How To Develop Yourself "Wholistically": Dr. Olumide Emmanuel (Transcript)

Here is the full transcript of Dr. Olumide Emmanuel’s talk titled “How To Develop Yourself “Wholistically”” at TEDxJibowu conference.

Listen to the audio version here:

TRANSCRIPT:

The Mistake of Love

Hello everyone. The year was 1997, and I made one of the greatest mistakes of my life. I got married as a poor man. I fell to the trap of, “I love you the way you are,” and that was a trap that trapped me.

I suddenly realized later that “I love you the way you are” does not mean “I love you to remain the way you are.” I suddenly realized that when a woman tells you “I love you the way you are,” she’s hoping that somewhere along the line your story will change. And if your story refuses to change, our own story about you will change. Why? Because there is no romance without finance, and love is not enough.

I should have learnt my lesson, but I did not. In 1998, I made the second greatest mistake of my life. I impregnated my wife, and I was expecting my first child. As the pregnancy was rising, so was my frustration, so was my depression because I realized that I could not even take care of myself and the woman that loved me the way I am.

Now I’m bringing a child into the world to compound my problem. But in that frustration, I cried out for a change and that led me to eight months, one of the most amazing eight months of my life. For eight months, I wanted to find out how do I break free from poverty. And I realized that if you are not informed, you’ll be deformed, if you are not inspired, you expire, if you are not updated, you’ll be outdated, if you are not in the know, you cannot be in the flow.

The Quest for Knowledge

What you know determines how far you go, and those who know rule over those who do not know. So I began to study. I read well over 800 books within eight months. I was like a madman. I studied the biographies and autobiographies of all the rich and wealthy people on the face of the earth that I could lay my hand on, all because I wanted to change, because I realized that I had to become what I wanted in order to attract what I wanted.

A lot of people want things, but they are not ready to become what they want. To be a millionaire, you must first of all be the millionaire, and then you attract the millions. You must be a billionaire before you can attract the billions. So within those eight months, as a result of that discipline and that sacrifice and that insatiable desire to see myself transform, I became somebody else.

Even though physically the forms were not there, but internally I was a different person. And that is why I’m here today to talk to you about the role of personal development in maximizing your possibilities in life. Every normal human being that I know wants to be the best version of themselves. Every normal human being that I know wants to maximize their possibilities in life, but not many of them are willing to pay the price to see that become a reality.

ALSO READ: Tony Robbins on The Dr. Jordan B. Peterson Podcast (Transcript)

The Power of Personal Development

Not many of them are willing to make personal development a core curriculum of their life, a core pursuit of their life, so that they can end up becoming what they desire to become. Guess what? Dreams without action end up as a nightmare. So one thing that I’ve come to realize is if you want to maximize your possibilities in life, you must take personal development seriously.

You must make personal development a core area of your life, and you must be intentional, you must be specific, you must be consistent about personal development. I did my second Ph.D., I completed my second Ph.D. early last year, and I did my dissertation on leadership and the economic empowerment of individuals. And my focus was on the role of personal and political leadership on the economic empowerment of individuals and I focused extensively on this aspect of personal leadership.

Because in the world that we live in today, a lot of people are not willing to take responsibility for their life and responsibilities for the outcome of their life, they’re always looking for who to blame. Because all over the world, the excuses are the trademarks of failures. When people succeed, they take responsibility. When they fail, they shift blame.

Holistic Personal Development

Many people are students in our world today and in this part of the world, when the student passes, they say, “Oh, I passed,” but when they failed, “they failed me, the lecturer failed me.” Because we are always trying to blame somebody for what we are going through. You need to understand that personal development is that game-changer. Personal development is that which will change the game in any aspect of your life because for any area of life where you desire to become successful, all you need to do is to get the knowledge in that area, act on the knowledge, be consistent in that, and before you know it, you are coming out on the other side.

But a lot of people have understood the importance of personal development, yet they are not able to be the best version of themselves, they are not able to maximize their possibilities in life because there is an aspect of personal development that has not been fully understood by many. And that is the core of what I want to drop for you today. Now listen, when we talk about personal development, a lot of people only think about it with reference to acquiring knowledge and increasing their intellectual capacity.

ALSO READ: The Trick to Powerful Public Speaking: Lawrence Bernstein (Transcript)

But that is not all there is to personal development. If you are going to maximize your possibilities in life, you need to go into what I call holistic personal development.

And to understand holistic personal development, you need to understand the holistic you. Now listen, you are a spirit.

Understanding the Holistic You

You have a soul. You live in a body. You are a spirit being having a human experience. You are not a human being having a spiritual experience. That is your spirit, now in your spirit, there are 3 compartments and 3 parts. In your soul, there are 4 compartments and 4 parts. In your body, there are 5 compartments and 5 parts.

So the 3 compartments in your spirit need to be understood and developed. The 4 compartments in your soul need to be understood and developed. The 5 compartments in your body need to be understood and developed. Many of us know about the 5 departments of our body because we call it the 5 physical senses.

Not many of us know about the spirit, and we don’t have enough time to offload that. But I want to focus on the soul. Now, you need to understand that in your soul, there are 4 compartments. Because your soul is the central part of your being.

In your soul, you have your mind, you have your will, you have your emotion, and you have your intellect. You have your mind, you have your will, you have your emotion, and you have your intellect. Now listen, your mind is the central processing unit of your life. Your mind is the storage of your life.

The Essence of Self-Development

Everything that has happened or is happening to you is stored in your mind. Now, your will is that part of you that helps you to decide. It’s that part of you that helps you to choose. So you have your mind, you have your will, you have your emotion.

Your emotion is that part of you that helps you to feel. But you also have the mind, the will, the emotion, and then the intellect. And that’s that part of you that helps you to think. So if you are going to become the best version of yourself and maximize your possibility, you need to develop yourself holistically, spirit, soul, and body.

But since I’m focusing on the soul, that means you need to develop your mind, you need to develop your will, you need to develop your emotion, and you need to develop your intellect. And once you understand that these four parts of your soul, the three parts of your spirit, the five parts of your body, all needs to be developed consistently and holistically, you now have a curriculum of how to be the best version of yourself.

ALSO READ: Transcript of Why Hard Challenges are Good for You: Lessons from Astronauts - Martina Löfqvist

Guess what? There are three windows in that same mind. Your mind has three windows. While you are developing all the different parts of your spirit, soul, and body, you also need to understand how to undo the windows of your mind.

Now, the three windows of your mind are the one that opens to your past, the one that opens to your future, and the one that opens to your present. Now, the window of your mind that opens to your past is called the memory window. With the memory window, you have the ability to replay the past. The one that opens to your present is called the contemplation window.

With that window, you are able to analyze the present in order to know what to do. The one that opens to your future is the imagination window. With the imagination window, you are able to visit the future in advance and come back now to decide whether you want to go into the future because imagination is nothing but formation of images.

And when you form the right image, and you are able to think well by contemplating accurately, and you are able to look back at your past by looking at what you have gone through, the power of insight based on memory and your track record, the power of insight based on your contemplation and analysis of where you are. And the power of foresight based on where you are going to, will all work together and bring you to that place where you’ll be the best version of yourself.

So everyone listening to me right now, wherever you are all over the world, you can be the best version of yourself, you can maximize your possibility, but one thing you need to do is make personal development a major part of your life. And once you go into holistic personal development, it will play a major role in you being the best version of yourself. Go and become.

How To Develop Yourself “Wholistically”: Dr. Olumide Emmanuel (Transcript)