Administrators, board of governors, family, friends, and Class of 2016, it is a great honour to speak in front of you today. I am highly elated to be part of this beautiful day, for two reasons. The first is that days like this one, takes me back memory lane. I have always held on to this belief that my secondary school days never left me because it defined me. I discovered my talent for the game of hockey amongst other sports I took part in and I was nurtured by sound coaches who instilled discipline and a unique approach to the game that would be of immense benefit to both myself and other team mates in making appearances at the national and club level. The second is that my beautiful daughter is a member of the class of 2016.
As I began to prepare for this lecture, I was greatly inspired by the life story of the richest person in China, Jack Ma. I found that his story applies very well to people at this stage in life who are making the Great Transition and that it embodies today’s topic: “Discipline and Diligence: Ingredients of Future Leaders”.
Jack Ma is the founder and chairman of Alibaba, do not mistake it with Alibaba and the forty thieves rather it is an e-commerce company like Jumia. According to Forbes his net worth is estimated at $23.7 billion. The billionaire is a true rag-to-riches story.
Coming from a humble background, without money or connections, the only way Ma could get ahead was through education. After high school, just like you, he applied to go to college — but failed the entrance exam twice. After a great deal of studying, he finally passed on the third try, going on to attend Hangzhou Teacher’s Institute. He graduated in 1988 and started applying to as many jobs as he could. He received more than a dozen rejections — including KFC, the fast food giant — before being hired as an English teacher.
Having no experience with computers or coding, he was captivated by the internet when he used it for the first time during a trip to the US in 1995. He had recently started a translation business and made the trip to help a Chinese firm recover a payment. Ma’s first online search was “beer,” but he was surprised to find that no Chinese beer turned up in the results. It was then that he decided to found an internet company for China. Though his first two ventures failed, four years later he gathered 17 of his friends in his apartment and convinced them to invest in him and his vision for an online marketplace he called “Alibaba.” The site allowed exporters to post product listings that customers could buy directly.
Like every story, there is always a salient message. Here, the message is very clear. Jack Ma succeeded because he accepted the fact that time alone is not enough in making our mark in this earthly sojourn. He appreciates the values of faith and firm belief in dreams, tenacity and perseverance, right associations, positive networking and other significant values as requisite propellers of a moving life.
Three indispensable values or virtues that cannot be done away with are what I call the “3 D’s”, Discipline, Diligence and Determination. What is it with the three D’s?
Carl Zuckmayer, a German playwright, posits that, “One half of life is luck, the other half is discipline, and that’s the important half.” Discipline in this lecture is voluntarily adhering to specific tenets and precepts or codes of conduct to help you achieve a set target or goal. Discipline here is not induced by a second or third party; it is rather an intrinsic desire to say to yourself that this is what I want to do whether I feel like doing it or not in order to reach my destination. The destination in this case is that of improved academic grades, career success, spiritual upliftment and other well thought out targets. For without discipline you wouldn’t know what to do with luck.
Many people, especially kids, assume that the word discipline is synonymous with the word consequence. And for a while, I believed the same thing. However, discipline is also defined as a willingness to make sacrifices and obey rules in order to get results.
I remember hearing my parents say, “Do the things other people won’t do now, so that you can do the things others can’t do later.” I always keep that in mind while I am doing things to grow my business and build the future I see for myself. Of course, I still take time to enjoy my life, but I also understand the significance of being disciplined so that I can continue to build my dreams. I encourage you to practice the principle of discipline now so that you can enjoy the fruits of your labour.
Discipline also means the ability to do what is right, when it is right. Ability not to do what is wrong – what is inimical to your dreams and purpose for living. Discipline helps to avoid procrastination – the greatest self-made enemy to success. It assists you to follow your plans, pursue your goals and keep to your principles. Self-discipline is the road to purpose driven living.
Areas where you need to discipline yourself among others include, oversleeping, laziness or idleness, addiction to television, attendance to frivolous entertainments and the likes, yielding to pressure to do what is wrong, flocking around bad friends, etc. The number of hours spent watching television, or attending to unprofitable venture, if you will limit this and invest same on your studies, your achievement would be a big surprise even to yourself.
