Over the years, he has committed himself to a life of excellence and it sure shows in everything he does and stands for. Described by various people as distinctive, distinguished, exceptional, memorable, competent, outstanding to mention a few, are definitely resultant of his culture of excellence.
Welcome to the enchanting world of Pastor Femi Paul, a prolific speaker and down-to-earth teacher who is highly respected for the impactful and thought provoking style of delivering his message.
He is a lawyer with formidable academic laurels and vast work experience in legal practice as well as in shipping and oil & gas. He obtained his Bachelor’s degree in law from the renowned University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University). He holds a Master of Law degree in Shipping Law and Intellectual Property from the University of London. He is also a Certificate Graduate of the Oxford Princeton School of Petroleum Studies in England.
Called to the Bar at the age of 21, Femi Paul began his Law career at the prestigious Bentley Edu & Co. Law firm. Thereafter, he established Orotope-Paul & Co as the Principal Partner. He was also at different times; General Manager – Links Lines Ltd, Director of Business Development – Cloverleaf Shipping as well as General Manager, Operations – Ocean and Oil Limited (now OANDO).
Femi has delivered various papers, keynotes and workshops on Excellence in life at several organisations, institutions and conferences around the world. In 2015, he was honoured with a Doctorate Degree by Northwestern Christian University for his excellent contribution towards Christian Education. He is also a pastor and the founder of Grace Assembly Church, a ministry committed to inspiring people and transforming lives. In summer 2016, Femi Paul will be launching his long-awaited book, Excellence in life, which is a must read and we can hardly wait!
Speaking with Femi was indeed very enlightening for me as I could see from his demeanour that his passion for excellence is evident in everything he stands for. I wasn’t wrong to hastily conclude that his upbringing has a lot to do with where he is today and he affirms this when he says “My parents greatly helped to shape who I am today because they deliberately brought me up to strive to be better than the environment I grew up in (no matter how good it was!). My late father especially, he profiled the culture of excellence from the small things, even to the big things. I saw this virtue in him first hand; he was around us all the time. Parents should spend as much time as possible with their children, that way; they pass on lasting values and enduring culture to their children and wards. Children learn more from models than words” he articulates brilliantly.
Truth be told, leaving a lucrative job as a legal luminary with shipping, oil & gas influences to full time ministry isn’t for the faint hearted and I am glad he concurs. Hear him “My transition from full time oil and gas executive to full time minister/pastor wasn’t easy. While I was confident of my earning capacity in the business world, I wasn’t so sure how I was going to ‘live totally by faith’, especially because I also had a family to support.”
“Another factor was that, I was used to giving to churches, brethren, ministries, missionaries and so on and I just couldn’t see myself now receiving an income from a source that I gave to; a source that could do with more…but the Lord straightened me out and I took a leap of faith. That was in year 2001, and 15 years down the line, it is clear that God remains faithful as He has blessed me tremendously.” He explicates.
The greatest lessons Femi has learnt in life are the love of God, gratitude and humility. He further adds that “discovering that God loves me and died to save me has changed my sense of identity. I have stopped defining myself by my background, education and possessions; I am now ‘complete in Christ’. I don’t have that ‘entitlement mentality’ anymore, I am now just grateful for every good thing in my life. Gratitude is not determined by how much you have, but how much you value each and every blessing, some of which many take for granted.”
Paul has learnt humility through the things he suffered “I learnt it because for so long, my life was so good, it seemed like a Nigerian fairy tale and that bred pride and cockiness in me. So I have become more understanding and accommodating of people’s struggles and challenges.”
Seeing that the culture of excellence is rare in Nigeria, and knowing its immense transformational power, Paul has undertaken the task of spreading the culture of excellence alongside other men and women of excellence who are his guest speakers in his bi-monthly program called Excellence In Life Series in his quest for a new Nigeria.
Borne out of his passion to leave a lasting legacy of excellence for future generations, Excellence In Life (EIL) series is simply the platform by which he strives to eradicate the prevalent culture of mediocrity and propagate in its place, the much needed culture of excellence. In his own words, “The EIL Series is a bi-monthly seminar convened by me but will host speakers who have imbibed and profited from the culture of excellence. These are men and women of distinction, with undeniable track record of achievement and decency. Solving the Nigerian problem cannot be by building infrastructure or systems that will only inevitably, be run down by our people, just because the culture of mediocrity subsists. The solution is the planned displacement of this dastardly culture, simultaneously replaced with the national building culture of excellence. This series is a National Re-orientation Initiative.” Femi articulates.
Obviously, Nigeria is going through challenging times economically and since I know Femi is passionate about Nigeria, I asked what he would say if he walked into a room filled with the major business players in Nigeria and his response says it all. “I would say that I sympathise with the position that they are in, they have inherited an incredible problem but it’s not so much a problem of money its more than that. It’s not so much a problem of resources or infrastructure. It is a culture problem. You can throw all the money at a situation where there is a culture problem, it might not work. If you build infrastructure they are going to break down the infrastructure. You can throw the money at them; they are going to squander the money. It is deep. Culture is deep.”
“So what we are dealing with here is a culture mediocrity poor thinking, bad attitude, small picture of decisions and the solution to that is what I proffer. Excellence needs to take the place of prevalent culture mediocrity. Mediocrity is about doing things poorly, not thinking deeply about things, substandard way of thinking and decision taken. So it’s not the money, it’s to reengineer the thought processes of people. It’s about doing a lot with little. That’s what I bring to the table. The ability of taking the same people, just changing the way they are thinking and they produce incredible results so that whatever money, resources we have we will be able to use it and by God’s grace, this will definitely birth the New Nigeria of our dreams!
Kemi Ajumobi
