Opportunities that made me what I am today.
My common sense and integrity demand that I should do what is right for everyone even if at times it is unpleasant and unpopular for me.
Oysters create pearls and if we know that these are the product of pain, these are precious tiny jewels conceived through irritation, these are valuable items born of adversities and these are things that are nursed by adjustment. Then we have a lot to learn from this process.
I have wandered through life for many years in search of goals and objectives but the day I learnt to keep my eyes on the doughnut and not on the hole, my life changed for the better and my goals became clearer.
One of my favourite teachers told me that as a sentient human being I could survive the most adverse and difficult circumstances if I am not forced to stand alone in the world.
My legacy in life was that I tried to make things better than it was when it was given to me. Every opportunity was well taken and used to my advantage because I understood the idea of opportunity.
In the olden days before the modern wharfs were built, a ship had to wait for hours for the full tide before it could get to the port. In Latin, people called this situation ob portu, which meant that a ship had to stand over off a port, waiting for the moment when it could ride the turn of the tide to harbour.
We have derived an English word opportunity from that original meaning. The captain and the crew were ready and waiting for that one moment because they knew that if they missed it, they would have to wait for another tide to come in.
Shakespeare turned this background of exact meaning of opportunity into one of his most famous passages in Act 4 Scene 3 of his play Julius Caesar when he wrote:
There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat;
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
My prime premise of life, business and family life was that nothing needed to be boring and dull. It ought to be fun, exciting, bright and lively. If it is not so then I have been wasting my time. I have tried my best to use my power of persuasion when it came to managing people either at home or at work.
If you have ever had a dog, you would definitely have known that the following is true. Come up to your dog when it is not expecting you and try to give it a push. The harder you try to push that dog, the harder it will resist but then walk a few metres away, call its name gently and it will come trotting over immediately.
The same is true of people. If they feel that they are harshly shoved to accept something they will resist but if they are gently persuaded, they will often be won over.