If you are like me that love to watch Ebonylife TV Channel 165, then my guest for this week needs no profound introduction but I will.
Lanre Olusola is my ‘date’ for this week and he is the CEO of Olusola Lanre Coaching Academy (O.L.C.A). He has years of extensive study spanning the fields of Engineering, performance improvement management, human behavioural psychology, governance, organisational design, business transformations and MetaMedicine.
Consequent upon diverse engagements and phenomenal transformation across several industries, he has been described by many as a peak performance catalyst, life coach, health therapist, national development strategist, and executive advisor.
He is an alumnus of the world-renowned Harvard Business School, Boston Massachusetts USA, An ASET, U.K certified life coach. He graduated as a performance coach from Europe’s number one coaching institution; The Coaching Academy, U.K. His advanced studies in Psychology, Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and Quantum Physics led him to become an AAMET U.K., certified matrix reimprinting practitioner and Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) therapist. Lanre is also an Executive Director at Ebonylife TV.
Omawumi, his executive assistant had made sure everything was set for the interview and as I walked into the building, I immediately had a flashback on when I was invited with Ali Baba (a comedian I respect so much) for a TV series recording put together by Hadunni, an inspiring woman with a heart of gold, completely sold out to selfless service. I remember my ‘date’ for this week joined us later because we actually used his office for one of the scenes and he was quite warm and very receptive.
Lost in my thoughts as I walked upstairs, Omawumi’s greetings suddenly helped to interrupt my thoughts “Welcome Kemi, nice to see you, come right in” she said and there he was composed and obviously ready for the interview. I could not help but notice the sea of books behind him and managed to catch a quick view of some like Tony Blair’s “A Journey”, Paulo Coelho’s “The Alchemist”,Malcom Gladwell’s “Outliers” to mention a few.
After exchanging pleasantries, the interview began and as he began to share with me about his youthful days and how rebellious he was, I couldn’t put it together with the calm, intelligent and deep man sitting in front of me.
Lanre lost his father when he was two years old in the first ever Nigerian plane crash from Nigeria airways so he grew up with a single mother. He tells me he was so stubborn that even though he made good grades at WAEC, his mum needed to see the WAEC result physically before she accepted it as true but one person, who never gave up on Lanre was his vice principal, Mrs Daudu. In his words, “Mrs Daudu will always bring me to the staff room and the teachers would want me beaten but she would say ‘no, I am teaching him something’. She personally mentored me and taught me to write well. She did this for me in my 3rd year and in my fourth year; I became a grade A student. I wrote my WAEC once and made it. When I got my admission to University of Lagos to study civil engineering, my mother still doubted its validity. The rest they say is history, my life has indeed experienced various positive changes and I am grateful to God.” Lanre says.
Lanre graduated in 1990 and worked for three years after which he started his own work from telecoms to fashion designing, to manufacturing, to personal branding, nine companies in all with partnership with a couple of people and ran it for from 1993-2005 yet, there was a void. Hear him tell how the void was filled “In 2004, I was praying because I needed to know what direction God wanted me to go mind you, even then, my businesses were very successful. I asked Him Lord who am I? What solution was I born to give? Who has got a problem I am a solution to? Where are they and how best can I connect to them to help them solve it and how do I want to be remembered and I heard clearly God say to me, ‘I need you to go and change one life, one mind at a time’ and that decision changed the trajectory of my life.”
Lanre was bothered about the ‘assignment’ he was given. A civil engineer? serial entrepreneur? a business man? Who knew nothing about the human mind and the human life, “where was the synergy going to come from?” he thought to himself and once again, he hears God say to him “I will teach you what to do and direct you where to go”. From that time, he went to a coaching academy, one of the world’s biggest top coaching programmes and studied life coaching, performance coaching and executive coaching. He did courses in Psychology, emotional freedom, behavioural transformation and therapy and many more “over the years I have retained and I am glad I obeyed God because I found peace in doing what I want and what God has given me grace to do.” He says.
