The imagination series: Big Hairy Audacious Vision

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If there is one issue I strongly believe plagues Africa, I think it is the inadequate use of our imagination to create a better environment for ourselves. The use of our imagination to create solutions to the peculiarities of our continent. I read amazing stories online of every day individuals who dared to imagine the impossible and achieved just that.  You can read some of these stories here. I don’t about you but I’m tired of reading of listening to tales of woe, hunger, war, disease about Africa. I strongly believe we have the ability and capacity to change the African story with the appropriate use of our imagination. Now, if you did the vision writing exercise in my previous post. I applaud you (If you didn’t, you should, just go here) but let’s take a step back and evaluate what you wrote. I need you to ask yourself the following questions: Is my vision big?  I.e. Is it beyond me? Is my vision hairy? i.e. will it need big balls? (no pun intended) Is it audacious? i.e. will i need to take bold steps? Does it solve a problem or contribute to society? Now it’s ok to have a vision about your personal life, family etc. but please step out of that and add a vision that changes society. A vision that leaves a mark. We need to go beyond wanting cars, houses, more money etc. These are all good but if you take a step beyond all of this to contribute to society, you actually get to achieve all of that and more. Bill gates dared to dream of a world where everyone could use the computer easily Ben Carson dared to Mark Zuckerberg dared to build a social platform that connects 900m people Jeff Bezos dared to build the largest ecommerce site on the planet Buhari dared to believe he could still be president of Nigeria and he can’t change Nigeria alone. The private sector has a role to play. You and I have a role to play So revaluate your vision and think of an area where you can contribute immensely to the society. Like I wrote in my previous post, don’t focus on the HOW . Just think about the WHAT. In my next post, we’ll work on building a vision board. This is where we cut our pictures that are related to our vision and put them on a board. This way it constantly your vision is constantly in your line of sight. Stay remarkable! Tomie