Sat, 10 Feb 2018 10:56:55 +0000
By Muyangwa Mukuni
BILL Gates of Microsoft is a man that needs no introduction. Not only is the prominent position that he has come to occupy in global business common knowledge, but many of us are actually all too familiar with the product that he and his colleagues have given to the world.
We use it virtually every day of our lives, particularly for the working class as well as those that have chosen to embrace technology.
What many people may not know about Bill Gates though is that he is a voracious reader of books. In fact Gates says that he reads a new book every week. Yes, that is his standard – on average 52 books a year.
How many of you can match that? I’m guessing not many of you. I think the Zambian standard of reading is a far cry from the high standard that Gates holds himself up to.
However, I do note with a touch of happiness that there are a number of Zambians out there that love to read. What’s more, there are more and more Zambians beginning to write. You see it everywhere – on blogs, various forms of social media, in newspapers such as the Daily Nation, there is more and more Zambian literature and we need this.
There is a saying that anything not written was never said. It is also true that each time we write, we immortalise our ideas as someone will surely come to read our material. And this is why I am pleased at the amount of Zambian literature that we have these days.
Technology has played its role in opening up the space for people to air their views through written pieces. I don’t think that we shall ever have a situation where our history is written for us by foreigners as was the case before.
And I think all of us patriots understand that there has been serious bias in the way our history has been written by these forces that enjoy being in command, possessing dominion over the world order.
Before I digress, my article for today is a reminder that when we are facing all sorts of trouble, there will always be answers written down somewhere.
There is nothing new in this world, everything has happened before, all manner of disappointment, failure, pain and anguish have been felt before.
It is also the case that these have been written about before. Making a comeback from life’s disappointments has also been written about before.
Climbing up the ladder from a position of weakness to a position of accomplishment is also something that has been written about before.
The meteoric rise of different prodigies in history has been written about before. And so, whenever you are looking to gain direction, one very important source of guidance you can look to is a book.
There is a man called Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede who at the tender age of 34, he and his fellow age mate in the early 2000s decided to go on an ambitious plan to acquire their own bank. At the time, they were both employed at one of the leading banks in Nigeria.
Against the odds, they pushed on with their dream. “First of all, the acquisition was deemed to be hostile. We were working somewhere and we were young and we were not the children of rich men, we were thirty-four when we started and in the eyes of the public, when they knew the full story, all hell broke loose and it wasn’t very easy,’
Aig-Imoukhuede recounted in an interview with Forbes Africa magazine.
They did succeed in their ambitious plans and within five years of the acquisition of their bank, it had turned around from a struggling entity to one that would grow into a billion dollar bank with operations in a number of countries including Zambia. The name of the bank is Access Bank. So you might ask – where did it all begin for Aig-Imoukhuede? His answer, “My late brother-in-law who had just finished an MBA at Harvard had a conversation with me and I told him I was not happy professionally and it was difficult to come to terms with that because I had just been made executive director and I was the youngest at the time and happily married to his sister, so why would I not be happy?’
‘He gave me this book called Buyout, by Rick Rickertsen, who had left Harvard Business School a few years before I went in for this programme.
It’s a book written for professionals and there was a paragraph that says if you are the type of professional that wants to continue working for other people and help them build their worth, where you get your nice salary and bonuses, then this book isn’t for you.
But if you are the type who wants to get into the game and you want to work for yourself then this is for you. After reading the book, I said I know what I want to do; I am going to buy my own bank.’ The rest as they say is history.
So there you have it, one book propelled him from his chain of thought into action. The answer as I have said can often be found on the pages of a book. Read the right material and change your life.
Written material shows us things that have been done in history and how people have accomplished them. Whatever it is that you are trying to do in life, it’s important to take the time to research, and written material is often the best tool.
This Zambian culture where many appear to be allergic to reading, except for nonsensical posts devoid of substance on some social media platforms. Change your culture and read the right material for the answer often lies on the pages of a book.
Share your views: muyangwamukuni@gmail.com
