What I really do on the MBA Programme

This is what my grandma thinks I do on the MBA programme.

This is what my facilitators think I do on the MBA

This is what my Mentor thinks I do on the MBA 

This is what my childhood friends think I do on the MBA

This is what I think I do on the MBA program

This is what my Prof. thinks I do on the MBA program

This is what my parents think I do on the MBA program

This is what my girlfriends think I do on the MBA program

This is what my brother thinks I do on the MBA

This is what my best friend thinks I do on the MBA

This is what my business partners think I do on the MBA

What International students think I do on the MBA

What the Canadian Minister for Trade thinks I do on the MBA

This is what my colleagues think I do on the MBA

THEN I ASK MYSELF, WHAT DO I REALLY DO ON THE MBA??

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2 Things

As occasion demands;

1. Learn to say “no”

2. Learn to say “I don’t know”

Saying “No” is a remarkable way of saving your time and ultimately your life and saying “I don’t know” though a tough statement for many, can bail one out in times of confusion as it does not necessarily indicate ignorance but a willingness to learn.

In whatever you do;

1. Promise little

2. Deliver much

Promising others little is important but does not in itself deliver much. It is in promising ourselves much and holding our words in high esteem that ensures that we can actually deliver much.

Are you in a new place?

1. Open your eyes

2. Close your mouth

New in the PC industry, Steve Jobs opened his mouth and explained how great the business was but Bill Gates opened his eyes and saw there was abundant space but for a major software company and he pushed Microsoft in there.

When you are angry;

1. Close your mouth

2. Open your mind

In opening your mind, you think opportunities and the worst you can do is revenge which hopefully will not see the light of day. In opening your mouth, you spit out irretrievable fire which will burn the countenance of another and yours as well.

Nothing goes for nothing

1. What you do not kill cannot die

2. What is not know cannot be forgotten

To achieve anything worthwhile, you have to put in reasonable effort. No beginning starts without an end. To start succeeding, you have to first end failure and to begin wealth, you have to first end poverty.

If at all you must lose;

1. Lose the bait to catch the fish

2. Lose ignorance to gain knowledge

Who says losing is bad? It all depends on what you lose. You have to lose carbon (iv) oxide to gain oxygen in other to survive as a human being. We have to lose the old archaic to gain the new and trendy.

Have you noticed?

1. Silence makes no mistakes

2. Money makes no enemies

Take notice and be wise “Silence Mystifies & Money Magnifies”. If only a fool can keep quiet, he will be thought wise and if only you had more money, you will have less visible enemies.

That which cannot be cured must be endured

1. God will provide – but you must provide till He does

2. Only fire can be concealed, its smoke cannot be held back

Even if we prevented Adam and Eve from eating the forbidden fruit, you probably would have been the one to eat it. So even if it means selling snow during winter or buckets of sand in the desert, be creative and persevere during times of hardship. Never reduce to giving excuses for your situation.

For your business to thrive

1. Make plans as complex as possible but give simple orders

2. Never trouble Trouble until Trouble troubles you

Its simple, “Think complex, talk simple; that in itself will save you a whole lot of trouble.”

In case you never knew;

1. The only way to keep a secret is to say nothing

2. The best armour is to keep out of range

Prevention is said to be better than cure and obedience better than sacrifice. Well, I believe that prevention is in itself the cure and obedience is in itself sacrifice.

On a final note;

1. He is a fool that cannot conceal his wisdom

2. Be civil to all, sociable to many, familiar with a few and friendly to a handful

Much more than loving what you do; Do what you love because most of the time, that’s all that counts.

