informed succeed. The better people are informed, the better their chances are of succeeding in any undertaking. A Life of Impact therefore draws valuable lessons from contemporary issues including Barrack Obama’s election as the first black US president, Tiger Woods’ admission of moral failure, Usain Bolt’s crowning as the world’s fastest man in history, the 2008-2010 global recession dubbed the ‘Great Recession’, the impact of poor leadership on Africa’s development, Manchester United Football Club’s dominance in the English premier league, Toyota car recall crisis, Forbes Rich List 2010, China’s growing influence on the global stage, Google’s dominance in the information superhighway, Bernie Madoff’s conviction of arguably the biggest fraud in history, Mark Zuckerberg’s social networking revolutionary creation: the Facebook, and many others.
But it does much more than examine contemporary events. It looks back in time to capture valuable lessons from the past. The trials, tragedies, triumphs and inspirational sayings of well-known names in history— Helen Keller, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Alva Edison, Aristotle, Martin Luther King, John D. Rockefeller and numerous others, are encapsulated in the book to furnish the reader with the tools to live a life of impact.
Revealing facts on why: the informed succeed, the best gain at the expense of the rest, those who dare get their share, the top is meant for the tough, messengers do end up as managers, adversities have advantages, failures should be viewed as moments and not as monuments, the future belongs to the disciplined, the bright can be broke, by working thoughts become things, helpers will be helped, the lack of money is the root of many evil, competence is no substitute for character and results enhance capacity to make impact, are comprehensively unfolded.
Much more than a typical motivational book, A Life of Impact is written to act as a reference resource from where life-applicable knowledge may be constantly drawn. Taking into account the constancy of the universal principles of success and realities of a changing world, the book provides information that can be immediately applied to different areas of human endeavour— career, business, leadership, family life, relationships, finances, personal character, ministry, goal achievement and the drive for self actualization.
Making The Most of Life
“Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.”
— RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Realities of a Changing World
We live in a world that is never static. Ours is a world characterized by continuous changes in conditions and trends making it a world in constant transition. The times are not only changing, they are changing rapidly in all areas of human endeavour. Critical to maximizing success in any field and making the most of life is knowing not only what is going on in the world but also where the world is going. This demands having an understanding of the times you live and knowing what to do with it.
When Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in April 1865, it took nearly a fortnight for the news to reach Europe but close to a hundred years later when John F. Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963, the news was heard same day not only in Europe but also around the world.
Just over a century ago, the West was at the forefront of spearheading the global spread of Christianity. Today the centre of gravity of Christendom has largely shifted from the West to the Global South as evident in the latter region now being home to the largest population of Christians as well as being at the forefront of sending Christian missionaries to other parts of the world.
The systems of government that dotted the world’s political landscape in the previous centuries are significantly different from 21st century political systems. Where monarchy, autocracy, theocracy and military rule once held sway, democracy and participatory governance have largely been accepted as the norm. Up to the end of the first half of the last century, nearly all African countries were under colonial rule but today all 53 countries on the continent are politically independent. The times are indeed changing. In the 1940s through the 1960s decolonization was the dominant agitation on the African continent. Today, enthronement of transformational leadership and creation of strong institutions required to free the critical mass of the populace from the grips of poverty and political instability, have become the principal needs of the continent.
Technologies that were not available a hundred years ago are now commonplace. Where wealth was once solely a function of ownership of lands and slaves, today, entrepreneurship, intellectual capital and advanced technology have become the principal drivers of wealth acquisition. As a reflection of changing times, such global challenges as the threat of terrorism, climate change, AIDS epidemic and nuclear proliferation that have newly emerged as dominant issues of concern to world leaders in the 21st century, were not the issues monarchs and emperors of the 17th and 18th centuries confronted.
In today’s globalized economy people can now work from home, pursue multiple careers, operate virtual offices or run multimillion internet-based businesses with little or no start-up capital. There are now more opportunities to break the cycle of poverty, overcome limitations, make meaningful contributions to life, and achieve social mobility and self-actualization than there were in past generations.
The changing times affect every area of our lives— career, finances, business, marriage, beliefs, culture, value-systems, social life, personal health and happiness among many others. These changes affect people positively or negatively depending on what they do in response to the changing times.
Responding to Changing Times
When a teaching assistant to Albert Einstein discovered the erudite professor had given a set of examination questions to a particular class of Physics students at Princeton University that he had given the same class in the previous year, he was compelled to ask him why he did that. Einstein simply replied the young man saying, “The answers have changed.”
To be able to respond successfully to the changes happening around you, it is important to have an understanding of the times that you are in for the principal reason that the times determine what is to be done. The times should influence your response and by responding appropriately, you secure an advantage for yourself in your endeavours. Different times not only in world history but in your own life as well present different challenges, problems and opportunities; they therefore demand different responses and responsibilities. To maximize your success in any field and live a life of impact, you will need to keep evolving responses that are applicable to these changing times. The times convey definitive messages on prevalent needs, precautions to take and course of actions to embark on in order to obtain repeatable successes.
