My last 2 Christmas' were very lonely. Two years ago, I spent
Christmas Day sick and stuck in London Gatwick airport after eating a
bad food in Istanbul-Turkey, throwing up miserably and causing so much
discomfort to passengers and cabin crew. I was welcomed home in
Birmingham the next day drained and dehydrated. Last year, I spent it at
home in Ghana with my housemate in our little space in Odorkor. I was
very broke after a hectic year of delivering more with less. We didn't
cook any decent meal, we bought on the streets— a mirror of the reality of millions who have no chance at a simple Christmas meal of rice, stew and dry fish.
This
year hasn't been particularly special and perfect, but I have gone
through 2013 coming in contact with people who have loved, cared, taught
and supported me in diverse ways, of which I'm grateful about and want
to show my deepest gratitude. Gratitude comes from the word 'gratis',
which means 'free'. So in essence, I'm grateful for everything all of
you reading this note freely impacted and invested in my life.
"Gratitude is the freeing expression of a free heart toward one who
freely gave".
2013 was like a dragon with a gift in it's
mouth. Taming the animal was to take 365 days of learning, living and
leading. I am not saying I didn't achieve anything, what I mean is that
our maturity as leaders could take our entire lifetime. We will land,
but we will still have weaknesses, no one is ubermensch. I've always
seen transformation as a complete change from acorn to an oak tree; or
like the sight of a giant ultra modern hospital funded by the P.E.A.C.E
Plan to replace a torturing former site of genocide in Rwanda. But what
about our daily struggles, suffering and sorrows? They are also part of
our transformation! So we shouldn't discard them, we should share them.
Always focusing and sharing our successes might generate competition,
but continuously sharing our struggles promote community.
We've
thought about leadership to be all about influence, charisma and having
followers. But how about it becoming the other way round— sharing, supporting and serving others with our entire humanity. How
about being a servant, leading from a position of weakness? How about
being a listerner, the art of influencing people with our ears? How
about avoiding unproductive arguments that sap our energy and focusing
on winning people rather than arguments. I have purposed in my heart to
learn and practice these.
In the year 2014, I have no huge
expectations to be honest. I have only a revelation to spend time
building my relationships with everyone around me. My good friend
John-Son Oei, a recipient of the Augustman Magazine Man of the Year award and one
of the most successful entrepreneurs in Malaysia today who builds
houses for poor people opened my eyes to an important truth we often
ignore as leaders, as we shared our traditional end of year lessons— "the value of a team set in the right foundations of love, trust and emphasis on relationships over performance".
So
that will be my priority. And building relationship with people
requires time investment. I see time as John Taylor's
"Chronophage", outside Cambridge’s Taylor Library of Corpus Christi
College. It has a grasshopper with a huge chomping mouth eating up every
minute with a half swag. Time is boring but it's the most expensive
gift we can give others because they cannot pay for it.
So
many things occurred in 2013; I was transformed by the love and focus
of Saddleback Church; the Environmental Movement ran a highly successful
campaign against coal in Ghana; I attended my first Bar Camp; Ronny got
married; My Australia friend living in Ghana, Eleanor made me lasagne after 18months of not eating it;
and Anna Rose sent me her first book 'Madlands' from far away Australia
which was to transform my activism and convert my friend who was a climate skeptic.
In 2014, I look
forward to leading and serving the Ghana Youth Environmental Movement
(GYEM), supporting Pass-A-Book-On, Dress-A-Kid, Share-Your-Lunch,
Helplan, AYW-G and all the great initiatives up and running here. At
GYEM, we call it our 'Year of Growth'— advancing our passion,
purpose and partnership and building leaders of courage, competence and
character to shift power with tools, techniques and technology. I'm looking forward to our first ever National Power Shift 2014 and Exponential 2014.
I
also look forward to the World Cup in Brasil, "the land
of keepie-uppies, sarongs & thongs". But before all that, I don't
want to miss the reality of thanking everyone reading this note, because
throughout 2013 in the midst of the fun, success, pain, pressure,
problems, trials, tests, temptations and tribulations, you loved me, you
supported me, you chided me, you criticised me, but in all that you
didn't make me bitter, you made me a BETTER person.
Happy New Year!!!
