Understanding the business of making men

What I want to share with you at this moment cuts across every sphere of life and leadership. Putting this principle into practice will definitely change everything about what you do and how you do it and ultimately, your life and leadership will start moving northward. I have been practicing this principle for decades and it has succeeded in changing my own life and has made me to become thick in leadership.

In recent times, social media is awash and inundated with heavy criticisms—folks criticizing those who appear to be successful and influential in a third world country as Nigeria. Many folks are unduly criticizing some successful and influential men without pausing to ask intelligent questions on how they have been able to deliver outstanding success and significance in a nation where too far many folks are struggling to feed even once in a day.

One thing I do know that makes men successful and influential is the business of making men. Many people do not understand this principle. When others are making money alone, they are making men—sending them to school, looking for jobs for them, mentoring them and opening great doors for them. A few years after, when those people become successful, they will return to those who made them to be whom they are and give money and higher resources to them. On the condition that you make a hundred people successful, many will be confused in the days to come about the sources of your wealth and influence. Many folks would think you are using “juju.”

I know what I am sharing here is absolutely un-African.  The African man hardly thinks about others. He lives for himself alone. All he’s thinking about is his survival alone. All he spends his life on is money making. He has no time to get busy, making men. And when he gets old and he’s on his way out of the planet earth, his life is full of regrets, because no one remembers how much he has on his way out of here. And a few weeks after he dies, he’s completely forgotten. What an incorrect way of living!

If you will not make men, when you die, your name will perish from under the firmament. There are people we remember every year, we do so, not because of how much they left behind in their bank accounts, but we remember them annually, because they made men when they were alive. This should let you know that those who make men do not die!

Ayo Ojewumi was late Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s mentee. Awolowo played a very significant role, making “Pen Atalata” who he was. When Chief Awolowo died, Ayo Ojewumi stopped smoking to honor his mentor and he did not return to smoking till he, too passed on to the land of the silent ones. This is how powerful it is to make men and not spend all of one’s life making money alone. You want to wield a very heavy influence in the days to come? Then start making men today!

There is a kind of indescribable joy that comes from making men successful. No amount of money can buy it. Over the years, I have enjoyed this joy. Those who only live for themselves cannot experience this joy. Nothing is as gratifying as making others to become significant and successful, opening doors of opportunities for them. This is the best way to live as a leader. The African man needs to understand this principle and starts walking it out in shoe-leather.

If all you are making today is money alone without making men, you cannot be on the same level—in the days to come—with those making men. To become a voice goes beyond speaking alone. You will have to make men, so that even when you do not open your mouth to speak, your voice will still be very loud and clear as water. If you are not making men, you are actually shooting yourself in the leg. Those who do not make men cannot take over the nations in the days to come.

David, in the Bible, made debtors, discontented men and men you could call the rejects of the society to become mighty men. Years after, he was thirsty and those men put their lives on the line to get some water for him. What a great sacrifice it was on their part! This is what happens when you make men today. No sacrifice will be too big for them to make for you in the days to come.

There are some people that thousands of men can die for today. No sacrifice is too much to make for them. You know why? They made them to be who they are today. They sent them to school. They got jobs for them. They brought them into politics. This is how people become highly influential in every sphere of life. Today, I counsel that you too should join this noble business—the business of making men. This is the best way to live.

Lastly, he who has money can never be as influential as he who has both money and men! Going forward, do not only wait for men to come to you, but be wise enough to spot men who are raw materials for success, significance and greatness and invite them to follow you, not to use them and discard them as tissue paper as being popularly done today in many quarters, but to make them to become who they desire to become. This is one of the best decisions you are going to make in your life. Putting this principle into practice will make you to become very influential in life and leadership in the days to come. Till I come your way again next Monday, see you where those who are making men are found!

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