A wise man once said that salary is the bribe that your employer gives you to keep you on the job. This assertion was accentuated by Prof. Vincent Anigbogu, the International Director General of Institute for National Transformation, Lagos, who was one of the speakers at the Ibom Ignite conference 2022.
Speaking on “Ideas Rule the World”, the Professor of Analytical Chemistry said, “Don’t make salary the primary reason you take jobs. Prioritize learning and building capacity”. Here lies the challenge among young people in this part of the world who rather value salary more than learning.
Productive people are those who were eager to work to learn than work to earn at the initial stage. With adequate knowledge and certifications, you can earn more than those who are fixing their eyes on salary than the knowledge and experience they can get from the job.
That was why Prof. Anigbogu frowned against such culture and opined that leadership can change such culture. He emphatically stated that “the mind is like a rubber band, you will never know its capacity unless you stretch it”. The question that tasks a concerned mind is: How far can you stretch your mind?
It is the stretching of the mind, according to the revered speaker, that brings out the best in every individual. Your best is in the inside, and must be stretched to come to the fore.
Seasons of Life
He went further to detail the four seasons of a man’s life: The morning session which is for learning and building capacity; The afternoon season for deployment and practical experience; The evening season which is the season of launching into your destiny. Then, the night season which is for rest.
A critical evaluation of the four seasons indicates that before you can get to where you rest, you must start from learning and building capacity. This explains why the foundation of a building is very significant, and any contractor that jokes with the foundation, jokes with the safety of the house and his career.
It was at this point that Prof. Anigbogu re-echoed the fact that if your foundation is shaky, you will lead a shaky life, but when it is solid, your life and destiny will be solid, and called on participants to build capacity first, before desiring to earn.