Bags of gold — 4

Be sure you know the condition of your flocks, give careful attention to your herds;for riches do not endure forever and a crown is not secure for all generations.

When the hay is removed and new growth appearsand the grass from the hills is gathered in, the lambs will provide you with clothing and the goats with the price of a field.

You will have plenty of goats’ milk to feed your family

and to nourish your female servants. – Proverbs 27:23-27

 

SUCCESS is, to a large extent, predictable. This is because God established creation on principles that when complied with, guarantee certain outcomes. When flouted, no matter how spiritual we may claim to be, failure is the natural outcome. The Law of Gravity does not respect race or religion. It is universal. Very often, we are to blame for our failures because we are victims of the principles that we are ignorant of or flout. In the words of the sage Solomon, a man’s foolishness ruins his life and thereafter, he turns around to blame God for his failures.

On the superficial level, especially if you are one of those who subscribe to the misguided notion that business is inherently evil or largely done by people who simply love to take advantage of others, you may agree with the position of the unprofitable servant about his master.

Those who truly desire success should study the lives of highly successful people who leave footprints or templates that can be replicated. This is why I love biographies. They tell the stories of people who have made a mark in their callings and pursuits in life. Whatever you dream of becoming, someone is already living in that reality. Even if you don’t have physical access to them, search for what they have written or what has been written about them. Seek out people who might know them to tell you more about them. No doubt, some of the things you will learn may not be salutary; nonetheless, if you know how to declutter and filter information, you can extrapolate the relevant information from the entirety.

Our study of the story of the unprofitable servant would be incomplete without a study of certain principles that one can learn from the master himself.

The first is that as a leader, you must know your followers well. Make it worth your while not just to know their names or pay their salaries if they are your employers, know their capacities and their competences. Talent management is a necessary tool of effective leadership. Every workplace has a mix of talents and diversity of nature, races and capacity. According to Albert Einstein, everyone is a genius. However, if you assess a fish by its ability to jump from tree to tree like a monkey, that fish would spend its entire life believing that it was stupid.

In the story, we are told that the master gave his servants money according to each person’s capacity. To succeed in leadership, give responsibilities, assignments and resources in line with the knowledge you have of each person’s capacity and resourcefulness.

To succeed in life, stop focusing on and being disgruntled about what is not given to you but which you believe others have. Simply build your capacity and life will move things in your direction accordingly. Confident competence is a natural magnet of resources. Great leaders don’t get sentimental about desired outcomes. They allocate resources in line with demonstrated potentials.

In 1988, a few months after I became Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Publishers Association, I was invited in my official capacity to attend the annual week-long International Book Fair holding in London. My employers were to pay the airfare while the British Publishers Association would underwrite my living expenses and other costs associated with participating in the fair. The Executive Council of the association had a meeting and ruled that I was not sufficiently equipped to represent the association at such an event. Instead of a collective representation, which my attendance would have provided, they decided that members of the council should attend the fair. I felt slighted and in fact, cheated. However, I simply turned to God in prayer with a resolve that within a year, I would work on myself to such a degree that I would not only get invited to a similar event, but the invitation would also be on my personal merit, fully funded and for a longer duration. I put the necessary leg to my resolve, studied, built needed networks, attended relevant events and trainings and became such an authority on the publishing industry that I became a nationally recognised voice on issues concerning book publishing. Exactly a month to the year, I was on my way to the USA on the prestigious month-long Very Important Personalities (VIP) Visitors programme designed for the publishing industry. The programme was fully funded by the American government. I was one of 30 participants drawn from 30 countries.

That same year 1989, I applied to participate in a leadership development programme with a reputable international leadership training institute. My application was turned down. When I received the rejection letter where it was stated that they did not feel that I was sufficiently qualified, I was initially flustered. However, I resolved again to do what was necessary by working on myself until I would not only be invited to participate in the programme, but I would be invited to teach there! It took all of ten years, but it happened. In that period of time, I added significant value to myself. The then President of the Nigerian alumni association of the institute met me at a seminar and asked if I knew about the institute. I answered in the affirmative and he asked if I would like to attend the course because they needed people of my caliber as participants! He procured a form for me and proceeded to write a personal recommendation with my application, which he also took the pains to send to the institute. Exactly ten years after the rejection, I was invited to the institute as a participant in the intensive month-long, all expenses paid training programme held in Hawaii in the United States of America. At the end of our session, I was elected valedictorian for my class. By the time I returned to Nigeria, a fax message was waiting for me to the effect that I had been invited to serve on the international faculty of the institute, a role that I continue to play till the time of writing this!

In both scenarios, what changed? It wasn’t my name or my social status. It was my capacity! Over the years, as I have enhanced my capacity, I have also seen life bring opportunities my way beyond my imagination. In the words of Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States of America, “I am a great believer in luck, and I find that the harder I work, the more of it I have.”

You want to be lucky and endowed with increase? Give legs to your desire. Build your capacity and watch your luck shine!

Remember, the sky is not your limit, God is!

 

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