"In the Shoes of Achievers."

The great slogan of the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) states that, “the mind is a terrible thing to waste, but a wonderful thing to invest in.” Even though the goal of the fund and the slogan was and still is to raise funds to enable African-Americans attend college, it can equally be applied to encourage the youth, pretty much everywhere to invest in their academic and experiential education to prepare them for a better future. One way of attaining such experiential education to enhance the minds of these youth and prepare them for success in the future is to learn in their endeavours about how to walk in the “shoes of achievers.” How did these achievers attain those heights despite all the challenges, trials and tribulations?

It was thus a great pleasure and an honour to share with the 5th cohort of the UNFPA Young Leadership (YoLe) Fellows in Ghana some of the factors that enabled those who achieved success to able to do so. First, there were some basics that I wanted these Fellows to know: (1) to achieve any greatest height in life, it is a choice you must make (2) achieving any great success in life is not due to chance or luck, it is due to hard work and perseverance, devoid of making excuses (3) finally, that anything worth having does not come easy. These basics must be followed by enablers. The first enabler is your character. Your character is what you do when no one is watching. Note that your ability and smarts can get you to the top of whatever you work hard to achieve, but your character is what is going to keep you up there. The second enabler is your attitude. I cautioned these Fellows that they should watch their individual attitudes, because it is the first thing people notice about them. I added that, one’s attitude is like a flat tire. If you don’t change it, you are going nowhere. The third enabler is honesty. Be honest in whatever you do. Warren Buffet, the American billionaire once said that, “honesty is a very expensive gift, don’t expect it from cheap people.” The fourth enabler is integrity. I am talking about being ethical. When something is not right, don’t do it; and if it is not true, don’t say. The fifth and sixth enablers are humility and learning how to handle failure. Humility is simply about being humble. This is because, “no condition is permanent,” and usually, your pride will come before your fall. Finally, for most of those who have achieved greater heights had to faced failure. When they faced failure, they learnt from it, got up, dust themselves off and started all over.