Make the hard personal choices

 Last week, I was in Zambia where I had the honour of presenting to 1 200 accountants at the conference organised by the Zambia Institute of Chartered Accountants (Zica).

There was an interesting motivational speaker that presented before my talk. Major Dr Humphrey Mutambo inspired me and the rest of audience with his amazing life story.

Today, this man is a chartered accountant complete with an MBA and a doctorate in business management (DBA) as well. He owns an audit firm and is really successful. But he started very humbly.

Several decades ago, he enlisted for the Zambian military as a mere infantry soldier which is well below officers with no real big future in terms of career growth.

He told us that he took a choice that he will not retire in low ranks. He decided that he deserved better. He told himself that the key to his success was education. And so, he enrolled for accounting studies.

He studied on his own and got a certificate in accounting and later a diploma. Within a short time, he was a supervisor of fellow low ranked soldiers and he would carry his books when on operations assignments.

While in the tent, each time he had free time, he would be studying. When came the time for examinations, he would take leave in order to concentrate on his future.

After his diploma, his seniors transferred him to the finance department. He kept studying and became a chartered accountant.

Later, he took early retirement from the military and joined an audit firm. He later got a master in business administration and DBA. He then quit to form his own audit firm which is doing really well.

He concluded the story by telling us that in life, one needs to make the big choices that completely change his or her future. Have you ever sat down to tell yourself “no, I don’t deserve this, I deserve better”.

This reminds me of the graduation ceremony for Pentecostal Life University on May 31 2024 where I had the honour of being a special guest and speaker.

In attendance, we had the country’s former president Dr Joyce Banda who was attending the graduation of her relative.

She too alluded to a time when she was about 30 years of age and she took a decision to do big things in her life. She chose to dedicate her efforts for the well-being of women and other vulnerable categories of our nation.

She then formed National Association of Business Women which became a successful non-governmental organisation that empowered women.

The rest is history but we do know that it greatly contributed to her transition into what became a very successful and illustrious political career.

The two stories above do not surprise me at all. I am also a product of very hard choices I took in life. Quite a number of them. The first was when I was young and in primary school. Both my parents were primary school teachers, teaching in rural catholic primary schools.

My Dad was preparing me for village rural life. I noticed from the beginning that although he wanted me to do well, he was preparing me for village life.

I took a decision that I would get myself educated to a level where I would play and contribute at levels but bigger and higher than village life.

When I was doing secondary education, in the junior section I was doing fine but I was not top student. During the holiday just before starting Form Three, I visited my aunt who was staying at Chikale Beach in Nkhata Bay in August 1994. I took all my books and past examination scripts to understand where I was losing marks.

I took a decision by the beach to become a top academic performer. That was the turning moment of my academics and from the start of Form Three, I was a completely different student all the way to the time I completed my PhD at Oxford University 10 years later at 27. It is all down to taking hard personal choices.

Now is your turn. Sit down and reflect on your life. To rise and shine, take the hard personal choices and work relentlessly on them. Good luck!