Lions

It’s quite interesting to note that in Nature a Lion never mates with anything other than a Lion. You will never find a Lion, the king of the animal kingdom, mating with a kitten or any other feeble feline animal; it will only ever mate with another LION. As basic as the concept may seem, All animals – human, canine, feline, reptile, whatever classifications you may have, will only ever mate with its own (well these days some people are sick sha – but in general that theory upholds).

Where am I going with this...

Well, lately I have found the conversation at dinner tables, drinks, and other social gatherings inevitably always ends up with a heated or composed (depending on what kinda circles you roll with, my circles go heated) discussion on what the role of a woman in society is, in marriage, how independent can you be and still fit in with Nigerian culture (and even biblical principles) of subservience, the threat of extinction for the independent woman if she truly wants to get married, how the powerful businessman is only looking for a trophy wife to sit at home bear children, get her nails, hair and eyelashes “did” so that she looks breathtaking standing next to him at his upcoming IBA conference.

It all got me thinking, is there a balance, is subservience the only way, knowing what culture presumes, churches preach, the Qur’an dictates, how much can women get away with, is there a balance between achieving your own goals and giving in to your female instincts, yada, yada, yada. I gave it some thought sha, didn’t lose any sleep, then one day the answer, (well my answer, because my philosophy is no hard and fast rule) was staring me in the face. Lions.

I shall try to avoid a biology lesson, especially as I am an amateur when it comes to the study of Lions. A lion the tallest of all living cats, typically described as the king of the animal kingdom, is a powerful animal, that stalks its prey with the decisive focus and precision that always results in success. Undoubtedly the Lion is feared by all other cats and is the crème de la crème of its genus. A lion will always mate with a Lioness. However powerful a tiger may be, no matter its feline prowess, sophistication, delicacy, cunning, what have you, it will never be candidate to mate with a Lion. Much in the same way a powerful, intelligent, successful, driven, cultured, well-mannered, handsome (if you like) man will only be attracted to his kind. In other words: Obama will only be attracted to a Michelle. While a Michelle may not display the raw characteristics of a lion, because she is a lioness, yet she possesses the innate characteristics of a lion, those characteristics that Nigerian women are afraid to show for fear of scaring away potential suitors – independence, hard work, dedication, unwavering support, out-of-the box thinking, and the list goes on. I don’t know about you but when a lioness roars, I go “pick race”, with the same speed and fear for my life as I would if it were a Lion, both na the same thing.

Just in case I have not made may my point clear enough – If you are an independent, confident, mentally strong (not strong headed), dedicated, hardworking, intelligent, excellence oriented woman with personal goals driven to succeed, then you needn’t worry about lacking the adequate husband, scaring the men away, because a lioness attracts another lion, and iron sharpens iron. That being said, a lioness still respects her lion, submits to his will, and uses her lion-characteristics to sharpen, challenge and ultimately build his own.

If you want a Lion, become a Lioness.

Yes I have totally ignored the fact that I haven’t blogged in a while: “Na condition wey make crayfish bend”

xoxo.

Connecting The Dots

Lately I have been thinking a lot about connecting the dots in life, finding my passion, living my dream, pursuing happiness, living up to my potential (which I can only hope that I have) etc. Because unfortunately this is one thing that you cannot get any help with, you have to dream your dream YOURSELF; make the decision to follow the dream YOURSELF; you must endure setbacks to that dream YOURSELF; and YOU must pick yourself up from all the challenges ALONE. When it comes to charting out your life’s path it is something that you largely do alone, people can advise you along the way, they can comfort you when you go through the ups and the downs, provide for you when you can’t provide for yourself, but finding that ONE thing that you were created to do, that will make you happy, the thing that all your life experiences has contributed towards shaping you for – can ONLY come from within YOU.

Some of us will be happiest making and selling akara at a street corner in okokomiko, for some of us being the iron lady that holds together a top investment bank epitomizes happiness, others find immeasurable happiness making others look beautiful by doing their make-up. What makes others happy will not necessarily make you happy, and what makes you happy will not make everyone else happy. Your life’s goal should be finding what and who makes YOU happy.

