Emmanuel Iruobe is a Covenant University Student who will be in
his final year by September 2012, he is a mentor to many, he was the first student to ever
become the vice-chairman student council at a lower lever(200l) and he
also became the chairman student council in the next tenure. Mr Iruobe
has a leadership NGO called "LEGACY". He has so much balanced his life due to
his various activities and busy schedule. He is a fist class student of
Electrical and Electronics Engineering. In this interview, he will tell
us more about himself and his principles of goal setting.
General background Information:
I am a missile following a pre-determined trajectory, a
Nigerian who is dedicated to driving certain changes in humans, particularly
Nigerians.
I have a passion for Leadership, ensuring the Personal
Development of Myself and others, and running systems and businesses. To this
end, I speak at seminars and workshops; I also mentor individuals who are crazy
about the things that move Me ensuring that knowledge is transferred to willing
vessels.
I am very particular about making every minute count, so I
don’t waste time, I develop systems and structures to ensure effective Time
Management and utilization. Time Management ranks as number 2 in My set of Core
Values.
What do you understand by Goal Setting:
It’s simple. Everyone has to have a vision, an overall
vision for their lives, if you don’t currently have one, you must get it
because all of your time management is so that you can create enough time to
handle this vision. Your goals are the things you want to achieve, such that,
by achieving these goals, you eventually live out your vision. Plans are the
steps you take on a short, medium or long term in order to achieve your goals
and consequently live out your vision for your life.
This is a very extensive topic, and I’m sure there’d be
questions; I spend hours teaching this single concept in My trainings and
seminars. Perhaps MrAjayi will arrange for another interview with some more
specific questions in this regard or you send Me a message via Facebook.
You will agree with me that you are a rare gem, can you tell us about your time management skills:
My philosophy is simple: everyone has enough time to do
whatever needs to be done and achieved, we’re just not all dedicated to
utilizing our time optimally. A whole lot can be done in 24 hours as a matter
of fact; but you must be creative in extracting maximum value from your time.
Right now, I work for a coy in Lagos and I spend 7 hours
working per work day. I then spend 9 hours on My own personal development
(reading, researching, consuming audios and relevant video programs). You will
be shocked but I can afford to sleep upto 8 hours everyday if I want to, check
it out: 7+9=16 and 24-16=8. I still have 8 hours free to do whatever I want to
do even though I work 7 hours per day for others and 9 hours per day for
Myself. Anybody can do this.
Now, in order to make this work, I utilize all free times.
This is a little picture of My daily personal development routine:
6am – 8am (on the way to work): I listen to audio books and
relevant audio materials.
12pm – 2pm (during break): I read a book.
5:30pm – 7:30pm (on the way from work): I continue with
audio programs.
7:30pm – 9pm (while handling cooking and domestic chores): I
play a productive audio or video in the background.
9pm – 11pm: I continue reading the book, and end with a
video program.
If you evaluate this, it amounts to 9 hours and 30 minutes
spent on My own personal development everyday and this does not affect My job
in any way. Plus, I can sleep for 8 hours from 11pm to 5am if I decide to (but
I never do this).
There’s time everywhere, we’re not all just dedicated to
finding a way to extract maximum value from it.
How do you plan:
I operate from document, not from thought. Most people don’t
seem to understand that the mind was designed for creativity while pen and
paper were designed for storage. My plans are systematically laid out such that
they lead Me straight to My goals (whatever they may be per time).
Planning is very necessary: 1 minute spent in planning saves
you 10 minutes in execution (I used to think it was 5 minutes initially), so
planning gives you a 1000% return on investment. You must know, however, that
planning takes time; but you must give it as much time as it takes.
It’s really simple. Decide what you want to achieve (goal),
then decide what things you need to do in order to achieve what you want to
achieve. List them in a step-by-step format and get to work on it at once;
there really should be no time for time wastage.
Note that if you enter into an unplanned day, you are
literally setting up yourself for unproductivity. This has happened to Me many
times so I know it’s true.
Tell us a bit about how you balanced your academics with your tight leadership role in Covenant University:
Again, My concepts are simple. If I want to achieve academic
success on the one hand and leadership success on the other, I must create time
for both. And whenever I spend too much time doing one, I have to ignore that
one for a while (only for a while, not totally) and focus on the other. Many
people make the error of focusing too much on one thing at the very expense of
every other thing and make out no time to work on the others – it has to be a
balance.
With this understanding, I handled both areas, by the Grace
of God. I led and when My leadership was taking too much of Me, I deliberately
created time for academics. Also, I never missed classes, it has been My long
standing policy to not miss classes right from My first year.
Can you tell us a little about your leadership organization "LEGACY":
The Legacy Leadership Syndicate started as a small group in
2010. The vision came out of a passion to drive a Leadership revolution in
Nigeria. We started out by designing Leadership courses, organizing trainings
and workshops and I also speak at multiple places. If you’ve been following
this interview you will realize that our approach to running Legacy gives a
classic example of goal setting and planning.
Vision: Driving a Leadership Revolution.
Goals: Design Leadership Courses, organize strategic
trainings and workshops, and speak at events.
Plans: Invest in gathering leadership materials, discipline
self and team members to study, ensure collaboration with strategic partners
having similar vision, accept speaking invitations.
This is just a snapshot of what our vision-goal-plan
structure looked like at inception, it’s a lot more advanced now. I hope this
gives you an idea of translating your vision into goals and then plans.
Legacy is on Facebook, we currently have about 9,400 members
and we’re growing exponentially; it’s an open group so anyone can join us by
searching for us on Facebook (type in ‘Legacy’ in the search field) and
requesting to join.
Can you give the youth out there a word of encouragement about personal development:
You are not a waste and you are not designed to be
irrelevant. You are a strategy designed to achieve a particular goal. You must
find that goal and set to work on developing yourself to the point where you
can achieve it. Anyone can make something out of what seems to be nothing, so
making excuses because you’re from a poor background or lost parents or whatever
is simply Un-intelligent. Life has not always been sweet with Me, but I found a
way – you must do same.
I realize this may not be totally easy (eventhough the
concept is simple) so I will be making Myself available to answer your
questions and give advice on handling challenges. Simply get in touch with Me
via Facebook (Emmanuel Iruobe).
Thank you Mr Emmanuel. Remain globally relevant.
Interview conducted by:
Ajayi Adebayo
A sustainable Learning Performance Coach
ebinco007@yahoo.com
suuccess4rmwithin.blogspot.com
