This morning, while I was in the bathroom—which is usually my place of inspiration—I had an idea to revisit the Parable of the Sower, especially in relation to family businesses, trending issues, popularity, and wealth creation. It is a mixture of many ideas, but it is very interesting.
I want to start with a statement by Oliver Wendell Holmes. He said that many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than in the one where they first sprang up.
In other words, an idea can originate from one mind, but when it is transplanted into another mind, it can sometimes grow even better there.
If you look at the Parable of the Sower, the soil was the recipient. The different types of soil represented different recipients. The productivity of the seeds that were sown depended not on the seed, but on the soil.
I remember an experience some time ago. I was coming back from a journey and got to a junction where I stopped to buy fish to take home to my wife—just to be a good husband.
While I was there, a man came out of his car and gave me a warm handshake. He told me he had watched a video I made about five years ago in the back of my pickup truck. The video was about the reality of aging, and he said it changed his perspective on life.
He then paid for the fish I wanted to buy. The fish cost ₦24,000.
Two other men who were there also came to greet me. They bought bottled water for me, and after seeing the man pay for the fish, they collected my phone number. They even offered to send fish to me later.
Now, the interesting thing is that the same video that blessed that man also attracted a lot of insults from some people. They ignored the seed of the message and focused on the surface of the message.
Sometimes the surface of a message might sound bitter or uncomfortable, but inside it is a seed that can grow into something valuable in your life.
Ideas can come from anywhere. In this dispensation, you do not have to be extremely intelligent or highly inventive to succeed. An idea can originate from someone else, and you can take that idea, nurture it, and allow it to flourish.
Sometimes all you need is a fertile heart where ideas from other people can grow.
Look at people like Linda Ikeji. She does not necessarily produce videos the way I do, but she shares other people’s content and publishes them on her platform. Through that process, she built a powerful platform and became very successful.
The same thing applies to Tunde Ednut. He created a platform where people’s thoughts, videos, and content are shared. He has even shared some of my videos several times, and it helped my visibility grow.
Some podcasts also operate this way. They simply provide a platform, invite people, interview them, and publish the conversations. Through that process, they become very popular and very successful.
I was once invited to one of those podcasts. Interestingly, many people around me did not value what I had until they saw me on that platform. The conversation went viral and spread globally.
My daughter, who was in China at the time, saw it online. People there were saying they wanted to meet the man in the video. When she told them that she was my daughter, they doubted her until she showed them proof on her phone.
But the surprising thing is that she herself might not even have watched my videos regularly in Nigeria until somebody else planted my ideas on a more fertile platform.
I hope you understand what I am saying.
Do not look down on your ideas. Do not look down on what you are doing. Sometimes all you need is the right people to see your ideas and nurture them.
You also need people who are smarter than you to partner with you and help develop your ideas.
This is why family businesses can succeed when the family members involved have fertile minds and appreciate the vision.
But if the people around you are consumers who only want to take from the business, they will not help the ideas grow. Some people have stony hearts—ideas cannot grow in them. Others are like thorny soil—they are distracted by the cares of life, fashion, and social impressions.
And then there are those whose minds are like the wayside. Ideas pass through their minds, but the “birds of the air” quickly carry the seeds away.
Those who have fertile minds can give eternity to your ideas and your businesses.
Personally, I do not worry too much if someone copies what I do, as long as my name and my face are associated with it.
I once had a pastor friend who took my book “Don’t Drop the Bat”, changed the cover and title, and launched it somewhere else. I knew about it.
But I also knew that such things are usually not sustainable. Since then, he has not produced another book.
He also took another concept I teach—The Philosophy of the Ant—and started teaching it. One day I told him, “This message will judge you, because people will want to see the results of this message in your life.”
The problem is that the message cannot produce results in someone whose heart is not fertile soil.
When people ask why I do not quickly announce everything I am doing, the answer is simple: I first plant the seed of the idea in my own life and business. I test it and produce results before sharing it publicly.
And by the grace of God, I have produced results beyond my imagination and beyond what many people expected.
Sometimes inspiration comes from pain and problems.
For example, I wrote books on marriage and became a marriage counselor partly because of the dysfunction I saw in my parents’ marriage.
Police used to come to our house because of quarrels. I saw conflict and instability while growing up. Because of that experience, I determined that my own marriage would be different.
For over 40 years, I have worked intentionally on my marriage, learning and improving.
It is not what you go through that matters most. It is who you become through what you go through.
I teach entrepreneurship today because I experienced poverty and hardship. I decided that I would not remain poor, so I acquired knowledge and skills.
Those experiences are the things that make people listen to me today.
You will have problems in life, but do not allow those problems to crush you. Sometimes the inspiration for your future success will come from the very problems you are facing now.
You do not have to invent everything from scratch.
You can take an idea, internalize it, analyze it, personalize it, and then actualize it.
Many people stay around great men and women but fail to learn from them. They are only interested in immediate benefits.
Some people even copy my videos, nodding their heads while replaying them, and they get millions of views.
For a long time, my own videos were not getting as many views. But when my son, Dr. Ufuoma Apoki, a PhD holder and cloud engineer, began managing my intellectual content, things changed.
Now some of our videos have crossed one million, two million, even close to three million views.
I simply generate the ideas and send them to him. He processes them and presents them in ways that attract more attention.
In many ways, my ideas have flourished more in his mind than in my own.
That is what fertile soil does.
This is why children must learn to build upon what their parents have started, not destroy it.
Some children take over their parents’ businesses and grow them to greater heights. Others destroy everything.
Your responsibility is to grow what you inherited, not waste it.
History gives us many examples.
Coca-Cola was invented by Dr. John Pemberton, a pharmacist. But the brand grew globally because others expanded and developed the idea after him.
The famous Coca-Cola script logo was even designed by his clerk, Frank Robinson.
Today Coca-Cola is everywhere in the world.
The same thing applies to jeans. The idea for reinforcing denim pants with metal rivets came from Jacob Davis, a tailor. But he partnered with Levi Strauss, who financed the patent.
Today we all know the brand as Levi’s.
So ideas often grow when multiple minds nurture them.
There is something inside you that needs nurturing. Sometimes you also need partners who will help it grow.
If you are a child listening to me and your parents have succeeded in life, do not destroy what they built. Learn from them. Build on their foundation.
You do not need to be extremely brilliant to succeed.
Sometimes you simply need to steal with your eyes, steal with your ears, copy wisely, modify intelligently, and excel.
Dr. Charles Apoki is my name.
God bless you.
