He used to go around taking advantage of young girls and abandoning them. I also learned I had a sister and brother living with my mother. I spent many lonely and sleepless nights thinking about the family I did not know.

 Some of the people in the village made my life more miserable. They used to tease me; they used to call me names to belittle me. They’d call me Souyan. I learned later it was the name of a sick and crippled man. Others predicted that I would die early. But they were all wrong! I made it!

As I share my story with audiences, people always tell me that it must be hard to talk about my life. It doesn’t bother me at all. From those painful moments, I gained some incredible insights.

Like a diamond in the rough, I had to endure unbelievable amount of heat and pressure to become who I am today—to appreciate what most people take for granted. Life taught me a precious lesson…No matter where we start, we can prepare ourselves for a great finish.          

Leading Requires Lots of Preparation

Most of us have, deep at the center of our hearts, some things we would like to accomplish. But few of us dare to start on the journey. We sit around blaming our circumstances on others, making excuses for our shortsightedness.

And we go to our graves with unfulfilled dreams. Underneath it all, the real reason why we don’t get the promotion, succeed in the business, or raise a happy self-confident family is because we fail to prepare. We leave it to chance hoping somehow things will turn out alright. We float on the ocean of life until we run aground and wreck.