Tayo Solagbade’s
Performance Improvement IDEAS
(PI Squared) Newsletter
Monday 21st November 2016
NB: This PI Squared newsletter will be published weekly, on Mondays, in place of the Speaking/Web Marketing IDEAS newsletter, starting from today – 15th February 2016. I’m reinventing my Monday newsletter content and theme, to accommodate my vision of serving the growing audience of serious minded individuals and organizations reaching out to me, with information, education. news and research findings designed to help them do what they do better.
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PII 041: Avoid Intellectual Laziness, Learn How Things Work…to Achieve Success [Hint: A Culture of Making Your Own Things is Key to Individual/National Development – See Photos of Home Made Ankara Slippers and Shoes Inside]
All over the world people who excel in life ahead of their peers in any area of endeavour, most times succeed because they devote unrelenting time, energy and effort to MASTERING one or more vocations.
Without mastery, you are unlikely to be anything more than average or mediocre.
Yet, mastery itself cannot be achieved unless one develops sound understanding of how to do whatever it is one wishes to excel at.
Societies in which the leaders and people agree on the above are often those that end up developing ahead of others.
Over the past 3 decades of my life, I have remained deeply intrigued by the subject of success and how it is achieved across various groups of people, societies and cultures.
We have witnessed many countries start out on the same or even lower rankings with others in terms of being underdeveloped, and rise to become leading nations.
The so called Asian Tigers are a good example.
In contrast to the above nations, some countries in certain geographical regions, like Africa, especially Black Africa, seem to be jinxed where achieving sustainable development is concerned.
I use that word (jinx) for lack of a better adjective.
For some strange reason, many (but of course NOT all) Black African peoples seem lacking in the ability to look inwards and gain the required understanding of how things work (to paraphrase a preacher in a video I watched called).
It goes without saying that they excel in certain fields, like sports and entertainment – but even in those areas, they often do NOT do it without technical “input” from non-Africans.
However this seems to be more relevant with regard to them within their own societies, as a GROUP.
By this I mean that many individual Black Africans have proven themselves to be exceptionally capable of not only achieving sound understanding of how things work, but also applying that understanding to achieving groundbreaking success in various fields.
Most times however one notices they tend to self-actualize when they leave their own societies and go to more stable and well organized environments in developed societies.
Returning home to their countries of origin to reproduce and replicate the same results generally tends not to come easily for them.
Like a friend recently noted, over half a century after independence, Nigeria with all its wealth and size, in human and financial terms, continues to import experts to build roads, and other infrastructure for her people. Yet she graduates engineers annually from universities it runs!
Now, I have done a lot of thinking and reading about this and come to the conclusion that the main problem stopping the clued up Black Africans from impacting their larger societies with their genius is the MENTALITY of the popular majority.
Too many Black Africans are intellectually lazy. Note that I said “too many” and NOT all. By the way, I’m black but I don’t know if I qualify to be called an “intellectual”. I will say that my observations and insights have driven me to work hard on myself, to avoid intellectual laziness and LEARN how things work, so I can make my own stuff.
The results I’ve gotten over the past 2 decades attest to my success. For instance, I built custom spreadsheet software while in paid employment, that were formally adopted for use in my workplace, and since leaving paid employment I have established my brand providing custom Excel-VB apps for buyers in/out of Africa. I believe we need more of my kind of people to be this way, if we are to achieve our full God-given potentials as a race.
The effort required to achieve the understanding of how things work therefore tends to be something they are not prepared to exert for any reasonable length of time.
For instance CREATIVE THINKING which is the foundation required for building a virile industry of micro to small scale production done by home based businesses, is NOT embraced.
The average Black African is averse to thinking of LEARNING how to make his own clothes, shoes, software, food etc. Instead, most of them grow up learning to live high consumption lifestyles in which virtually everything they spend money on is imported or made by foreigners operating local production operations.
The indigenes prefer working as employees to engaging in creative production based pursuits that reduce demand form and dependence on imported products.
