Hi, I'm Obi Abuchi...
…I live with my wife and our 3 boys in Surrey, England, and I’m incredibly passionate about Personal Leadership and the difference it makes to our lives. Here’s why.
When I was 18, a mentor of mine gave me a copy of Stephen Covey’s book - 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - and I couldn’t put it down. I made tons of notes, completed all the exercises in the book, and literally set upon a path of learning as much as I could about the topics of leadership, personal growth, and personal effectiveness. One idea that fascinated me more than any other was that of Personal Leadership and over the years I’ve come to define it as this, Personal Leadership is knowing and doing what’s most important so that you live your best life, today.
But here’s the thing. When it comes to knowing and doing what’s most important, when it comes to living our best lives, we all face two significant challenges - challenges that I know all too well.
First of all, many of us try to live our best lives by influencing, managing, and controlling our outer world before our inner world; and yet every leadership expert and great leader that I’ve studied over the last two decades all point to the fact that in order to have true and sustainable success you must have the foundation of personal leadership in place. Stephen Covey put it this way, "private victory precedes public victory."
And that brings me to the even bigger challenge, which is this - private victory doesn't come easily. How come? Well, it’s because we all face something I call 'Our Wall of Personal Opposition™'. You can think of it as a fierce combination of the fears, doubts, shame, bad habits, and limiting beliefs that get in our way, stop us from living our best lives, and in doing so rob the world of something special, something real, something that could benefit our relationships, benefit our workplaces, benefit our customers, our societies, our world.
Here’s how this struggle has played out in my own life.
My book, The Magic of Monday, was published in 2012. It was based on interviews I conducted, over eight months, with 75 business leaders and senior executives, who were excelling in their career. My motivation was to widely share their insights, interwoven with some of my own experiences, to help young professionals build vibrant and fulfilling careers. Six years on, the book is still making a difference in the lives of people across the world. However, I almost didn’t write it.
You see, when I wrote the draft manuscript I sent it out to some friends along with a survey to ask for their feedback. But I was so caught up in my fears and doubts that I couldn’t bring myself to read their feedback or progress with editing the first draft. I was up against my own wall of personal opposition. I told myself this story that it was probably rubbish, people probably wouldn’t like it, and it probably wasn’t going to make a difference anyway. I even questioned, "Who am I to think I could be an author?”
Believe it or not, it took me two years before I actually found the courage to read their feedback, incorporate their ideas, and finish the book.
It was such a huge struggle for me to push past my wall of personal opposition and apply myself and get the book out there. It meant telling myself a different story. It meant overcoming my fears and doubts, overcoming my bad habits, overcoming self-sabotage, overcoming limiting beliefs. It was a huge battle. Aristotle, the Ancient Greek Philosopher, said, "the hardest victory is over self,” and he was right.
From intimate experience, I know that winning the personal war is a phenomenal challenge. However, if we want to live vibrant, fulfilling, and productive lives; if we want to achieve successful careers; if we want to build businesses that have a positive impact in our world then it’s a war we must win. It’s a war I’m committed to helping people win.
More than two decades after my first encounter with Stephen Covey’s book, I’m now focused on this mission:
To help individuals turn their doubts and fears into courage and breakthroughs so that they can live their best lives, today.
I look forward to serving you, inspiring you, and equipping you to do just that.
Here’s to living your best life, TODAY!