How many times have you told someone how hard you work? Sometimes, you may even say that you “work too hard”. It’s very important to develop a good work ethic through hard work, but it’s equally as important to work intelligently so that you can appreciate all of the labour you’ve put towards reaching a goal.
Working smarter means that you’ve found a more productive way to get the job done. It means that you understand how important it is to reach a goal and you don’t want to miss out on the beauty of your journey towards reaching that goal. When you work hard but smartly, you’ve created a way to handle your responsibilities and remain diligent about your goals.
There is no short cut to good and enduring success; you must pay the full price in the currency of hard work. This is telling us that the road to true greatness or outstanding achievement is that of hard work. They are meant to prepare and propel you to work, work harder, work smarter, work right and in short to give your very best. There is absolutely no reason not to give your best in anything you do, particularly in the pursuit of your dream or life’s goals as whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well. This is what diligence is all about. It is applying the best of your strength and intelligence in whatever you do.
Diligence helps you to actualise your abilities, discover more potential in yourself and puts you on the track to greatness. The more diligent you are, the more you will discover about what you can do. Do not be afraid of doing too much, else, you will always do too little.
What you see as difficulties are most times opportunities disguised as work. “If you give your best you cannot lose”. The stories of great heroes revealed that they were ordinary men and women with extra diligence added to their purpose for living. For example, Florence Nightingale, we read would work for twenty-four hours at a stretch. Thomas Edison slept for only four hours per day. Many times he would stay awake with his experiments for forty-eight hours or even seventy-two hours especially when the experiments were near completion. Hard work does not kill but laziness does.
Another ingredient, which is not mentioned, is Determination. It is an ingredient highly required of an onward life. You have to possess the firmness of purpose and resoluteness to press on irrespective of the seeming odds. The path to success is to take massive, determined action. Once your mind is made up in any endeavour, there is no retreating, you can only go one way and that is forward. A truly determined individual would not surrender to the naysayers and destructive critics. The fear of failing is even afraid to bug him because his determination to succeed far outweighs his frail prowess to withhold him.
Again, if you are bold and determined, it is said that mighty forces will come to your aid. Thus boldness and determination has pure genius. Where absolute determination and enthusiasm for a particular course exists failure can never dismantle the flag of success. A truly determined individual sees failures as learning stops that help him to be extra vigilant and guide him in making more informed decisions with regards to his way forward. You look back in history and you cannot help but marvel at the sheer determination brazenly demonstrated by countless individuals, from Henry Ford to Thomas Edison. These were all people who were not perturbed by life’s difficulties; they braced the odds and challenged the conventional nature of their time with the determination to make a mark and reach their desired destinations.
Success therefore will be one’s ability to move from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. Determination will take you where knowledge alone will not be able to. It takes a strong fish to swim against the tides; even a dead one is capable of floating in it. Again when you have removed failure as an option, you can only but succeed. There are no secrets to success; it is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure. Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance and determination. The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will. You just can’t beat the person who never gives up. That is where true determination comes in. One man with courage and determination is like thousands in the majority. People who are afraid to fail can never experience the joys of success.
Class of 2016, today is your day, you’re off to Great Places, and you’re off and away. Up until this point, you were children; some more so than others. Some of you had it rough, and others had it easier: you all knew what it took to get you this far. But this is a jumping off point; only the beginning of your journey. You have slowly learned how to make decisions for yourselves, and now you are are to the point where each choice you make is all on you.
Do remember, there will always be a little voice inside of you telling you that “it’s time to quit”, “that your dreams won’t pay off” or that “you should focus on doing something easier”. However, when you live your life in 3D—discipline, diligence and determination—you learn how to silence that voice and enjoy your life as an accomplished and happy person.
“While the rest of the worlds are sitting on their couch….achievers are working on their goals – achieving their dreams.” – Chris Widener.
. Being a lecture by the Commissioner for Information of Delta State, Patrick Ukah, at the graduation ceremony of the Class of 2016, Trinity International College, Ofada, Ogun State, on July 7, 2016.
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