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Immediately you saw this picture, what was your first impression? It is important you take 2 minutes to reflect on this. The impression you get from this particular picture says a lot about you; when I saw this picture, I laughed so hard and tears started flowing from my eyes. The picture was quite ridiculous though it held a lot of meaning to me – the picture ironically reflected a similarity between these two sworn enemies; both of them strongly oppose same sex “marriage or sexual relationship”. Another thing quite interesting is the fact that Osama was made the husband which could simply interpret that Osama would always have a higher authority to Bush in any combat. In most circles, Osama is regarded as the bad guy while Bush, the good guy. After imagining this last statement in my mind, I realize that I was suffering from what Psychologists call Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE).

If I ask you to describe your best friend, you would definitely say good things like he/she is fun, loyal, etc but if I ask your best friend’s enemy to describe him, you know it would amount to negative comments. If your best friend’s name is Sola, it simply means Sola as you describe him/her is not the absolute character he/she possesses but we describe humans based on our experience with them or what a third party tells us about them. This is one of the greatest injustice of man to man and one of the many blind spots we develop as entrepreneurs. People make funny assumptions about me especially people that have done business with me for a while; they say things like; “I know you Dipo”, then I reply them; “how can you know me when I really don’t know myself”. Extending an absolute identity to someone is denying your own identity. No one in life is a constant; you can never place a human in a box based on your prior experience:

If you ask my friends from high school to describe me, the behavioral character they would use in describing me would be diametrically opposite to how my undergraduate colleagues would describe me. While in high school, they may call me a party freak; in university, they would call me a pastor but the truth is I am neither a party freak nor a pastor. I believe I have the power to exhibit those personalities but those labels do not accurately describe me. What do all these have to do with entrepreneurship? Relax! Let me land. Your success as an entrepreneur does not lie in how the world perceives you or what the world expects from you but how true you are to what you know of yourself. Denying yourself for the purpose of gain (either monetary or fame), is equivalent to slavery. Each time you deny yourself for a perceived security, you are losing your power to exert influence; if you are masqueraded with a position, it won’t be long before the position becomes your identity instead of you giving the position an identity.

You are who you are because of what your peers think of you; you are highly driven by your social think tank. You have no sense of direction; you are earnestly waiting for the approval of someone who cannot articulate his/her direction. Death is definitely inevitable, so what would you have lived for. One of the readers of this blog (quite unemployed), who bought the car vacuum cleaner was finding it difficult selling it in his church. After exhausting his complaint; I told him the easiest and the most socially driven people on this earth are church-goers. Just look for a highly influential person in a group, give him/her a good deal, let him/her endorse the product and you would be running out of order. Well, this was not a word of prophesy or word of knowledge, because it materialized the way I said it; this was common sense; people always follow people, they hardly trust their own judgment. His testimony was predictable; “can you imagine, all the people that rejected me, are now booking and struggling to get it.”

When the news of Tiger Woods affair broke, it actually surpassed Obama’s important speech on Afghanistan, despite the fact that the news was 6 days stale. The reaction of the world to the news was overwhelming; there was a shift in the world’s paradigm towards the first billionaire athlete. People have placed him in a certain box and expected him to stay that way, when they realize that their labels were false, they reacted vehemently. Even Tiger’s apology (which was made because he was caught not because he regretted his action) did not appease some of his endorsement deals from getting cancelled. This simply means if the world makes you, they can also take you down; if the world determines the standard of life that you live, they would punish you for breaking it. The Tiger Wood’s Saga is deeper than right or wrong; it’s about humans, with the same frailties, are able to judge another human because he appears to be more popular, wealthier, and more aware of his talent and maximizing it. Since every situation in life is unique, it would be difficult to fill his shoes and judge.

Seeing things from a multiple perspective is a must-have skill for entrepreneurs; every decision is crucial to an entrepreneur’s growth and success; so making a decision from peer pressure or world view would definitely harm you in the long run. Since, we see things as we are; it is important to note that your view of Tiger Wood’s suppose transgression is based on your person. It is ironical that the conservatives find it difficult to forgive (death penalty proponents, gun owners, capitalist, etc) and they cry out to God of mercies. The moral of this saga is simple: “don’t be caught!” because the world has condemned the wrong doer and the wrong doing saying that the wrong doer and his act are the same. This is definitely a false premise and an absolute false conclusion. The wrong doer is definitely not the same with the wrong doing though the wrong doer made a conscious choice (albeit) to do wrong. Ability to separate the wrong doer from his/her habit is not a common skill but it is what we are called to as sons of God. God is pleased with the wrong doer that decides to choose heavenly traits rather than hellish ones. We were loved by God despite our wrong doings, why can’t we extend the same love to our fellow brothers. Have a wonderful week!