When I started writing this post yesterday afternoon I had planned on sharing excerpts of a speech I first heard a few years ago that has always motivated me, but given what happened in between my writing it and posting it I have decided to share the whole speech. It was the commencement speech that Steve Jobs gave at Stanford University. His words speak far better than I could on connecting the dots in life, and his life exemplified being successful at what you are passionate about, walking a road that nobody else has, daring to innovate and creating your own path.

I hope the speech motivates you as much as it always motivates me. It is long but well worth the read:

“I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out? It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over. I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and
overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.”

Even as the world has just lost this entrepreneurial genius, I hope his life’s story continues to resonate.

RIP Steve Jobs

Xoxo.

Leading Lady

If one thing can keep me glued to a screen it is a romantic comedy, all the drama, all the cheese, all the suspense, one liners (cheesy one liners at that). One thing I have noticed after over one hundred of these cheesy movies is that no matter how amazingly beautiful, intelligent, witty the supporting actress is, it’s always the leading lady that everyone is rooting for: She captivates her audience, we sympathize with her, we want to be her (because at the end she always wins), and if your tear ducts are anything like mine the leading lady makes us cry with the sort of happiness that smiling just cannot capture.

All that being said I really wonder why an increasing number of Nigerian ladies are positioning themselves to play the supporting role. People often say of Nigerian ‘ladies’ that they are not in any way deterred if they find out that the subject / object of their desire has a wife, fiancé, girlfriend, in actual fact this makes him more desirable to her because she see’s that he has the potential to be “tied down”.

Like I mentioned in one of my first blog posts, I don’t get why people go to nail bars or hair salons and talk without any inhibitions about the intricate details of their lives, by the time you leave you know their sisters name, how many trips they made to their GP last week, how their boyfriend insulted them by sending them a common blackberry curve as opposed to securing them one of the test iPhone 5’s that are not due in shops till early 2012. The topic of these Nail bar DMC’s has taken a large shift towards who your boyfriend is (married, or otherwise disposed boyfriend), what his category is - some boyfriends are for mtn credit (some for 500 Naira, others 3k, some 10k and above), some boyfriends are for handbags and shoes, others for exotic trips to Thailand, Brazil, Zanzibar some others for housing and accommodation, a child maybe if you want to make your funding life long. It seems to me that it has become the norm for people to play the supporting actress, the side dish, the other attraction, and they do so without shame. In the same way that no effort is taken to conceal the fact tha the long tresses tumbling down your back are in fact those borrowed (bought) off the head of a deceased Asian lady, no effort is taken to conceal being the girlfriend of a man that is not available.

I do not intend to pin blame for these shifting dynamics - is it the lady's (the term in this case I use loosely, as it is not synonymous with such behaviour) fault for accepting less than she deserves? or is it the mans fault for making himself available to more than one woman at any given time? It is not really a debate worth having. What is more important to note is that happiness and playing the supporting role are not easy bedmates, either the guilt of being the cause for someone elses pain or the knowledge that you are the sloppy seconds will slowly chip at all the happiness you think you are gaining.


Don’t be the footnote in somebody else’s love story, everybody IS the leading lady in their own life and should never ever settle for anything less. The role of supporting actress will always be on borrowed time, and I speak in no uncertain terms when i say that at some point the rental period will be up.

Xoxo.

An Open Mind

It's remarkable how many things we miss out on in life because we have a closed mind about them.

We walk around with our pre-defined workplans for our lives, key milestones highlighted, timelines defined, a narrow contingency plan for backup(not so much a contingency as a lifejacket on a plane - you hope never to use it), responsible parties outlined and duly notified of their responsibilities. We know what we like, don't like, want, don't want, need, dont need, etc. and we don't bother exploring what else is out there if it doesn't fit nicely into what we have painstakingly defined.

It's good to know what you want, what you like, what makes you happy, what makes you sad, what grinds on your nerves, who grinds on your nerves. It's good to know all these, but what room have we left for the unexpected, that one thing we 'thought' we didn't like probably because we never tried it, we thought it was too far out of our reach, too far beneath us, just not interesting ... You just never know the unexpected may surprise you and turn out to be exactly what you NEED.

