INSURING YOUR INVESTMENT

Insuring Investments

I had said earlier in this book that people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. Why? It is simply an eternal and proven law of life. It is like every other law you know, like the law of gravitational force or the law of motion. The people’s law states that, ‘nobody can succeed in isolation’.

Check through the pages of history, events, people and life, no man has ever progressed without the aid of another man. Life was designed for us to depend on ourselves. To actualize your dreams, visions and purposes, you need men; else your dreams will just end in the corridors of your mind. It is one thing to be able to properly translate your dreams to people, it is another thing to win their hearts and get them betrothed to your dreams

People will only follow you and help you achieve your dream in life when they know that you are not just picking on them to make your personal visions happen but that you are also interested in their dreams.

While I was writing my first book, I met with some wonderful people in my life that took up the vision like it was theirs. They got so married to it that sometimes I sat and asked myself if I was actually the one writing the book or them. I have never had such committed people in my life. They were so committed to my dreams that any outsider will assume it was theirs. After the launching, I was speaking with Renewed Yemi Success, the Chief Executive Officer of The Renewal Team International during an informal meeting with him. He was planning to start a library centre, where youths can read books for free. I remembered I was relating to him how I got the book published and I mentioned two wonderful people to him that I met during my youth service year.

In fact, the book came to reality because of the unwavering commitment of these people. Sometimes I had sat myself down and asked how I met those people that point in time and why they were so committed to the dream.

I remembered that even before I discussed the dream of the book with them, and yes, there have been times that they needed me in their lives and I was available. My point, ‘the people investment is the most insured investment in life’. We must step out of the confines of our selfish natures and develop a heart that cares for people. A heart that shows we really care and that we can care without expecting something in return.

Why do you think the best companies in the world survive and maintain overwhelming sales consistently over the years? The idea is, ‘the people come first’. Any individual or organization that places profits or personal benefits before people or customers run down too fast and too soon. The best insurance you can have for your future, for your life and even for your children is sowing eternal seeds in the lives of people. We therefore must be careful of what eternal impressions we leave in the hearts of people.

The challenge however is that, at times, organizations have good plans and strategies towards serving their customers, they set up modem in place to achieve this, but often times, these plans are left on the table of deliberations and files of the future, un-implemented, and as a result, such companies fizzle out too early.

It is important either as an organization, government, individual that people’s interest comes first in our plans. Profit should and must always come last. The reason some countries, organizations and individuals will never have loyal and patriotic workers or friends is because, the people have also come to realize that you do not have their interest at heart. There should be a way through which we can connect to not just the feelings of people by pushing them to work either on the basis of duress, sanction or monetary reward, we should be able to connect to thier souls so much that they can be patriotic to us even when we don’t have monetary or instant reward. Most times, this is only developed by creating a relationship beyond the artificial, but a natural wanting to care, to be involved in people’s lives.

Some countries will never have patriotic citizens until they start setting up the interest of the people as their first hand budget. So true are the words of Socrates when he mused: ‘a state exists because of the people and it will continue to exist because of the people’. If a citizen does not see any sign of care from the government to him, he will equally see no reason to be patriotic to such government.

I remembered sometime during my final days as a corps-member in Ebonyi State, a female friend of mine, Ajibola Dada, who was then passing out with me was speaking at a gathering of corps-members in a fellowship meeting. I cannot precisely remember the topic of her speech but I remembered that she was talking on human connection and networking. She emphasized so much on developing good relationships with people and she made an illustration that will forever be written in my heart.

She told us all to hold our hands, saying if she needs to get to the last person in the church row, she only needs to know the first person in the church row. She said ‘once I tell the person on the front row that I need to meet the person on the last row, I will ultimately get to the person on the last row’. Why? Because, the first person knows the person that knows another person, who knows someone that knows the person on the last row. But, you may not get to meet such until you have developed good relationship with people and setting first in your heart the interest of others.

Often times, what stands between you and a business or contract that will change the future of your company and give you the future you desire is just a person and once you know that person you can hit it.

That day, she left something in my heart that has made me value people, relationships and networking. It wasn’t that I did not value people before but her words re-impressed these facts in my heart making them indelible. She kept reiterating these words: ‘If I do not leave Ebonyi State with a dime, I am glad I am leaving Ebonyi with a solid relationship that I have with Victor’.

I wouldn’t lie to you, that day; I really blushed, because the case study she used for her speech was me. All through the speech she kept mentioning Victor. What was the reason? I was genuinely available for her and I wasn’t surprised when she took up my book launch like hers. It is important that we leave good and indelible impressions in the lives of people.

In life relationship, good relationship is the most important. Let me wind off with an experience that I had with my mentor (who equally is my pastor) after I launched my book. I returned to Lagos to give him some copies of my books and I remembered that day, it was on the 22^nd of March 2012, it was a Thursday evening in his office, he prayed for me with a pen and he had collected from his mentor. After he prayed for me, he narrated how he got the pen and how his mentor had declared an anointing to write on him through the pen. Surprisingly, he was working on ten books to be published soon.

And for me, the prayer was so too timely, it was during a time that I desired inspiration to write but I just couldn’t. It was the first time in my life that I will earnestly desire to write bit I could not write anything. I had burdens in my heart and mind that I wanted to pen into words but I just couldn’t find the expressions to write them.

Today, you are reading this book because of a contact I made with the prayer of my mentor. My point? Relationship is not solely for materials gain or immediate rewards. They may not matter at first or during a particular time but when the need arises you will value it better.

This is an excerpt from Alabi Olamide Victor’s new book (yet to be published)

You can read more on his blog: www.asavodepoet.blogspot.com

Twitter: @asavodepoet1

Facebook: Asirvo Olaoluwa

Alabi Olamide (Asirvo) runs a training programme for budding writers and he is equally a profound public speaker