One more thing

1. Preparation is the mother of good fortune

2. Daring is its father

Because you need to dare even to prepare

Much more than you achieve, inspire

Much more than you receive, give

Much more than you prepare, dare

Much more than you plan, pray

Much more than you say, do

Because in actual sense, that’s all I have to say

Speech by Segun Dada as CEO of SLM Services to SLM partners © April 2007

Time and Tide awaits no one

All that we truly own is time

He who lacks every other thing owns time

Naked we came, and naked we’ll return

One thing is sure, we’ll account for the time we burn

For this reason, watches are so named

That every moment lived and every decision made

It continually helps to remind

Watch what you do with time, in a manner that’s kind

Watch and pray the Bible warns

For we know not when the Saviour returns

Let us now seek first God’s kingdom

And every other thing shall be an addendum

We can never have time enough for anything

But time can be created like every other thing

If we need more time, it is our duty to create it this date

For tomorrow might be too late

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Wealth is in Ideas

Bolt: Lessons in Competition

Bolt: with his eyes on the clock

Jamaican Usain Bolt blitzed to victory in a spectacular 100 metres sprint on Sunday the 5^th of August, at the London 2012 Olympics clocking the second fastest time ever amid deafening roars from the 80,000 people packed into London's Olympic stadium.

The towering 6'5" and 25-year-old athlete broke the tape in 9.63 seconds, an Olympic record and seconds only to his own world mark of 9.58 seconds.

"My coach said stop worrying about your start, the best of your race is at the end, that's where you rule," said Bolt, "so I stopped worrying about the start and I executed, so it worked," this he added after winning the race in Olympic record time despite a slow start.

Chants of "Usain" rang out around the capacity crowd as he pointed to the sky with his trademark "lightning bolt" gesture, and basked in adulation during a slow jog around the edge of the track, draped in the Jamaican flag.

But the thing that got to me was the fact that Usain kept his eyes on the clock through the race and not on the others competing with him and I guess that was why a seemingly slow start did not bother him. He was competing against himself.

As humans, our aim here on earth more than any other thing is to fulfill our purpose. Fulfilling purpose might sound trivial but by fulfilling your purpose you unconsciously permit others to fulfill theirs. Year after year, the world advances and life becomes more convenient and worth living because a few determined people decided to fulfill purpose. Imagine what progress we would have made if more and more people did same.

Our goal is not to compete against our fellow humans or try to outsmart others, our goal primarily should be to continually improve ourselves and beat our own records all towards the goal of fulfilling our purpose and helping others to fulfill theirs. Because when we transform our ideas into positive venture, we make the world a better place to live in and inspire others to do same. 

From time past, it has always been the most rewarding path to thread.

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Once Upon a Time..

This reminds me of my younger years. The statement meant I was about to listen to a story. A story of success or that of failure, one with a happy ending or a sad one;  most times, the stories featured the tortise. Above all, I learnt one ultimate lesson. Time eventually sorts everyone out.

It is commonly said here in Africa that 20 children do not play together for 20 years. It is because time automatically creates levels and as some children move up to higher levels some move down of course to lower levels. Something worthy of note about time is that it does not tolerate stagnancy you are either improving or getting worse, amassing wealth or losing it. Time enormously rewards those who use it judiciously and punishes those that waste it.

I lost my grand mum a day into the New Year, 30th December 2008. It was quite a heavy loss to me. She was aged 89 and had seen a lot in those fruitful years even though she spent the last decade of her life in blindness. She helped me understand a vital lesson about life; 'Wasted time can never be regained and what we call “time enough” often proves “little enough”'- unknown.

She never saw her blindness as a disadvantage or an opportunity to just sit in some room and idle away. She made good use of every minute. Being a teacher in her earlier years she taught we her grand children to be the best in whatever we do and to make the best use of time and never to waste time wishing our condition were better but to make the best of everything and every time we had.

She fostered unity of purpose and instilled Godly virtues in her children, she  was also an inspiration to those without the family and a provider to not a few families.

Do you love life, do not waste time, for that is the stuff life is made of and in using time, never confuse being busy with productivity as many have wasted their productive years by “being busy” doing the wrong and unnecessary things that do not count.