The only constant thing in life is change. If change is constant then we can not constantly plan, we have to learn to adapt to what changes around us, keep an open mind for what could be, roll with the punches, and just generally experience life as it comes - without a strict workplan.

Free your mind and prepare to be surprised.

Xoxo

Holding Position

I know I have been terribly aweful with blogging, but I have had a tonne on my plate, and it appears I am not as good at multitasking as I thought (something I no doubt got from my dad)

I have done a lot more air travel than I am comfortable with lately, I am naturally quite panicy so spending time in some airbus that I still don't fully understand the physics and mechanics of doesn't really sit so well with me. Flying into MMA on Friday evening, there was a backlog of flights (I am told this is a norm for Abuja -Lagos weekend flights), so my flight along with many others had to assume the 'holding position' as we approached Lagos. For those who do not know, the 'holding position' is an oval space just above the runway where airplanes 'circle' till they are given the go ahead from the control tower to make their final descent and land. Several planes can hold position at different altitudes at the same time. 

As I sat 'holding position' in what I can only describe as a molue bus with wings, eager to just land get my luggage and begin my great weekend in Lagos, it struck me how remarkably similar this 'holding position' was to life. Many times we are trapped in a rut, frustrated by the fact that we can see where we are trying to get to, yet we continue to circle around it, unable to land when we want. 

I never sit at the window seat, but I assume that from this holding position you may be able to see other planes landing on the runway leaving you behind constrained to a metal flying bus sitting next to the profusely sweating bus conductor, your ears popping from the cabin pressure, being shaken from place to place with turbulence (I doubt that at that altitude there is turbulence, but for the sake of this post let's assume that there is), freezing from the low temperatures on board, etc etc. I think I have painted a good enough picture there, the point I am making here is that life too is much like this. While we are weathering our storms, holding our position till finally it is our turn to land, we can see others landing in the place that we too are looking to land, we get discouraged, we sometimes get jealous, angry, faint, agitated. But what we do not know is how long the people landing were holding position before they landed, what kind of turbulence they had to endure, what the conditions were on board their boeing 737, what conditions they are going to meet when they eventually land. We focuson on the fact that they are landing before us. I think we have to trust that whoever (for some it's God, others it's Buddah, some others fate - I won't push my religious doctrines on you) is in our / the control tower knows when is the BEST time for us to land. Our control tower knows what the conditions on ground are, it knows what our Boeing can handle on ground or while holding position, and the control tower will make sure that we land JUST ON TIME.  

My flight 'held position' for about 15 minutes on Friday evening, after much squirming and eye rolling we did land. Much in the same way I trust that we will all leave our holding positions and descend into our desires. 

Xoxo. 

Violence is the Refuge of the Ignorant

I used to tease my mum when she would twist my ears for doing or saying something wrong, I’d say “violence is the refuge of the ignorant”... of course she thought it was rude. Whilst then it was just a JOKE, I believe it best describes what is going on in many boroughs in London, and across the United Kingdom. Ignorance, ignorant parenting, and disrespect for the law as a result of to ignorance to what it takes for good governance. Where there is ignorance, violence becomes the only mode of communication.

As street fires, petrol bombs, disgruntled teens and adults rioting without a cause swept across many areas of the United Kingdom, I did a quick mental analysis of the areas of London that were affected. I admit; it is a vast generalisation to say that most of these areas are home to a lot of the less privileged, less educated people living on benefits, etc, however for the sake of my argument let’s agree that they are. It begs the question is social welfare the best route for a nation.

The riots have been masked as being a protest against particular ethnic groups being picked on and treated wrongly, while that may or may not be the case, the riots have not been solely about that. After watching a series of interviews with the rioters stupid enough to show their face on television, it has become evident that there is no unifying cause, no message that the rioters want us to hear, no burning issue they want the prime ministers attention over. They just took an opportunity to collect what they haven’t worked for, as they always have.

