Book review: Sailing out of unemployment with entrepreneurship

A review of Adeoye Jeremiah Adediran’s book, Discover the CEO in you by Lucky Ukperi.

THIS book is a timely intervention in this period of seeking creative answers to the many unemployment problems brought about by the Coronavirus pandemic.

It emphasises entrepreneurship as a multidimensional approach to solving a problem created by an education system which emphasises knowledge acquisition for white collar jobs. The centrality of individuals’ creativity towards creating enterprises that would provide goods and services as well as meeting their financial needs is the focus of the book. Thus, it deconstructs the mindset of education for job by all means.

The author succinctly captures it when he says, ‘If you earn well as a banker, that job was someone’s brainchild. If you work in a telecommunication company, that was an idea from an entrepreneur who thought about how to make someone’s life better. Someone’s life should also be made better because you are able to think creatively.’

The first chapter ends with emphasis on four basic motivators that would give strength to waking up the dormant CEO within an individual. These are desire to be independent, desire to make money, need for self-fulfillment and desire to meet the needs of others.

Chapter two opens with the author’s emphasis on eight key attributes of a CEO. With illustrations, the CEO comes out as an entrepreneur that is confident, imaginative/visionary, leader, disciplined, risk-taker, persistent/consistent, smart and honest. The importance of possessing these attributes is emphasized as the major prerequisite to having a sustained business.

In chapter three, the fact emerges that entrepreneurship is a product of decision taken either when people are undergoing economic challenges or seeking solutions to challenges seen around them. This reveals that becoming a CEO could be learnt or it could evolve as a matter of necessity. Adediran uses real-life experience to paint graphic descriptions of attempted and ongoing foray into entrepreneurship. His apt stories expose the deficit that education or skills acquisition needs to address in contemporary Nigeria.

With the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, many issues discussed by the author have come to be seen as the only solution to curbing a growing unemployment problem and a white collar job mentality.

The author’s many attempts at different business ventures reflect the dynamism, flexibility and tenacity a prospective CEO needs to arrive at the potentially ideal business to develop.

Chapter four begins with illustrations drawn from characters within the religious and secular society. Adediran is able to buttress his assertion that ‘entrepreneurship is the way out’ as readers encounter Nigerians and non-Nigerians who discovered the CEO in them.

Discover the CEO in you is not a theoretical treatise but a book with practical steps needed to attain the goal of entrepreneurship. Thus, the author identifies nine ways to generate ideas for businesses. Potential limitations are interrogated by the author as he gives fifty possible businesses that an individual could use to start the entrepreneurial journey. This book is a necessity for everyone who needs financial freedom.

YOU SHOULD NOT MISS THESE HEADLINES FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE

COVID-19: FG directs civil servants on levels 12, 13 to resume
The Federal Government has directed civil servants on Grade Levels 12 and 13 to return to work immediately. The Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (HoSCF), Dr Folashade Yemi-Esan, gave the directive in a circular dated August 10, 2020, where she similarly directed those on essential duties to resume full duties. Since the initial lockdown measures over the COVID-19 pandemic, only workers on Grade Level 14 and above had been allowed to work…

UPDATE: Why Boko Haram recruit more members ― North-East governors
Following the recent attack on the convoy of Governor Babagana Zulum of Borno State, six governors of the northeast states and heads of security agencies have met with President Muhammadu Buhari at the presidential villa, Abuja, with the state chief executives disclosing that insurgents are able to recruit more followers because of lack of access to farmlands…

Deregistration of political parties: INEC approaches Supreme Court
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) last night gave an indication that it would approach the apex court to set aside the judgment of the appeal court which overruled it on the delisting of political parties. The electoral umpire had delisted 77 political parties after the 2019 general elections. It premised its action on the failure of the parties to win a single seat in the last elections…

ASUU set to present alternate salary payment platform to FG
After months of opposition to the implementation of the Integrated Payment and Personnel Information System (IPPIS), the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is set to make an initial presentation of its own platform known as University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) to the Federal Government…