How much more than necessary do you spend in sleep, forgetting that “The sleeping fox catches no poultry and the sleeping Jonah is unaware of the damage he causes everyone on the boat?” Failing to realize that there would be enough of sleep in the grave - unknown.

Wake up and maximize your time, once upon a time Bill Gates envisioned Microsoft, Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook, Larry Page and Sergey Brin developed Google. Today these discoveries are an essential part of our everyday lives.

All I can say now is that once upon a time, the world’s greatest grand mum walked the face of planet earth.

Today presents you with another “once upon a time” opportunity and its left for you to decide what people read and say about you tomorrow.

Rethinking Education

The current system of education always leaves me with many unanswered questions.....not like homework questions....but real life questions.

What holds now was perfect in the industrial era when all one needed to excel at work was to follow instructions to the letter.

In today's world, its more about initiative, intuition and independence. Organizations can no longer afford to employ 10 people to do 1 job, rather they are looking for 1  person that can effectively do 10 jobs and pay the person the fee of 3 people....thereby eliminating about 70% of their costs.

To be continued...

Perspectives

Famous actor Jackie Chan and Renowned basketballer Yao Ming

According to Jackie Chan, ''Yao Ming and I only have a SLIGHT difference in height...''

How true this is depends on his perspective. 

Perspective is a measured assessment of a situation, giving all aspects their comparative importance.

Our perspectives shape our decisions and ultimately the lives we live. It would be most helpful to us if we broaden our thinking beyond our present circumstance so that we can see things beyond what they currently are to what they can possibly be.

So Mr. Chan might not seem as tall even with his hand raised up, he can stand tall in his minds eye.

IN THE NEWS

Segun Dada with Senior Manager, Financial Advisory Services KPMG, Temitope Odukoya, CFA, CAIA, ACA, MSc(FIN) after a training on Mergers&Acquisition and Valuation at Lagos Business School by the KPMG team lead by Dapo Okubadejo Partner & Head, Corporate Finance and Financial Advisory West Africa, Head Africa Mergers & Acquisition.

OPTION: A financial Instrument

Options are financial instruments used in managing or hedging risks.

In today's picture, Simon takes a risk in printing complementary cards only to be told by his master that his name had been changed to Peter. Life and business is full of risks andt our goal as managers is not to avoid risks but to effectively manage them.

The value and usefulness of "options" is that they provide managers with flexibility in decision making and a means of reducing the risk associated with such decisions.

An option is a financial instrument that provides the owner the right but not the obligation to buy or sell  an asset at a predetermined value, at a given date. All the buyer of the "option" needs to do is to pay an "option price".

The way it works is that as a manager, you can identify an asset and instead of buying it, you can buy an option to buy it on a later date at an agreed price. The buyer of the option gains the right, but not the obligation, to engage in that transaction, while the seller incurs the corresponding obligation to fulfill the transaction. 

So you pay a premium (an option fee) which is usually a small amount compared to the cost of the asset and if it turns out that the buying price at the call date is not favorable, you can decide not to buy the asset but if it is favorable, you can buy at the agreed price and sell off at a profit.

A strange work of art

I have passed by this piece of art every day for close to one year and for the first time today, it struck how powerful a meaning it holds.

Many people have walked by this piece for years and never got its meaning and many others will pass through and not have a clue. Fortunately for me, today the 9th of June 2012 at exactly 11:45am...the meaning struck me.

Your head and the potential it holds to imagine the unimaginable, the capacity it has to solve that which has been termed unsolvable, the tenacity it has to do the impossible and its unique ability to connect with inspiration from a higher realm.

The head is in a box (Tradition, Disability, Exposure, Network, Education...) and you have the keys to unlock the power that lies in that box and the interesting thing is that you have the keys.

It takes you to unlock such massive potentials and it takes you to keep it locked.

The Problem with the World...and a solution.

Eh! I thought I told you, no pictures...

The world we know today is plagued with abundant problems.