These rioters have enjoyed a mandatory free education that while not as good as a private education is still GOOD, they enjoy free healthcare, uninterrupted power, pastoral care is also free on the NHS, free housing. In addition to all this if they are still unable to secure employment they collect fortnightly (or weekly, I’m not sure) benefits for food, a hoodie from primark(had to pop in a joke there), and for most alcohol, cigarettes, and on the odd week a spiky dog collar for those beasts they carry around London to scare people. This is the model I have always argued that we ought to follow in Nigeria. I thought that it was necessary for us to give out benefits, housing, and everything that a wealthy person can provide for themselves to those who can’t, but I am now being forced to reconsider this.

Whatever comes free is never valued. Perhaps if these rioters understood the importance of hard work to survive, if they hadn’t taken for granted the free education they enjoyed, and actually made the best of it, if they understood that they would be homeless if they didn’t work to pay rent, if they knew they would not have the luxuries of food and clothing that they have without a job perhaps they may have thought twice about taking to the streets to pilfer from a society that provides to them at no cost to themselves.

I will not change my position on the need for a social safety net in Nigeria so quickly, because we do still need to provide at the very least primary and secondary education for all, healthcare, power. However, we also need to consider that there are side effects to “free everything”. Free breeds disrespect, ignorance to the inside workings of a society and its government, and when the ignorance becomes full grown its only refuge is in violence.

Xoxo.

Disclaimer: I am not for a second suggesting all the people in the areas of rioting are uneducated and underproviledged as this is inaccurate, it was merely a generalisation made as food for thought on the issue of welfare, and I mean no offense by it.

Regression

I got a forward email recently with pictures of Lagos back in the day, in the 60’s and 70’s...

...There were pavements, department stores, there was no filth lining the streets. I’ll go beyond the pictures and assume that people could walk across town without fear of armed robbery, being knocked over by a 12 year old okada driver and his passenger who is carrying 3 split unit air conditioners on his head, or fear of their car being engulfed in pot holes large enough to engulf them.

In the 60’s and 70’s we were on a journey somewhere and had we continued along that path, dare I say that we may have far superseded development in many parts of the world. Somewhere along the line our development was derailed by mass consumption of a cocktail of greed, uncontrollable population growth, oil money, and a double shot more greed. The previous generation traded the greater good for personal gain, and at the rate we are going the cocktail is becoming more potent. In years to come we may look back to the two-thousands and say... “wow the good old days”

At some point in history union bank had more sophisticated operations than HSBC (then Midland bank), whilst Midland was still using paper tickets, Union bank had some form of automation. We had clean beaches, attracting tourists from far and near, we had safe roads, and a clean environment. However somewhere along the line we went into regression, we started going ‘up the down staircase’, undid what was done, and drove further into under development. The story department store that once stood on broad street has been replaced with market stalls selling poor quality 2nd hand goods. I never went into Kingsway stores, but I am sure the merchandise in the store was Nigerian – My grandfather had a mini studio in there so by virtue of that I shall assume that other Nigerians sold their merchandise. We swapped home grown goods for made in China, our domestic products were no longer desired, and even if they had been there was no infrastructure to support it. We exchanged a maintenance culture for a cost cutting strategy. It is no longer noble to make an honest living with your skills and talents, it is more expedient to “go into politics”, trade – making a dollar out of 15 cents... And so the regressive spiral continued till we landed ourselves in this black hole, further and further inside a dark under-developed abyss.

A black hole where nothing works, yet we circle around the destruction, destitution and debris of a city once destined for greatness in our luxury cars, wearing luxury clothes, oblivious to the failed state we live in. It begs the question, how far back do we have to go before we actually notice how desperate our situation is. Perhaps till when we have regressed as far back as wearing tiger skin toga’s and sitting in mud caves rubbing sticks together to make fire. We have played politics for too long; we have free styled development for too long; it is about time we put aside the charade and realise that we are regressing at an incredible rate, we need to put a plan in place, we need to manage our population, solve our infrastructure, resuscitate our healthcare system, redefine our government, and most importantly fix our educational system. We can no longer wait for the government to do these things, we have given them 50 years. The private sector must begin to lead change, else in 30 years our generations will be sending emails with pictures of flooded streets, okada crowded bridges, lamenting about the good old days when we had 2 hours of light a month. It is never too late to be the great country that we could’ve been.

Xoxo.