A TALE OF TWELVE LESSONS: 240 minutes with Governor Fashola of Lagos State

It was a bright day on the 10^th of February 2012 and we the students of Lagos Business School (LBS) were to host the Governor of Lagos State, Babatunde Raji Fashola. He was to talk us through his life experience and how he made it to becoming the number 1 citizen of Lagos state. This meeting was organized by “Project What Next” one of the student lead activities at LBS.

With the Governor, there was not a dull moment. Asides from the hall being surrounded by his press crew and aids, the flashing of cameras, the staring of video cameras and audio buzzes, it was evident that a high powered personality was in our midst. At this point, I guess our school was the most secured part of Lagos as both secret security and Para-military intelligence was deployed for the governor’s protection but beyond all that, he was accessible, simple and very smart.

The Governor shared on twelve lessons which he had learned through life they are listed below;

• 1. Know yourself
• 2. Believe in yourself and be determined to succeed
• 3. Be disciplined and persevere
• 4. Actions have consequences, always be prepared
• 5. Never run away from challenges
• 6. Have clearly written goals; no half measures
• 7. Fear is good, but do not give in to it. It should spur you to succeed
• 8. Do not gloss over problems; confront them head on
• 9. Study and understand your operational environment
• 10. Go to great lengths to build trust and goodwill; when you do, don’t squander it
• 11. People define institutions; it’s good to build institutions but better to build people
• 12. Nothing is impossible

The thing that got to me most was when he said that to be great at whatever area of endeavour we would choose, we have to invest “10,000 hours” of our time and effort into that endeavour, great success has no room for half measures. We have to either go all the way or not bother at all.

Thanks Governor.