Women Empowerment
OPINION: Success Comes In Different Shades
Sisu Abu Daooh is a 65 year old Egyptian woman who has been dressing as a man for the last forty years of her life to work, supporting herself and her daughter after her husband died when she was just six months pregnant. She refused to bow to the pressure of remarrying which was the only way she could survive as a woman in the late 70’s. Getting an office job was off limits for her because she wasn’t educated and labor jobs were closed to women in her country so she shaved her hair, wore loose male clothes which got her labor jobs.
Late Mama Janet Ekundayo was a woman who though had kids of her own, opened her home to become an orphanage in 1969 taking care of abandoned and orphaned children from all over the country irrespective of tribe and ethnicity. Apart from donations from kind-hearted people, she used her meager earnings to care for the numerous children she housed.
Jenny Lamey was going to be moving homes so she engaged the services of a moving company, ‘Bellhops’. Bellhops had hired a twenty year old African American man named Walter Carr as part of the crew to help the Lamey’s move. Walter who didn’t want to miss his first day of work because his car broke down and he didn’t have the money to call Uber trekked 20miles, walking all night from his home in Pelham to Homewood. He left his home at 11pm the previous night to make the next morning appointment. He had walked all night before a police car pulled over at about 4am where he was resting and asked him if he was okay. He explained his situation and the cop drove him the rest of the journey to Jenny’s home and explained what had happened to Jenny. Jenny, who is a mother herself understood immediately and asked if he wanted to rest in the room upstairs till daybreak but Walter declined saying he wanted to start immediately. With the racial tension and mistrust between White and African Americans in the US now, what Jenny, a white woman did, asking a young African American to go upstairs and rest, at 4:30 am in the morning, at her home, isn’t something to be overlooked.
All of the women mentioned have one connecting factor underlying all they did: influence. There was a need, about themselves or someone else and they chose to do something about it. Their choice of actions in their various circumstances influenced their situations for a desirable outcome.
Everyone has influence: the difference is how each woman chooses to use her impact positively within her circle. It’s about doing what we can do, with the resources we have at a time.
Photo credit: Istockphoto
Every woman must discover who she is and her purpose for existence, once this is discovered, each one will know that we all have tailor-made destinies to fulfill in our world and everyone has to run her own race which ultimately is each individual’s contribution to the development and sustainability of our world. The discovery of purpose is very powerful: it put each person on her track and makes one laser focused. When you know what you are created for, then you will run your own race, staying in your own lane because you know who you are and what you are about.
Self-awareness, which is one of the fundamentals of our human endowments is so powerful that when we are truly aware, we will have peace of mind which invariably affects every aspect of our lives, self-awareness makes us satisfied and contented. It gives us the serenity to find security in who we are, “for the more tranquil we become, the greater is our success, our influence, and our power for good” – ‘As a man thinketh’ -James Allen.
Positivity of influence is not measured by magnitude of stage but by impact, irrespective of location or number. Success is determined by how well we use our influence for meaningful impact for “success is knowing your purpose in life, growing to reach your maximum potential, and sowing seeds that benefit others”- John C. Maxwell.
Success as defined above actually starts with knowing who you are, your area of influence, functioning maximally therein and influencing within that sphere.
Popularity does not equate success: positively functioning in one’s area of influence does. The underlying significance of success is influence, positivity, continuity and preservation of principles and values even while methods, situations and circumstances vary.
One of the misconceptions about success is the myopic view of basing it on fame and status, narrow-minded view only see individuals as successful or unsuccessful based of their popularity of being seen and heard.
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In influence, there is neither equality nor yardstick to measure how far or how deep our impact has been or will be. Mrs. Ibukun Awosika, the present Chairman of First bank Nigeria is as successful as Sisu Abu Daooh, the woman who spent over forty years of her life as a man to fend for her daughter after the death of her husband. While one has larger and more glamorized platforms of been seen, heard and globally applauded, the other had just a singular motive for doing what she did in her town of Luxor: believe me, both have achieved considerable measures of success in their diverse ways.
A stay-at-home mum who takes care of her aged parents and immediate family, doing it well and making the lives of those around comfortable, worthwhile and meaningful, is as successful as the career woman rising up the ladder of organizational success and being a role model for younger women to follow.
Both just have different platforms for their influences.
Not all women would be in the limelight so measuring impact by publicity is superficial, don’t spurn another based of magnitude of platform, base success on impact.
The reach and greatness of our influence is measured, not by numbers or platforms, but by impact.
Photo credit: istockphoto.com
Photo credit: TY Bello Photography
OLUWABUSAYO MADARIOLA
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