Think Excellence

[Applause]

africa

africa does not need pity

it needs opportunities africa

does not need the world to feel sorry

for it

it needs the world to give us

opportunities

at some point growing up as a young boy

i’ve had the privilege

of actually growing in a semi or

disadvantaged

background why do i say that

in the small town which i grew up in

it’s situated just in the north of

durban called guadalusa in the small

town

the word excellence was taboo

what do i mean when i say it was taboo

nobody mentioned it not in the school

not in the community not even

in my own family

excellence what is excellence

growing up excellence i was told that it

was this a historical thing

that only a few amongst us and

communities can only achieve it

one begs to ask themselves what is

excellence excellence is in us

africans before the skyscrapers were

raised up

in dubai before the white house of the

united states

before we marveled and admired the great

inventions that the west

and the asians invented

the african child created what you call

the pyramids of egypt without

any form of machine technology

the question is how did they do this

excellence we were born

and we were breathed from people who had

excellence what do i mean by this before

we celebrated jake

bazoff jeff bezos of amazon as the most

valuable

person living alive today there was a

man by the name of king musa

mensah the first of mali the richest man

to ever live even till to date

excellence

excellencies in our dna

as africans growing up

going to school i got to understand

that we saw excellence as getting the

best marks amongst the learners

we saw excellence as

one of the things that only only a few

could get

today i’ve got a different narrative and

i want to spark an idea and remind you

that african child before

we did it and we can do it again

right about two years ago i published a

book titled

think excellence i wanted to redefine

what we call

excellence because it’s important that

you need to understand

that for us to hurt today

to control today and create a better

future tomorrow

we need to think excellence

now one would beg to ask what is

excellence

the great ancient philosopher aristotle

defined excellence as a habit

he said excellence is what we

continuously do

therefore it is a habit jay-z

then came on a little bit later one of

the most valuable hip-hop artists

he says excellence is

being able to beat your best

when i published my book i called it

think excellence the redefinition of

excellence

so for us as african if we gonna hurt

tomorrow

if we’re gonna be better tomorrow if

we’re gonna control the world tomorrow

it begins here in the mind

if we can think it then we can become it

let’s reverse back to time and

remind ourselves that we have always

been

in the forefront of innovation

excellence in this book

i made it mine and i made it for you to

understand as well as an african child

that if you’re going to define

excellence or if you want to achieve a

great success

you need to first define excellence

to you so i redefined excellence

i said if they say jeff bezos is

excellence then for me as an african

child

coming from guadalusa a rural area or

semi-rural area now

i understood excellence as umamoto who

was my

neighbor who was able to take her five

kids

to school from primary

secondary and university

using money she got from going to the

streets and being a vendor selling

fruits

and vegetables economically if you try

to understand that and financially

it may not make sense but it’s excellent

because she was able

to do it what is

excellence to you

if a father who is a security guard

wakes up each and every day

and is able to take his kids all through

school that for me

is excellent so it begs the thought

of maybe we as african have forgotten

that we are

excellent and our thinking has

gone to average but i don’t blame you

why simply because growing up in that

small community

i was given a definition of what success

and excellence is

and this was it you need to grow up go

to primary go to high school finish high

school

if your parents are lucky enough to have

some bit of money they’ll send you to

university and

after you’ve matriculated you need to

find a job

and if you did and if you are lucky

enough to find a job in the local

municipality or one of the biggest

industrial firms

the next thing you had to do was build

your family home or build your

own bedroom at home buy yourself a golf

one and you became the man about town

we were given that and we were told that

was excellence to us

so today my thought is maybe let’s

change the way we see ourself

and actually think to ourselves that i

also deserve to drive the most famous

cars that are branded at luxury i also

deserve

to actually go into that mansion simply

because i’m willing to work

and think excellence

number two one of the biggest problems

that we have now

is that we as africans have stopped

believing

in our own solutions

we are quick to look to the west we are

quick to look to the north

even to the asian side to give us

solutions

to problems that we have

here’s a spark of an idea

majority of you here have something

special that is within you

but for some reason you’ve stopped

believing in it

i want to end with a thought growing up

in the small town of what wooza i was

the only grandson at home

my father had gone out far to try and

get job opportunities

so in the house it was just my

grandmother my grandfather

and my two aunties i was the only boy my

grandfather being old

my mother used to work she used to sell

pies for a living to help me get through

school

should come back late in the evening

where we stayed it was very dangerous

as you know some of the townships in

south africa the crime rate

is for real so i experienced this at

first hand

my mother would come back in the evening

late sometimes at night from selling

pies

and she had to get someone to go and

wait for her at the bus stop

my grandfather couldn’t do it so i had

to man up

young boy i had to man up now in the bus

stop where she jumped off

there was a huge tree under the tree was

very dark

the taxi would leave her at about an

iceland distance

i could see her standing from the tree

as she jumped off from the taxi

in that space there was a street light

but as you walk towards the tree

it was very dark and in the community

everybody like everybody knew that

people were being mugged

people were being stabbed people

one of them had lost their lives in that

tree

i had to man up as a young boy i decided

that i was going to go

and wait for my mother i was scared

i didn’t know what to do but i had to

man up

my grandfather was too old the whole

community knew that people were dying

in that place so i decided one day to

take

my grandfather’s long coat i wore it

and i took what you call an up gear

i went there short as i was the coach

could touch the floor

as i was walking it would be like i’m

the undertaker

and the people would be really scared

so i walked up i stood right there where

everybody would think you wouldn’t stand

mind will tell you go wait by the light

but i decided to stand in the dark

so even the robbers when they came they

saw

a short man with the long coats they

didn’t understand what was going on

in isis

so i stood there

and then i’ll tell you this

as scared as i was

i stood there until i finished my

matrique

not one day was my mother marked yes

there were days where she shouted at me

you go home you’re not supposed to be

here because what if they come here like

honestly if the robbers did came they

were probably gonna give me a slap and i

was gonna cry

but here’s the thing the whole community

knew

that there was robbers the whole

community knew that i could possibly get

mugged or get killed myself

but here’s the thing for some reason

i believed i could save her

i believed i could save her

so as africans today

if we could go back to believing that

our excellence is valid

our ideas are valid our solutions

are valid and begin to reverse and think

excellence again

people like jeff bezos

believe in excellence but

more so africans believe in excellence

we just witnessed the spring box

displaying a huge

excellence in the field my question to

you today is

do you think excellence do you think you

deserve to be an excellent person

to be an excellent leader to be an

excellent employee

do you believe that you are excellent

if you don’t think excellence you become

average

and in life there’s only three people

there are people who are average

that people who are good and that people

who are excellent

you need to choose where do you fall the

people

who are average focus

on just getting the job done

the people who are good focus

on making the boss happy the people

who are excellent change the narrative

and control what happens next my

question is

are you gonna think excellence so that

your future becomes

excellent thank you

you