MOTIVATION FOR THE WEEK – FATHER’S DAY EDITION THE FUTURE OF THE NIGERIAN (AFRICAN) YOUTH.

I was invited to speak at the second graduation ceremony of The Susan Brown Foundation’s Skills Acquisition Program last week, alongside panelists including the Chairman of the Nigerian Union of Journalist (NUJ), Rivers State - Comrade Stanley Job

With the rapid pace of change in the economic landscape and uncertainties in the global economy, I posited that Nigerian youths must take the necessary steps to transform in other to stay competitive, relevant and proactively ahead.

In addition, I enumerated some of the roles successful leaders (Fathers & Mentors) must play in this process.

ON YOUTHS…

I mentioned that success is what we attract by the persons we have become. It is therefore necessary for us to refine our own thinking, processes, develop our own disciples and become twice as valuable each day. To start a new process of learning, we can sign up for classes and commit ourselves to a new skill, a new degree or whatever it is we want to learn. I emphasize the need to be multi-talented, multi-skilled – to be able to do almost everything. Be dedicated enough to develop ourselves so we can help others in the process.

I cited an article published recently in CNBC and written by Stephane Kasriel, CEO Upwork titled, “The Future of Work Won’t Be About College Degrees, it will be about Job Skills.”

To have a better understanding of Stephane’s article, I informed them that today markets are emerging and provides unprecedented opportunities in every field you can imagine, every industry, every dimension of life and every business but with this also comes keen competition, made worst/better by the advent of internet. But that is what life is all about.

What then, do we need to stay relevant?

Of course, to develop multiple skills for we do not lack capacity as long as there are teachers…

I told them to volunteer and freelance in order to acquire the skills that would be useful for what they want to do.

Finally, there is now the proliferation of new, non-traditional educational options something the Susan Brown Foundation is offering to jobless youths and that youths should take advantage of them.

Today, children who are entering into primary schools will end up with jobs that don’t yet exist.

Work and the knowledge it requires is no longer static. College degrees are no longer the only pathway to professional competence and therefore DOES NOT GUARANTEE OUR YOUTHS JOBS ANYMORE.

If anyone has stayed with a single skill in the last 5 years, it is time to rejig yourself and do something.

ON LEADERS…

It was the great Management guru Peter Drucker who once said, “There is no success without a successor.” Achievement is really achievement if it continues long after we are gone. So, it is up to today’s leaders (Fathers & Mentors especially) to develop the next generation of leaders.

In leadership, we have always been told to work with the people who DESERVE something and not the people who NEED them.

The challenge today is the responsibility of leaders to SHOW people how to DESERVE something.

One of the best places to start from is the family.

I have two daughters aged 7 years and 18 months with titles - Operations Manager and Logistics Manager respectively.

I try to show my kids how to deserve my time, my attention and as God gives the grace, my resources for just anything from the mundane to the super exciting. I am sometimes fascinated at their request.

Late last year, the Operations Manager asked for a bicycle and I said that is not how we talk in this house.

She has been taught how to place a demand & so she said, “Daddy, tell me what I need to do to get a bicycle”

My response was to introduce her to the time tested wealth building pattern of savings in which all monies received from her parents, friends, etc will be placed in a dedicated piggy-bank and opened on her birthday which was on Christmas Day – December 25. I told her, discipline is what is required to get the bicycle and that for every time she denies herself the niceties of life she is speeding up the process of acquiring the bicycle or whatever it is in life she wanted. Selectively, for requests for Ice-Cream, outings, etc we threw the exact value of the funds into the piggy-bank. We asked her to do the same thing for most of the cash gifts she received and she was so disciplined in the process.

Painfully, most of these requests were influenced by what they see other children do and how the parents of these children respond. Well, every parent must know what works for them & their wards.

While insisting on her developing the right habit, we were also concerned about the health implication of filling her life with junks and processed foods.

By the end of the period she was able to save NGN 25,650 (about $83) and you could feel her joy when we told her the balance will be completed for the Bicycle. But the point is not in the Bicycle, but in the ability to delay gratification and develop the disciplines required for achieving success. Today, she ask for money purposefully to put in her piggy-bank long after the bicycle request – an habit has been formed. Teach them…

The Facility Manager on her own part does a lot of work within the home, but one key function she has mastered is her routine ability with which she welcomes me whenever I am returning home – stylishly unties the shoe lace, remove my shoes and take them to HER EXACT SPOT, sometimes throwing away other shoes in the process currently occupying that space. Lols.

There is no perfect step-by-step guide for leaders on how to develop youths for the future, however, leaders have to examine their processes and industry conditions to find their own solutions. The Government also must commit to partnering with responsible organisations who create the right platform for youths in this transformation drive, not just for the benefits of the youths alone, but for the nation as well. Leaders must put it as part of their vision and make the necessary budgetary provisions and be happy to see that their organisations invest in growing the skills that will be required for the future often through on-the-job-training and that by putting youths at the heart of the company’s transformation, youths can succeed.

What then is my message?

There is plenty of time available for those who deserve it

There is plenty of resources for those who qualify - the universe is limitless in its abundance of resources.

There is plenty of income in the marketplace for those who develop themselves and become more valuable in a growing way this year in comparison to last year.

There are lots of people in Africa who are currently showing youths how to be deserving – deserving of their time, deserving of their attention and deserving of their resources and choose to play in that space.

It is called SERVICE – and they are willing to give back to their communities!

These group of people have accepted the call to NURTURE Africa's youth for the future we all want to see.

I have provided some names below so we can follow them and glean from the incredible work they are doing to ensure that Africa and her youths become the best versions of themselves and that Africa becomes all that God has created her to be.

Some of these include Strive Masiyiwa Dala Alphonso Patrick Uduma and of course, @victoruruaka. Wink!

As a summary, I will say the following points should be pasted at the tables of our hearts;

Get the Right Education & Skill Set

Build your Goals around the key dimensions of life – health, wealth & social, etc

Surround yourself with fathers, mentors, certain people that will help you build your network & networth

Have the right mental attitude and fortitude (build resilience) towards success.

To all those who lost fathers at early ages, to those who never experience a fathers’ love, and for those who will offer themselves to father the youths of Africa, this is to you.

Happy Father’s Day!

#FathersDay #Youths #Mentoring #Future #Africa #Innovation #SaveOurYouths