A vital key to Barack Obama’s historical emergence as the first black President of the United States in the 2008 elections was his ability to understand the times the US was in the few years leading to the presidential elections. He understood what messages the times were conveying about the US and the world as a whole. He clearly understood that there was general discontent towards the US as an aftermath of her unilateral approach to prosecuting the so-called war on terrorism following the 9/11 Al-Qaeda attacks. Obama also understood the US economy was under a severe strain and therefore built his campaign theme around its restoration. He equally understood that the Internet offered tremendous opportunity as a tool for electoral mobilization and participation hitherto untapped to achieve massive political gains. He understood and tapped into the power of such social networking and video sharing websites as Facebook, MySpace, Beebo and YouTube, resources that were not available to previous generations of politicians. He deployed these technologies to amass political capital and unprecedented financial support. Obama understood the times and responded appropriately.
Similarly, your decisions, skills, proficiencies, outputs, contributions, products, services and approaches to issues must be relevant to the realities of the times. In his summation of the global economic slump of 2008-2010 dubbed ‘the Great Recession’, the greatest since the Second World War, Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel-winning Economist simply stated, “The model of 19th century capitalism doesn’t apply in the 21st.”
The key to success is really simple: it is in knowing what to do and doing it at the right time. It is not so much doing just about anything as doing the right thing that guarantees success. This is why the fact that you do today what others did yesterday in a venture does not necessarily guarantee you will achieve desired success in that venture. The task may be the same but the approach required may have changed; as Einstein said, the question may be the same but the answers may have changed. As a consequence, what worked yesterday may not work today and what worked today may not work tomorrow. In the words of Dennis Meadows, author of Limits to Growth, “The habits that gave us growth and progress in the past will not give us growth and progress in the future. We will see more change over the next 20 years than in the past 100.” The needs of yesteryears, the challenges of yesteryears, the solutions of yesteryears and the answers of yesteryears will not always be applicable today.
Opportunity Recognition And Utilization
Many good things in life come in form of opportunities. Life itself is an opportunity. Life is also a series of related opportunities. You need to make the most of it. You make the most of life when you make and keep making the most of opportunities that come your way. By so doing, you live your life as a fulfilled dream rather than as a monument of regrets.
Opportunities constantly come your way to enhance your fortune and your capacity to be of benefit to others. Packaged inside opportunities are potentials for successes. Whatever people, businesses, organisations and nations become is largely determined by what they do with the opportunities around them. A denominator developed countries have in common that has enabled them to consistently maintain their progressive status over the years is the rapidity with which they respond to changing times and emerging opportunities. By 1908 both the French Government and the US Army were already signing contracts with the Wright Brothers, long before the brothers perfected their plan of developing a passenger carrier aircraft following the initial success they recorded in 1903 when they built the first aircraft. Six years after its first installation at Enfield in London on 27 June 1967, the use of automated teller machine (ATM) had already become widespread in the UK. Within ten years of Alexander Graham Bell being awarded a patent for the electric telephone, the first telephone booth in the UK had been installed in Bristol.
As challenges abound in the world, so also do opportunities abound. The present era in human history in particular presents some of the greatest opportunities ever known to mankind. There is evidently greater level of gender equality, political and religious freedom in most parts of the world today than at any other time in history. Advancements in the field of medicine have helped conquer many of the diseases of past centuries bringing about appreciable increase in life expectancy particularly in developed countries.
Where you are today is largely a product of how you handled the opportunities that came your way yesterday and where you will be tomorrow will be determined by what you do with the opportunities you have today. People’s lives are primarily shaped not so much by fate, luck or random events as by how they utilize the opportunities available to them per time. Opportunities come your way continuously to enable you shape your destiny as you want. By maximizing today’s opportunities, tomorrow will naturally take care of itself. An opportunity is available when the means of obtaining a particular result, achieving an objective or accomplishing a purpose are available.
In order to achieve repeatable successes, you will need to keep locating and responding promptly to opportunities. Opportunities and timing always go hand in hand. Oftentimes, it is important not just to act but also to act promptly because opportunities are often timed. You need to treasure and maximize opportunities because they will not always come readily or even come at all. Highly effective people often achieve greater productivity and by consequence, greater success than the average person because they utilize opportunities more promptly than the average person does. As Theodore Roosevelt, a former American President observed, “Wisdom is nine-tenths a matter of being wise in time.” Many people become confined to a life of mediocrity by perpetually delaying to appropriate opportunities required to achieve the progresses propitious to making the most of life.
The consequences of missed opportunities are often painful. Most regrets in life, many of the difficulties, setbacks, pains and hardships experienced in life are direct outcomes of mismanaging opportunities or failing to appropriate them when we should. Life is such that we often regret more the things we don’t do than the things we actually do. The marriages that were not nurtured, relationships that were not cultivated, children that were not trained, careers that were not developed, books that were not written, investments that were not made, business ideas that were not implemented, dreams that were not pursued, mistakes that were not corrected, personal development not undertaken, educational pursuits and jobs not handled with commitment, decisions that were not taken, failure to do the appropriate thing when conditions were ripe for it; in essence the ghost of opportunities that were not properly utilized, have a way of hunting people long after such opportunities may have passed.