All of the above stems from a lack of self-confidence.
They generally believe they do not know enough to make anything on their own, that will be as good as what they already see is available.
So they settle down to a life of using without thinking.
The business of agriculture alone, for a country like Nigeria for example, offers massive potential benefits from the production to the processing as well as the marketing perspectives.
However, if Nigeria as a nation and Nigerians as a people fail to CHANGE their mentality from giving leadership in the THINKING about how they will DO agribusiness to outsiders and foreigners, lasting development and self-sufficiency in Agro based development (which is so badly needed now) is unlikely to happen.
Nigerians/Black Africans need to take ownership of their development efforts. They must do what the Indians, Singaporeans, Chinese, Indonesians and other Asians did to leave them behind.
They must look inwards and TEACH themselves to develop an understanding of how things work. And then they must put that understanding to use in implementing their development plans.
This process, if it is to succeed must begin from every home, with parents and children alike embracing this proposed philosophy as a way of life.
If the leadership of the country or group will not do it. Individuals can adopt it for use in their private lives.
China is a good example: Countless micro to small home based businesses churn out all sorts of products daily. Quite a good number are family based.
The same trend obtains even in Europe and America. Some people start small and choose to stay that way – producing essential goods to high standards, which are shipped far beyond their borders, in addition to being used on the home front.
If Black African nations evolve a similar culture, their rapid rise to join the ranks of developed nations will be inevitable.
[Photos] I practice what I preach – along with my kids. Apart from our trademark no-oven charcoal stove baked products range, I encourage them to LEARN how to make things (like battery powered toy bikes – and more recently shoes/pam slippers of all kinds)
Kids that grow up in an atmosphere where they are constantly challenged to learn how to make their own versions of things they usually buy, will develop the self-confidence and mental attitude to take ownership of their consumption.
That will make them reduces dependence on buying stuff, in favour of making theirs. And they will influence/inspire others in their social circles to emulate them.
Below: This pair of ankara slippers were made from scratch by me and my 7 year old daughter for her to wear casually to visit relatives, neighbours etc
Below: This pair of ankara shoes were made by me and my 10 year old daughter using an old pair of worn out shoes she was planning to dump. We basically resurrected those shoes with Ankara material using ideas we got from a Youtube video by a creative Nigerian custom shoe making expert
Below are some links to more information about what we do, with photos of stuff we make
1. Temi & Oluoma’s No-Oven Charcoal Stove Baking | Facebook
4. Teach Kids to Develop (& Monetize!) Market Relevant Abilities EARLY In Life [VIDEO DEMONSTRATION: After Watching Short DIY Video, 12 Year Old Builds Battery Powered Toy Power bike Using Sticks from Sweets as Frames, a Rotor from Damaged DVD as Engine, Plastic Coke Bottle Covers as Tyres & a Microphone Battery from his Mother’s Church As Power Source]
5. [Workshop for Kids – by a Kid] Build Your Own Battery Powered Toy Bike!
Pay N5,000.0 (Five Thousand Naira) and Get These 3 Publications – Over N10,000 value!
Take up my promo offer of these 3 PDFs – click here to fill/submit the request form.
2. Proven Techniques (& Strategies) You Can Use to Start and Finish Writing Anything
3. Tested, Proven and Ready-To-Use Ideas for Marketing Your Book at Zero Cost
Take up my promo offer of these 3 PDFs – click here to fill/submit the request form.
Excel-VB Driven Ration Formulator
1. Click here to learn more about this app – watch demo videos etc
2. Click here to watch a 4 part video in which I demonstrate how to use this app to formulate rations using real life data sent to me by an Algerian PhD student.
Click here to contact me about purchasing this product.
EXCEL-VB DRIVEN POULTRY LAYER FARM MANAGER SOFTWARE
Click here to download a detailed PDF user guide and watch 15 screen shot user guide tutorials of the Monthly Poultry Farm Manager that I now offer Farm CEOs.
Click here to contact me about purchasing this product.
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