Part 1
Today, where a serious breakdown in family life has left many of our young people without guidance in the formative years of your life……

1. where, maybe as a result, boys stop going to school and become fathers before they can buy their own lunch, and criminals before they leave their teens…
2. where many girls become mothers while they themselves are little more than babies…and where,
3. generally speaking, many young lives go to waste by dragging out into a  directionless existence ……..

what can one say, to your generation, many of whom are showing signs of genus and promise, that could help to give you a sense of hope and guidance, as you strive to become your dream?
Happily, there are some things that we can say, and do, and, I want to share some of these with you.
But, in trying to give hope and direction to you, we know we are going to face a major challenge in some quarters.  It’s a challenge that I call:
B-L-A-N-K   (not Blanche!!)

B-L-A-N-K alludes to the fact that many times, our hope is so diminished and our focus so dissipated, that we lose  the ability to believe in ourselves and to
recognize that we are here to play a big part in the evolving world in which we live.  And so, part of my message to you  is that you believe that you are a one-of-a-kind and a very unique person in this great wide universe, with no duplicate, and have a very important part to play in its evolution.
The challenge that my generation faces is how to give you a push start as you prepare yourself for the duties on your shift.  It is against this background that I have selected the theme of this presentation to you.  It is this:
“It is possible, (despite the challenges and hardship) for you to become the somebody of your dream.  To help you become this person of your choice, I want to share with you a 6-step process which I believe will help

Step One

Say, like R. Kelly in his beautiful song
      “I believe I can fly. There’s nothing to it. All I have to do is believe”
Start by believing that you, too, can become an outstanding and important somebody.

This means that you must, as of now, take charge of one of the greatest miracles in this universe – your mind.  In this respect, I introduce you to Mr. Les Brown, a gentleman who rose from being an orphan, and from the depths of poverty, to become, today, one of the top motivational speakers in the world.  Les Brown, author of the best selling book “Live your Dream” knew that everything that he would ever become would have to start in his own mind and he knew this for the first time when he met a teacher by the name of Mr. Leroy Washington.  Because of the poverty and challenges in his early life, a very uncharitable teacher had labeled Les Brown as being mentally retarded and uneducable – and he was in fact living out this injunction until Mr. Washington took him aside and said ‘Son – never live your life based on other people’s opinion of you but, instead, on your own belief in yourself” I end my first injunction by telling you that your imagination is the building block of your future.  Start believing and imagining yourself as the outstanding somebody that you would like to become, because, if you start thinking and visualizing, you might just end up becoming the somebody of your thoughts.
Question:  How many Leroy Washingtons do we have in our nuclear and extended families?

Step Two

Nurture the desire, not just to become any “somebody” but “the special somebody” of your choice.  In doing so, you are to be as specific as it is possible to be. Don’t just want to be a cricketer – aim instead to be better than Brian Lara. Don’t just want to be a boxer – aim to be better than Mohammad Ali…not just to be an athlete --- but one better than Merlene Ottey……because,
inherent in your wanting to become a somebody should be the component of excellence. Your somebody should be the best that it is possible to become.  Aim for the stars and leave the moon for those who are content to be just average. In this respect, listen to the injunction of one of the world’s great teachers, the late Dr. Benjamin E Mays, a former President of Morehouse College – Atlanta, Georgia, USA. This is what he repeatedly told his students:

“It must be borne in mind that the tragedy of life does not lie in not reaching your goal.  The tragedy is in having no goal to reach.  It isn’t a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled but, it is a calamity not to dream.
It is not a disaster to be unable to capture your ideal, but it is a disaster to have no ideal to capture.
It is not a disgrace not to reach the stars, but it is a disgrace to have no stars to reach. It is not failure, but low aim that is a sin!”
So, aim high and become your dream because, it is possible for you to turn it into reality if you heed Dr Mays’ admonition.
 

Step Three
 
Transmute your desire into a vision and start visualizing the you that you want to become.  Listen to the late Ray Charles – dirt, poor and blind from the age of six.  Around that time, while in a home for poor and handicapped children, another very un-charitable teacher scolded him as he practiced on the piano of a sympathetic neighbour. She shouted at him…

      “You can’t play the piano and, God knows, you
      cannot sing either. You had better learn to
      weave so that you can support yourself in life”

But Ray Charles had a mother who knew that her son was only blind, and definitely not stupid – that he had only lost his sight and not his mind and so, she encouraged him to strive toward becoming a somebody.
And do you know how Ray Charles reacted to his cruel teacher?  Listen to him say it himself
“It was during those tough times, (such as many of you are now facing), that I developed a power that was to ultimately place me over the top –the power of visualization.  Regardless of how tough things got on the outside, I kept a clear picture in my head of what I wanted to become” Now listen carefully to this part. “Through the power of visualization I saw myself as a recording star”!

Young ladies and gentlemen of the Diaspora, I specially wanted to share Ray Charles’ story with you because it gives us two very powerful lessons in how to become a somebody.
     