Sharing more on how he started O.L.C.A, Lanre admits that “as I went into understanding what my calling was and studying all I did, at 2005/2006, I practiced all I was taught. I went to almost all universities in Nigeria organising seminars and giving lectures on all I have been taught and nine months into that, I got a call from Abuja from Oby Ezekwesili, she had just moved from the Minister of mineral resources to education and at that time, she was looking for consultants that will work with her to transform the sector so I was in Abuja for three years working with the World Bank, DFID, Ministry of Education and the presidency to transform the educational sector”
“We had programs with Kano, Kaduna, Kwara and I deployed all I had learnt as tools I used. In 2009, we were going to develop a bigger project in Lagos than the Kano, Kaduna Kwara one because it had expanded to Adamawa, Jigawa and Lagos so the World Bank sent me to Lagos to start the project and as I made my way to Lagos, the Lord said to me that it was time to set up the coaching academy (one mind, one life at a time) and I began to practise this with the private sector since 2009 and from then till now, it is all I have done. We have trained over 150 persons in 5 years and many of them have gone on to practice and create niches for themselves.” Lanre tell me.
How then can one differentiate ‘Life coaching’ from ‘performance coaching’ I asked Lanre and his response said it all. “Life coaching is helping you look at your life holistically, there are twelve dimensions to one’s life, your achievement, your contentment and peace, your work and your career or business, your security, your spirituality, quality of friendship with your family, friends and colleges, your energy and passion, self esteem, self confidence and belief, your relationship with your spouse…a life coach ensures you perform all of these as a whole as you enjoy peace and tranquillity while a performance coach helps you look at your goals in life, your objectives and how to achieve it.
Lanre is a regular face on Ebonylife TV but he tells me there is more. Hear him “Ebonylife is a natural extension of what I do as a life coach, psychotherapist and behavioural therapist.
The vision of Ebonylife TV is to help Nigerians identify exactly who they are and be the best they can ever be that is why you will never see us talk about disaster, destruction and anything negative about Nigeria/Nigerians or Africa/Africans because words are powerful and Ebonylife is positioning Africa in positive light.”
“We are not saying there are no negative things happening, let international stations and others that thrive on such news keep doing that, we do not believe in that at Ebonlylife TV but are there positive things happening and positive persons in Nigeria? Yes! That is why people can look at our celebrities and astute individuals and say they want to be like them. I am an equity owner in Ebonylife and it is my baby as well, I am an executive director of Ebonylife in charge of human resources. I look out for people becoming the best they can be and performing on their optimum, I also speak on the show ‘Moments with Mo’ when we talk about psychological, emotional and performance issues and I also speak regularly on another show on Ebonylife called ‘love lounge’ where we talk about relationship and love issues, matters that people are not necessarily confident to share about.”
Lanre is indeed very passionate about Nigeria, even from what he just narrated to me but he still has his worries about Nigeria. He expresses it to me when he tells me “What worries me about this nation is that doctors are in the banks, psychologists are business men, people are not in their natural places of habitat so we have square pegs in round holes. There is no nation without a community, there is no community without a family and there is no family without people.”
“Parents need to understand they are custodians, let the children become who they desire to become, encourage them to maximise their potentials. Many years ago many people never thought their children will be allowed to be musicians, footballers and all but now the story has changed. Let your children express themselves freely.” He says
Sharing more on allowing a child to express themselves freely, Lanre speaks about his children and his face suddenly lightens up. “I love my daughters tremendously, one is 9 and the other is 6. I have allowed them to express themselves the way they want with all their passion, from swimming to taquando to gymnastics to piano to education. They attend a French school so they speak French, they are taught Russian, Spanish and Chinese languages and they speak English as well. I am now teaching them Yoruba. My first daughter 9, has a black belt in taquando and she has represented Nigeria in Germany against 42 countries of the world in swimming and she has a silver medal and two gold medals against Russia, Germany and USA.”
“From the 4-11th of June 2014, she would be representing Nigeria in swimming. My six year old is also a champion swimmer, just few weeks ago, she won one gold and two silver medals, they are A students in their school and I am proud of them. I am a coach to them when I need to be, I am a friend to them when I need to be and I am a father to them when I need to be. I give them permission to find expression to whatever they want to be. Whatever career they want to pursue they are allowed. My wife is the resource director for Transcorp Group and together by God’s grace we have been able to nurture our children.” He concludes
Though I enjoyed the conversation and felt well tutored, the interview had to come to an end but not without words of encouragement to Nigerians. “My final words are for the Chibok girls, they are our sisters so we have started to pray for them and call them by name. They have names; they are not just ‘Chibok girls’. We need to prepare for them when they return because by God’s grace they will return. Psychologically, they may never come back the way they left so we must prepare to take care of their mental needs. It is important to have a team of psychologists, psychotherapists and life coaches on standby. I am aware that some amount has been set aside for their rehabilitation in Borno state, we pray that the government reaches out to the right set of people and be committed to helping these children when they come back.”
KEMI AJUMOBI
