Title:  Paying The Price for The Prize

Author:  Chuks Ogbekile

Publisher: University of Lagos Press

pagination: 170

Year: 2021

Reviewer: Vincent Chuks Igbinedion

 

The book, Paying the Price for the Prize – Leveraging the Entrepreneurial Opportunities in Our Age and Environment to Stardom, was recently unveiled at the University of Lagos and has ten chapters in all. According to the author, Mr. Chuks Ogbekile, for those who seek self-actualisation, this book is out to demystify the presumed challenges that have kept them from a firm grip on that which you have desired to achieve.

While it is not intended to be prescriptive in general terms, Chuks Ogbekile says, however, entrepreneurial spirit shines bright in its margins and letter to give you the courage to dare the fears that have kept you in the same spot,  and I agree no less with him, having gone through the entire pages of the book.

In the first chapter, “The Earth: An Uncompleted Project,” we learn the main objective of the book which is to bring to man’s awareness to the fact that the Creator of all things and man built into man the capacity and requires man to cultivate the Earth obviously from what He has created.

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In Chapter Two, the author sees “Opportunities in Challenges”, stating that the world has got enough of those who know the problems; it is now looking for those who would solve the problems. While a few are rewarded and celebrated for knowing the problems, a greater majority is rewarded and celebrated for knowing the solutions. To stay aloof in the face of the glaring reality is not only an injustice to the human race, but also to your own self, he states.

Chapter 3 looks at “Man as an Embodiment of Invaluable Potentials”, and admonishes that, for whatever it is worth, you are bigger than that 8.00 a.m to 5.00p.m job of yours you worship. You are bigger than the current size of your business. You are bigger than your current status, challenging readers to arise and pay the price for the prize.

In Chapter Four, he discusses “Winning in Life”. You are inexcusable, and insists that a winning attitude is the world’s most desperate need. There are no hopeless situations, only people who think hopelessly. The only way you can lose in life is to defeat yourself mentally first, and these are the words of Lee Haney, a one-time winner of America’s Mr. Olympia

The world is no longer a pleasure garden neither is life a bed of roses. 

In Chapter 5, there are questions that we need to answer and they include: Who am I?  Where am I, where do I want to be and what will it take? To get answers to these questions, the author canvasses a thorough environmental scanning as an inevitable sine qua non to understanding the seed we are out to propagate. “

On page 59, there is a proposal for a voyage of self-rediscovery of some sort. As it is popularly said, if you are driving on the wrong way, God allows a u-turn. He uses Boluwatife as a case study, a near-frustrated lawyer who turned into a school proprietor and made a success of it. The author mentions the five pillars on which human glory rests as: Knowledge, understanding, faith, investment and marketing. Know yourself and your environment (Knowledge), understand yourself and your environment (understanding), believe yourself and your environment (Faith), develop yourself and your environment (Investment) and showcase your talents and your environment (Marketing).

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Chapter 6 captures “Your Uniqueness: An Advantage to your World” while Chapter 7 takes us on the “Journey to the Top” and what you must take along, The ninth chapter treats “Your Legacy”: Let it tell your story with the reference to the planting of a tree, especially one of the long-living hardwood trees, is a gift which you can make to posterity at almost no cost and with almost no trouble, and if the tree takes root it will far outlive the visible effect of any other actions, good or evil.

Chapter 10, which happens to be the last chapter is titled “Beyond the Prize”. In this chapter, it is stated that you are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand, according to Woodrow Wilson.