You’ve just heard the one about the power of visualization, but, did you notice the other?  It was the support and confidence of this mother who also knew that her son had the ability to become an important person. Her exact words were “You are only blind – not stupid, you have only lost your sight, not your mind!”
  
 Who could ever ask for a more loving and supportive mother!!  Which brings up the question that literally poses itself! What about the Mothers in our Diaspora? Are we finding enough of the equivalent of Mother Ray Charles?!!

Step Four
 
      Let your vision of the “future you” become a passion for achievement:  a non-
      negotiable commitment to yourself

There are so many motivational and intriguing stories that we could share, if we
had the space to write and you the time to read for a week!  We do not. But the survival and achievement of my former company, Jamaica Mutual Life Assurance Society, is a living testament of what can happen when this vision or dream becomes a commitment.

Mutual life was started in 1844 by twelve (12) men who had a vision of building a local insurance company but who, believe it or not, had so little capital that, for practical purposes, we can say that they started the company with only faith in their vision and nothing in their pockets.  And look what that vision became – the largest financial institution in the English-speaking Caribbean before the high interest rate policy prescription of the decade of the nineties and, in hindsight, some questionable management decisions, brought it to its knees and consigned it to the pages of history.  But here is a living, breathing illustration of what vision can do even where what we sometimes call the where-withal is not even yet in place!  (Note: The forced demise of such an outstanding example of Jamaican entrepreneurship must not continue to go unchallenged)

Bottomline:  Don’t short-circuit your own success by telling yourself you don’t have the money to pursue your dream. These days, good ideas are the new currency of wealth.  Visions can become reality and I implore you, as you read of the examples of others, to start dreaming your own dreams and seeing your own visions, because they are the stuff of which greatness is made.

Step Five

      Cultivate the discipline to work towards the realization of your vision

 You are now at a very important point in the construction of your ladder to success.  But faith, without works, is dead! The twin concept of discipline and work demands one other- the concept of belief.  Unless you believe in the end product of your effort, unless you can continue to see the result when others don’t,  and unless your mind’s eye start seeing the you that you want to become, you are going to run into obstacles that you will think you cannot overcome.  For support, remember that obstacles are what you see when you take your eyes off the prize!  So, become a Douglas Orane of Jamaica or a Les Brown of the USA.  Douglas Orane, the Chairman and chief executive officer of GraceKennedy Ltd was an unknown youngster working in his father’s business but he wanted to get into the big league. So, he created the opportunity at a chance meeting with Miss Mabel Tenn, then a leading executive (now a retired director) of GraceKennedy Ltd and made the audacious suggestion that, if they pay for his post graduate education at Harvard Business School, he would come back and work for them.  Today, through his initiative, discipline, hard work and belief, Douglas Orane has risen, despite his relative youth, to a position of eminence, not only in the company that acted upon his initiative and financed his MBA degree but, just as importantly, on the national economic playfield.

But if Douglas Orane is an example of seizing the initiative, then Les Brown, the world renowned motivational speaker, is a clear illustration of what discipline and commitment to one’s dream can do.  At one stage, things got so bad, financially, that Les Brown was sleeping in the office from which he operated because he could not afford to pay rent for both an office and an apartment. Yet, he never gave up on his dream to become a world class motivational speaker – not even after the security guard told him that they could not allow him to use the office facilities as his bathroom!  How many of us Caribbean People, with our thin skins, towering egos, and false pride, would be strong enough to pay this kind of price for the success that we want?! Which brings in Dolly Parton, one of my favourite entertainers, who once said “The way I see it, if you want to see the beauty of the rainbow, you got to put up with the rain (like Les Brown did!!!)

Step Six

                                      Develop the focus to live your dream
     
Attaining success is, like life itself – a long-term development process, not an event.  There will be many obstacles and detours to discourage you as you move ever closer to realizing the vision of yourself. Against this background, I remind you to cultivate the belief that dreams do come true!
    
So please dream your dream, because, yours too, like that of astronaut Mae Jemison, could come true.  As a youngster in the early days of space exploration, young Miss Jemison told her parents that she wanted to become a medical doctor, an engineer and an astronaut.  They did not exactly laugh at her to her face!  They just thought that her stated ambition was just a bit “out of this world”
But, as with the lead trouble shooter, rejected for the flight but now entrusted with the dangerous tasks of bringing home alive the three astronauts in the ill-fated Apollo 13 moon probe, Miss Jemison’s attitude was “failure is not an option” and so, guess what – it happened!!
 
After qualifying as both an engineer and a medical doctor, she responded to a NASA advertisement, was selected for the space programme, and flew the 1991 “Discovery” flight as the mission specialist. Time  between the dream and its realization?!  About 20 years of visualizing, focus,  preparation  and belief (that it would happen)
See Part 2 for a mindset that will assist you to become your Dream.