Uprisings, plane crashes, violence, corruption, hunger, poverty, pollution, bad governance, murder, robbery, protests, fraud, sectarian violence, suicide bombings, abuse, racism, discrimination, greed, to mention a few.

I listened to Nike Jemiyo give a speech at a Toastmasters session in Lagos Business School and it occurred to me that the problem with the world is that "too many people grow up".

If we all or at least most of us remained kids can you imagine what the world would be? Well, its easy, I can make a good guess by checking out the kids nearby.

1.) Kids are great at being serious without taking things too seriously. People call this the spirit of sportsmanship. Come to think of it, in the end, we are all dead so why take things so personal. Malice and terrible acts of violence occur when we take things too seriously, often times we do not realize how terrible and unnecessary an act of revenge is until it is done. So, learn from the kids, do not take things P.

2.) Kids ask questions. This is just phenomenal as simple as it sounds because in the world we live in today, virtually everyone jumps into conclusion. People rarely listen talk less of ask questions, they make up their minds and judge even before giving you a chance. Steve Covey said in his book "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People", seek first to understand and not to be understood. if we could all ask the right questions and patiently listen, the world would be a better place.

3.) Kids trust. A man once put his son on a high platform and asked him to jump down, the son asks why? and the man says I am your father and I will catch you. The boy jumps and the father lets him fall. The man now looks at his son and says, lesson one, trust no one, not even me.

I ask myself every now and then, what is this world turning into? the reason it takes ages to get a visa is lack of trust, the reason it takes days to confirm a cheque is the lack of trust, the reason there is a queue at the airport is lack of trust. Bosses do not trust their staff and the staff do not trust them either, citizens do not trust their leaders and the leaders do not trust their assistants, guys do not trust their girlfriends and ladies would not even give the men a chance, there is so much distrust everywhere and you know what, it makes everything slow. imagine if the airline trusted that only people that bought tickets would board the plane, there would be no need to check and if the passengers trusted that the airline would only charge fair prices, there would be no need to go into the airplane without a ticket and at the end, there would be no queue at the airport.

So you see, the real problem with the world is that too many people grow up and the solution is that we learn from the kids.

Aliko Dangote, the world's richest black man gets a copy of my book

Aliko Dangote receiving a copy of my book titled "From Idea to Venture Success"

Lagos Business School - MBA Student Launches New Book on Entrepreneurship

Lagos Business School - MBA Student Launches New Book on Entrepreneurship

Finding 'X'

This space is dedicated to all the times in my young life when I could not find 'X'.

Regardless of how simple it sounds now, it was hell back then. Some lousy math problems determined how well you were treated in the class by the teacher, how your fellow boys respected you, how the girls adored you, it determined everything..

Unfortunately, for every time I successfully found 'X' there was yet another 'X' to be found. Then one day as I looked through the window in my class, I said to myself, it would soon be over, I will one day be done with education.

The irony is that the day I finished my University education, I got out of the school walls to discover "X's" everywhere. Problems! Problems!! and more Problems!! Then it dawned on me that Life is made of problems and we can only get made by solving problems.

I soon had to learn that whenever I see a problem, I do not complain but ask 'Y' and find 'X'.

The humble origin of the Stock Market

Once upon a time in a village, a man appeared and announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for $10. 

The villagers seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest and started catching them. The man bought thousands at $10 and as supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their effort. 

He further announced that he would now buy at $20. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again. Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back to their farms. 

The offer rate increased to $25 and the supply of monkeys became so little that it was an effort to even see a monkey, let alone catch it! The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at $100! However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would now buy on his behalf. 

In the man's absence, the assistant said to the villagers: Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has collected. I will sell them to you at $75 each and when the man returns from the city, you can sell it to him for $100 each." The villagers brought out their life savings and bought all the monkeys. 

Thereafter the villagers never saw the man nor his assistant again, only monkeys everywhere!!!

Welcome to the "Stock" Market!

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